from Modern Art Notes -
The Future of Spiral Jetty
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A relook at the threats facing Robert Smithson's "Spiral Jetty" - as a direct result of human folly and its consequences - and comment how we, as an art community, are lacking a framework to evaluate viable course of actions needed.

Part 1: The future of Spiral Jetty.
Part 2: What's happening to the Great Salt Lake?
Part 3: Spiral Jetty, the Great Salt Lake and Dia
Part 4: Dia's 'buffer' approach to preserving Spiral Jetty
Part 5: The next step at GSL: Coalition-building, funding
Postscript: Spiral Jetty: Is federal protection a useful option?

Also see earlier posts here.
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from The Guardian -
Volunteers restore historic giant of Cerne Abbas to his former glory
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Not exactly the stuff of conservation treatment report:

"And a bunch of jolly volunteers took turns to dig and hack at the outline of this most eccentric hill figure, replacing the old, grubby chalk and making sure the figure can be seen from miles around."

But who says conservation work has to be somber or even solitary.
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from The New York Times -
Music From the Past — Bringing Back the Epigonion
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Isn't it an oxymoron to reproduce music nobody has heard before in the name of preservation - or is it just showing off some computing prowess? Makes one wonder why these people do not have a better use for such idle bytes - like modeling actual instruments and music in danger of dying right now? And with clever acronyms (ASTRA, DANTE) as substitute for serious work, maybe. No harm adding another - VENUS, or Very Enigmatic (but) Nonetheless Unimportant Study. Jeez...
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from International Conservation News -
Innovative Lunder Conservation Center Receives Prestigious IIC Keck Award
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Conservation as performance, or better still, conservators as living artefacts - and in a museum, no less. Surely there must be a crucial difference between "access" and "showmanship" such that one does not confuse the two.
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from The Jakarta Post -

Local restorers have yet to gain credibility
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Museum conservation specialists step up
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A glimpse into the work of regional colleagues. Link via SEAArch
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from New Scientist -
Textured graphics can be captured in a flash
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A simple and interesting way to capture information about surface texture that can be useful for documentation purposes.
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from The Guardian -
UN threatens to act against Britain for failure to protect heritage sites
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Another lesson in there, surely, on the difficulties in balancing urban development with preservation - especially in areas of high-density population.
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from NIST Tech Beat -
NIST Studies How New Helium Ion Microscope Measures Up
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An up-coming and promising improvement on microscopic (or should that be nano-scopic?) imaging. Cool...
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from Scientific Blogging -
Will Mona Lisa Smile More When She's Clean? The Science of Art Conservation
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Quotable quote (from Tom Learner at GCI):

"One of the hardest decisions I’m having to make at the moment is, do we recommend that a lot of people pour a lot of resources into something like sausage casing or bread, which is never going to last as long as a marble sculpture?"

Which is the crux of the difficulty in efforts in preserving contemporary art - not so much the range and diversity of materials but the diversion of professional resources to research and care for something which deteriorates faster than one can understand it properly. At some point, tolerance of artistic freedom crosses over to become over-indulgence. No?

Link via Conservation DistList.
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from Discovery News -
Nuclear Physicists Fight Wine Fraud
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Using high-end nuclear physics to characterise and compare glass used as wine bottles with known historic samples. And just a warning for would-be fraudsters, the wine itself will also be analysed using a method to detect and calculate radioactive decay (see earlier post).
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from The Guardian -
Italy: From drawing room to ad showroom: the changing face of St Mark's Square
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In a world that values capital accumulation above all else, it is no surprise then to term the alteration and appropriation of a heritage icon for crass commercial use as a "lesser evil". Which may imply - wrongly, in my view - that the the "greater evil" would be the demolition or destruction of the same heritage icon.

The "greater evil", in fact, would be to equate such ad-hoc commercial sponsorship and short-term thinking as shining examples of civic necessity. And to pretend that this is the only solution at hand - betraying an utter lack of public imagination and concern.
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from Wired -
Aug. 19, 1839: Photography Goes Open Source
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go to slideshow

An interesting summary of that historic (though not the first photographic process) but short-lived photographic technique that could be said to have prompted later developments leading to the ubiquitous image-making culture that we often take for granted today.

Also see article on Wikipedia
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from The New York Times -
Cinnamon Is Key Ingredient in Anti-Mold Wrapper
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Maybe this technology (derived from ancient knowledge) could be made to work for a larger capacity - such as cupboards and display cases within museums and collections - if the downside of an "aroma transfer" could be solved.
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