A fresh pair of eyes

Thanks to David for giving me an invitation to join this select group - the expression 'fresh pair of eyes' comes from Steve and I think it is a really useful one when describing our positionality with regard to sites (eg musuems, schools etc.
I realised that that is what researchers are paid to do, which is look at things with a fresh pair of eyes and there is a strong literature on this especially in ethnography (Agar, The Professional Stranger, Agar's idea of making the familiar strange, Geertz's work on the Balinese cockfight, Todorov and his ideas about drawing near and then withdrawing from the field, the stuff on etic (researcher) and emic (researched) perspectives) but I realise that is what artists do too.
Steve thought that maybe I secretly wanted to be an artist which is why I am doing this research project.
He could be right.
But I think Steve is actually a researcher in disguise.
One thing about being in this group is that my positionality is very different - it is not my blog and so I feel, in a way, freer.
That is also interesting, as in my interview with Steve positionality came to the fore very strongly.
THanks for letting me join!

Pointy fingers and the case for impermanence

I wonder which of Galileo's fingers are on display: the one he used for pointing at the stars; the one he may have wagged when insisting that we're not the centre of the universe, or perhaps; the one he gave them when they continuously refused to listen? Don't matter I suppose, but it may influence any reception of the object as artefact (arti-fact or arte-fict?)

In Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, they have Muhammad's finger (which of the ten possible, I cannot remember at the moment). They also hold -- and hold dear, encased in gold and bedecked with jewels -- the right arm of St. John the Baptist as well as a bit of his decapitated skull. Perhaps it would be possible, if looking hard enough in the basement of museum collections world wide - to find enough material to re-compose a democratic and all-culture-encompassing arte-factual person as the absolute and final material evidence to a reality base of every common myth and history ever told?

Of course that would never happen, but wonder (as a now fully-fledged hypnagog) what the re-composition of 'common man' would look like if constructed and re(de)-constructed by distinct expert groups? Librarians would utilise a particular system of indexing, Italian mothers - another (perpendicular to that of Italian friends who are sons of Italian mothers?).
Perhaps, it would be simplest yet, to consider that of a Material Scientist at last nights talk on Fugitive Materials (yes, another talk! I'm trying to get out more as end of year and end of term syndrome leaves me unable to have a single fully formed and independent thought by myself but too wired to relax!). He, the scientist, approached the problem of speaking about impermanence from an scientific viewpoint by arranging and approaching all and everything in terms of scale: moving from small (the atom) to large (the stuff). Obviously and in turn, he eventually became the one who made the most sense of all.

monkey's claw and ripping yarns

ok, favourite museum objects - thinking of claws and ripping yarns: the Museum and History of Science in Florence has the middle finger of Galileo Galilei's right hand encased and mounted as a kind of relic. not sure that GG would've approved but i was absolutely fascinated! i like the way that museums masquerade as sites of learning, upholding sound scientific principles, but in fact provoke all kinds of messy subjective responses, morbid curiosity being one. i used to love going to this museum in florence. it's right on the river and there's never anyone there. i used to go on my way to my best mate's mum's for sunday lunch. she lived in a tiny, ancient little flat on a very steep road that my moped could never manage - just opposite where Galileo himself lived. i can taste paolo's mum's pasta sauce right now and it's all tangled up with galileo, bizarre relics and long sunday afternoon naps.

'inadvertently' inbetween

I've realised that I inadvertently placed myself in the wrong space between posts and broke the chronological order of things simply by not checking the setting of time and date before hitting 'publish'.
Interestingly, some orders you disturb by not knowing, others only by knowing in dept ... say that ignorance is bliss, but perhaps it's time to seriously consider its potential as a deliberate political strategy (laughing students take note!).

Breaking the analogous order again (linearity is difficult, isn't it!) and -- for now -- ignoring Steve's introduction of a new subject: above, an object that straddles the space between art object and museum artefact (so perhaps carpet fluff can as well?), and a continuous absolute favourite of mine: the Drum Recording Metrograph. I'm sure I don't need to explain why!

Bloggs

I had that thing where I did a big long piece of text and then it vanished. I felt really pissed off for half an hour and then really relieved that nobody would be able to read it. We all seem to be getting a bit philosophical. I can imagine a bunch of students laughing their socks off and the site becomeing a benchmark for ponderous goaty beared stroking.

I like the bit about the ommisions in the museums collections telling us something about societies prioities at a moment in time and the filling of these gaps sort of clouding the issue. I think I need to get more into the visual I reckon on a few occasions I can talk the talk when it comes to these kind of philosophical debates but I'm not sure I can walk the walk - especially when playing with the big boys.

Perhaps it is our role to provide something to respond to. To ask these questions in a different way. I remember a couple of years ago when I was doing a lot of Happy Clappy workshops with kids I told my partner that I really wanted to to something which was more cerebral. She said "You want to make work about celery" There is a lesson here but I'm not sure what it is. Oh I remember it takes more energy to chew celery than the calories you get out of it.

second Blog

The dogs now eaten two souvenier Donkeys from our only ever family holidays too Greece, I think they were covered in real animal fur, possibly cat ,so they got a more agressive savaging than the velor poney. Not even plasters and clingfilm could save these boys. I extended Davids Diagram to work out what the transition form tourist ethnographic curio to dog sick would mean in terms of the authentic and the diagram said Masterpiece.

Now as a confirmed dairy keeper I thought we could experiment with the blog to make it more interactive. I thought we could challenge everybody involved to try and think of their favourite museum artifact (David thats not an art gallery artifact - large tunnels or carpet fluff Hamsters are not acceptable)and say a few words about why.

Mine is in the Pitt Rivers ethnographic museum. It's the famous Monkeys Claw from the infamous Monkies Claw episode of "Ripping Yarns"the Michel Palin and Terry Jones 1970's collaberation. It sits downstairs in a Kensington Case just above it is a "witch in a Jar" donated in 1922 the lable states that if it is ever opened A "Whole Peck of trouble" will be released. I like the Monkies claw because it reminds me of sitting with my dad and brother watching Ripping yarns and laughing so much I was worried my dad was going to die (A man had "died of laughing"a couple of weeks earlier watching the Goodies). Virginia Wolf said that you can only really fully experience an emotion in the past so we should cherish every opportunity to revisit our pasts. If I watch Ripping Yarns now I can't see it through the eyes of a child. Basically it's a bit crap, especially the across the Andes by Frog episode. The object conects and takes me back and demonstrates that the museum collection is a growing and engaged.

hypnagogy, leaky boxes and general disorder

Ok, so I'm not having a good time with this blogging thing. I'm normally quite happy around technology and definitely stubborn enough to find out how to do what I need to do, but as the automated blog content management system has -- with a magnificent and quite enviable lack of explanation (obviously, it can't be asked!) -- thrown two already finished entries into the ether, I'm about to give up. And, I would have, if it wasn't for the fact that I now have become truly stubborn indeed and the fact that I had a truly fabulous day and refuse to let something as simple as binary technology get in the way.

I've been spending the morning investigating patterns with a group of primary school kids. We've been thinking about what patterns are good for and why we must know how to recognise them so we know how to break them ... if necessary! We had brilliantly serious discussions that were all very apt and useful in relation to the thoughts I'm having about categories and collections. I'm in favour of boxes that leaks, labels that fall of and get re-attached incorrectly and the space between one seemingly irrelevant thing and another. I'm curious as to what hidden concepts -- pattern of thoughts -- hide behind the eclectic displays of beautiful things we've been invited to explore? Can we blow them apart, or can we perhaps create another system that, at the very least, makes its own preference or ideology evident while exposing all those systems that don't?

This is truly an exciting project and I am so pleased to be involved. My head is spinning (+ eyes by now almost bleeding from flickering monitor). I need to relax and try to empty my head a bit. Fortunately, a conference this week on 'Dreams, Art and Literature' (Freud, there's another boxy thinker!) sanctioned the Hypnagogic State: The act of spacing out, a productive act indeed.

first blog for me

david has sent us a 'diagram for manufacturing authenticity' which marianne and i think is going to be key to our approach. but more of that another time. the idea is just too BIG for a first blog.

steve: i hope your hand is getting better. i love the thought of your daughter's toy pony in its cling-film swim suit. now where would that object belong if we had to incorporate in within a Barnsley/Rotherham/Doncaster collection?

i'm hoping this blog will provide a safe home for all those wandering thoughts. i can't seem to find anything anymore - my filing system is pitifully inadequate. We had a ferocious planning session on the train home from doncaster, (the depth-charge of the 'manufacturing authenticity' idea sparked off plenty more), but then i mislaid the scrappy bit of paper where i'd written it all down. the joys of collaboration: a week later, marianne says 'You folded it up and tucked it into the back pocket of your moleskine notebook' and there it was! So at least we have the beginnings of a plan.

first blog

this feels a bit strange. I had an operation on my hand yesterday so I am typing with little stumps of swollen fingers sticking out of the edge of a bandage hand. I thought I was going to be fine until the local wore off now its feels like someone very large has stamped on my hand in golf shoes. I'll post a picture of my stitches tommorow as the presssure dressing is coming off.

I left our puppy in the house unattended today and it ate the velor skin of my daughters black toy poney, then puked it all up on the hall carpet. I've cleaned it up with my left hand and got false hair flock dog sick on my bandage. Alice was initially distraut but has now created a cling film swim suit for her deformed and mangled car boot sale black beauty and has cheered up. It is this creative approach in the face of advercity which we aim to instill in the next generation.

Anyway I get to work in Rotherham -hope everyone is happy with this I'm really excited and it feels good to be able to say I'm artists in res at Rotherham rather than I'm going to be working at one of these three museums. Anyway I'm out of action for a couple of weeks but would like to use the time for thinking research and getting a bit of definition on possible directions for work and outcomes from the project.

Artists residencies in Barnsley, Doncaster & Rotherham

This Blog will document the progress of a series of artists' residencies at Cannon Hall in Barnsley (http://www.barnsley.gov.uk/tourism/cannonhall/index.asp), Doncaster Museum &Art Gallery (http://www.doncaster.gov.uk/Leisure_in_Doncaster/Museums_and_history/Museums/Doncaster_Museum_and_Art_Gallery.asp) and Clifton Park Museum in Rotherham (http://www.rotherham.gov.uk/graphics/Learning/Archives+and+Museums/Clifton+Park+Museum/).

The artists working at the Museums are Marianne Holm Hansen & Michaela Ross(http://www.inbetween.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/indexcontent.html), and Steve Pool, who I am sure will post information on themselves very shortly.