This is an extreme closeup scan (2400 dpi) of a paint chip retrieved from the ruins of Belmont Art Park from a piture taken by Amy McKenzie earlier this year. The fragment is about 1cm thick, and appears to consist of about 150-200 layers of paint.

Egyptian Theatre, Los Angeles

The construction team currently restoring the 1922 Egyptian Theater, the American Cinematheque’s future home on Hollywood Boulevard, is engaged in a peculiar form of archeological excavation. Bound by federal laws dictating what renovations are permissible within a designated historic landmark and required to create a space suitable for contemporary media arts exhibitions, the workers peel back layers of piaster, paint and drywall. In the process they have revealed fragments of a 1960s-era mural, a hybrid of psychedelic and Egyptian styles, and, several layers beneath this, what remains of the original pastel and art deco ’20s decor. The excavation of successive false fronts and simulations suggests an architectural model for urban memory. Each layer reworks not a lost original but rather a prior approximation.