When author Stewart Brand coined the expression “Information wants to be free,” he focused on how technology makes it cheap and easy to communicate and share knowledge. But the rest of his quote is rarely noticed.

This says, “Information also wants to be expensive.” The right information in today’s complex economy and society can make a huge difference in our professional and personal lives. Not having this information can also make a big difference, especially if someone else does have it. And for valuable information, online is a great new way for it to be valued.

(via The Long Now Blog)

There’s got to be some other things useful for museums. Can’t find any app that would help with exhibition design. I imagine something that can act as a wifi hard drive so people could copy information about an exhibition to their iPhones would be useful. Or even an app with an entire museum’s database on it. An app that has all tour maps for on it would be useful.

Any other ideas?

Copyright Jacques Rougerie Architect

Underwater museum. Under. Water. Museum.

The Guardian has more architect’s impressions. The museum will “put on display” the New Library of Alexandria, which Queen Cleopatra used as a palace.

The architect for this is Jacques Rougerie, apparently well know for his water based designs (He’s also tried his hand at spaceships).

Apparently, the £98million (0r half a Waterworld) required has not yet been secured (0r half a Waterworld). Let’s hope it happens.

The first design cause “uproar” because it looked like an airport terminal building.

Copyright Digital Imaging Studios

Now, in order to “fit” the park, the design will look like a train station.

Copyright WRNS Studio

Mildred, I'm tired.. by juicyrai. Used under Creative Commons

Such a simple idea. I swear, the Dutch are the leaders when it comes to simple innovations for museums.

The Museum Plus Bus is a collaboration between several museums and nursing homes that transports senior citizens to and from the museum for free. Last year they took 10,000 people on day trips.

The brilliance is in the simple fact that this opens access to these museums that these people wouldn’t normally have. The museums can count a whole bunch of extra numbers to their visitor count.

If transport is a barrier to museums, then provide transport.

The economy has gone south, high street names have gone bust, but next year could still be a good time for culture vultures. Some of Britain’s leading museums, galleries and heritage sites, many of which have free entry, are cheerier than most when it comes to predictions for the rest of this year.

It sounds so positive. The British Museum pulled in nearly six million visits, a 9.5% increase from last year. I think we can put that down to the Terracotta Army exhibition. The seven national museums in Liverpool experienced huge increases because of the European Capital of Culture programme.

But some realism needs to be added here. The Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum lost a third of its visitor yet remained the top attraction outside of London? Notice something about the top ten? All London museums and all nationals. For Non-UK readers who don’t know, this means they take the money straight from the government and charge no entrance fee. Except maybe St. Paul’s Cathedral. I don’t know what their financial status would be.

How much was spent on Liverpool’s museums? To then see that the entire city’s seven museums attracted the same as the Science Museum shows the imbalance of culture in the UK. It’s fine to say that numbers are up and museums are going to be fine, but it’s really just the biggest museums getting bigger. I’m reading news every day of another UK museum struggling to survive. I find it irresponsible for The Guardian to say museums (especially ones who charge no fee and get money provided for AND have blockbuster exhibitions) are going to be alright when the evidence shows that the vast majority really aren’t.

Also, massive drops in visitor numbers in the Tate Modern and the V&A. Is this people getting sick of contemporary art that they struggle to relate to?

I firmly believe that we can create a poverty-free world if we collectively believe in it. In a poverty-free world, the only place you would be able to see poverty is in the poverty museums. When school children take a tour of the poverty museums, they would be horrified to see the misery and indignity that some human beings had to go through. They would blame their forefathers for tolerating this inhuman condition, which existed for so long, for so many people.

When the winter flees from migratory birds. Copyright Maf 09

A Tree at 4AM by Maja B.

A Tree at 4AM by Maja B. Hold cursor over thumbnail for artist explanation.

Poetry Pants by Cagney King

Poetry Pants by Cagney King

Beyond Swimmers by Stella Gassaway

Beyond Swimmers by Stella Gassaway. Hold cursor over thumbnail for artist explanation.

If you want to take part in Art Friday, email pete(at)newcurator.com.

Trees with Mormon Temple by Jeff Gates. Read Jeff’s blog post about returning to photography after eleven years.

Trees with Mormon Temple, 2009, ©Jeff Gates

Mark Barry shows us what he’s working on.

www.markbarryportfolio.com

Mind of it’s own poem by Peter Cicceriello. (You have to see this in full)

Mind of it's own poem by Peter Cicceriello

Three works 2008 (youtube) by Andreas Templin

I have received many applications. Yours was not given consideration because you do not have any significant length of employment (3 years or more) with any employer. Stability is very important to our organization.

[Museum director's electronic signature here]

There is one good thing here that I wish to get out the way first. The reason for rejection was (brutally) given. We asked for three years, you don’t have three years, that’s the breaks. I only point this out because of my hatred for rejection letters that say, “Thank you for you’re application. Unfortunately, we had many applications and you were not successful. Please try again.”

I’ve had many a fight about the need for proper feedback. You have to give reasons for rejection. Otherwise, what are you saying? “Sorry, but we chose people at random”? Without a reason, you look like a bunch of amateurs. Amy, in all fairness, did get a reason.

Unfortunately, the reason is absolute nonsense.

This is the lie about “experience”: That it matters at all. Three years experience, I hate to tell you this, isn’t much difference than one years experience repeated three times. Experience in normal conversation only matters when you reach double figures (i.e. I’ve been doing this for FIF-TEEN years).

This is the truth about “experience”: it’s a cheap HR trick to cull applicants and to make the job sound more important than it is.

Here is the contradiction about “experience”: This happens a lot with lower level positions. You offer an average wage, yet ask for several years of experience doing that job. This means the only people you will consider are those already doing that job somewhere else. Who in their right mind is going to make a massive sideways jump in their career? You want to to apply for a better job for feel you deserve rather than the same job in a different location? Right?

Which means, think about it, the people successfully applying (by definition, already doing this job) are those with stalling careers, and want to move because other people won’t promote them. Or were already fired. Ask yourself why that happened. I don’t see this as a stabilising factor.

Okay, okay, sometimes people do go sideways for changes of scenery/moving house etc. But I refuse to believe the entire industry is set up to cater for these people.

This is also part of a greater problem: the restrictions in place of this culture of hiring. New talent and creative thinkers are not able to get started in this industry. This is not about being a “competitive industry”. You know what industry is competitive? Oil. To come through the ranks of the oil industry, you have to be intelligent and ruthless. The oil industry therefore only hand picks the best graduates to train them up.

The museum/culture industry isn’t the oil industry. It’s not competitive. it’s “closed”. They are so slow to bring in new talent and so reluctant to get graduates in that this only spells disaster. You know what other industry is “closed”? Journalism. You could only become a journalist if you knew a journalist or were related to one, no matter where your journalism degree is from. Otherwise, you just make a living doing freelance. And look now, all the creative and innovative writers went and set up blogs or small start-ups just to keep writing and print media is hemorrhaging profits and readership.

Same thing with the nepotastic music industry, who are resorting to suing their own customer base.

Unless the museum/culture industry wants to suffer the same way, some serious reform is needed. Creative and innovative people aren’t the type to be sitting in an office for seven years. If someone like Amy Fox can’t get a job in a museum, then its a sad day for museums. Simple things like GIVING A PROPER REPONSE TO APPLICATIONS. Not only is it good manners, it will honestly help people to be better.

To the commentor who said they shouldn’t be giving personalised responses. YES THEY SHOULD. To all 75. Otherwise, don’t offer the job. If you can’t be bothered to reply to people who have given up their time to apply (probably after agonising days to get it right) then you don’t deserve to be in a position to offer it. Hell, I wouldn’t mind if this was all automated. You get a email receipt saying “Thank you, we got it” and if you’re rejected, an email saying “You were rejected because of:…” then you put the list of things to why off a checklist. It could run off a MySQL database just like I use to deal with spam on this blog. Check all, approve/delete.

Question time to all you museum professionals out there who read this: How did you get started? How did you get to be were you are now? I know a lot of students and grads who read this who are probably feeling worried by all the news of museum job cuts. Give them some advice/hope with your own stories and advice.

On first impression, it seems like a re-skinned art channel on YouTube or Vimeo. Then you see that all the videos come directly from institutions (at the moment, IMA). In this 2.0 world, its good to see the user relegated to the role of viewer, but one who can comment and still have the social experience with other users. The creation of content is left to the professionals so everything is good rather than having to wade through rubbish to get to it .

The other thing is that it works. Yes, it’s still in beta (what isn’t?) so I imagine the categorisation will continue to be built, but the FLV player is just a delight compared to others. Skipping around is easy, sharing and embedding is easy, watching the video is just easy and therefore enjoyable. Creative Commons licensing, mp4 (iPod) downloads and transcripts make this very special. The design of the site is just so damn pretty. You get the idea this is a social-video site with the intention of a professional resource as well as expanding museums.

As I spend the rest of my evening watching things, I leave you with something I found: Hirokazu Kosaka’s Calligraphy Demonstration. Perfect viewing for an already hard week.

Babble On.

QUICK ADDITION: You can’t see it on the embedded video, but when watching the video on the ArtBabble, the video playback bar along the bottom has blue lines over it. At first, I thought this was for subtitles. I’ve just noticed that when the video moves over these blue lines, there’s a menu to the right that you can open up and be given more information. Like the above video has lots of pages that link to other calligraphy-related content, like collections, other videos, pictures of objects etc.

THAT’S DAMN CLEVER.

Selling copyright? Theoretically, all of her life’s work will belong to someone else if she doesn’t keep up repayments so it’s not quite the same as selling, but collateral is by definition a valued asset, possibly to be sold at auction.

With museum’s selling art or closing down or cutting back being very much in the news, how long before some enterprising museum will sell the copyright to an object/artwork but not the object itself? Part of the deal could be  an indefinite license to use the copyright. The object isn’t sold, it stays in the museum. I imagine stricter anti-photography measures will be brought in though.

A company then could use a piece of art for their company logo or cover their product with the image etc.

I say it’s a matter of time.

“We museum directors can huff and puff about how once we bring these artworks into our collections that they no longer have value because they’ve been removed from the market, that they become this special trust that is the patrimony of our cities and that they’re held in trust for future generations. It’s B.S. We go on and sell them and the rule is the proceeds from the sale can only go to replenish the collection.”

Read the original article and the article that started it. It’s something I’ve not thought about before: loaning/renting objects to a commercial company who will make money off them.

But didn’t most museums start off as some venture for capitalists? Guggenheim? Rockefeller?

This bring me onto this article by Chosun Ilbo columnist Kim Tae-ick about living in the age of the  ”CEO Museum Director”. The National Museum of Contemporary Art in Korea has appointed ex-government minister and former CEO of Daewoo, Bae Soon-hoon as its director. The dropping attendance numbers means that they needed is for a business-minded, financially motivated director.

Museum directors these days must be management-oriented, sociable and business savvy with an international network of contacts. They must also be adept at gathering donations, in order to hold better exhibitions.

I’m intrigued by what Bae Soon-hoon’s idea of “tankism” in a museum would look like.

• Create a stream of sturdy–like a tank–products, which will not break down.
• Train the company’s sights on the single objective–like a tank–of fulfilling the customer’s basic need.
• Eliminate embellishments and features–like a tank–that are irrelevant to the basic need.
• Orient the entire organisation and all its activities–like a tank–towards these three objectives.

Time to start my own crusade and in the highest form of flattery, I’m stealing borrowing his “Desuckification Tips“.

I would like everyone to understand and accept the following rule:

Intentionally hiding information is not a substitute for interactivity or a “hands-on experience”.

I am, of course talking about a sin too many museums are committing: Flaps. Why? Why do you do this? It’s often done as some kind wall mount, where there are a series of flaps what some kind of inane question with the answer underneath. Or something like a picture of a badger on top of a  pictures of what it eats. Sometimes, it could take the form of a large spinning wheel with a bit cut out, so whoever has to turn the thing to get told stuff.

I see no reason why this kind of exhibit design still exists in this day and age. I would understand if it was a method to get as much information as possible into one space (say, like a book) or an actual use for a flap (like a cupboard door) but it’s not. It’s just a way for museum’s to “appeal to children” by assuming everyone under the age of 12 must think the same. This really is preschool, isn’t it? Like a cheap pop-up book. Most kids nowadays have better mobile phones than ever, use computers and Xboxes and probably know a lot more than we do. Time to give them a little credit.

The idea of a simple flap, writing on top and writing underneath, is just a waste of space. It is just hiding information and creating an unnessecary task of lifting. It seems so pointless when actually analysed yet too many museums have them.

Teh Roxxor!

1) The kayak restoration project at the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

2) Have you met “hanneorla” and seen all the amazing artwork she looks at on her travels?  I’m not only impressed by her beautiful images, and the fact that she seems to totally geek out on individual sculptures, but she also adds lots of meta data to each image she uploads. Take note. She’s doing it up right. And what she’s doing is basically documenting the condition of mostly outdoor sculpture. Imagine if someone would plug her into Wikipedia Loves Art. She’d win every competition at every museum!  Check out her sets.

3) I don’t suppose I even have to list this one, but I will: The Commons

a) Everyone has their favorite stat from this report. Mine?

More than 500 Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) records have been enhanced with new information provided by the Flickr Community.

b) The Brooklyn Museum uses high res images of 19^th century Egypt, and shows early documentation photography. I can still here one of my favorite art history professors reminding me the importance of photo documenting historic sites, because “you never know when it’s not going to be there anymore.”

4) I can compare the Hepworth at the IMA to one in Yorkshire, England. Now, where are the other 6 sculptures in this edition?  Wouldn’t I like to know…

5) Go ahead and watch a cherry being removed from the spoon in Minneapolis.

The Reason Flickr Sucks

It’s owned by Yahoo! and it could be gone tomorrow and there’d be nothing we could do about it.

Richard McCoy is Assistant Conservator of Objects at Indianapolis Museum of Art

Nice to see Bluecasting being used for something other than bluespam. Although this is another one of those technologies which is a few years old but is still considered “new” because of the limited application. Connecting phones to transfer files (normally ringtones), connecting phone-to-pc, connecting some kind of game or Bluecasting and that’s about it for uses. Personally, I turn Bluetooth on my phone once every two months because of the power drain. So I may be missing the point entirely.

What makes this exhibition innovative is the introduction of choice at the start. By holding your “Bluetooth enabled device” (I’m guessing phone) near a section of wall, you can choose what language and what kind of content you want. The system will remembers your preference as you walk around the exhibition.

What would be interesting would be the choice of difficulty levels. Say, “Children”, “Teens”, “Adults” and “Experts” so that the language and the style could be tailored to allow for more inclusive distribution of information. Children don’t get lost, adults don’t get bored and teens and “experts” don’t feel patronised. Of course, you’d still need a Bluetooth phone that can play the media files, so it may not be that inclusive.

• Machine-readable Labelling - the way ahead?
  • Nick Poole at OpenCulture talks about RFID tags and collection management
• Historical Gaming
  • I’ve often said that more people learnt more about WWII from the Medal of Honour games. Seem Microsoft will throw money at this to find out more. Krista McCracken at Historical Reminiscents has more.
• Finding problems for QR tags to solve
  • I love QR tags (if you hadn’t guessed). I think they could act like same the user end of what Nick Poole is talking about.
• “Commons Recommendations” Greasemonkey Script
  • This is what I call innovative. Mostly Greasemonkey is mostly used to remove ads in Myspace or change CSS in Google. This script helps deliver some content.
• Museum Lovers’ social networking
  • Can anyone tell me where this social network actually is?

This got me thinking: often museums want to introduce interactivity and movement into museum but dont have the resources or budget for any kind of technology, nor are they thrilled with the idea of the public actually using the objects.

So why not a zoetrope? Or even a flipbook? It’s the ultimate in low-tech interactivity to show something in motion. All you need in a camera, a printer and some craft skills. I remember dropping this idea in a meeting with a curator, an artist who had no budget and didn’t want the displays to be static considering the topic. She became quite excited by the idea. When I visited, the exhibition had little flipbooks on string that the kids seemed to love.

It must be the easiest answer to having to put something on without any extra money that adds a little flair and the chance for people to get their hands on something.

Just an idea I’d thought I would throw out there.

The seven museums of the National Museum Wales invited bands from the local music scene to create a track for as part of the Music 09 programme of events. The report talks about the band Circa Regna Tonat’s track Atta that came about from the museum’s leaf-cutter ant colony, but so far two other bands have released songs. Pulco’s Caban draws from a magazine about a organisation of the local quarrymen. Little My’s track Panic at the Museum responds the the museum as a whole. 

What the museum is involved in here is a conceptual album, released over time, free to download, on their website. Despite the BBC’s jokey language describing music about ants, the Respond project is in fact a very clever addition to the curatorial process, giving museum objects and collections a much greater depth of engagement.

“Not just for the oldies” indeed. I swear…