One of the favourite topics in our museum discussions is ‘presence effects’, i.e., how close encounters with museum objects can convey other (and often deeper) kinds of experiences than those you get from reading a book or hearing a talk (see, e.g., Ken Arnold’s and my article in a recent issue of the journal Isis).

Alistair Kwan, Assistant Director of the Study Group Program at the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, University of Rochester, relates a nice example of the difference between reading about a medical treatment in a book and having it demonstrated by means of a museum specimen:

I once did a little experiment: I asked a class to describe to me the phlebotomy apparatus that they’d read about in a history of medicine. They described it at length, with considerable detail. They told me how it worked.

Then I opened a box and showed them a common multiple-blade scarificator and some horn suction cups and brass syringe. “Is this what you were thinking of?” Every one of them said no. All were completely puzzled about how the author had so thoroughly misled them, supposedly in the name of scholarly truth.

I cocked the spring, and released the blades. They heard the snap. Only a few of them caught a glimpse of the blades spinning past; the rest didn’t even see it. Several retreated, pulling in their hands and holding their arms. All seemed to be imagining what it must feel like to have those blades flash through your skin.

None of that had come through in the book at all.

They had thought of something more like gentle surface scratches, or receiving a single, carefully controlled cut.

Not this grid of relatively deep lacerations, inflicted in the blink of an eye.

(from the rete mailing list)

That’s a nice example — would be great to hear more!

(thumbnail courtesy: http://www.phisick.com)

The traditional media image of what ‘a scientist’ looks like is pretty stereotypical, especially in film.

The aim of the This Is What A Scientist Looks Like tumblr-site with the subtitle “Change the perception of who and what a scientist is or isn’t” is to overthrow “the overwhelming stereotype that science is conducted behind closed doors by unapproachable old, white men”, who look like Einstein or Dr No. Take a look in the archive!

For people who, like me, love to watch human physiognomies, this is a feast.

(thanks 103.7FM for the thumbnail)

I came across this tweet from Archimuse the other day:

OK, it’s just an ephemeral twitter post. But both the original tweet and the retweet are from influential sites (Archimuse and Museums and the Web, respectively), whose words should normally be taken seriously.

So when they say that museum gallery rooms which are not assisted by many media (including, I guess, social media) are ‘stupid’, I think one has to take that claim seriously as more than an accidental tweet.

There may be ‘stupid’ ways of building galleries and displaying material artefacts. And there may also be ‘stupid’ ways of using social media in museums. There are plenty of opportunities for being ‘stupid’ in museums and on the web.

But to suggest that building a gallery without social media enhancement is ‘stupid’ per se — that claim is both ignorant and arrogant.

Ignorant because it shows a lack of understanding of the importance of unmediated engagement with material culture.

And arrogant, because it is made from the position of a technology (new media), which is only about ten years old, in contrast to the tradition for unmediated display of material museum artefacts, which has existed for hundreds of years.

And that’s why, in spite of being as long-time practitioner of new media in museums, I think the notion of ‘stupid rooms’ is — stupid!

‘Biomarkers’, i.e., chemical substances that are used as indicators of biological (especially pathological) conditions, is one of these important concepts in contemporary biomedicine that seem to be almost impossible as an exhibition topic — partly because the idea of ‘biomarker’ is so abstract and partly because the involved artefacts and substances don’t have much ‘presence’.

Unfortunately, because the search for biomarkers for diagnosing diseases or targets for personalised tharapies is accelerating. And maybe an innovative exhibition curator could learn something after all from the forthcoming conference ‘Towards personalized medicine? Exploring biomarkers’, organised by the Life-Science-Governance Research Platform at the University of Vienna in late June.

The aim of the conference is to explore, from the perspective of the humanities and the social sciences, the implications of biomarker research for “the daily practices of medical research and health care, and what kinds of futures are generated through the emerging biomarker practices”.

Proposed presentations should either explore translation processes of biomarker candidates, and/or discuss the various effects that biomarkers create, and explore the cultural impacts of the new developments in the biomarker field in biomedicine and society. Abstracts of roughly 300 words should be sent to doris.bichlwagner@univie.ac by April 22; accepted presenters will be notified a week later. The conference will take place at the University of Vienna, Austria, 28-28 June. More info here.

(thumbnail courtesy: Foundation for the NIH)

The Museums and the Web 2012 conference in San Diego has just ended.

In addition to attending the meeting and participating in the twitter backchannel, members of the museum community nominated and voted for their favourite museum websites:

Here’s the result of the popular vote for Best of the Web 2012 (People’s Choice):

After the popular vote, the jury voted for the following winners in ten categories:

Did you ever feel you lacked an overview of how the current European financial crisis affects museums and the culture sector as a whole?

I found a list of questions asked by the museum directors, fund-raisers, marketing managers, policy-makers etc. around Europe at the moment:

• How can cultural heritage be an economic driver?
• How can its economic impact be measured?
• What are the key technological innovations which have useful applications for the sector?
• Gimmick or gold dust – how can practitioners identify what technological developments create real impact and help organisations meet their objectives?
• How is new technology being used creatively to improve the visitor experience and engage new audiences?
• Can innovative technology be used effectively for a modest budget or does it always require a substantial investment?
• How do you future-proof investment in technology and avoid it becoming obsolete?
• What are the key drivers that will influence the shape of the sector in the next 10 years?
• What are the main challenges that need to be faced and what are the opportunities that can be harnessed?
• How can marketing strategies help organisations survive the current economic downturn?
• How can marketing practitioners still deliver results with dwindling budgets?
• In particular case studies are sought which have made the most of social media and/or operate on a shoestring budget.
• How can cultural heritage be used effectively in regeneration schemes?
• How can the impact of heritage-led regeneration be evaluated?
• What strategies are being used to develop new audiences for heritage sites and museums?
• How can venues attract diverse audiences and compete with so many other demands on people’s time?
• How can the local community be engaged and turned into frequent visitors?
• What will encourage families and young people to visit?
• As the sector faces devastating funding cuts, what alternative methods can organisations use to generate income?
• What can the cultural heritage sector learn from business approaches?

(from the Culture Matters 2012 website).

The problem with the list is it’s managerial lingo throughout. I wonder what a corresponding list of critical museum questions would look like? Slavoj, where are you?

(the Slavoj Žižek image is from Verso Books)

Every time I see a conference call for papers in my field of expertise these days, I’m thinking: could this meeting have been organised on Twitter or Google+ or some other online platform instead?

I’d rather participate in an academic discussion on my iPad at home or in a café than sitting in an ugly meeting room in an anonymous hotel somewhere in the middle of global nowhere. Better take a couple of rounds of discussions on Twitter than waiting for a mic to be passed down the aisle of a crowded conference room and then trying to hear what’s being said through the noise of the air-condition. Not to mention trying to have serious ‘discussions’ with people in the breaks between sessions, when everyone is running frantically around to find a toilet before trying to locate the next meeting room.

Going to conferences more and more feels like a kind of ritualised masochism. You’re time-lagged and sleep-deprived and are fed tasteless transfat-saturated cookies or small sandwiches with processed meat on soft white bread. Travelling is a waste of time, money and environmental resources: it drains your research grant for money that could have been used more productively, produces unnecessary tons of carbon dioxide, and helps transnational hotel chains increase their profit margins.

It has been said before, but it’s worth repeating again: Twitter is, in my experience, an almost perfect medium for academic discussions. I know: 140 characters seems ridiculously short, especially for academics who are used to writing books. But think again:

• Twitter sessions allow many discussants to join the conversation.
• Session are rapid and facilitate easy turn-taking; you don’t need to struggle for speaking time.
• Formal authority doesn’t count (it doesn’t matter if you’re a professor or a young grad student); only the strength of the argument counts.
• Twitter culture doesn’t give any room for pontificators or discussants who speak way too looong.
• Sessions can be spontaneous or planned, intense or lazy, existentially loaded or technically straight. They can last for 30 seconds or 5 hours, depending on the issue at hand, the interest of the participants and the power of the argument.
• Your personal features don’t matter: You can be a stutterer without being disclosed as such, and you can participate even if you have bad hair or a bad breath or forgot to apply your favourite deodorant.
• And technically, it’s a piece of cake.

Again 140 characters isn’t much. But it’s more than enough for an elevator pitch. And if you have more on your mind, you can always link to a blog post.

Nina Katchadourian‘s ‘Artificial Insemination’ (C-print, 20 x 20 inches, 1998)

A “very spontaneous” piece of work she writes:

a handful of tadpoles in water all fished out of a rainwater pond, a dinner plate from the cupboard, and a black t-shirt I was wearing at the time. A deliberate scrambling of the iconic scientific image of ‘when life begins’.

This is her only ‘biomedical’ art work — otherwise her work during the last two decades is mainly inspired by nature and maps (see much more here).

Hat tip to Jim Edmonson, who just drew my attention to Katchatourian’s ingenious ‘Seat Assignment: Lavatory Self-Portraits in the Flemish Style‘, a series of photographs, video and still images made in flight using only a mobile phone camera.

The last two weeks in April, Medical Museion will host a number of events —  including a workshop+seminar +exhibition opening with Lucy Lyons, a seminar with David Pantalony from the University of Ottawa, and a film screening (Lars von Trier’s Epidemic) as part of CPH PIX film festival.

Lucy Lyons:
On Friday, 27 April, we will open an exhibition titled Experiences of Ageing, which presents drawings and objects from Lucy’s two-year postdoctoral research fellowship here at Medical Museion, funded by the Center for Healthy Aging at the University of Copenhagen. Lucy Lyons uses drawing as a method for gaining understanding of unfamiliar objects and to develop greater insight into the familiar — in this case the often overlooked aspects of ageing. The exhibition will run until 21 October.

The day before, on Thursday 26 April at 7pm, Lucy Lyons and her colleagues, Mette Bersang and Joanna Sperryn Jones, will give a hands-on workshop, where they and the participants can examine everyday medical objects through drawing, photography and much more. Tickets are very limited, so book now if you’d like to take part. Read more here.

Right before the exhibition opening on Friday 27 April, at 3pm, Lucy Lyons will give a MUSE Seminar titled ‘Artistic research: interventions with Medical Museion’, where she will talk about how she uses art in her reasearch, and how this art has now become its own exhibtion at Medical Museion. Read more here.

David Pantalony:
On Tuesday 25 April  David Pantalony from the University of Ottawa will give a MUSE Seminar titled “Examine first, ask what it is later: The multiple interpretations of 20th century scientific artifacts”. Here he will talk about a series of workshops at the Canada Science and Technology Museum, which put artefacts centre stage in order to experiment with new ways of thinking about the often-opaque objects of late 20th century science. Read more here.

Lars von Trier‘s ‘Epidemic’ (CPH PIX 2012 Film Screening: How do epidemics change society?):
On Thursday 12 April the CPH PIX film festival and Medical Museion will show Lars von Trier’s film ”Epidemic”. The film is one of von Trier’s earliest, and centers on a director and a scriptwriter, who are making a film about a fatal disease when suddenly life begins to imitate art. Before the screening, assistant professor Adam Bencard will give a short talk on the history of epidemics in Denmark, and how they have affected the way we organize our cities and health systems. Tickets cost 100 DKK, and can be bought from the CPH PIX website.

Last year, Medical Museion received the Society for the History of Technology’s (SHOT) Dibner Award for Excellence in Museum Exhibits — an award that recognises museums and exhibits that interpret the history of technology, industry and engineering to the general public.

I am proud to serve on the Dibner Award committee for 2012-2014 — and we are now inviting nominations for 2012.

The closing date for this year’s nominations is already May 1 (sorry for this late posting). Here are the rules (more here):

Exhibits are eligible for this award if they have been open to the public for no more than 24 months before the deadline for nominations. The Society especially encourages nominations from local and regional historical societies. Virtual exhibits are not eligible for the award .

Anyone, including the institution or individual responsible for its creation, may nominate an exhibit for the Dibner Award, using the nomination form available here as a PDF or Word document. The completed nomination form should be e-mailed to each member of the Dibner Committee. Deadline for nominations is 1May, except in the case of traveling and short-term exhibits that close before that date; in those cases, nominators must either submit their documents to the committee at least two months in advance of the exhibit’s closing date. Nomination documents may not under any circumstances exceed 1 MB or contain anything other than text and static images.

After reviewing nominations, the committee will choose a short list of finalists, giving sole consideration to the evaluation documents submitted. The committee will then arrange for a “live” reviewer to visit each of the short-listed exhibits and write a report. Normally the chair will draw upon recommendations for live reviewers made by the nominator in the nomination document, although s/he may use her/his judgment to assign alternative reviewers as needed, including members of the committee.

Please, send your nomination to all members of the committe:

Glenn Bugos (2012-14), glen@momentllc.com
Jane Gavan, (2010-2012), j.gavan@sca.usyd.edu.au (chair)
Matthias Heymann (2010-2012), matthias.heymann@ivs.au.dk
Sheldon Hochheiser (2010-14), s.hochheiser@ieee.org
Arwen Mohun (2012-14), mohun@udel.edu
Thomas Söderqvist (2012-14), thss@sund.ku.dk