Something a bit different – a look at museum merchandising

I believe that most organisations would benefit by extending themselves into new territory every now and then. For cultural institutions there is, arguably, an expectation that they do so more responsively (or perhaps only more regularly) than other types of businesses. Think of the massive public appetite for new visitor experiences. Certainly in a highly pressured economic climate, it makes sense to be as nimble as possible. For those whose revenue streams are less secure (e.g. relying on public money or grants), it makes sense to diversify towards commercial activity over which there is some control.

A sample of our new Christmas cards

At Whanganui Regional Museum we’ve been looking at new ways to leverage off the institution’s huge collection by creating merchandising that’s directly based on objects. Enter our new Christmas card range. We’ve taken two approaches with them. The first, pictured at right, is to use items from the collection to make tongue-in-cheek retro cards based on objects from the early to mid 20th century. The 1950s fruit cake mix box and 1970s plastic sandals are two of my favourites, reflecting both the era and the typical Kiwi summer’s activities.

The other type of card are reproductions of real Christmas cards out of our collection from the end of the 19th century and a bit beyond. They have, naturally, a completely different look: little kittens play with children and Christmas crackers amid winter flowers, all in antique colours that hold up surprisingly well.

Inside the case showing the cards with the authentic objects

I think that both of these cards work aesthetically and if I saw them in a shop I might send either as Christmas cards myself. But what sets a museum bookshop apart from a normal retail outlet is its connection to the objects that visitors might have seen. The authenticity of the real objects is core to the museum experience and visitors react far less strongly to imitations or images.

We decided on the slightly unorthodox plan of bringing the objects used in the cards to the shop itself, so people could see first hand the relationship merchandise and the heritage on which it was based. From the feedback we’ve been getting, it’s been a good strategy, and the cards are selling well.

Since then, I’ve been looking at clever museum merchandise. Here’s one of my favourites, from the Hamburg Dungeon (although based on the concept of the place, rather than objects – I’m not sure if the Hamburg Dungeon even has a collection).

It’s also hard to pass up product from the surreal, iconic Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City, California. At the risk of doing it an injustice, I’ll simply past the product description from the web page.

Soviet space programme dog in an interactive locket from the Museum of Jurassic Technology

This handcrafted, Sterling silver locket comes with a set of five tiny photos commemorating one of the Museum’s exhibits. A swiveling bail allows the contents to be viewed through the glass domes on either side. The frame of the locket features a delicate scalloped edge, and is completed by an 18″ Sterling silver wheat chain. Please choose the set of accompanying photographs. “Dogs of the Soviet Space Program” features portraits of the brave canines who where launched into orbit. The “Microminitaures” set features various works by Hagop Sandaldjian, Al Richards, and others from the Museum’s collection.

"Monanisms" published by the Museum of Old and New Art. Destined for status as a cult classic.

Books, of course, are museums’ stock and trade. Whanganui Regional Museum has the extremely lovely Te Ara Tapu published for us by Random House. But I’d like to focus briefly on Monanisms published by the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, Australia. From the book’s co-author and museum’s founder, David Walsh:

“…The most important forces behind me and this museum stem from my dark side. That being said, here are the lies you have to be told…”

The book was written by David Walsh and Elizabeth Mead, with Jane Clark and others. “Not all art wank.”

A take-home messages that is emerging for me are those of relevance, authenticity and a respectful sense of humour. I think, as museums continue their inexorable march towards being run as businesses we (the industry) will continue to develop museum merchandising that stretches the boundaries of what’s possible and provide new ways of delighting the museum-going public of remembering their visit.

As a final note, I’d like to thank the team at Whanganui Regional Museum who are constantly on the lookout to find some clever new approach to share with our visitors…

Death of the Narrative Museum

Objects of art and nature come together in a combined Kunstkammer/Wunderkammer Source: Maler, Titel, Datierung müssen noch nachgetragen werden. Gallery: Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen, Mannheim

I was recently attended a meeting of museum directors in New Zealand and heard the comment that “The narrative museum is dead”. This was a bold statement, as I see that many institutions are only just beginning to leave the Wunderkammer / Kunstschrank / cabinets-full-of-whatever-you’ve-got model behind for a potentially more thought-provoking, story-led approach in which the objects support an overall narrative. In fact, in many highly successful institutions, the object-based model that preceded it is still thriving. They include some of my favourite museums, where I enjoy looking at cabinet after cabinet full of things. (Although a room with 150,000 beetles on display might not be everybody’s cup of tea.)

The problem with the older model, the one that the Narrative is meant to address, is that older style displays frequently lose, or completely ignore the context of the object, and visitors are left fishing among the dusty cases for scraps meaning.  One could argue that this approach was more about celebrating the prestige of the collector who was able to traverse the world gathering Interesting Things, rather than about the heritage (intangible or otherwise) of the objects.

The Jewish Museum in Berlin, a highly successful Narrative Museum. So what's the problem?

The Narrative has been a great boon to exhibition developers who want to help their audiences seek something deeper from within the objects, to tie ideas together, and to move beyond the purely physical. There are many fine examples of the narrative museum. The Jewish Museum in Berlin, and the Museum of New Zealand – Te Papa Tongarewa are just two. Walking around them, there’s never any doubt at the story the knowledge holders want you to understand. I was especially taken by the middle ages and renaissance artefacts in the Jewish Museum (being always drawn to just-pre-early-modern objects). A display took me through what it would have been like in a European ghetto of the 12th Century (I’m guessing here). Not very pleasant.

I came away thinking that I was very glad not to be there/then/those people with their problems (my own being negotiating the U-Bahn back to my friends’ house). My head filled with the problems of the ghetto dwellers of Medieval Europe, I proceeded somewhat aimlessly through the cleverly tortuous and angst-inducing architecture and took in a lot more stories from many times, mostly to do with undeserved suffering and violent death. It was a stimulating, if not wholly pleasant experience, precisely as it was intended.

The question comes only later when you ask yourself if you were simply buying into the stories they wanted you to hear. Where was the opportunity for me to form my own opinions, ask my own questions, or make connections with other things I might have known? I’m sure they were present, but I didn’t feel overtly challenged to make my own meaning from what I saw.

With the inexorable march of social media into our lives, we are becoming used to being able to shape what we experience and what information we store and receive. As I type this, I have both Facebook and Twitter up in the background. I will use them to advertise to my friends the completion of this post.

This brings up the notion of Co-Creation, in which visitors are encouraged, and given an opportunity, to construct their own meanings and interact with and change the material. Engagement becomes a partnership and the content is continually re-contextualised, depending on the viewer. There isn’t yet a roadmap for creating experiences like this, and the very clever failures are mounting.

Silk purse made from a sow's ear. Arthur Little, 1921. Collection of the Smithsonian Institution

As a thought exercise, I’ve taken one of the most bizarre objects I’ve come across in a long time. It’s a knitted purse in created in 1921, by Massachusetts industrialist Arthur D. Little, and housed at the Smithsonian Institution. As an object, it’s not terribly beautiful. It looks a bit like two old sweat socks held together with hose clamps. Those in the know, would be correct in thinking it was a recreation of a Medieval lady’s purse. It’s not until you discover that it is made from a sow’s ear that it becomes interesting. From the Smithsonian website:

From a meat-packer he obtained a form of glue made from the skin and gristle of sows’ ears. Taking an amount roughly equivalent to one sow’s ear, he had it filtered and forced through a spinneret into a mixture of formaldehyde and acetone. The glue emerged as 16 fine, colourless streams that hardened and then combined to form a single composite fiber. Little soaked the fiber in dyed glycerine. Then he wove the resulting thread into cloth on a handloom-and fashioned the cloth into the elegant purse shown here.

Little, of course, did it to challenge Jonathan Swift‘s adage, “You can’t make a silk purse of a sow’s ear”, proving, of course that American ingenuity and ‘can-do’ attitude can conquer all obstacles in this best of all possible (pre-stock market-crash) worlds. The story behind the object – its intangible heritage – is what makes the object of value. How do you get this across, while allowing people to form their own meaning to it? When does the friendly guiding hand become paternalistic micromanagement? Do we need more language in the museum sector, or tools, or will Facebook and Collections On Line to sort it all out for us?

It’s tricky.

Related articles

• Small objects telling big stories (britishmuseum.org)

Weird Armies

Soldiers of the Dutch East India Company. Protecting mercantile interests abroad.

I just discovered, while doing some research, that the Dutch East India Company had a private army. I was surprised to discover that, assuming it had been more like Macy’s meets David Livingston. But it makes sense. Given their acquisitive agenda, coupled with the (quite reasonable) opinion of local people that they would rather keep what was theirs, some bashing was is order.

The Vatican used to have a mercenary army too. Possibly not commensurate with today’s platform of world-peace and the non-use of birth control (the combination of the two doesn’t really bear thinking about).

A flattering bust of Ramesses II (if you believe the reconstructions)

From an evolutionary standpoint, humans are (almost) the only species that uses others to do their dirty work. And we have a lengthy history of it. Back in the thirteenth century BC, Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II used 11,000 foreign mercenaries to augment his troops.The “Medjay” was a generic term given to tribal scouts and light infantry recruited from Nubia from the late Old Kingdom period through that of the New Kingdom. Others included warriors from Libya, Syria and Canaan, The Sherdens from Sardinia appear in distinctive horned helmets on wall paintings as body guards for Ramesses II.

Herald III of Norway, last of the Vikings

Roman and, later, Byzantine Emperors  contracted foreigners especially for their personal corps guard called the Varangian Guard, taken principally from the warlike Viking peoples. Their mission was to protect the Emperor and Empire and since they did not have links to the Greeks, they were expected to be ready to suppress rebellions. One of the most famous guards was the future king Harald III of Norway, also known as Harald Hardrada (“Hard-counsel”), who arrived in Constantinople in 103. He participated in eighteen battles and became Akolythos, the commander of the Guard, before returning home in 1043. He was killed, famously, by an arrow in the throat, at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in England in September 1066, when his army was defeated by an English, commanded by King Harold Godwinson (who, less than a month later, later killed during the Norman Conquest by an arrow to the eye. Not a great time to be a king…).

A brooding Charlton Heston in 1961 as the mercenary El Cid, looking, no doubt, nothing like the real person. For a start, I suspect El Cid would not have been wearing Louis Vuitton.

In Italy, the Condottiero was a military chief offering his troops, the condottieri, to city-states. During the ages of the Taifa kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula, Christian knights like El Cid could fight for some Muslim ruler against his Christian or Muslim enemies, which must have got somewhat complex.

During the 15th and 16th centuries, the colourful German Landsknechte, became the most formidable mercenary force, hired by all the powers in Europe and often fighting at opposite sides. Sir Thomas More in his book Utopia advocated the use of mercenaries in preference to citizens, whose time was taken up with more noble pursuits.

Il Condottiere, by da Vinci 1480

At roughly the same time, Niccolò Machiavelli in The Prince argued the exact opposite, on the grounds that the sole motivation of mercenaries is their pay, so they will not be inclined to take the kind of life-threatening risks that could turn the tide of a battle. Additionally a mercenary who failed was incompetent, but one who succeeded might be even more dangerous, which explained the frequent, violent betrayals characteristic of  mercenary/client relations in Italy at the time.

A crab fights for its life against army ants in Gabon. I don't like its chances. Photo: Axel Rouvin, Lille / Bordeaux, France

There aren’t many armies in nature, unless you consider cooperative foraging, in which case you can find examples among the pack-hunting predators: dolphins, whales, the big cats and dogs, or the great apes (which presumably share behaviours with humans because of the close evolutionary relationship). I’ll skip all of those examples, interesting as they are. They don’t fit in a strictly mercenary fashion. Even the warlike Hymenoperta (ants, bees, wasps and their relatives) are usually going for food or territory. But are humans the only ones to other individuals or other species (like dogs?) in combat? I may have found the answer. Stay tuned…

Intangible Natural Heritage

Routledge has just published on its website an advance announcement of Intangible Natural Heritage: New Perspectives on Natural Objects, a book we’re in the middle of editing. It’s been a long process, but very exciting to see it almost completed. When we (ICOM NATHSIT) put forward the book idea, it seemed timely, both from the point of view that only a few people so far have thought about the topic formally, and because the so many of the world’s environmental problems could be solved if people cared more about them.

Deborah Cipriani is playfully attacked by skunks wanting attention and affection, in the living room of her home in North Ridgeville, Ohio, Wednesday Nov. 13, 2002. She uses her home to rescue and rehabilitate pet skunks from people who no longer want to care for them, and has over two dozen skunks in her house. She also educates people and groups about owning and caring for skunks. (AP Photo/The Morning Journal, Paul M. Walsh)

In a sense, the book is about the relationship of people to the natural world. It’s not merely the relationship people have with animals as pets (even the wild animals such as the skunks of Deborah Cipriani, pictured here). Intangible natural heritage describes the untouchable elements of the environment that combine to create natural objects, and help define our relationship to them. These elements can be sensory, like the sound of a landscape, or processes like natural selection.

However, to be classified as heritage these relationships must be able to be passed on from generation to generation. So the traditions we form around wildlife and nature fit most comfortably with the concept, while inclusion of, say,the process of evolution within the idea is open to interpretation and, perhaps, to taste.

A cricket cage manufacturer in China (Shandong, Jinan, 1996). Photo: Tao Kai

The variety of chapters in the book, as shown in the table of contents below, attests to the the hugely different possible approaches to the subject. For instance, Xingbao Jin and Alan Yen write about the fascinating (and to us in the West, somewhat arcane) Chinese art of keeping crickets in cages for their song, as well as fighting.

I call it an art rather than a practice because of the depth of the culture associated with singing insects in China, stretching back thousands of years. The cages are made with exactitude, the insects are bred by specialists and the dozens of species are prized for subtle differences in their song and behaviour.

These sorts of relationships, whether to species or landscapes, extant for extinct, form a large part of the thinking, and great many of the examples in Intangible Natural Heritage.  But the relationships are only a starting point. In a museum setting (from which some of the authors write), interpreting the natural world for the public can be an effective window in getting them to think more critically about the environment as a whole. Individual animals or species, landscapes, and their associations, become ambassadors for conservation and sustainability. Jin and Yen write about using live crickets on exhibition to instil enthusiasm for urban biodiversity in China.

I’ve argued in the ICOM NATHIST Ethics Blog that this is a moral issue. I’m not alone. Dr Darcia Narvaez at the University of Notre Dame, writing in 2010 for Psychology Today’s blog “Moral Landscapes”, says in The Morality of Care for Our Environment:

I am starting to understand how I have moved into many relationships that I did not explicitly or consciously choose. When I am born or when I move into a neighborhood, I take up a place on the community web of relationships one to all and all to one, whether I acknowledge the relationships or not. These relationships are not just with other human beings, but with other creatures and life as a whole. It is like we are together on a trampoline. My movements affect me of course, but also everyone and everything else.

This is a message that, I hope, comes across strongly in the book, adding its voice to a growing field of study that embraces a holistic approach addressing a growing suite of environmental problems.

Contents of Intangible Natural Heritage

1. Intangible Natural Heritage: An Introduction. Eric Dorfman

2. The Intangible Roots of Our Tangible Heritage. Adrian Norris

3. Case Studies of Intangible Natural Heritage from Museum Collections. John A. Long

4. ‘That Singular And Wonderful Quadruped’: The Kangaroo As Historical Intangible Natural Heritage in the Eighteenth Century. Markman Ellis

5. “Project INH”: A Case Study Of the Role of Museums in the Interpretation of Intangible Natural Heritage. B. Venugopal

6. On Nature’s Terms: Preserving the Practice of Traditional Backcountry Recreation in New Zealand’s National Parks. Lee Davidson

7. Poetically, Man Dwells With Crickets: Nature and Culture of Chinese Singing Insects. Xingbao Jin and Alan L. Yen

8. Terra Cognita, Down and Under, Living Stones and the Sound of Stones: Reflections on Four Exhibitions. Ulrike Stottrop

9. Discussion: Towards a Unified Concept of Intangible Natural Heritage. Eric Dorfman and Janet Carding

Sounds On Our Shores

Chinese Opera at "Sounds of Our Shores" at Whanganui Regional Museum. Photo Kathy Greensides

For the month of May, we (we, being the Whanganui Regional Museum) are jointly celebrating “Museums and Memory”, the theme of this year’s International Museum Day,as well as New Zealand Music Month, with a series of concerts devoted to music and memory. Last weekend, we hosted a wonderful concert Sounds On Our Shores, which demonstrated the sort of unexpected hybrid project that, I believe, makes people take notice. Based on the turnout, we hit the mark pretty well. In a general sense, thinking laterally about programming responds to increasing public demand for innovation, carried on the wave of iTunes, interactivity and augmented reality.

Andy Dolling playing the Shakuhachi

In our concert, performers played music that related to them personally, either through their country of origin, or which they brought back with them while travelling. John and Jean Hanna played Irish music on the electronic bagpipes and keyboard, followed by Liz Newton on violin (acoustic) playing jigs and other music of Ireland, Scotland and England. Andy Dolling played haunting music on the Shakuhachi, a Japanese flute created out of natural bamboo. After the break, Anita Thirtle led a performance of scenes from Chinese opera and, to finish, Elaine Holden sang music from New Zealand or (like “Ten Guitars”) from overseas that had been adopted by kiwi culture. Kudos to our very hard working External Relations Coordinator, Louise Follett, for putting together this ambitious programme.

Innovation in programming is, in and of itself, increasingly a goal for museums. New forms of engagement, lateral thinking, the element of surprise. (Who expects a Steampunk Museum in Oamaru?) To me, the innovation in our programme has come in part from putting together  disparate ideas. We are, for instance, having other concerts on 19th Century instruments from our collection. The programme’s diversity and unexpected combinations of  elements have drawn favourable comments, adding depth, and achieving our goal of provoking thought and being a catalyst for discourse.

Ich wohne in Whanganui

Sounds On Our Shores also makes me think how fortunate we are to have the cultural diversity we do in Whanganui, sufficient to support artists coming together for a concert like this. Although not represented in the programme, we have communities from India, the Pacific Islands, Thailand, South Africa and many others. I’d love to put this concert on again, and include more of them. It encourages us to think “What does is it mean to be somebody from Whanganui?”, a microcosm of the question “What does it mean to be a kiwi?” I hope Sounds On Our Shores demonstrates that it means many things.

Petrified Lightning, Dwarf Elephants, and the Pursuit of Knowledge

A piece of petrified lightning or fulgurite, created when electricity sears the soil into glass.

A little while ago, doing research for Intangible Natural Heritage, I stumbled across an amazing natural phenomenon that was completely new to me: petrified lightning, or fulgurite. Now I don’t know much about lightning, and haven’t actually thought about it much (except once a few years back when lighting struck about three meters from me). But this is cool. Lighting seems so ephemeral and intangible, and yet, here is a stone, of sorts, that’s a permanent record of its existence – its size, and the tortuous shape as it plummets down from the sky.

Looking at their various forms, you really get a sense of the raw power contained in lighting. Their crenelations are formed when the white hot electricity (hotter than the surface of the sun) sears the soil it hits instantaneously into glass. They’re beautiful, and also a record of the atmosphere’s immense power and volatility. If you’re interested in the science behind lightning’s creation, and have a spare five minutes, check out the Discovery Channel video on the website How Stuff Works, here.

Zeus having a bust-up with Typhon, Chalcidian black-figured hydria, ca. 550 BC, Staatliche Antikensammlungen (Inv. 596)

Given the awesome destructive power of thunderbolts, it’s not surprising that ancient cultures associated them with divine power and retribution. Zeus, King of the Greek Gods, wielded a bolt of lightning, given to him by the Cyclops. Here he is battling Typhon, son of Gaia. Typhon was fairly nasty – his human upper half reached the stars, and a hundred dragon heads sprouted from  each hand (presumably making it difficult to eat). His bottom half was gigantic viper coils, fire flashed from his eyes, and he sported a pair of mighty wings. The word “typhoon” derives from Typhon, and it’s easy to see why. You can imagine that thunderstorms invoked this fight in people’s minds, the wind and rain versus thunder and lightning.

Skull of the drawrf elephant, which could have been the Cyclopos. I get that. Photo: Max M.

The Ancients’ attempts to understand the world around them has given rise to rich legacy of stories. The myth of the Cyclops itself was postulated by the palaeontologist Othenio Abel to have arisen from the discovery of skulls from the dwarf elephant Palaeoloxodon spp. which lived prehistorically on Sardinia, Rhodes, Sicily, Malta and Crete. Having never seen a live elephant, and with nothing to compare it to, they not surprisingly contextualised it in a frame of reference they understood. The large nasal cavity, which forms the base of the trunk, was interpreted to be an eye socket. Skull of a dwarf elephant is about twice that of a human’s, which they thought was that of a giant man.

Stories about everything from volcanoes to vampires probably arose the same way. It would be easy to scoff at the simplicity and superstition of the Classical World. So much information since that time has been given to us by People Who Know Things that we expect we (or they) understand pretty much all there is to know about everything. And yet, don’t we also fill in the gaps in our evidential knowledge with supposition based on our own socially determined world view? Do we have any choice?

Related Articles

• Is Ball Lightning A Hallucination? A New Study Says Yes (amog.com)
• The Rekhmire tomb elephant revisited: island dwarf or Syrian giant? [Tetrapod Zoology] (scienceblogs.com)
• Electrifying image – a rare lightning phenomenon is caught on camera (guardian.co.uk)

Dissecting Play

Visitors attending the launch of "Weird & Curious or Just Plain Evil?"

This morning we launched the refresh of our exhibition Weird and Curious, or Just Plain Evil? at the Whanganui Regional Museum. It was a breakfast, and a chance for kids (and their parents) to give the newly revitalised exhibition a test run. We’ve changed a few objects in the exhibition, it’s true – the silver tea set is replaced by 19th Century shackles; some New Look hats are gone in favour of carrion-eating birds, all in an effort to enhance the “evil” quality of the experience. But the fundamental difference to the exhibition is the introduction of an interactive murder mystery game, and a narrative. Instead of an assemblage disparate objects, there’s a story, which is supported by the pieces. The mystery is solved in two phases – the first is to use clues scattered around the exhibition to narrow down the objects a list of six, one from each basic type of object (natural history, medicine, musical instruments etc.). The next phase is to use a process of elimination to figure out which of those six objects was the murder weapon of the killer. In order to solve the mystery, you have to find out information about the objects, by reading the labels.

A family working through the clues at the launch.

It was heartening to talk to adult visitors who had never realised the breadth objects we have at the museum. A key to this success (and I definitely view that as success) is that you can’t win the contest without finding out about the objects, reading the labels, and thinking about how they all fit together. This element of play increases the sense of engagement and gives visitors a  vested interest in finding out about the objects.

Cheap trick I hear you say? Well, I admit, we’re using the vehicle of the mystery to get people to engage with the objects, but the heritage is still there – you have to assimilate information in order to play. And before you liken it to covering cauliflower with cheese sauce so your kids will eat it, games provide a lot of learning opportunity. There are many theories on why people (and animals for that matter) play.

Anteaters at play. Go figure. Photo: Reid Park Zoo, by Chanel Wheeler.

My favourite for the natural world  is the “practice theory”, in which animals are gaining skills for later use. Birds and mammals play more than reptiles (but see an interesting set of studies about play in crocodiles here). My feeling is that, for the most part, birds and mammals rely on learned behaviours for survival, which makes play more important to them than for reptiles, which are more instinctive (with, interestingly, the exception of crocodiles). So why do people play?

There’s an awful lot of theory around why people play, and a great deal of it is around development and social facilitation. In the context of practice theory, that makes sense. We live in groups, connect with one another with a common social currency, and this requires a variety of skills to succeed in life. Play by children helps hone these. Why, then, to adults play? An evolutionary view could be that we have developed far more intellect that we need to get through life. After all, we’re unlikely to be faced by lions or bears on a daily basis. So play, and other forms of creativity, allow us to burn off “intellectual steam”. That’s the essence of fun.

XEODesign, in Oakland, California says that the best games are ones that instil a sense of wonder. They have a very interesting poster that analyses the “Four Keys to Fun” (here), which they’ve produced for game designers. It’s seems ironic to have such a detailed analysis of something that we experience on such a gut level. And yet, it makes sense. The more the tools are known, the better products we’ll produce.

Song of the Woods

Subalpine fir. Not local, but captures the mood. Or one of them. Photo: Walter Siegmund

I don’t normally do reviews. I never think that a description of what you saw could ever be good enough to take the place of being there. But last weekend I saw a performance that was exciting enough to make me break with tradition. And since it was, to my knowledge, the only time this particular event will be staged, this is likely to be all you’re going to get.

The performance was “Let the Art Sing: Song of the Woods”, which was a coordinated semi-improvisational response of several musicians to a series of paintings and sculputre in the recently opened exhbition  Song of the Woods at the Sarjeant Gallery. I had been to see the exhibition previously (just a few steps up the hill from the museum, in Queen’s Park). It’s a diverse collection of paintings and sculpture:

Drawing on the Sarjeant Gallery’s wonderfully rich collection and supplemented with loaned material, this exhibition features a wide range of works investigating the subject matter of trees; from quietly bucolic photographs and paintings from the early 20th century through to contemporary works from a broad range of artists including photographers, Peter Peryer, Ann Shelton, Paul Johns, painters Johanna Pegler and Andrew McLeod and sculptural work by Andrea du Chatenier and Glen Hayward.

Inside the Sarjeant, where the event was held. You have to imagine it crammed with people. Photo: Phil Rickerby

The artists moved through the gallery responding sonically to the works and we, the audience, followed them around. It was mesmerising. For much of the time, I even forgot the other audience memebers- a big feat, as at it was capacity crowd. However, the sounds they created, drawing at times from classical, jazz and postmodernist genres, created a wonderful other-worldliness that allowed you to connect in a new way to the works. It was, in a way, like having a conversation with the skilled and highly attuned musicans – they told you what they thought of the works through music. Some of it was staged, and there was one pre-existing work: Ingrid Culliford playing Density 21.5 by Edgard Verèse in response to Martin Poppelwell’s painting Study for an Apricot Tree.

Some of it was also amsuing – at one point, the clarinetist followed the soprano in pan-like fashion, in response to Andrea du Chatinier’s scuplural work Daffinie. For me, however, the abiding meory was the overall effect: simply one of connection to the art and, especially, to nature, unexpected in a very crowded Neoclassical gallery. The structure of the event enhanced this; our need to follow the artists gave the event a physicality that changed a performance into a kinesthetic experience. It was a sort of modern walk-through sibling of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

The project was conceived and led by composer and sound artist Susan Frykberg, with the talents of Sam Hagmann (who surpisingly played the aplenhorn, among a host of other insturments), Ingrid Culliford, flute; Urs Singer, clarinet; Diantha Hillenbrand, voice and “small sound-making objects” and Malcolm Alders, base. Based on the turnout, I’m sure it’s not the last time we’ll see this collaboration. I hope not.

 

Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition

Life On the Whanganui River

"The line" as water leaves the river into the Pacific Ocean, on an outgoing tide. Click to enlarge.

I’m not sure I’m actually qualified to post a blog with that title. I don’t live on the Whanganui River. Rather, I’m perched, on the sea coast, just to the north of the river mouth. I can see the river outlet from the house, where the distinct cells of clear seawater and muddy freshwater move languidly up river, and then back out again. Locals call this “the line” and everybody who lives near enough to see it, gets the view, twice a day,  past their windows. Although the coast is not, for some unknown reason, as populated or well-used as the river itself, it’s a spectactular setting and just right for inspiring some quiet time after a hectic day at the Whanganui Regional Museum which, as of the beginning of this month, I have the privelage of leading.

View from my desk, from which the next book will (all going well) be written.

It feels like a place in which it will be easy to be creative. Although that can be said for most of Whanganui. It’s a vibrant place, filled with far more artists, writers and thinkers than a town of 45,000 has the right to expect. Today, I’ll be going to see venues at the Artists Open Studios, in which dozens of extremely talented artisans make their premises open to the public, providing entertainment and activites for visitors who stroll down the main street from place to place. On my desk, I have a ticket to the finale of La Fiesta, a “Fanciful Celebration of Women”, which is a city-wide event, and has featured an enormous variety of talent. Just over a week ago, I had the pleasure of opening a wonderful six-artist exhbition called “Littoral Drift“, nicely celebrating the very coast I can see from my window.

Of course, I’m keen for the museum to be as integrated as possible into this hubub of creative output, and we’re planning a host of temporary exhbitions and refreshments to permanent galleries that will, I think, be very important locally and further afield. But that’s for a later post. It’s now early morning, and the birds are beginning to wake up, demanding attention. When Joseph Banks, the famous naturalist, arrived to New Zealand with Captain Cook on the Endeavour in 1770, he wrote his journal:

This morn I was awakd by the singing of the birds ashore from whence we are distant not a quarter of a mile, the numbers of them were certainly very great who seemd to strain their throats with emulation perhaps; their voices were certainly the most melodious wild musick I have ever heard, almost imitating small bells but with the most tuneable silver sound imaginable to which maybe the distance was no small addition. On enquiring of our people I was told that they have had observd them ever since we have been here, and that they begin to sing at about 1 or 2 in the morn and continue till sunrise, after which they are silent all day like our nightingales.

Morpork or Ruru, Photo M. Osborne 2006.

While it’s not anything like that now anywhere in New Zealand, apart from heavily protected island sanctuaries, last night I could hear a family of Morepork Ninox novaeseelandiae somewhere in the neighbourhood, and this morning a 20-strong flock of Silvereye Zosterops lateralis are working their way past my office window checking meticulously under each leaf for insects. It’s good to be reminded of our native species, in a world dominated by invasives: in my lounge a lone cockroach, which I killed, in a cafe a flock of sparrows which (okay, I admit it), I fed. The Whanganui region, blessed with a mild climate that Wellingtonians, just two hours south, would give their eye teeth for, is a haven to a great diversity of introduced species.

Pheasants are still very common along the banks of the river. Photo: Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, 2006.

It’s not surprising, really. The Wanganui Acclimatisation Society was particularly proactive. In 1868, its Secretary was none other than controversial Walter Buller, his modern reputation as a conservationist, in my opinion, somewhat misplaced. In the meeting minutes of the W.A.S. they described their successful attempts to introduce pheasant and (fortunately) unsuccssful attempts to introduce Murray cod. They listed the animals they had acquired and introduced into the local area: 8 kangaroos; 2 wallabies; 1 Tasmanian kangaroo; 4 burrowing rabbits; 4 black swans; 30 Chinese pheasants; 6 English pheasants; 2 partriges; 8 California quail; 14 Australian quail; 4 Madagascar quail; 3 Tasmanian magpies; 27 Wonga-wonga pigeons; 2 cockatoo pigeons; 2 bronzewing pigeons; 6 ringed doves; 2 English jays; 8 greenfinches and 2 sparrows. Many of these animals died on the trip over, or soon after arrival. However, others, like the rabbit, pheasant, magpies and quail, are abundant residents here.

This has, so far, been a toe in the water into this community, its lush, verdant, natural history, to say nothing of its rich human heritage. The museum’s vast collection will, alone, keep me busy thinking for some time to come. And, with each new discovery, a hundred more questions emerge.

Mind Theft: Lady Gaga and Genetic Engineering

C'mon, she looks like Madonna

I just read on Twitter that Lady Gaga’s video Born This Way is being criticised as having being too close to Madonna’s Respect Yourself. I can see the point. Lady Gaga’s song really just makes me want to hear Madonna’s. Less reported, but equally intruiguing is the striking visual similarity between aspects of Bad Romance and Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Outta My Head. And if you said that in this MTV remix, she looks like Cher and sounds like Christina Aguilera, you wouldn’t get much of an argument from me. Finally, there’s the nice analysis of Lady Gaga’s sonic similarity to Gwen Stefani.

Now, don’t think I’m getting down on Gaga. I like her. I haven’t used the word plagiarism once. My question (and probably that of  the legal community) is whether or not she combines the  attributes of the other singers into something uniquely her own. It’s a completely reasonable question. Who wants their work copied for someone else’s gain? Arguably, there are only so many notes, so many chords, and so many set designs physically possible, so everybody is copying somebody. Right?

Cornfield in New York State. Is it ethical to copyright nature? Photo: Jamie Lantzy

So what about when you’re copying nature? Genetically engineered (and copyright) corn, soy and other foods have been around a while. Like bird flu and Y2K, the furor has died down and we don’t really think about it much anymore. But for many farmers, both who do and don’t grow genetically engineered crops, it remains an important issue, especially when it comes to patented plants. Monsanto, a major producor of GE seed, has taken hundreds of farmers to court over illegal use of patented seed stock. Many farmers rebut this by pointing out that the wind, birds, insects, and other natural forces spread GE pollen and seed and there’s nothing they can do about it. In 2001, the Canadian Federal Court ruled the following:

…a farmer whose field contains seed or plants originating from seed spilled into them, or blown as seed, in swaths from a neighbour’s land or even growing from germination by pollen carried into his field from elsewhere by insects, birds, or by the wind, may own the seed or plants on his land even if he did not set about to plant them. He does not, however, own the right to the use of the patented gene, or of the seed or plant containing the patented gene or cell.

The effect, of course, is that a farmer can’t use his own ‘contaminated’ crops for seed, because it would be an infringement of copyright.

On a global scale, there is the risk that  increase of genetically modified foods would make developing countries more dependent on industrial countries (and large corporates) because it is likely that the food production would be controlled by big industry in the time to come. In India, the controversy rages, but the moratorium stands.

A strawberry frog, thanks to the miracle of Photoshop

This issue crops up (forgive the pun) in other contexts as well. Researchers at the University of Guelph in Canada spliced a mouse gene into a pig’s DNA to produce an”Enviropig”, which with the capability to digest plant phosphorus more efficiently and, as a result, reduces the environmentally damaging element in their waste. Is it safe to eat? Not sure about that (you try it and let me know), but the point is, that the animals’ DNA is owned by the researchers, as the pig is under trademark.

Get a loada them bikkies - go Martha. Credit: Martha Stewart.

If I want go to my kitchen and make some more transgenic pigs from scratch, using the same mouse DNA, is that a breach of copyright law? It’s just a recipe, of sorts. Wouldn’t it just be like making a batch of Martha Stewart’s chewy chocolate chunk-cherry cookies? Clearly, that’s a vast oversimplication. They have, rightly or wrongly, patented a process where as Martha, bless her, did not. The raw materials (pig and mouse) have become, in their way, a new entity, just like a house made of wood and stone. The extent to which that’s acceptable  from an ethical standpoint is, at least to me, a very grey area. However, if Lady Gaga opens up a genetics laboratory, we should all worry.

Related Articles

• Madonna Express Yourself vs. Lady Gaga Born This Way: Copied (Watch)? (manolith.com)
• Is Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ A Madonna Rip-Off?? (chicagonow.com)
• Did Lady Gaga rip-off Kylie Minogue? (hollywoodnews.com)
• Genetically Engineered Sugar Beets Approved (doyourpart.com)
• Taste of Tech: Biohacking the Future (gearfuse.com)
• USDA Ignores Federal Ban and Approves Planting of GM Beets (friendseat.com)