Introduction to the first five weeks of Semester II 2011-2012, University of Leicester:During the break I primarily spent time with my mum, who was visiting from the USA. It was a very difficult Christmas for us; the first without my father. Additionally, we were originally going to go spend the holidays with family friends in Munich (friends my father grew up with) but my visa got held up and we couldn’t go—it was for some reason sent to the Student Welfare instead of my home and I was not allowed access to retrieve it until January. It was discouraging; our friends in Germany had made wonderful food and gifts for us. There were so many plans! It would have been very healing for all of us to be able to share each other’s company in our grief, to be with people that also knew and miss my father, to tell stories about our memories of him, of Ina’s parents, Post-WWII Munich . . . It makes me angry to think that my visa was simply sitting on someone’s desk under a stack of neglected incoming post ‘to be sorted’. It would have been much the better for all concerned, for events to have unfolded differently. (I am still furious and will never forgive ‘Providence’ for preventing the Christmas visit to Germany.)
Here is the synopsis for the past few weeks . . .Semester II Week 1 and 2:03-07 January 2012: Visited V&A, Natural History Museum and Science Museum in London, took monitor readings, reviewed Dr. Bruce Hood’s work and its possible implications for objects and agency discussion. Next paper on subject of museum display as gift exchange due 8 February.
8-15 January: Library Research Days and informed that RCP Exhibit Extended & Monitor Read-ings Extended through March. Called UofM and apparently my MA document is ‘lost in the mail’. I have had to order a replacement at my own expense. Note: on 10 January I finally acquired my residence card/visa, passport, application materials etc. For some reason these materials were re-turned to the Student Welfare office rather than my residential address. (Frustrating!)
Semester II Week ThreeMonday 16 January: Readings and revisions. Expressly working on notes from ‘On Collecting’ and drawing diagrams.
Tuesday 17 January: Readings and revisions. More notes from ‘On Collecting’ and drawing dia-grams. Visited with Janet Berry at one of her “Museum Environments: Relative Humidity and Temperature” sessions.
Wednesday 18 January, Speaker: Beryl Graham, Professor of New Media Art Research, University of Sunderland Title: ‘Curating after New Media Art: Museums and Audiences’
Sandra Dudley, Catharina Hendrick. Missed this due to confusion about scheduling and where it was actually to be held (the room changed three times).
Thursday 19 January 2012: SSCC Meeting in the Collections Room. Missed the session—apologies sent.
Friday 20 January 2012: Readings and revisions.
Weekend: A singularly unproductive weekend.
Semester II Week FourMonday 23 January 2012: Lunar New Year: Year of the Dragon. My father died last year on 3 February, last year, the Lunar New Year (Year of the Rabbit). My thoughts are preoccupied.
Tuesday 24 January 2012: Readings and revisions. Read up on the Nagoya Protocol in anticipa-tion of Thursday’s session at NHM.
Wednesday 25 January: Brown Bag Speaker: Dr Marilena Alivizatou, UCL London
Title: ‘Intangible Heritage’ Suzanne MacLeod, Laura Diaz Ramos
Admirable work (nothing I was unaware of however). Seminar inadvertently raised old personal frustration about inadequacy of language use and question: what, precisely, is ‘intangible’ about the heritage being practiced and conserved? Suddenly occurs that there may be common priorities be-tween Nagoya and IH of UNESCO.
Thursday 26 January:
London Natural History Museum Seminar, C. Lyal Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) and British Library research day.This was a very informative session. The main interests from my perspective were that the legalities involved currently, require much more friendly-if-formal, building of relationships and an international infrastructure for researchers in collection, in the field. Had lovely conversation with Chris Lyal afterwards about the overlap between Nagoya and UNESCO priorities regards ‘Traditional Knowledge’.
Friday 27 January 2012: Nottingham: Nottingham Contemporary--the Demand Opening.
A brilliant opening, well-attended. Under-whelmed by Demand. ‘The Wall’ DJ duo were a bit too loud volume wise, to be the ‘chill’ ambient music they were billed to be. Additionally, they were, at the start using signal waveforms designed to modify the audiences brainwaves patterns . . . to create a kind of experiential ‘tabla rasa’ in audience consciousness, before applying their own, inoculation of music/image patterning (it was a bit heavy handed, imho; please see soapbox below). The ‘arts community’ of Nottingham appeared to have turned out ‘in force’ and as mental lapse would have it, I forgot my camera! Memory image that remains in my mind: mother and 2 or 3 year-old child looking down into the ‘black box’ concert lecture theatre, child in wonder at the scene below, mother in wonder at the child.
Authorial note/soapbox about ‘The Walls’: I liked them very much, but I don’t approve of using light, image and sound to profoundly manipu-late/hypnotise unwary people, and yes, such ‘hypnosis’/entrainment CAN be done—it pretty much happens quite naturally—and yes, more and more artists are ‘experimenting’ with sonorous ‘mood control’ that they don’t really understand, to the potential detriment of the audience. Using light, image and sound to mess about with the brainwave patterns of the audience, when you DO NOT know what you are doing (are perhaps just ‘curious to see what will happen’) is a little like the difference between giving the uninitiated a brandied chocolate and giving them a shot of heroine, while not actually knowing for certain which substance you are administering to said uninitiated! It is a bit irresponsible. Such artistic practice is a particularly unforgivable application of a/v spectacle, when some of the ‘uninitiated’ are children! And there WERE children present! As for myself, fortunately, I had my earplugs with me, tied myself to my sturdy sense-of-self mast and transited the dangerous aesthetic waters relatively unscathed. Again, overall it was a brilliant opening. I con-tinue to be very impressed with Nottingham Contemporary and their active engagement of the community.
Weekend: Monitor readings data administration and lots of paperwork. Reviewed film course notes (as a creative outlet, I have been attending a film criticism course on Tuesdays). Though very basic, the course is providing a helpful refresher on visual narrative structure and conventions.
Semester II Week FiveMonday 30 January 2012: Readings and research (British Library Catalogue)
Tuesday 31 January 2012: Readings and research (British Library Catalogue)
Wednesday 1 February 2012: Missed the Brown Bag Session—I had thought this session cancelled and so made other plans for a research day in London. Apparently the session was not cancelled. Apologies!
What I did instead . . .
I completed my Reader Registration Process at the British Library, researched renaissance ballads regarding objects and ceremony (or tried to) and visited the Transport Museum—including their film event ‘Future Cities’. Interesting, not perhaps what the audience was expecting. Well attended, but audience did not seem to understand that there was a discussion with the artists available after the viewing. Still, admirable start to the new community dialogue direction the Museum appears interested in.
Thursday 2 February 2012: Worked on paper. Updated CV. Discovered that I need to transfer my Mobile Me website to . . . ‘someplace else’. All very bothersome. I booked for an open study day at the British Library for 10 February. I worked on my current paper; I’m afraid that at the rate things are going, it will not be very polished, nor well-cited.
Friday 3 February 2012: London British Library Research Day, followed by evening lecture ‘Sub-lime Words, Ridiculous Images; Visual Humour in the Royal Manuscript Collection’ with Alixe Bovey. Self-explanatory, but focussed again on relationship between objects and agency as well as 19th and 20th century engagement traditions and marriage-as-contract. Dr. Bovey’s lecture was de-lightful! Do think it difficult however for us to separate the reality of the Middle Ages from the Post-Victorian ‘cultural lenses/filters’ that even today, influence popular notions about the past. Is it possible that the people of the Middle Ages were actually more ‘self-aware’ of their own ‘humanity’ than we are today (in these supposedly ‘enlightened’ times)? I also visited the Foundling Museum. It was not at all what I imagined, based upon the website. I also think that more than this, I am ill-prepared to say for now.
3 February overnight to 4 February marks the one-year anniversary of my father’s death. All day my thoughts have been with him and how he would have enjoyed seeing London, how he would have marvelled at the wonderful books I have access to, the lectures I attend, the places I have the opportunity to go to, the trains I travel on and architectural beauty all around me. He would have loved the architecture of St. Pancras Station and the Natural History Museum. In all of his life, he never lost his sense of ‘wonderment’ nor ceased to take pleasure in the world. I miss him, his thoughts, his company. He gave the very best hugs in the known universe. (Actually, I suspect them to be the best hugs in the unknown universe as well but that leads to a certain difficulty—the minute that I prove the fact, the unknown becomes the known, yes?)
They say it will snow this weekend but really, how often are those ‘weather-folk’ right? I mean, it is quite cold but the sky is clear and the sun is shining!
Weekend: It snowed on Saturday. :) Papa would have liked that. I sent a draft copy of my current paper to Sandra on Sunday. Other than that, simply worked on monitor admin and made appoint-ments for next week. I feel as though I have been asleep since the end of November (Thanksgiving, USA 2011) and am slowly rousting very unsteadily from my slumbers.
