from Open Source Energy Network
Cool Light on Hot Days: Fiber Optics Bring the Sun Indoors
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Fibre optics has been recognised and used as a safe light source for the display of cultural heritage artefacts. However, it's performance has been found lacking in the area of general room lighting. Now comes the possibility of using fibre optics for lighting up an entire room. However, the new technology is dependent on there being a sunny day outside. Nevertheless, a combination of this technology and conventional lighting could save museums (or any building, for that matter) major utility payments and being environment-friendly at the same time.

from V&A
Conservation Journal
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The long-awaited on-line version of the V&A Conservation Journal is finally available. I have added the Journal home page to the list of links on this web-log.

from The Telegraph
£600m sale ruffles the famed calm of Raffles
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When does heritage ends and business begins - and vice versa?

from The New York Times
What Price Love? Museums Sell Out
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Michael Kimmelman observed that museums (in the major US cities) appear to have moved into a sort of capitalist excess and feeding frenzy in order to meet funding targets and popular access, at the expense of core functions and values:

"But museums and libraries are not commercial enterprises. Growth is not necessarily good. Expansion is not always wise. Often it's the reverse. True success is measured by hard-to-quantify intangibles: the quality of research and education; the study, care and maintenance of the collections; the level of public trust."

Further on in the article, Kimmelman warned that:"museums, having devalued their principles for short term gains, may earn the public's contempt in the long run." This would indeed be an extremely pertinent observation, which can also easily describe the situation elsewhere. If one were to look closely enough and under the flashy surface, could our local museums hold up to scrutiny as well?

from The Telegraph
A breath of fresh air at the V&A
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With all these talks about re-presenting museums as an attractive lifestyle option for younger audiences, a re-evaluation and reconstruction of all the spaces, particularly the garden in this case, seems a clever move. I for one, thinks that it is a creditable change when I reflect that I've always gone to parks/gardens after every sojourn in a museum. The museum experience, irregardless of whether it is positive or negative, is best "digested" after a breath of fresh air in the greens and blues of a wide open space.

from The New York Times
Museums Use New Tools to Fix Old Works
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The article talks about the various techniques conservation scientists and conservators use to analyse and treat works in museum collections. One particular highlight interest me. Through Raman spectroscopy, the investigation of the "eruption" of tiny, almost microscopic bumps on "Madam X" painted by John Singer Sargent yields an interesting question about materials and technique... is it caused by the ratio of lead to linseed oil in the paint or the thickness of the paint?

from The Guardian
Show it or offload it, museums told
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from The Telegraph
Shiny museums are not enough
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from Museums Association (UK)
Collections for the Future
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from The Guardian
Culture club
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Proving yet again that a brutally honest reflection of one's current situation is the best way forward to improve it. As reported in the above articles, the heritage sector in the UK has managed to confront its problems head on and in the process came up with some remarkable yet honest ideas.

from The Wall Street Journal
Guggenheim Tests the Limits of Generosity
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If and when (yet another) Guggenhiem satellite museum hits Singapore, one question which would stand out from everything else would be: "For whom?"

from ABC news
Microbes Show Exquisite Taste in Art
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The observed growth of microbes and fungi on Degas' wax models has been attributed in part to the stable environment found in the museum display and storage areas. Perhaps, having a fluctuating environment could be beneficial in terms of management of pest levels as they are disallowed to have an uninterrupted period of growth.

from The New York Times
With Irreverence and an iPod, Recreating the Museum Tour
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We are used to seeing people holding official audio guides wandering round the museums. How about getting an unofficial guide to the same museum exhibitions which, instead of a sonorous voice giving you facts which may be somewhat dry, you listen to a recorded exchange of a group of people discussing the art piece with pop music blaring in the background?

Dr David Gilbert and a group of his students have come up with an unauthorised audio guide to some artists' works in MoMA as a way to "hack the gallery experience" or "remix MoMa". They have also invited anyone interested to submit his or her own tour for inclusion on the project's Web site.

Interestingly, Dr. Gilbert said his larger point was to try to teach his students to stop being passive information consumers - whether through television, radio or an official audio guide - and to take more control. This goal of encouraging active information consumers seems a worthy one and it may be interesting to hear what intelligent remarks (hopefully) other museum-goers have to say about art but one can't help wondering, by encouraging people to listen to these podcasts, aren't the creators perpetuating passive information customers as well?