Open the box -- The museum effect -- Art or artifact -- Public inquiry -- Framing the frame -- Curator/creator -- On the inside -- Without walls.

Through analysis of a critical engagement between Blanchot and Malraux on the museé imaginaire, it becomes apparent that both were seeking to understand the relationship between the museum and experience within modernity. This short article seeks to develop these ideas and to understand the museum as a key institutional space of modernity implicated in addressing the changing character of experience in the present. Following Benjamin's distinction between experience as Erfahrung and Erlebnis, the essay argues that the museum (...) has always sought to offer a fabricated sense of Erfahrung through its narrative and display techniques and that this facilitates a distracted mode of reception that is now prominent within contemporary cultural life. Through this we can see that the idea of the museé imaginaire is still a prescient one, but it has moved from the virtual space of the photographic art book to the simulated culture of the museumified city in general. (shrink)

Home museums in Israel and Germany produce a representational space in which the public figure, usually a ‘great man,’ is effectively ‘dragged home’ to the so-called private sphere so as to make the domestic worthy of musealization. Based on three years of ethnographic research in nine such museums, this article shows that when the sphere most identified with women is represented through the life and work of the men who lived there, the place of the wife and children is sidelined, (...) belittled, and at times concealed. In representing famous persons through material space and objects in the private abode, museal techniques determine which specific domestic areas, such as the kitchen and the bedroom, become the prime location of telling stories about women who lived in the house. They provide a shared perspective for visitors who find the stories about the wives endearing, recognizing home through them. (shrink)

In this volume, Bilsel argues that the museum has produced a modern decor, an iconic image, which has replaced the lost antique originals, rather than creating an explicitly hypothetical representation of Antiquity.

This paper explores the use of new scientific techniques to examine collections of historic scientific apparatus and other technological artefacts. One project under discussion uses interferometry to examine the history of lens development, while another uses X-ray fluorescence to discover the kinds of materials used to make early mathematical and astronomical instruments. These methods lead to surprising findings: instruments turn out to be fake, and lens makers turn out to have been adept at solving the riddle of aperture. Although (...) exciting, in some ways this is neither novel nor particularly unusual. After all, lab techniques have been used in art and archaeological collections for a very long time. In fact, scientific instruments themselves have been examined in this way since at least the 1950s. What, then, is special about the use of new instruments to examine old instruments? We argue that the answer has less to do with measuring historical innovation or establishing priority, and more to do with networks of craft know-how that, typically, have left no other historical traces than those embodied in surviving instruments themselves. We show, in particular, how collections of objects can be mobilised within wider histories of knowledge, placing instruments within a dynamic interplay of craft knowledge, expertise, labour, commerce, and material exchange, over the longue durée. Finally, we suggest that these kinds of lab analyses can be given an extra dimension through the use of computational modelling, and we introduce the “Tools of Knowledge” project, which is designed to bring together XRF with techniques from the digital humanities, in order to tell a new story about the development of scientific instruments from the 16th to the 20th century. (shrink)

Two different kinds of collections have been used to anticipate influenza pandemics: viral strains and bird specimens. These collections have been organized in museums and data banks to fill the gaps when specimens were decaying or when viral strains were missing. This article asks how collecting practices changed when such collections integrated specimens from China, considered a reservoir of influenza viruses and bird species, following a recurrent critical trope that Chinese specimens were missing. The article shows that techniques for (...) hunting viruses and birds were used to accumulate information so as to mitigate the global threat of species extinction. It suggests that in sentinel territories, museums transform samples and specimens into signs and images of future catastrophic events. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to have a better architectonic insight over the museum of Gjergj Kastriot Skanderbeg in the city of Kruja. The history for which Albanians are proud will be the focus of this paper from its genesis until now, always seeing its architectural perspective. The castle as the last resistance of Albanians at the time of Turkish occupation will be analyzed; together with the mode of implementation of the new Museum Gjergj Kastriot Skenderbeu at (...) the time of socialism. Who were the ideas of the ideologies of the time? What were the secrets of the building design? What were the secrets of the construction of the building? What were the motivations and inspirations of the architects and the design group? The paper will contain historical dating, direct interviews with architects of the building, and authentic architectural analysis of the building. Museum of Kruja is a work that belongs not only to Albanians but all of Europe and Balkan. Today it is one of the most visited works throughout the country. (shrink)

The actual and potential uses of holograms in museum displays, and the philosophy of knowledge and progress that they represent. Magazine journalists, museum curators, and historians sometimes face similar challenges in making topics or technologies relevant to wider audiences. To varying degrees, they must justify the significance of their subjects of study by identifying a newsworthy slant, a pedagogical role, or an analytical purpose. This chasse au trésor may skew historical story telling itself. In science and technology studies, (...) the problem potentially is worst for those subjects that do not retain an enduring capacity for spectacle or do not readily conform to templates of progress or economic importance. The case of holography is an excellent illustration of these points. An unusually wide-ranging subject, holography has attracted competing interpretations of intellectual novelty, technological application, and cultural significance. This paper examines the history of museum collections and exhibits of holography from the explosion of interest in the technique in 1964 to the end of the twentieth century. I argue that holography presents a particular challenge to museum collections and to popular representations of the history of science and technology. (shrink)

Jade products that imitate ancient Chinese art samples are a special kind of objects that, in their form and decor, are close to or likened to more ancient works of arts and crafts. The article explores the artistic form and characteristic features of imitations of ancient jade products of the Qing era, presented in the collections of Russian museums and the Palace Museum of China. The object of the study are objects of Chinese art of jade carving, which are (...) in the collection of the Palace Museum (Beijing), the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. Peter the Great (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg) and the State Museum of Oriental Art (Moscow), where the use of imitations of ancient objects was discovered. Artistic analysis of jade imitations allows us to conclude that the works of the Qing era were more complex and diverse in form, decor and carving techniques compared to Han products, while the craftsmen, although they managed to preserve the classical sophistication of objects, lost the severity and solemnity of Han jade. As well as the art history analysis of the works, one can see that the forms and decors of jade objects are the product of aesthetic consciousness. The novelty of this study lies in the fact that the varieties and features of imitations of ancient jade during the Qing Dynasty are summarized, and the huohuan technique in jade processing is confirmed. This may be of interest to researchers in related scientific fields. (shrink)

Cet article se concentre sur deux aspects : les liens très forts unissant le contexte politique et la création des musées en Amérique latine et le développement des centres de culture scientifique, technique et industrielle pour parer la carence d’une éducation scientifique de qualité. L’argumentation est construite autour de quatre angles principaux : le contexte de création des premiers musées d’histoire naturelle ; l’émergence des communautés scientifiques, la prise en compte de la nécessité de la popularisation des sciences pendant le (...) processus de transition à la démocratie et le développement des centres de culture scientifique, technique et industrielle à partir 1978.This article focuses on two aspects: the strong links between political context and museum creation in Latin America, and the development of centres of scientific, technical and industrial culture to remedy the gap in high-quality scientific education. Our argument here is built up from four main angles: the context in which the first natural history museums were created, the emergence of scientific communities, the acknowledged need for science popularisation during the transition to democracy and the development, since 1978, of centres of scientific, technical and industrial culture. (shrink)

Installation art is one of the most important and provocative developments in the visual arts during the last half century and has become a key focus of artists and of contemporary museums. It is also seen as particularly challenging or even disliked by many viewers, and-due to its unique in situ, immersive setting-is equally regarded as difficult or even beyond the grasp of present methods in empirical aesthetic psychology. In this paper, we introduce an exploratory study with installation art, utilizing (...) a collection of techniques to capture the eclectic, the embodied, and often the emotionally-charged viewing experience. We present results from an investigation of two pieces, both part of Olafur Eliasson's exhibition "Baroque, Baroque" held at the Belvedere museum in Vienna. These were assessed by administered pre- and post-viewing questionnaires focusing on emotion, meaning-making, and appraisals, in tandem with mobile eye tracking to consider viewers' attention to both installed artworks and/or the museum environment. The data showed differences in participants' emotional states, appraisals, and visual exploration, which together paint a picture of the aesthetic reactions to the works. These differences also showed how viewers' appraisal strategies, meaning making, and physical actions facilitated relatively more or less deep engagement with, and enjoyment of, the art pieces. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for museum studies, art education, and theory in empirical aesthetics. (shrink)

Nous proposons, dans cet article, une analyse communicationnelle des différentes postures de traitement muséal de controverses socioscientifiques pour interroger leur signification en termes d’évolution des modèles mobilisés d’éducation scientifique et d’empowerment des citoyens. Plusieurs travaux montrent que certains centres de sciences privilégient une posture d’externalité en confinant les controverses à leurs dimensions scientifiques. Nous mettons ici l’accent sur des approches alternatives qui intègrent des problématiques controversées. Que ce soit en se positionnant explicitement comme acteur, comme organisateur ou comme témoin du (...) débat public, les centres de sciences traduisent une tendance forte de médiation qui prend acte des reconfigurations contemporaines de la gouvernance des sciences en société. Il nous semble que les expériences dont nous rendons compte intègrent l’évolution des rapports de légitimité entendus en termes de choix scientifiques et techniques et inscrivent une prise de distance vis-à-vis du projet originel de valorisation des sciences.In this article, we offer a communicational analysis of the different stances taken by museums in their treatment of socio-scientific controversies, in order to explore their significance in terms of changing patterns in scientific education and citizens’ empowerment. Several studies have shown that some science centres tend to adopt a distanced stance by confining controversies to their scientific dimensions. Here, we discuss alternative approaches in which the controversial issues are included. Whether explicitly taking up their stance as protagonists, organisers or witnesses to a public debate, science centres display a strong tendency towards mediation, thereby acknowledging contemporary reconfigurations in the governance of science in society. We believe that the experiences reported on here reflect awareness of a change in the balance of legitimating powers in terms of scientific and technical choices, and have effectively distanced themselves from the original idea of highlighting the value of science. (shrink)

Ces dernières années, des musées d’art contemporain sont apparus partout dans le monde occidental et au-delà. Le nombre de ce genre de musées augmente en permanence. Le touriste d’aujourd’hui, qui se rend dans une grande ville, s’attend à y trouver un musée d’art contemporain, de la même manière qu’il s’attend à y trouver un restaurant italien ou un cinéma. Dans la plupart des cas, ces attentes sont confirmées. Dans le pire des cas, le touriste va apprendre que le musée d’art (...) contemporain est encore en construction et qu’il sera ouvert l’année suivante. Quoi qu’il en soit, cette acceptation si facile de la notion de « musée d’art contemporain » par la culture d’aujourd’hui n’est pas sans importance. Traditionnellement, le musée d’art constituait un endroit dans lequel l’art du passé était collecté, conservé et montré au beau milieu de la vie contemporaine. Mais que signifie construire un musée d’art contemporain ? Que signifie « muséographier » la contemporanéité elle-même?Museums of contemporary art have appeared everywhere in the Western world and beyond in recent years, and they are constantly increasing in number. Any tourist visiting a major city today expects to find a museum of contemporary art, just as they expect to find an Italian restaurant or a cinema. In most cases, this is indeed what they find. At the very least, tourists will find that the city’s museum of contemporary art is still under construction and will open the following year. Whatever the case, the ready acceptance of the “museum of contemporary art” in today’s culture is significant. Traditionally, an art museum was a place where the art of the past could be collected, curated and displayed right in the heart of the contemporary world. But what does creating a museum of contemporary art really mean? In other words, what does it mean “to make a museum exhibit” of contemporaneity itself? (shrink)

_The Grundtvigian Case for Museums_ This article investigates the notion that museums are caught between two opposites when it comes to defining the institutions Raison d'être: either you entertain, or you enlighten. Using Barbara Rosenwein’s thoughts on emotional communities, this museological dichotomy between emotion and intellect is challenged by a certain ‘Grundtvigian position’ that was inspired by the philosophy of pastor poet N.F.S. Grundtvig. At the turning point of the 19 th century this position resulted in numerus museums that made (...) the radical statement: the dichotomy is false. A museum should speak to emotions _ and _ the intellect. As opposed to the rationalistic, archeological approach that the National Museum represented, the grundtvigians saw themselves as mediators of a living history that needed to be told under the pressure of modern techniques and customs. (shrink)

This book focuses on externalist approaches to art. It is the first fruit of a workshop held in Milan in September 2009, where leading scholars in the emerging field of psychology of art compared their different approaches using a neutral language and discussing freely their goals. The event threw up common grounds for future research activities. First, there is a considerable interest in using cognitive and neural inspired techniques to help art historians, museum curators, art archiving, art preservation. (...) Secondly, cognitive scientists and neuroscientists are rather open to using art as a special way of accessing the structures of the mind. Third, there are artists who explicitly draw inspiration out of current research on various aspects of the mind. Fourth, during the workshop, a converging methodological paradigm emerged around which more specific efforts could be encouraged. (shrink)

The contemporary tendency in United States culture to substitute a discourse of psychology for political and social analysis is especially evident in treatments of the Shoah. Drawing on postmodernist techniques, Art Spiegelman's“Holocaust commix”, Maus, dramatizes not historical reality but the effort of representing the memory of trauma. In the absence of symbolic authority, suffering from rivalry with his father and haunted by the real of the father's voice, the son becomes the subject of the narration. Like Maus, the Holocaust (...) Museum in Washington, D.C. and the criticism of Dominick LaCapra focus on the psychological processes of the private individual. (shrink)

Pendant tout le XVIII° siècle et surtout à partir de 1741, il y eut diverses tentatives pour atteindre le sommet du Mont-Blanc. Le 3 août 1787 Horace-Bénédict De Saussure parvint à la cime du fameux mont et sut donner le plus grand retentissement à cet exploit tant dans les milieux mondain que scientifique.Afin de commémorer cet évênement, Charles François Exchaquet construisit des maquettes de la Vallée de Chamonix et du Mont-Blanc qui se vendirent dans toute l'Europe. A notre connaissance il (...) n'en subsiste plus que cinq exemplaires. L'un d'entre eux est la propriété du Cabinet de Minéralogie du Musée Teyler de Haarlem, Pays-Bas. Il est en parfait état de conservation et accompagné de documents originaux dont un de la main de C. F. Exchaquet. Cette maquette donne de précieux renseignements sur la technique des plans-reliefs, qui a précédé la représentation cartographique plane.SummaryDuring the whole of the eighteenth century, and especially since 1741, various attempts have been made to climb the Mont Blanc. On 3 August 1787, Horace-Bénédict De Saussure reached the summit of the famous mountain. His achievement had an impact on society at large, as well as in the scientific community. To commemorate the event, C. F. Exchaquet built maquettes of Mont-Blanc and the Valley of Chamonix, which he sold all over Europe.To our knowledge, only five of these models have been preserved. One of them, in a perfect state, is the property of the Mineralogical Cabinet of Teyler's Museum at Haarlem, in The Netherlands. Original documentation has been preserved, including one hand-written manuscript from Exchaquet himself.The study of both documents and maquette reveals interesting information on the technique of plan-relief before the traditional use of two-dimensional cartography. (shrink)

Continuing from Part A (2016), in which we discuss the semiotic foundation for designing a virtual museum of Byzantine art, Part B presents an applied methodology for the representation of cultural artifacts through virtual technologies and semiotic techniques. We discuss how our semiotic model, case study semiosphere, contributes to design and evaluation research of such unique art-form representation and why the approach contributes as a whole to the field of Virtual Heritage (VH). Theorizing further the design implications integrating (...) the overall approach including the evaluation experiment of three VH applications with the participation of young users and its semiotic analysis, we formulate design guidelines that can be applied also to other types of cultural heritage and art. (shrink)

Continuing from Part A, in which we discuss the semiotic foundation for designing a virtual museum of Byzantine art, Part B presents an applied methodology for the representation of cultural artifacts through virtual technologies and semiotic techniques. We discuss how our semiotic model, case study semiosphere, contributes to design and evaluation research of such unique art-form representation and why the approach contributes as a whole to the field of Virtual Heritage. Theorizing further the design implications integrating the overall (...) approach including the evaluation experiment of three VH applications with the participation of young users and its semiotic analysis, we formulate design guidelines that can be applied also to other types of cultural heritage and art. (shrink)

The study of biodiversity spans many disciplines and includes data pertaining to species distributions and abundances, genetic sequences, trait measurements, and ecological niches, complemented by information on collection and measurement protocols. A review of the current landscape of metadata standards and ontologies in biodiversity science suggests that existing standards such as the Darwin Core terminology are inadequate for describing biodiversity data in a semantically meaningful and computationally useful way. Existing ontologies, such as the Gene Ontology and others in the Open (...) Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry library, provide a semantic structure but lack many of the necessary terms to describe biodiversity data in all its dimensions. In this paper, we describe the motivation for and ongoing development of a new Biological Collections Ontology, the Environment Ontology, and the Population and Community Ontology. These ontologies share the aim of improving data aggregation and integration across the biodiversity domain and can be used to describe physical samples and sampling processes (for example, collection, extraction, and preservation techniques), as well as biodiversity observations that involve no physical sampling. Together they encompass studies of: 1) individual organisms, including voucher specimens from ecological studies and museum specimens, 2) bulk or environmental samples (e.g., gut contents, soil, water) that include DNA, other molecules, and potentially many organisms, especially microbes, and 3) survey-based ecological observations. We discuss how these ontologies can be applied to biodiversity use cases that span genetic, organismal, and ecosystem levels of organization. We argue that if adopted as a standard and rigorously applied and enriched by the biodiversity community, these ontologies would significantly reduce barriers to data discovery, integration, and exchange among biodiversity resources and researchers. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the development and use of images employed by the Dresden Royal Museum for Zoology, Anthropology and Ethnography to resolve debates about how to use visual representation as a means of making ethnographic knowledge. Through experimentation with techniques of visual representation, the founding director, A.B. Meyer, proposed a historical, non-essentialist approach to understanding racial and cultural difference. Director Meyer's approach was inspired by the new knowledge he had gained through field research in Asia-Pacific as (...) well as new forms of imaging that made highly detailed representations of objects possible. Through a combination of various techniques, he developed new visual methods that emphasized intimate familiarity with variations within any one ethnic group, from skull shape to material ornamentation, as integral to the new disciplines of physical and cultural anthropology. It is well known that photographs were a favoured form of visual documentation among the anthropological and ethnographic sciences at thefin de siècle. However, in the scholarly journals of the Dresden museum, photographs, drawings, tables and etchings were frequently displayed alongside one another. Meyer sought to train the reader's eye through organized arrangements that represented objects from multiple angles and at various levels of magnification. Focusing on chimpanzees, skulls and kettledrums from Asia-Pacific, I track the development of new modes of making and reading images, from zoology and physical anthropology to ethnography, to demonstrate how the museum visually historicized humankind. (shrink)

Today, the most powerful research technique available for assigning chronometric age to human cultural objects is radiocarbon dating. Developed in the United States in the late 1940s by an alumnus of the Manhattan Project, radiocarbon dating measures the decay of the radioactive isotope carbon-14 (C14) in organic material, and calculates the time elapsed since the materials were removed from the life cycle. This paper traces the interdisciplinary collaboration between archaeology and radiochemistry that led to the successful development of radiocarbon dating (...) in the early 1950s, following the movement of people and ideas from Willard Libby's Chicago radiocarbon laboratory to museums, universities and government labs in the United States, Australia, Denmark and New Zealand. I show how radiocarbon research built on existing technologies and networks in atomic chemistry and physics but was deeply shaped by its original private philanthropic funders and archaeologist users, and ultimately remained to the side of many contemporaneous Cold War scientific and military projects. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 40.4 (2006) 104-117 MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Performative Somaesthetics: Principles and ScopeEric C. MullisJohn Dewey's aesthetic has been invoked in recent discussions because many have realized that it resists the pull toward conceptualism that characterizes a great deal of aesthetic theory. Further, Art as Experience—Dewey's chief work on the philosophy of art—is rich with ideas that call for development. Richard Shusterman's work does just (...) this as it suggests that Dewey's approach is a practical alternative to those that hinder a comprehensive understanding of art and/or ignore art's capacity to enrich the quality of lived experience. More specifically, Shusterman develops key Deweyan ideas by considering the aesthetic merits of popular music and by exploring Dewey's "somatic naturalism," that is, a naturalism that strives to understand the role played by the human body in aesthetic experience. Somaesthetics is the pragmatic discipline that explores somatic practices and ultimately demonstrates how they can lead to the attainment of fulfilling experiences. Shusterman argues that various disciplines can be taken up in order to improve the clarity of somatic functioning, perception, and thought as they "help us reconstruct our attitudes or habits of feeling to give us greater flexibility and tolerance to different kinds of feeling and bodily behavior." 1 Ultimately, Dewey's emphasis on the everyday origins of aesthetic experience is combined with his rejection of mind-body dualism in order to demonstrate how aesthetic experiences can be cultivated through such practices. One is not limited to going to museums and reading art criticism in order to have meaningful aesthetic experiences because somaesthetics shows how one's body can be transformed into a locus of aesthetic value.This said, we also find that similar techniques are used in the training of actors, dancers, and other performance artists. Performative somaesthetics explores the body disciplines that are instrumental to the performer's craft—that allow him or her to master the body and to enhance its expressive powers. In this article I would like to explore a few elements of this [End Page 104] craft in order to flesh out what the performance arts can reveal about the aesthetic body. In order to do so I will need to first say something about Shusterman's pragmatist aesthetic and the Deweyan foundation of that approach. After this is done I will discuss what I take to be a few core principles of performative somaesthetics and, with them in mind, will go on to discuss the relationship between practical and performative somaesthetics.Aesthetic MeliorismIn Art as Experience Dewey describes the process of "doing and undergoing," in which the energies and forces of the environment mix with those of the organisms that inhabit it. 2 For human beings life is lived to its fullest when difficult situations arise and are efficiently dealt with, that is, when the energies of particular situations are ordered and brought into accord with those of the individuals within them. This, in turn, renders experience meaningful as it simultaneously produces a sense of agency and solves particular problems. Ultimately, Dewey notes that the process of doing and undergoing is the foundation of aesthetic experience because it marks those intense organic moments that stand out from the broader context of humdrum or chaotic experiences: "Art... unites the very same relation of doing and undergoing, outgoing and incoming energy, that makes an experience to be an experience." 3 Aesthetic experience, like any instance of doing and undergoing, involves the organization of energies, which solves a characteristically aesthetic problem. For artists this may be the problem of adequately expressing emotion and for observers it may be interpreting or judging the quality of a work. Regardless, for Dewey the aesthetic must not be conceptually or institutionally divorced from its broader context, for doing so not only ignores its natural origins but also limits its ability to imbue the world with meaning. Hence, Shusterman writes that for Dewey, "if anything is to have human value, it must in some way serve... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 19-26 [Access article in PDF] Restriction and Individual Expression in the "Play Activity / Zokei Asobi " Since World War II, art teachers in Japan have wavered between two senses of value. The first issue is whether they should foster children's specific artistic ability (for example, drawing, painting, or sculpture) in art class. Many art teachers believe that there is a standard (...) body of knowledge about art that should be taught, much like chemistry or mathematics. In fact, teachers do set these restrictions by giving teaching materials or subjects of expression to children in art class. On the other hand, art teachers recognize the need to encourage the expression of each child's individual emotions and creativity. So, Japanese art teachers are faced with a contradiction: requiring [End Page 19] each child to express herself "freely" within an environment restricted by a set curriculum.In Japan, when the government guidelines for teaching were revised about 25 years ago, a new domain was instituted in the elementary school art class. The domain is called "Play Activity/Zokei Asobi." The field of expression consists of two domains: the making of works (visual objects) according to a theme or subject and the "Play Activity" using various materials. The former is equivalent to the basic picture, craft, design, and sculpture education. The Play Activity is based on the viewpoint that children's expression naturally comes from within and is expressed as spontaneous play, such as playing in the sand or with blocks. Because children have a natural curiosity, play is not to be directed by someone else, but by their own will. Children's spontaneous play is viewed as the beginning of individual expression. Although the Play Activity has not yet fully permeated into art education of Japan, it has brought some changes to art class. The Play Activity has forced art teachers to think about their role: whether one should emphasize restriction — "shall I teach something to children?" or freedom — "how should I deal with each child's individual expression?" In this essay, I explore teachers' stream of consciousness about children's expression and meanings and subjects of the Play Activity in Japan. Child's Expression and Works of Art The Japanese art class consists of two fields: "expression" and "appreciation." In the past, children's main activity has been expression in art class. In recent years, appreciation has gradually come to be thought of as important as expression. There are historical reasons for this general philosophy about "art".Many Japanese people think that only talented and famous painters or sculptors create "art." In their minds, "art" consists of highly valued "works of art" like those seen in museums and galleries. So, because it is quite different from that of a talented artist's masterpiece, children's expression has not been considered as art.On the other hand, children's expression is considered to be an important part of ego formation. In order to accomplish this, suitable materials and techniques must be part of the various formative experiences in art class. In this way, their inner emotions and thoughts can be communicated through the process and product of their expression. Because art teachers know such intuitive expression is an important part of life, it has been regarded as more important than appreciation. In this art class, children have not made "works of art" but have "expressed" themselves, thus they have been distanced from "Real art" (famous masterpieces). The Restriction Born of Confusion about the Sense of "Art" The Japanese general sense of "art" has brought a contradiction into art class. Because the works of talented and famous artists are highly valued in [End Page 20] many adults' minds, teachers often unrealistically expect young children to express as well as an adult.For example, many Japanese value lifelike pictures as excellent. Consequently, many adults expect children to draw objects exactly as they appear. A college student who grew up surrounded by this value system retains such a sense of value. And if she cannot draw a lifelike... (shrink)

From the earliest silver-chloride calotypes of inventor of photography William Henry Fox-Talbot to developments in digital photography and the tiny but surprisingly capable cameras that are a component of every smartphone today, photography has changed dramatically over the past 150 years. As technology has advanced, so too has photography as a living, dynamic art form, as evidenced by the innovative techniques and compositions of contemporary photographic artists. Drawing on a diverse collection of historical and contemporary photographs held by Bank (...) Austria and on display at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Focus on Photography provides a rich visual record of the history of photography. The photographs reproduced here date from the 1840s to the 1970s and include works by Julia Margaret Cameron, Lewis Carroll, André Kertész, Josef Sudek, Eadweard Muybridge, Alexander Rodchenko, Lászlo Moholy-Nagy, Man Ray, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Diane Arbus, and Arnulf Rainer, among others, and range from landscapes and portraits to cutting-edge modern compositions. Together, they offer readers a series of invaluable reference points for thinking about of the important trends and developments throughout the history of photography. A stunning, kaleidoscopic portfolio featuring nearly two centuries of photographic art with representation from among many major movements and figures, Focus on Photography will be welcomed by all with an interest in this powerful medium. (shrink)

At a Body Worlds exhibition, human corpses are displayed as museum pieces for educational purposes. The bodies are preserved by plastination, a technique invented by Gunther von Hagens and engineered at the Institute for Plastination in Heidelberg, Germany. Because of the wide controversy surrounding the displays, it is necessary to study how justice obtains. Understood from a Thomistic perspective, the use of a plastinate by Body Worlds is unjust because it dishonors the donor. The goodness of that use fails (...) in terms of object, end, and circumstance. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.4 (Winter 2010): 667–676. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 19-26 [Access article in PDF] Restriction and Individual Expression in the "Play Activity / Zokei Asobi " Since World War II, art teachers in Japan have wavered between two senses of value. The first issue is whether they should foster children's specific artistic ability (for example, drawing, painting, or sculpture) in art class. Many art teachers believe that there is a standard (...) body of knowledge about art that should be taught, much like chemistry or mathematics. In fact, teachers do set these restrictions by giving teaching materials or subjects of expression to children in art class. On the other hand, art teachers recognize the need to encourage the expression of each child's individual emotions and creativity. So, Japanese art teachers are faced with a contradiction: requiring [End Page 19] each child to express herself "freely" within an environment restricted by a set curriculum.In Japan, when the government guidelines for teaching were revised about 25 years ago, a new domain was instituted in the elementary school art class. The domain is called "Play Activity/Zokei Asobi." The field of expression consists of two domains: the making of works (visual objects) according to a theme or subject and the "Play Activity" using various materials. The former is equivalent to the basic picture, craft, design, and sculpture education. The Play Activity is based on the viewpoint that children's expression naturally comes from within and is expressed as spontaneous play, such as playing in the sand or with blocks. Because children have a natural curiosity, play is not to be directed by someone else, but by their own will. Children's spontaneous play is viewed as the beginning of individual expression. Although the Play Activity has not yet fully permeated into art education of Japan, it has brought some changes to art class. The Play Activity has forced art teachers to think about their role: whether one should emphasize restriction — "shall I teach something to children?" or freedom — "how should I deal with each child's individual expression?" In this essay, I explore teachers' stream of consciousness about children's expression and meanings and subjects of the Play Activity in Japan. Child's Expression and Works of Art The Japanese art class consists of two fields: "expression" and "appreciation." In the past, children's main activity has been expression in art class. In recent years, appreciation has gradually come to be thought of as important as expression. There are historical reasons for this general philosophy about "art".Many Japanese people think that only talented and famous painters or sculptors create "art." In their minds, "art" consists of highly valued "works of art" like those seen in museums and galleries. So, because it is quite different from that of a talented artist's masterpiece, children's expression has not been considered as art.On the other hand, children's expression is considered to be an important part of ego formation. In order to accomplish this, suitable materials and techniques must be part of the various formative experiences in art class. In this way, their inner emotions and thoughts can be communicated through the process and product of their expression. Because art teachers know such intuitive expression is an important part of life, it has been regarded as more important than appreciation. In this art class, children have not made "works of art" but have "expressed" themselves, thus they have been distanced from "Real art" (famous masterpieces). The Restriction Born of Confusion about the Sense of "Art" The Japanese general sense of "art" has brought a contradiction into art class. Because the works of talented and famous artists are highly valued in [End Page 20] many adults' minds, teachers often unrealistically expect young children to express as well as an adult.For example, many Japanese value lifelike pictures as excellent. Consequently, many adults expect children to draw objects exactly as they appear. A college student who grew up surrounded by this value system retains such a sense of value. And if she cannot draw a lifelike... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Literary Method of Urban Design: Design Fictions Using FictionAlan Marshall (bio)For students of design the world over, there’s usually nowhere near enough time in the school year to build a prototype of each and every single innovative idea that pops into one’s head—let alone to test them all in the social world or the marketplace. To speedily explore as many innovations as possible, students are sometimes encouraged to (...) follow an alternative pathway, to create “design fiction.” Intended to exist only on paper or the screen, a “design fiction” is not really destined for the real world.1 As a learning technique, it allows for a significant degree of technical experimentation as well as the imagining of new social arrangements. Many design experts see this “free-for-all” method as rather annoying and untrustworthy—more art than science. Yet for the most creative students, it serves to liberate them from the various constraints of their discipline. My own peculiar process of “design fiction” is what I call the “Literary Method of Urban Design.” I will come to this method in a moment.Last year, I was invited by the Bauhaus Museum in Weimar, Germany, to contribute artworks for a special exhibition entitled “Ways to Utopia: Life Between Desire and Crisis” (running from April 1, 2023—January 29, 2024).2 [End Page 560] This exhibition is a celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of the Bauhaus’s first architectural product: a modern suburban family home in the city of Weimar called the Haus Am Horn. Built in 1923 the Haus Am Horn ushered in the Bauhaus style, a streamlined functional elegance presented in clean, bright, hopeful hues.3 Beyond just style, though, the house was proffered up in utopian terms. Its Bauhaus creators suggested that such a home could be mass-produced on an industrial scale cheaply and efficiently to provide elegant living to every single family in Europe, be they rich or poor. In its first iteration, the Staatliches Bauhaus was a high-spirited, playful, future-oriented, and socially aware fine arts and architecture school that ran from 1919 to 1933 in Weimar, then Dessau, then Berlin. However, its liberalism and experimentation away from traditional teaching and practice invited scorn from conservatives and from the Nazi Party. The former took the Bauhaus school’s funding away; the latter shuttered it for good. Despite the closure of the building, the Bauhaus style transformed design across the world as former teachers and ex-students applied Bauhaus principles and approaches in new settings. The old Bauhaus school has since been resurrected, with the opening of Bauhaus Universität Weimar, and the Bauhaus Museum, with locations in Weimar and Dessau.A few years back, Skyhorse Publishers published a book of my own “design fictions” depicting real-world cities set far in the future, each presented in utopian terms.4 Because of this, the Bauhaus approached me to help them celebrate their centennial anniversary by displaying my utopian urban designs in their museum. However, to convey the centenary theme of the exhibition, they requested exactly 100 different artworks of 100 different urban utopias portraying 100 different real-world cities set 100 years in the future. At the time, I had only produced eighty such works over the preceding decade. However, since the exhibition was to include masterworks by Bauhaus design greats like George Muche and Alma Buscher, I did not want to fall short. To make the “century” in quick time, I pushed ahead by deploying my own peculiar “Literary Method of Urban Design.”5 This method comprises three steps:1. Select a city.2. Select a literary work.3. Design the future of the selected city, based upon the themes of the selected literary work.[End Page 561] Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 1.Future London. By the author, inspired by More’s Utopia (1516).When I used this method for the first time with Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) as the literary base, a curator at the Museum of London was tickled enough to include it in an exhibition about the future of London.6Since then, the utopian spark has flowed through many of... (shrink)

It will be a wrong judgment to consider grave stones as an ordinary tradition. When it is viewed in terms of history, art and culture, it can be seen that especially Turkish grave stones are record drawings that include many types of arts and artists’ labor, shed our culture and history and that is precious and unique. Grave stones are the documents that transfer not only the national culture but also transfer people’s beliefs, problems, fears, sadness and different feelings, who (...) breathe the same air and live in the same places. Because of this reason, grave stones are the cultural features that are shaped according to the differences in culture and decorated with life styles. Of course, Of course, having been applied plenty of traditional Turkish plastic arts on the tombstones, have all contributed to the diversity of tombstones in terms of composition and motifs. Rich craftsmanship of gravestones and sarcophagus in the second Bayezid graveyard is almost like an open air museum that shows Turkish motifs. While scarping was used for making gravestones are scarping, and painting were used as the main decoration tecnique is seen on foot stone with the painting technique, inscriptions of stones were coloured. Most of the inscriptions and decorations are relieved. Decoration subjects seen on gravestones are phytomorphic, geometric, objective and calligraphic. On the other side, these tombstones include wide knowledge about the socio-economic, cultural and regional headgears. When evaluating the information on the inscriptions, it can be obtained knowledge about the health conditions or epidemics in that period. Adolf Ebeling, article titled “Turkish cemeteries” in the 1882 the year Gartenlaube journal, when talking about the importance given to the graves by Turks, to say that the Turkish burial tomb can be an example to the world is no need to say more about it. The thomstones as the verbal means service to rebuilt the material world where the man has saved so far and the culture developing in accordance with this. The written tombstones which were formed by the individuals’ cherishing and remembering desires that the cultural, religious and traditional ones shaped, are the carrier elements of the values wich will provide to understand the sterotype requirements and ideologies within the cultural structure. Looking at the overall structure of the Turkish tombstones form shows major differences in male and female gravestones. In the Turkish tombstone tradition, women's elegance, finesse and beauty is reflected as a form of artwork. In fact, women in the Ottoman Empire, although excluded from the social life in very marginalized, especially in women flashy decorations tombstones, can be considered as an indication value which is given to women but unspoken. Since the tombstones have dates, they hold the distinction of being a document for ethnographic and art works. Moreover, inscribed tombstones are living evidences in order to prove that Turkish people lived in this land and also they have ethnographic value. Therefore, tombstones are important while the histories of cities, villages or boroughs are preparing. In short, tombstones are the common products of the environment that are built, religious beliefs, traditions, art, natural, social and economic conditions of the century. In this case they hold key for our culture history in addition to our art history. In this study, besides the effects of Turkish grave stones on our beliefs and daily lives, fruit patterns on the stones are also examined. The reflections traditional architectural and handicrafts motifs and the religious believes on the Turkish ornament art are explained by the examples chosen among gravestones in İstanbul II. Beyazıt Cemetery. In the colloquial language what fruit motifs mean in folk songs ang manias and how it is reflected on the ornaments of grave stones are investigated. (shrink)

Virtual heritage has been explained as virtual reality applied to cultural heritage, but this definition only scratches the surface of the fascinating applications, tools and challenges of this fast-changing interdisciplinary field. This book provides an accessible but concise edited coverage of the main topics, tools and issues in virtual heritage. -/- Leading international scholars have provided chapters to explain current issues in accuracy and precision; challenges in adopting advanced animation techniques; shows how archaeological learning can be developed in Minecraft; (...) they propose mixed reality is conceptual rather than just technical; they explore how useful Linked Open Data can be for art history; explain how accessible photogrammetry can be but also ethical and practical issues for applying at scale; provide insight into how to provide interaction in museums involving the wider public; and describe issues in evaluating virtual heritage projects not often addressed even in scholarly papers. -/- The book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in museum studies, digital archaeology, heritage studies, architectural history and modelling, virtual environments. (shrink)

The leading art theorist takes on art in the age of the Internet In the early twentieth century, art and its institutions came under critique from a new democratic and egalitarian spirit. The notion of works of art as sacred objects was decried and subsequently they would be understood merely as things. This meant an attack on realism, as well as on the traditional preservative mission of the museum. Acclaimed art theorist Boris Groys argues this led to the development (...) of “direct realism”: an art that would not produce objects, but practices (from performance art to relational aesthetics) that would not survive. But for more than a century now, every advance in this direction has been quickly followed by new means of preserving art’s distinction. In this major new work, Groys charts the paradoxes produced by this tension, and explores art in the age of the thingless medium, the Internet. Groys claims that if the techniques of mechanical reproduction gave us objects without aura, digital production generates aura without objects, transforming all its materials into vanishing markers of the transitory present. (shrink)

Ancient DNA has been discovered in many types of preserved biological material, including bones, mummies, museum skins, insects in amber and plant fossils, and has become an important research tool in disciplines as diverse as archaeology, conservation biology and forensic science. In archaeology, ancient DNA can contribute both to the interpretation of individual sites and to the development of hypotheses about past populations. Site interpretation is aided by DNA‐based sex typing of fragmentary human bones, and by the use of (...) genetic techniques to assess the degree of kinship between the remains of different individuals. On a broader scale, population migrations can be traced by studying genetic markers in ancient DNA, as in recent studies of the colonisation of the Pacific islands, while ancient DNA in preserved plant remains can provide information on the development of agriculture. (shrink)

Computer vision aims to produce an understanding of digital image’s content and the generation or transformation of images through software. Today, a significant amount of computer vision algorithms rely on techniques of machine learning which require large amounts of data assembled in collections, or named data sets. To build these data sets a large population of precarious workers label and classify photographs around the clock at high speed. For computers to learn how to see, a scale articulates macro and (...) micro dimensions: the millions of images culled from the internet with the few milliseconds given to the workers to perform a task for which they are paid a few cents. This paper engages in details with the production of this scale and the labour it relies on: its elaboration. This elaboration does not only require hands and retinas, it also crucially zes mobilises the photographic apparatus. To understand the specific character of the scale created by computer vision scientists, the paper compares it with a previous enterprise of scaling, Malraux’sLe Musée Imaginaire, where photography was used as a device to undo the boundaries of the museum’s collection and open it to an unlimited access to the world’s visual production. Drawing on Douglas Crimp’s argument that the “musée imaginaire”, a hyperbole of the museum, relied simultaneously on the active role of the photographic apparatus for its existence and on its negation, the paper identifies a similar problem in computer vision’s understanding of photography. The double dismissal of the role played by the workers and the agency of the photographic apparatus in the elaboration of computer vision foreground the inherent fragility of the edifice of machine vision and a necessary rethinking of its scale. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 84-93 [Access article in PDF] Arthur Wesley Dow's Address in Kyoto, Japan (1903) Researchers concerned with the historical development of American art education cannot help but acknowledge Arthur Wesley Dow's significant contribution to the field. Although many writers have recognized him as one of greatest figures in art education, 1 it was not until the end of the twentieth century that art (...) historians discovered his impact on the early development of modernist American art.Several exhibitions of Dow's work have been shown recently, most notably: "Arthur Wesley Dow and American Art and Crafts," in Stanford, Chicago, and Fort Dodge, Iowa (1999 and 2000) and "Harmony of Reflected Light: The Photographs of Arthur Wesley Dow," at the New Mexico Museum of Fine Arts (2001). 2 In addition, two galleries in New York showed exhibitions of Dow's work in 1999 and 2000, respectively. These exhibitions indicate a rediscovery of Dow's work and his role, as well as a wider interest in the integral aspects of modernism in American artworks.Joseph Masheck recognized Dow's post-impressionistic aesthetic of flat surface design as influential on modernism in painting and the graphic arts. 3 Nancy Green sees Dow as "one of the first Western artists who did not simply imitate Japanese art, but who actually used the traditional Japanese woodcut techniques to create modernist prints." 4 Leah Ollman writes, "Those who credit Dow as a conduit to American modernism see his traces everywhere" because "Dow is revealed at the end of the rainbow, as the common ancestor" who spread his theory and practice of art and art education. 5 James Enyeart states that Dow can now receive appropriate critical assessment of his work as a photographer and his impact on pictorial and modernist photography. 6 [End Page 84]Dow is one of the few Americans whose work in the field of art and art education was influenced by Japanese traditional art. He came to Japan in October 1903 and spent three months in Japan, including six weeks in Tokyo and a month in Kyoto. His address in Kyoto in mid-December of that year has been mentioned in biographical studies. 7 However, a detailed account of what Dow said to the Japanese public has previously been unknown due to lack of a historical source.Contemporary Japanese newspaper articles are the primary source for the contents of this address. The purpose of this essay is to translate these source materials into English, providing a definitive description to encourage further research on Dow as an outstanding artist and educator. This essay describes his activity in Japan, provides useful primary sources about his address, and discusses the content of the address. Implications for a cross-cultural interpretation are discussed in the concluding remarks. Dow in Japan Dow was born in Ipswich, Massachusetts on April 6, 1857. He studied art in Boston and Paris, and exhibited his paintings at Salon, in Paris from 1886-1887. He established his summer school of art in Ipswich (1891-1907) and became the curator of Japanese art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in1897. He was an instructor of art at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn from 1895-1904; taught composition at the Art Student's League in New York from 1897-1903; and served as a professor and the director of fine arts at Teachers College, Columbia University from 1904-1922. 8 Dow first studied Japanese art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts under the direction of Ernest Fenollosa, and then during his residence in Japan.Arthur Johnson's 1934 biography provides the most detailed description of Dow's life and works. 9 In fact, "every subsequent publication about Dow has relied on this biographical information, and in some cases Dow's aesthetic sources, contained in Johnson's short text of about one hundred pages." 10 According to Johnson, Dow kept a careful day-by-day record during these months, and to read these notebooks, some six in number, is to see the world through the eyes... (shrink)

This paper outlines the background development of “intelligent“ technologies such as speech recognition. Despite significant progress in the development of these technologies, they still fall short in many areas, and rapid advances in areas such as dictation are actually stalled. In this paper we have proposed semi-automatic solutions — smart integration of human and intelligent efforts. One such technique involves improvement to the speech recognition editing interface, thereby reducing the perception of errors to the viewer. Other techniques that are (...) described in the paper are batch enrollment, which allows the user to reduce the amount of time required for enrollment, and content spotting, which can be used for applications that have repeated content flow, such as movies or museum tours. The paper also suggests a general concept of distributive training of speech recognition systems that is based on data collection across a network. (shrink)

Most of the on-going debate is about “how” to protect archaeological ruins, whilst at the same time allowing the general public to enjoy them. Today it is clear how important it is, from the actual planning stages of excavations, to interact with experts from other disciplines, who are working on their own findings and offering them up for collective enjoyment. Whatever might be feasible for an indoor museum is not always feasible with an architectonic ruin, as regards both presenting (...) objects with explicative apparatus that determines their significance, and exploring them in a new way when interpretations change or new ideologies are introduced. First of all, conserving excavations is the not the same as conserving a transportable object. In the past many countries in Europe preferred to “present” Roman remains simply as “gardens of ruins”, often endeavouring to stand them in sharp contrast with a more recurrent evocation of the original contexts of local life. Recently, with regard to the Roman tradition, there has been a noticeable inversion of trend in musealization operations, according to which the mere “contemplation of ruins” should be replaced by emotional contact with history. The main consequence of these new tendencies is the replacement of an informatics-based and didactic approach to musealization, in favour of a more authentically interpretative approach. Back-up resulting from experimentation in the fields of restoration and conservation becomes indispensible in implementing these new strategies for the musealization of archaeology. Continuous research and the progressive advance of conservation techniques have meant that the need to transfer archaeological remains has been avoided and an improved in situ “presentation” of these remains, both movable and immovable, can now be guaranteed. (shrink)

Since its inauguration in 1932, the Whitney Biennial has fostered contemporary artistic innovation and diversity, becoming a highly anticipated event in the art world. The 2010 Biennial is curated by Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari and features works by approximately 55 artists working in a variety of media and practices. Uniquely, this catalogue serves as both a handsome accompaniment to the 2010 exhibition and an insightful exploration of the significance of this acclaimed and often controversial event throughout its history. In (...) addition to presenting full-colour reproductions of the selected artists' recent work, the curators have prepared a joint essay on the 2010 exhibition, and a group of writers contributed brief entries on the represented artists' techniques, influences and recent work. Exhibition: Whitney Museum of American Art, 25 February - 30 May 2010. (shrink)

With more than 120 color photographs, Images of Kansas City provides an exquisite view of one of the country's most desirable places to live. This outstanding collection showcases the many landmarks and scenes associated with Kansas City: Country Club Plaza, with its beautiful fountains and statues; two great sports teams, the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals; buildings such as the Power & Light Building, the H. Roe Bartle Exhibition Hall, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; events at the American (...) Royal arena; and, of course, views of Kansas City's magnificent skyline. The images in this book were chosen from hundreds of photos submitted to William Mills by both professional and amateur photographers from Kansas City and the surrounding area. Because the contest had few restrictions about subject matter, the photos included demonstrate a wide sampling of photographic approaches and techniques, rendering an excellent portrayal of this vital city. In his introduction, William Mills provides important historical data on the background and development of Kansas City, touching briefly on the special people and features that have made Kansas City the thriving city that it is today. (shrink)

The lodestone is an extremely rare form of the mineral magnetite that occurs naturally as a permanent magnet. It therefore attracts metallic iron as well as fragments of ordinary ‘inert’ magnetite. This ‘magic’ property was known to many ancient cultures, and a powerful lodestone has always commanded a high price. By the eleventh century AD the Chinese had discovered that a freely suspended elongated lodestone would tend to set with its long axis approximately north–south, and utilized this property in the (...) magnetic compass. They also appear to have discovered that this invaluable characteristic could be handed‐on to a steel needle if the latter were contacted with, or stroked by, a lodestone.The magnetism of the lodestone was scientifically investigated by William Gilbert in the sixteenth century, when he defined its ‘poles' and the well‐known rule that ‘like poles repel, unlike attract’. He also studied ‘inclination’ and ‘variation’, and means to aid the preservation of magnetic power. How to concentrate it by ‘arming’ the lodestone with caps or pole‐pieces of soft iron was discovered in the same century. These methods have been repeated, confirmed, and improved. The lodestone occupies a vital place in the history of magnetism, but little beyond Gilbert's work can be reached by historical studies because vastly improved steel or alloy permanent magnets, and electromagnets, replaced it before quantitative measurements were developed. These techniques have therefore been applied retrospectively to both museum specimens and contemporary natural lodestones. A good source of the latter was found to be the igneous complex known as Magnet Cove, Arkansas, and this material has been used as the ‘type example’. All specimens were discrete, well‐rounded, rusty brown pebbles found near the surface. Their unweathered interiors were black titanomagnetite. No significant trace element or crystallographic differences could be found between the lodestones and the magnetically inert material that always accompanied them. The magnetic moment per unit volume of the ‘as‐found’ Magnet Cove lodestones varied between 6.5 and 11.6 emu cm−3, which compares poorly with the hundreds of units characteritzing modern permanent magnets. Hysteresis loops gave a saturation intensity of 27–51 emu cm−3, suggesting that intensity has diminished since formation. This agrees with general experience of magnets, especially in the absence of a ‘keeper’. The initial volume susceptibility of Magnet Cove magnetite was about 0.18 for low fields, and always remained <1. This means that a normal terrestrial magnetic field with a maximum vector <1 Oe is unable to induce even the low magnetic moments we see today, while a field approaching 1000 Oe is required for saturation. These parameters, and the rare occurrence of lodestones as near‐surface fragments, support suggestions that they are the product of a lightning strike upon an exposure of a suitable magnetite. Transient currents averaging 30 000 A have been measured. This would give rise to a zone of potential magnetic saturation at least 12 cm in diameter, to which some of the ejected fragments would be exposed. An attempt to determine the period elapsed since formation of the Magnet Cove lodestone was made by annealing magnetically saturated specimens at temperatures up to 500°C, and measuring J v at weekly intervals for 100 days. The decay curves visually resembled exponential functions, but mathematical tests proved that they were not strictly so. Interpretation was therefore difficult, but a pragmatic procedure involving excessive extrapolation suggested an ‘age’ of about 3500 years. (shrink)

As a young boy, Jacques Henri Lartigue set about passionately recording his life in photographs, first documenting his domestic circle and later capturing the auto races, air shows, and fashionable watering holes of the Belle époque. His images have so bewitched modern viewers that even scholars have failed to see them clearly. In Jacques Henri Lartigue: The Invention of an Artist, Kevin Moore puts to rest the long-held myth of Lartigue as a naïve boy genius whose creations were based on (...) instinct alone. Moore begins by exploring the milieu in which Lartigue became a photographer, examining his father's crucial role in teaching him the latest techniques as well as the larger context of the turn-of-the-century craze for amateur photography. Two events brought Lartigue before the public eye in America and created the Lartigue myth: In the summer of 1963, the first exhibition of Lartigue's work in the United States was held at the Museum of Modern Art, which hailed him as an important modernist photographer, a forerunner of the art-documentary style of the 1960s. That fall, Life magazine published a feature presenting his work as an optimistic and sentimental prologue to World War I. Both treatments portrayed him as a naïve genius and Lartigue happily participated in shaping this new persona. In Jacques Henri Lartigue: The Invention of an Artist, Moore successfully challenges the Lartigue myth using examples from popular magazines and the cinema. Illustrated with more than fifty of Lartigue's photographs and drawings as well as press imagery from the period, the book offers a radical reassessment of the photographer and his work. (shrink)

Sur quels critères Malraux a-t-il bâti ses associations d'oeuvre de cultures différentes dans son "Musée imaginaire"? Une question d'actualité à l'heure où les musées mêlent oeuvres occidentales et arts primitifs ou arts contemporains et arts anciens dans une même présentation. Georges Didi-Huberman, philosophe et historien de l'art, enseigne actuellement à l'École des hautes études en sciences sociales de Paris. 0Avec plus d'une trentaine de livres publiés depuis 1982, il est aujourd'hui l'un des théoriciens les plus actifs dans le paysage contemporain (...) des recherches sur l'image. Les conférences de la Chaire du Louvre et le livre qui les accompagne concernent le Musée imaginaire d'André Malraux. Il s'agira d'interroger le travail d'André Malraux sur les illustrations de son Musée imaginaire, travail explicitement inspiré par le Benjamin de la "reproductibilité technique" et de "l'auteur comme producteur. (shrink)