or ...

or is it a political act?

perhaps the invitation has to become a rally-cry to avoid the reintroduction of hierarchy? now, and thinking of banners, can't stop imagining the "everyone is an expert march" or the spontaneous demonstrations of the amateur experts knowledge as simultaneous soap-box performance. Quod erat demonstrandum!

or/and...

creating an event where we invite speakers with different kinds of expertise (really like the is it art? is it education? possibilities of this one)

thoughts

i quite like using this like a notebook to jot down thoughts so they don't get lost so here's some more. i really like the idea of creating an environment - a space within a space - that visitors can use, along the lines of hirschorn's 'library' for 'commonwealth at tate modern (which is about the dissemination of knowledge?) or the hong kong artists' installation at the venice biennale (i'll bring the book along on saturday). i wonder - returning to ideas about nineteenth century grass roots politics in the north - what were the structures for working people who wanted to learn or give out information? i like the idea of a 'soap box' but maybe also banners and the Workers Education Association. i really like the idea of the amateur researcher - people who think and find out things for the fun of it - a network of non-expert experts. if the museum represents in many ways this democratic form of exchanging knowledge - and after meeting the people there i think this is key - it would be good to highlight this in a way that visitors can experience directly.
here is a bit of a banner as a reminder.

points of expertise

Thinking of Colin's map below, which delineates an area and higlights its points of scientific interests. To some extent, we may just have to shift|push the reception desk inside the border?

As a starting point, perhaps there [this] is a formal way of considering and mapping each individual museum|collection element as holding its own expertise and providing particular viewpoints? I have no visual reference point for phenomenography (can you show me?), but might the reception desk become a symbol for the expert booth if you tilt the view just a little? Actually, perhaps the desk needs to stay on the border, to be able to observe and record without judgement when things meet ... clash, and burn?

mapping things out

Realising that our expertise and practice is already being shared through the discussions and conversations around the object, the collection and expertise in itself. However, considering the idea of status when non-verifiable by anything but accent, vocabulary and tone of voice, some of these discussions may have to be carried -- and questions posed -- over the walkie talkie!

I'm beginning to feel a great need to do a drawing, a map or simply a doodle -- while devising an questionable enquiry slip for stacking! -- to get a hold on all of the material and thoughts collected so far! I somehow expect that the attendants, as 'keepers of [tangential] information', will most probably fit perfectly and naturally into the already emerging trajectory. This, especially if we continue to treat all information as potentially relevant irrespectively of where its coming from. Which we do anyhow, no?, and which is perhaps an 'expertise' or 'non-academic research method for re-considering|re-configuiring status' we should definitely share: the practice of mixing up the disciplines and juxtaposing the languages of discreet objects, bits of information and the keepers of information themselves?

Inventory of Expertise

Yesterday Joe volunteered his inventory of expertise amongst the museum attendants:

Attendant/expertise

Joe/words
John/numbers
Jim/walking
Bob/plants
Derek/military
Mike/horse-racing
Shaaron/shopping
Sue S/culture
Sue T/theatre
T-J/ballet
Neil/art
Graham/education
Peter/football
Linda/cooking

Consultations available free of charge from the front desk (or over the walkie-talkie).

I tested this informal information source by asking for all of the characters of the Magic Roundabout (this stimulated by a label on one of the boxes). Disembodied voices floated from the radio in the basement. Dougal, Ermentrude, Zebedee...

How many layers of information and expertise exist in the Museum and how would you map the connections with the world outside?

We already have the enquiry slip - curator (keeper?) - local groups - regional societies - the world trajectory. What about the attendants and their dissemination and exchange of knowledge. I still like the idea of an expertise booth, but it could be paper not 3-D. Lots of slips of paper - left at the desk, passed on to experts, trapped between the pages of books.

Maybe we need phenomenography to make sense of it all?
Or maybe, as Joe suggested, we could make a version of Simon Patterson's Tube Map which is upstairs in the art gallery of the museum.

Also have to think about EXPECTATIONS. I was told that when we were introduced as 'artists in residence' the attendants expected easels and palettes.

How do we share our expertise??

posting images

here is a taster of what i found in the basement yesterday...

tea etc.

Beautiful ... and I know what you mean, having been discussing big Nobel Prize ideas at the BL while catching myself in continuously bringing up examples that relates 'new thought' and 'benefits to mankind' through the world of naturalists and amateur-expert networks.

3d drawing definitely works for me - as does the 3d conveyor-belt installation model of mechanic authentication!. Will have to carve out a small space in tomorrow for looking at pictures and thinking through notes. For this, can I have the pictures off your mobile (still trying to figure out clever ways of getting them off mine!)

And, a [mm+?(m?!)] tea party celebrating the finer things in life may be in order ... indeed. Fine bone chine on Friday .. or soon? We'll talk.

quick idea

just thinking and writing down before i forget - 3-D drawing as a physical manifestation of an abstract idea (creating value, bodies of knowledge). cracking on with version 347 of PHD proposal and this doncaster ideas just keep flitting past, like moths or silhouettes of eels - just there on the edge of consciousness!


remember - tea at the ritz or liberty's.

sorting things out

First two days of initial research have been really exciting ... in so many ways!

I'm too tired to think about the finer points, but thought in beginning to sort things out, a closer look at cataloguing by the Museum Association Documentation standards and -- especially -- the eventual insight into Carolyn's outline of 'DONMG's emergent collection policy may be really helpful (about time we learn about indexing after all the work we done around categories and labels. brilliant!)

temporarily offline

my problem has been that I want to do nothing at all.

Had a few days success but now no more: after a week of testing displacement-activities while supposedly planning actual workshops [in the abstract] new teaching will start this week and most importantly I'll be off to Doncaster for first research day tomorrow. I'm excited. Finally kicked out of contemplative mode (it seems):
Painted the bathroom ... moved plants ... kicked phone of the hook ... second coat ... vacuum cleaned ... sorted out couple of workshops for later in the week ... packed the bag for Doncaster ... charged the phone ... realised you called ... checked answering machine .. realised there was a message from Thursday ... charging on other phone complete ... put phone in bag: realised there's such a thing as 'missed call'! I'm sorry! I seem to have been truly 'off-line' even where I really didn't want to be.

However, all or nothing: procrastination complete and after an eventful day, finally ... I'm really really excited to go tomorrow, finally!

Back on line: I'll call you with the result!

jack of all trades (mistress of none)

I'm trying to do too much at once, as usual.
I need to:
write a planner for serpentine project on tuesday and mail it off
write a presentation for a seminar tomorrow at chelsea
write something about research ethics (what the hell are they? i'm a nice person - isn't that enough?
make myself some soup with the cavalo nero i bought for a ridiculous amount of money at borough market saturday, before it goes off

all the time while watching Con Air! Again!

the week after next it's doncaster, tea rooms and gold lame blouses with big puffy sleeves.
i moved into my new studio yesterday -it's dry and warm-but it still feels dodgy walking past burgess park.
when are we going to start the studio visits again?
m