Friday, July 10, 2009

Congratulations!!

A big Attic-style congratulations to all the Museum Studies students graduating today!!

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Reflections on writing-up #16

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Burn her!!!

Sadly, this is not one of those adverts you would find on Jim's Job Desk. Wookey Hole, Somerset, is looking for a witch. If the terms of my fellowship didn't prevent me from seeking full-time employment, I would be all over this one. Benefits - 50k a year for living in a cave with cats, cackling at people and throwing curses at them. I pretty much do this as a hobby already. Plus, I have the profile for it - paint my face green, I'm a dead ringer for the Wicked Witch of the West. Still, it's nice to know that my talents are remunerable, after all.

One & Other


One & Other, by Antony Gormley: Sikh man launches paper aeroplane from the Fourth Plinth, Trafalgar Square, London
via ChrisJohnBeckett


Did you know you can watch Anthony Gormley's project One & Other, to enable members of the public to become living art in Trafalgar Square, online? Visit the website for the live streaming video and to find out more about the participants and their fifteen minutes of fame (well, to be fair, more like an hour each) atop the fourth plinth. And, if you fancy it, there's still time to apply to take part!

Welcome...

...to all our new readers, many of whom have have recently subscribed via Google Reader! Apologies that things have been a little quiet round here recently. Please dodge the tumble weed and bear with us; we're all a little busy at the moment (damn PhDs!). Normal service shall resume shortly.

Monday, July 06, 2009

Yet more shameless self-promotion...

...I need the money folks!


____________________


Index Flyer Online

Friday, June 26, 2009

It seems kind of appropriate...

Michael Jackson and Bubbles (1988)
In the collection of the Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica

Manchester Hermit


Just a little reminder that Ansuman Biswas will be taking up his residency as the Manchester Hermit tomorrow.

I'm very dubious about the value of the whole venture. It will be interesting to follow his 'journey' though. Follow his blog/webcam here.

BLOG POST - FROM THE GOOD NEIGHBOR POLICY TO THE FUNDACION AMISTAD: A USEFUL HISTORICAL REMINDER FOR OBAMA

Andrew Wulf, PhD student at University of Leicester, has recently published a blog related to his dissertation topic on the University of Southern California's (USC) Center for Cultural Diplomacy website (where he is a fellow), which he would like to share with us. You can find the blog post here

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Museum of Accidents?

Discuss:

The twentieth century can already be regarded as a museum of accidents. Take the history of film, of television, of video (including video games), and the biggest spectacle is the accident. It is not fortuitous that the Titanic has become a modern myth, or that television invents a new genre like “Reality-TV” to celebrate the accident. There certainly exists a desire to enjoy accidents. That is why I once proposed to set up a museum of accidents: a museum that would bring the accident to us instead of bringing us to the accident.
—Paul Virilio.

Reflections on writing-up #15

Busy Procrastinating

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Them marbles (I'm losing them?)

So, the new Acropolis Museum opens today. It seems like as good a time as any to articulate my position on the Parthenon Marbles repatriation debate. That 'holy cow' of museology. In short...


I really couldn't care less.

I visited them once at the British Museum: was completely nonplussed and came away feeling kind of 'meh'. I have no desire to repeat the experience.

New Curator triggered this bout of apathy with his recent 'revisionist' post. The trouble is that I used to, like the good museum studies student I once was (now I'm just a bad museologist, bad to the bone), share that knee-jerk, pro-repatriation position that most of us seem to buy into at some time or another. But when I really tried to think about the issue this week, I realised that keep them, send them away, whatever. I really don't care.

I'm not personally invested in the issue. I'm not Greek. I'm not an archaeologist or a classicist. I've never been to the Acropolis. I don't work for the British Museum, or the Greek tourist board.

I have a lingering, vague, detached academic interest in the wider political (dare I say nationalist, propagandist?) implications of the debate. But that's it.

Is this the museological equivalent as coming out as a global warming denier?