Feb 02 2 comments

Individualism

PlateaKnit Results

As part of the PlateaKnit project, I threw out this instruction. I called it the “Newcurator Knitting Interlude”.

k1p2k1p3k2 p2k2p1k1p1 k1p3k1p3k1 p2k3p2k1p3 k1p1k1p1k1 p3k2p1k2p2 k4p1k1p3k1 p1k3p2k1p4 k1p3k2p1k1

K stands for Knit, P stands for Purl and the number after is the amount of times. This therefore translates into 0s and 1s. so the first five things work out into “011011100″. The whole thing in a binary translation of hex, which in turns say… newcurator.

So these people have knitted in code “newcurator” into their work. Thanks to all those who got involved.

By InnyM - NKI is the red bit

By Christi Nielsen - NKI is the top bit

By joaniesanchirico - NKI is top purple bit

By Yael David - NKI is the top bit

Feb 01 0 comments

General

Back Up

January has been a rather quiet month here at newcurator so there’s plenty to catch up on. Most of last week I had that wonderful seasonal sickness that turned simple thought processes into mammoth tasks.

Then, all of the bandwidth was used up. Bizarre really. Normally, each blog post brings in a predictable amount of traffic. The fact that I wrote far fewer than normal suggests something may be going on. I can only imagine that there are many people who use Firefox with Javascript and ad-blocking software, which knocks out the Google Analytics code. Putting me on your allow lists may help.

We come to the crux of the problem. for the umpteenth time, I’m more popular than my means. I don’t make any money from newcurator. It all goes back into whatever costs come up. I’m relying on the goodness of your heart to do one thing: There are a few Google Ads on this site. You click them, I get a few pennies, you take taken to a site, then you can immediately close the page. You don’t have to buy anything or sign up. I still get the pennies.

Don’t go crazy with several hundred clicks. Google thinks that’s cheating.

Thanks to everyone for supporting me. I managed to scrape by last year’s bandwidth costs. I’ve got plans for burning up this year’s already.

Jan 23 0 comments

Individualism, Technology

PlateaKnit

An Xiao’s @Platea project has always been a source for interesting collaborative art over various social media networks. I’ve been involved in a couple.

They’re up to Project VI now, what they are calling PlateaKnit. It’s being lead by one-time ArtFriday alumnus Ingrid Murnane.

Using the twitter hashtag #plateaknit, “instructors” call out instructions using the abbreviations set out and “makers” get to dip in and out of the feed and follow whatever comes out of it.

Ingrid herself plans to knit with the full instructions.

This performance goes on between January 25th and 27th. There’s many ways to get involved or to watch the outcomes. Of course, the main blog will be tracking progress. Knitting-social-network Ravelry has a group, as does Facebook. Photos of your work-in-progress can go into the Flickr pool. But most of all, be sure to follow them on twitter.

Jan 19 0 comments

Internationalism, Museum Expansionism, Technology

Google UNESCO World Heritage Streetview

More partnerships from Google to work with with museums and heritage. This time working with UNESCO to provide Google Streetviews of World Heritage sites.

Go to google.com/unesco to find out more and use the Google Map app.

Jan 18 4 comments

Individualism, Internationalism, Museum Expansionism

MacGregorism: A History of the World

The first programmes of “A History of the World in 100 Objects” kicked off today. The BBC Radio 4 flagship of the project began with the mummy of Hornedjitef. I agree with The Attic’s take that this is clearly a very personal project for Neil MacGregor as it seems to be the biggest cross-media platform he will get to talk about his vision for the museum in a globalised world. I’ve always like liked to call MacGregorism because I feel the man deserves to have an -ism named after him.

I’m slightly surprised at the format and rather glad. I was expecting fifteen minutes of academic analysis of single objects. Instead, Mr. MacGregor uses the object in question to hang the rest of the ranging topic to. Case in point: it was far more interesting to listen to and there wasn’t much of an actual detailed physical description of the mummy and coffin. If you want to know what it looks like, you can look online. Why waste the precious fifteen minutes? I like how this whole project doesn’t assumes that everyone lives in a technological dead zone.

The World’s History is being focused on one object at a time. It is going to be a very British-Museum-branded history, meaning a globalised history. A bold approach that edges more on the importance of the journalistic/media aspects. I applaud it.

Also on today was the Culture Show special (iPlayer link. Probably doesn’t work outside of UK). MacGregor was good. Kermode and Collings did some very interesting reports in the spirit of the project. Neil Oliver was trying too hard to be poignant and proves his 360 spin shots only work on top of a cliff. Tom Dyckhoff almost made the whole thing an episode of Blue Peter. Interestly, usual presenter Mark Kermode was sent off to the Isle of Man and replaced by BBC World News presenter Mishal Husain.

The website connecting all this together is part brilliant and part frustrating. The flash-heavy main page is probably the best way to search over the actual objects because of a great way they’ve categorised and interlinked the data. My God, it takes a long time though. Ignore the “In Your Area” tab altogether and use the “BBC Area” in the sidebar, trust me. The blog looks to be shaping up into a really good resource.

I will make your life easier to linking to the podcast here, which took me too long to find. I will also give you this page, which I think will eventually turn into the list of all the episodes and iPlayer links. How they’ve organised the lists of the actual programming is a bit of a nightmare. I’m surprised there isn’t a dedicated page on BBC’s iPlayer either.

I’m expecting the “Add Your Object” section will clutter things up pretty soon. You’d need a BBC ID, whatever that is. Would have though signing in with Twitter/Facebook/Google would be an option. For some, this aspect will allow them to add to the project as a whole as well as learn some basics in collection management (Honestly, the BBC offers a better collection database than some museums I’ve known). I see this causing problems already, like why is Swansea Museum adding stuff as an “individual” and not a museum?

No dedicated twitter account? I suppose it’s going to be all over the official British Museum one anyway.

All together, this is clearly the beginnings of something impressive. I’m looking forward to the rest.

Jan 07 3 comments

Technology

Museum Burglary Game

Dundee based games developer Gentlemen of Fortune are working on a game called Quick as Thieves, a “Physics based Action-stealth game”, which means you play a comedy-style burglar with a swagbag robbing a museum blind. As you can see, everything and anything can go into the swagbag. The bag gets bigger and can be used for other things.

Yeah, okay, it actually sounds like an innovative idea for a game and looks quite fun as well. But it goes to prove that museums are never a setting for anything else apart from crime (stealing stuff), supernatural/superstition (magic/cursed objects) or both (stealing magic/cursed objects).

Jan 04 0 comments

Internationalism, Museum Expansionism, Presentism

The First Annual Newcurator Awards

This time last year, I launched newcurator.com. Since then, this site has developed into many different areas, expanded into some very interesting subjects and has had its readership grow beyond all expectations. To mark this occasion of newcurator’s first birthday, I want to thank all the people who commented, followed me on twitter and facebook, submitted guest posts, everyone who kept returning to read and everyone who ever clicked on one of the adverts.

Over the year, I have read and written about many things concerning the Future of Museums through a very particular lens. As is the custom to look back over the previous twelve months and find some kind of conclusion, I wish to start the Newcurator Awards. A very simple affair. Only three categories: Person of the Year, Museum of the Year and Website of the Year. No shortlist, no voting, no judges apart from me, no fancy images/trophies. Three awards to where I just want to hold up in recognition the efforts that have impressed me.

These awards are for those who are equal parts Now and the Future. Now, they are impressive. In the Future, they are going to make a difference. Without further ado, I present the winners.

Person of the Year – Maxwell L. Anderson

You only have to look at the incredible level of work coming from the Indianapolis Museum of Art to understand what Mr Anderson has that is lacking in so many other museums across the world: an entrepreneurial leadership that allows his stars to shine. Think about the marvellous ArtBabble or the great efforts the IMA puts into its social media/networking. Think about the level of transparency the IMA has, such as the deaccesioning database or the statistic generated by the dashboard. Think about free wifi, which is painfully lacking in so many places still. This just scratches the surface of what the team at IMA does.

Think about the aneurysm some museum directors would have at the mere mention of some of these things. Mr. Anderson has often spoken on the metrics to measure the success of the museum, which has put the IMA on an international stage of recognition where it would be so easy for him to say no, to be too cautious, to stick with simple goals. Mr. Anderson thinks big and allows his staff to think big. Whilst the successes of the museum and the online aspects deserve as much recognition as Mr. Anderson, it is the adoption of his management style in other museum would definitely make him part of the Future and the first Newcurator Person of the Year.

Museum of the Year – Brooklyn Museum

One of the major points in remembering the past year is the financial hammering museums took. Brooklyn Museum was no exception, having cutbacks to avoid layoff and a small rise in ticket prices. This didn’t stop them winning three awards at the Museum and the Web Conference, having one of the first museum iPhone apps as well as a mobile guide, leading the way in the Wikipedia Loves Art project, the 1stFans community, releasing a collections API and a great program of exhibitions without excessive use of the “blockbuster”. All this in the face of incredible adversity. Brooklyn Museum is an inspiration and highly deserving of the Newcurator Museum of the Year.

Website of the Year – Museos Unite

There are an incredible amount of amazing museum websites and blogs out there that have been going on for a long time, but I give this award to a blog that has only been going for six months and has totalled just over 30 posts. Why? Because of what it represents. Nothing is more important to the Future of Museum than the development of new museum staff. This blog looks at those trying to gain entry-level positions despite being highly talented and still facing uphill struggles. There is nothing so poignant than reading in the sidebar that of the four contributors, two have moved into other industries, one cannot afford union fees and another has no union to join. “Recession” was probably the most-said word of 2009 and Museos Unite looked to keep the interests of those hardest hit in museums; those at the bottom of the pile. For capturing the zeitgeist of museums in 2009, Museos Unite is the Newcurator Website of the Year.

Congratulations to the winners. Now let’s fire up the engines of 2010 for the upcoming year and keep moving towards that Future.

Dec 12 5 comments

Architecture, Individualism, Politics, Presentism, Technology

Museum Future Predictions

The Centre for the Future of Musuems made five predictions about the museum of the future. They said Green, Personalised, Comfortable, Interactive and Flexible. Read the article to get the explanation of each one (especially “Interactive”. They means something a bit more advanced. I think a better word would have been something from the Nina Simon lexicon “Participatory”)

I pretty much agree with these predictions, so I would like to offer five of my own.

I predict the museum of the future will be:

1) Closed. As in the doors are shut and the staff laid off. Whilst the financial and business world are slowly recalibrating themselves to try to deal with the new systems in places, I imagine there are a great number of museums that just will not have the ability to adapt for whatever reason, or the reasons will be out of their hands.

2) Enslaved. I think this to be the best antonym for autonomous. What I mean is that there will be ever increasing influences or a museum program from outside the museum. Corporate sponsorship of exhibitions, oppressive criteria for funding, government social engineering agendas and media lynch-mobs of ignorance. The actual museum will be very few decision left to make.

3) 3D digital. A more positive one. It only makes sense that the current digitisation projects will move into the next phase and an extra dimension. Considering there are people doing basic 3D scanning using only a webcam and other people doing amazing handheld highly-detailed scanning, museums are going to have to start soon.

Autodesk University 2009: Z Corp from Core77 on Vimeo.

4) Sillier. I agree with the CFM’s statement that future museums will be Flexible, but I feel that’s a statement about requirement rather than actuality. Distributed sites and chameleon spaces are sensible suggestions but urban regeneration through the construction of massive monuments isn’t going to go out of fashion. Well, it’s not as long as our concept of a city doesn’t change too much. As nobody has a set idea about what a museum or art gallery has to look like, they can build ever more bizarre buildings in attempts to be iconic.

5) Curatorless. Celebrity curators (like Shaq rather than Koons) or tyranny-by-majority decision making processes to pick out favourites. I wouldn’t be surprised if the task of curators is outsourced either to voting schemes or freelancers. Those banks sitting on large art collections will probably have more need for curators anyway.

Those are my five. Anyone else want to come up with five of their own?

Dec 12 4 comments

Museum Expansionism, Technology

Google Goggles

I”ve been playing with the new Android app by Google called Goggles. The name’s a little daft and means I’m rereading every mention of it to make sure I haven’t confused the spelling.

I am very impressed with this. You take a picture, its gets scanned with something that looks like an edge-detect and it seraches results based upon that. This little video explains it.

Visual search technology. At last, we have something that could use all that effort we put into digitisation. It works too. Despite the limitations that they admit to, it’s really quite powerful. As a test, I took a rather blurry scan of a postcard of one of my favourite buildings, the Hundertwasserhaus in Vienna. Top result was the Wikipedia page.

In a truely incredible feat that makes this even more relevant to museums, I scanned this postcard I picked up from the Imperial War Museum.

This somewhat staggered me. The top result it offered was this image from the London Transport Museum.

It had found the image I scanned inside another image hosted by a museum. The link took me to the artist’s biography.

At first, I was doubting some people’s claim that this was an augmented reality app. I could see how the technology could be used with other things and the “pointing at businesses” was a little thin, but I just saw a new form of Search. This is still a Google Labs product. Is it much of a jump to think that real-time video could be scanned/searched? Right now, we take a picture to be analysed. One day, we just need to stare at something for the revelant Google results to appear.

And in real-time, no doubt. Looks like we won’t be needing those QR codes after all. No wait, it scans those as well. And text. Amazing.

If there’s ever a time for museums to get their photography policy sorted, it’s right now. People will be wanting to scan stuff to get more information. Do you really want to deny that?

Dec 11 0 comments

Internationalism, Museum Expansionism

British Museum Advert on Korean Air Boeing

Via The Attic. Just leaving this here as opposed to delicious or tumblr. Great time lapse video that stirs up a lot of thoughts.

Dec 01 1 comments

Individualism, Internationalism, Politics, Presentism

Nonprofitable Museum Actions

Museo Unite put the question out there.

Here’s the challenge: how can museums (and museos) make money enough to pay salaries while furthering their mission? “If you build it, they will come” is not working. We need to do more. Any ideas on how we can put the profit back in nonprofit?

Mission, as they rightly point out, means you can’t resort to opening cinemas. Getting people through the doors by any means is out of bounds. The museum mission has to be part of it.

If only it was that simple. There are plenty of other unspoken rules. Let’s say you have the opportunity to put on an exhibition that fits your museum’s mission/identity/policy and it has some real star quality to it. Win-win? Nope. You’ll gets all kinds of people crawling over you saying things like “conflict of interest” or “buddy-buddy”. I really feel for the New Museum. They have gone through some real unnecessary treatment. As if a trustee and supporter of a museum would take his resources to some other institution. Why would they want some other organisation to benefit? And why on Earth wouldn’t you want to work with people you’ve worked with before and have a close personal and professional relationship with?

Once upon a time, this kind of action was called an Art Movement

Also, we should be applauding Damien Hirst. I say that whilst not being his biggest fan. He paid money from his own pocket to keep an exhibition free and without having his name plastered next to some corporate logo.

“So museums need to start thinking more like for-profit businesses, right?” says Museo Unite’s Kat Hinkel. Of course there are hints to be taken from the commercial world, but be too much like it and you’ll will have people folding their arms in disgust. Contemporary artists? But they have agents and collectors! Public viewings would raise the prices! Scandal! Scandal!

The philanthropy-grantmaking model was unsustainable, as proved by it didn’t work in an economic meltdown. Well, the other option is go for international megaphilanthropy (via The Art Law Blog), which isn’t always an available option and I don’t know how this exactly fits within a museum’s mission.

We just can’t win, can we? The required sweet-spot between financial stability, museum mission and corporate interest is a tiny speck surrounded by a lot of foot-stamping and indignation. Be aware when trying to answer the question, there’s a lot more to a nonprofit’s status than just the finance.

Dec 01 7 comments

Individualism, Politics

Manly Curating?

Wait… what?

So, the Arts of the Samurai exhibition at Met has an increased ratio of male viewers. Maybe because of the interest in a period in history when masculinity was measured upon the integrity of one’s code of honour and that this culture appeared almost on the other side of the world.

Apparently not. This guy seems to think it must be down to the swords and violence. He then goes to suggest future exhibitions on steak, explosion, guitars and naked women.

Is this a joke? Am I not getting this? Have I missed the point a bit? A lot of people are linking to this article and yet not commenting on it.

I’m pretty sure that if this was written by a woman who went on to suggest exhibitions like “Washing Up! A History Involving Dishcloths”, “Shoes – Have Another Pair” and “Keeping Your Man”, feminists and anyone with an ounce of respect for gender equality would be ripping this to shreds. Quite right too.

Tits, violence and meat. That’s how to get men into museums. Because that’s all men would care about. Not history, not craftsmanship, not other cultures, oh no. Did you not hear? The “Manly” demographic has devolved a few millions years and European paintings will probably make you gay.

Dear New York Times, if you’re allowing any old nonsense in your paper, I’m cheap and have a backlog of all kinds of things I can offer as articles.

Nov 28 0 comments

Museum Expansionism, Technology

Britain Loves Wikipedia

Speaking of Nick Poole, seems he wants to do a Britian-centric version of previous Wikipedia projects such as Wikipedia Loves Art.

Britain Loves Wikipedia. Click to find out more details, but the idea is to get 10-20 UK museums involved. I would love to see this be successful. I don’t think enough UK Museums are getting involved in this sort of thing. Hell, I don’t see enough UK museums on twitter.

Contact Nick via email nick(at)collectionstrust.org.uk or on twitter @NickPoole1 to find out more and hopefully partner up.

WikiBrit? House of Creative Commons?

Nov 27 1 comments

Architecture, Museum Expansionism, Presentism

Slack Space Handbook

I often come back to the idea of “slack space”. A term coined by artists in Margate who turned empty commercial properties into art exhibition space. Many other terms have cropped up to describe this process. Many similar projects have appeared. I’m not sure there is a single former-Woolworth’s in the country that hasn’t had this idea associated with it at some point.

Found this via Artabase. A 25-page how-to pdf guide from the Empty Shops Network. It’s good to see so much momentum in these kind of project still.

Sharing information like this is a good example of Museopunk. Even if it seems to be more art-focused, the information is easily adaptable should anyone want to try.

Nov 27 1 comments

Politics, Technology

Museums and Google

Back in April, I wondered why there wasn’t some efforts by Google to work with museums. They had put some ultra-high definition photos from the Prado Museum into Google Earth in January, but that seemed to be an exercise in photographic technologies and some much needed publicity for one of Google’s products.

I mean, can you think of any link between art and mapping? Of all the visualisations available on Google Earth, 14 images places upon a single geolocation in Spain seems a little odd. I mean, what’s the purpose?

It was announced recently that Google are going to put the collections of the Iraq Museum online.

What are they up to? Of all things, a digitisation project? 14,000 photos of the 5,000 remaining objects in the museum.

Does anyone else think this feels like a story from about 8-9 years ago?

I hope, no, I wish this will be something more than just interesting PR for Google. They can be game-changes to almost anything they get involved in, and it seems like they will photograph collections! And put them online! There are museums up and down the UK photographing stuff. Most of them are using volunteers.

Another websites with more searchable images. Joy. I have to agree to Nick Poole.

Unless they can do something amazing with it. Unless this is a test for some greater plan that will blast inferior collection management software out of the water and begin some decent level of connectivity between museums. I suppose we will have to wait for “early 2010″ to see the results.

Nov 26 0 comments

Individualism, Politics

Let’s Get Some Museopunk RAGE Going

Fairness and justice for museum workers – A Facebook group dedicated to the museum workers of both the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the Canadian War Museum. They’re into the tenth week of their strike action to demand the same basics as other federal workers.

Join the group. Show your support.

—–

Art Fag City has two parts of a story up. The first outlines Meghann Snow’s rather bizarre “inspection” by gallery owner Mike Weiss and subsequent firing after two days on the job for not looking the part.

She was there as a registrar, by the way.

The second has the response from the Mike Weiss Gallery, which didn’t mention the inspection but made some pretty libelous remarks, insinuated something by her dance background and then saying that she did it for the web-traffic.

Get your rage on

Fairness and justice for museum workers

Nov 24 0 comments

Individualism, Presentism

How Wrong Was I?

Well. I admit. I’ll throw my hands up and say I was wrong. Several times I have said David Beckham would be the future of curating through great use of his celebrity and wide appeal of his name.

Turns out, its Shaquille O’Neal.

I’d be very disappointed if every label didn’t include RANDOM ACTS OF SHAQNESS.

Nov 24 1 comments

Technology

3D Scanning with a Webcam

I knew that 3D scanning would be right around the corner. I thought the first 3D scanners would be something like a cupboard-sized MRI machine.

This should be a valuable lesson. There will always be a software solution before a hardware approach.

This video comes via Futurismic. Cambridge University people have come up with 3D scanning using nothing but a webcam and a serious amount of programming.

Just amazing. We could start getting 3D digitisation projects for museums going tomorrow. Okay, best to wait for the thing to be ready first. But then you have all kinds of options opening up.

There are many things the scans could be used for. When fabricating gets going, a museum could have a set of blueprints for models. Museum objects could start appearing in games (and some games have better economies than countries).

I want this technology in my phone. Its have a camera so it makes sense. And all consumer technology is moving towards increasing levels of mobility. I want to 3D-scan objects on the fly. We will need a word for this, I think.

Also, imagine what this would do to copyright discussions. I await the sign in the museum that says “No Flash Photography -- No 3D Scanning”.

Nov 23 0 comments

Individualism, Presentism

GLYPH – Intro

I started writing this as part of NaNoWriMo. I missed a few days because of travel and illness and became so far behind the daily requirement that I basically gave up on hitting 50,000 by the end of November. What I have done is about 11k words and I’ve hit a bit of a wall in the plot.

Here’s is the opening paragraph. Like all good NaNoWriMo projects, it’s rough, full of spelling mistakes and could do with some serious editing. I think I put part of this up here to (a) amuse me and (b) to fill out the time where posts have been lacking. It may also start some thoughts about what on Earth I do with it.

Without further ado – GLYPH: Chapter One

Ben Talisman’s 120th birthday was about a month away and the feeling coming from deep within his bones told him that retirement was rapidly approaching. He had been working at the museum for ninety years, serving as Head Curator for the past forty. Today would be the 50th budget meeting at Civic Centre he was summoned to. Every year, he walked alone with his craggy face set in a graven stare. He used this time to go over his strategy. It took an incredible amount of planning and research to make sure the museum wasn’t shut down or ransacked for financial reasons. The first few meeting, Talisman had relied upon presenting all the good work and all the beneficial effects the museum had. After one close call where the museum was saved from closure within the last forty-eight hours, Talisman took to gaining advantages from researching whoever was the current Portfolio Direktor.

The strategy had worked so far. The problem was no reason or excuse could be used twice. The trick was to stun the bureaucratic system whilst getting the desired result from whoever had the authority to sign off on the budget. This meant these meetings had become increasingly bizarre. One year, Talisman had planted false evidence in the Direktor’s house to suggest that his wife was a keen patron of the museum. He did this when he found out that the Direktor’s brave face hid a deep neurosis over his wife’s death six years previously. Another time, Talisman had found the Direktor was addicted to a rare hallucinogenic made from the sweat glands of poisoned West African Children, so he conducted the entire meeting dressed as a reptilian archangel sent by a Pulsar God from the other side of the Cosmos.

Nov 14 0 comments

Internationalism, Politics, Presentism

“Materiality and Intangibility: Contested Zones”

INCOMING GUEST POST/PLUG FROM THE ATTIC.

Hi! My name is Jenny, and I’d like to extend to you all an invitation to attend the Leicester University School of Museum Studies’ PhD Symposium “Materiality and Intangibility: Contested Zones”. Organised by the PhD community here at the world’s oldest department for Museum Studies, it aims to challenge the fixed division between ‘the material’ and ‘the intangible’ which is so prevalent in museological thought. It runs on Monday 14^th and Tuesday 15^th December and promises to be a fantastic occasion!

For the bargain price of just £20, you get lunches, refreshments and two days worth of speakers and events. Keynote speakers include Dr Richard Sandell, Dr Sandra Dudley, Professor Sue Pearce and Dr Kostas Arvantis. Delegates are attending from 6 different countries, so the international mix will be great. But there is so much more – we’re running an art show as part of the symposium and (this is my favourite part) we have by and large banned PowerPoint! Speakers have had to come up with inventive methods of presenting their work and we hope that many of you will join us to come and see the results.

If you want more details, or to download a booking form, please follow these links.

Provisional Timetable

Booking Form

Jenny Walklate is a PhD Researcher at the University of Leicester – You can contact her via jaw50(at)le.ac.uk, piratemoon on twitter and as a regular blogger on The Attic, the Leicester Museum Studies Blog.

newcurator