Abstracts, Past Meetings
XXii, Paris: What Works for What Object? Gestures, Savoir-Faire and Body Culture in Musems of Science and Technology
Marta Ajmar:
Encounters of the Shop Floor
Encounters on the Shop Floor' investigates ways of knowing often described as embodied, tacit, implicit. The project explores the significance of embodiment in all processes of cognition and learning and champions its importance in all areas of practice, moving beyond the unhelpful di-vide between 'mind' and 'hand' and between 'intellectual' and 'manual' knowledge and their disci-plinary and institutional compartmentalisation. The lack of recognition of the cultural, social and economic potential of embodied ways of knowing is a major area of 'wastefulness' and a signifi-cant factor – nationally and globally – in rising levels of educational underperformance, social and economic inequality and an absence of innovative, socially progressive and environmentally sus-tainable industrial practice. The project places techne at the centre of research and education to explore, reformulate and showcase its fundamental role within learning.
The V&A's collections are a highly fertile place for a productive encounter between expert knowledge-makers and 'the made'. Rooted within the V&A and Imperial College London, the pro-ject straddles two institutions at the heart of 'Albertopolis', bringing into the 21st century Prince Albert's radical vision to make South Kensington an interdisciplinary hub for design, the arts, science and education. 'Encounters' aspires to create a model for challenging the intellectual hie-rarchies that historically have placed a low value on embodied ways of knowing and produced the marginalisation of that knowledge that we are witnessing today. The intention is to be able to arti-culate this approach, making a persuasive case for its value through research events, publications, film, labs, displays and performances, and to design and model pedagogical resources of value to teachers and learners at all stages from primary school to higher education and beyond.
Tim Boon:
From Histories of Use to Gestures of Making
The ethos underling both last year’s and this year’s Artefacts meetings is that there is a tacit histo-ry to be rediscovered in relation to the objects we hold in our collections. In 2017, our conference considered histories of use, the sense being that the collections of science museums have much to offer as problematics and sites for developing the ways of thinking outlined in works by Oudshoorn & Pinch and Edgerton. Such objects may reciprocally provide evidence of use for academic study, even at the same time as the uncovering of such histories may lend new interpre-tive possibilities for their interpretation and display. Equally, we proposed that considering mu-seum visitors as users of museum displays offers potential for a rapprochement between the hu-manities research traditions of curators and the sociological traditions of audience study experts. In Paris we plan to go ‘upstream’ from the finished goods that were the focus of the London mee-ting to consider the manufacture of things. Here again are the grounds for close study of use, in this case in the use of hands and tools in the making of things, often in ways that are obsolescent or obsolete. In this presentation reflecting back on the London meeting, I aim also to suggest ways in which we may keep manufacture and use in dialogue by paying attention to the tacit dimension, for the benefit of both scholars and museum visitors.
Simona Casonato:
"
See the ionization with your mind." Narrated ges-tures in the contemporary particle physics : an experiment in intangible heritage study
In 2016, we designed a new permanent exhibition about the contemporary particle physics and we made an attempt to display the working experience in this field by setting a brief oral histo-ry project.
We involved 12 researchers currently working for CERN and INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare), men and women, aged between 40 and 65. We focused on life-stories, on the sub-jective description of the process of creating detectors, accelerators and even analysis and the-ory works, instead of the ‘objective’ explanation of finished artifacts.
This allowed us to collect and archive a wide range of ‘narrated gestures’, belonging specifically to contemporary particle physics culture and identity.
This limited but intense experience indicates us that the museum, both as a medium and as an institution, can be used as a ‘growth plate’ to historicize the intangible and the ephemeral sides of the contemporary culture of a specific group.
Similarly to certain documentary film practice, the museum is able to catalyze a peculiar field-work, which put in the very middle of a disciplinary reflection the relationship between subject and object in a process of observation.
Arnaud Dubois:
How to understand engineering sciences with the techniques of the body: The case of the bridges collection of the Musée des Arts et Méti-ers explained by circus acrobatics.
I will examine an experimental mediation performed by acrobats at the Paris Musée des Arts et Métiers in May 2016. I will ask if body techniques can facilitate the public’s understanding of the abstract engineering sciences exhibited in a science and technology museum. Using the ethno-graphic study of this performance, I will ask if this new type of museum mediation opens up new research issues about technical gestures and helps us to blur boundaries between tangible and in-tangible heritage in the museum context. In doing so I try to redeploy the methods of analysis of museum collections and to contribute to the theoretical and methodological renewal of the history of technology. I show that this new way to mediate science and technology museum collections using body techniques and gestures produces a methodological indistinctness between intentional-ity and contingency that often marks the epistemological break between art, technology and sci-ence in western culture. This anthropological way of looking at museums of science and technolo-gy opens up new research issues not only for the museum’s scientific and technical heritage but also for the history of science and techniques.
Lionel Dufaux:
Should incorporated technical gestures be looked for in technical collections? The case of the railway collections of the Musée des Arts et Métiers
If it seems natural to look at technical collections in order to reflect on technical gestures, it ap-pears indispensable to proceed with a preliminary method investigation allowing to ascertain the means of constitution and uses of these collections, in order to eliminate any risk of over-interpretation or anachronism. Drawing from research carried out the past twenty years at the Mu-sée des Arts et Métiers, and significant examples from the railway collections, this paper proposes to explain that the notion of technical gestures has not been a part of the policy of enriching col-lections and developing technical courses at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers during the 19th century. On two occasions, the collection has confronted sharp paradigm shifts that have not in-cluded the notion of technical gesture. Supporting technical education, promoting innovative pro-cesses, the collections of the Conservatoire have assumed their historical dimension before being used, in the 20th century, as instrument of mediation aimed at an increasingly broader public. This communication proposes to give interpretation keys for the collections of the Musée des Arts et Métiers and outlines ways to connect this heritage with other collections more meaningful from the point of view of technical gestures.
Kristen Frederick-Frost:
Much ado about the dew of death: the past and current work practices revealed by a collection of chemical agents
In 1924, H. W. Stiegler commemorated the work that he conducted with W. Lee Lewis on various chemical warfare agents by creating 23 ampules of organoarsenic compounds and placing them in a wooden presentation box. “In remembrance of our Lewisite days,” Stiegler inscribed on the box’s lid, recalling the work with the vesicant, which was named after Lewis, originally produced during the First World War. The box containing lewisite and its derivatives became more than a commemorative piece; Lewis was said to have used it in lectures when he was a professor at Northwestern University. This public use demonstrates an inherent comfort with compounds known to be hazardous and even deadly. Experience and years of experimentation informed his understanding and acceptance of risk associated with both the contents and the quantity of materi-al within the ampules.
Although our understanding of the toxicity of lewisite has not drastically changed since then, the box is now housed far from pubic view—in a sealed glove bag, marked with hazard labels, placed on a dedicated shelf in a safe, in a secure room, on a staff-only floor. Much can inferred about the knowledge that led to the production and original use of this object, yet much can also be said about how it has revealed differences in current work and practice in the National Museum of American History, where it is now held. The specialized (and often siloed) training, education, and experience of collection managers, curators, and safety personnel led to vastly different ways of evaluating and negotiating risk inherent in this collection of chemicals. Divergence of opinion was also encountered when we queried external subject matter experts, who were also influenced by a history of work at their respective employment agencies. As a case study, it is an example of how we can use the perspectives of different work cultures to highlight intrinsic knowledge and values embodied in historic artefacts.
Cathleen Lewis:
The Future of the Spacesuit Glove: Ges-tures, Multinational Crews and Engineer
Spacesuit gloves have not crossed the magical line between utility and fashion. They remain purely functional. Their design fulfills the task of interacting with the tools and equip-ment that astronauts use in the process of performing well-choreographed tasks in space. The traditional design motivation for building spacesuit gloves has been the reduction of all motion to a three-axis grid to which the performance and mobility of a glove would comply. Wearing test and training models, astronauts rehearse activities to discover and potential discomfort points from the glove or deviance form the mapped pathway of movement. The cycle repeated as engineers addressed newly discovered Issues, made modifications and astronauts tested the new adjustments. This was adequate for the early years of human spaceflight during which tasks, sophistication of movement was limited, and there was little need for all but the most basic communication between spacewalkers. This way of designing and developing gloves as-sumed that most every contingency could be anticipated.
This long and standard way of making spacesuit gloves begs the question about the fu-ture of glove development. As nations make the decisions between a future of space stations, settlements on the Moon and trips to Mars, they face fundamental changes in the ways in which one can and cannot plan. As human activities in space at once become more interna-tional and complex, humans will have to narrow that barrier that gloves place between that fundamental link between brain, hand and the space. There will not be the opportunity to an-ticipate and translate all actions onto a three-dimensional grid and rehearse. Gloves will have to accommodate human innovation. They will have to become adequately responsive to allow gestural communication among crewmembers. The further removed crews are from the Earth, the more likely the necessity for unanticipated actions and instinctual communications.
This paper is a part of work that I am doing on my next book project. The book title is Between Mind and Space: The Spacesuit Gloves of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Muse-um Spacesuit Collection. The paper is a concluding piece on the ramifications of interactions among a multi-national crew on glove development on board (actually outside) the Interna-tional Space Station, which cannot be practically rehearsed, and extrapolating for future space missions. The main thesis of the paper is that spacesuit gloves place barriers to communication across cultures and impose the additional constraints of forcing communications without the nuance of free hand expression.
Katherine Ott:
19th-Century Stomach Pumps and the Art of Moving Fluids
In working with material culture, one of the hardest aspects of coaxing objects to reveal them-selves relates to tacit knowledge. Once accessioned into a history museum, objects dwell in perpetual passivity. The functional movements of a technology usually remain hidden, as the device sits silent and still in the storage room. Retrieval and comprehension of the complex network of agents and bodies that contributed to an object’s existence requires attention to tacit knowledge. Stomach pumps exemplify this, as a 19th-century multi-purpose creation that encompasses various designs and uses, and with conflicting reports on their applicability. The primary activity of every pump was the moving of fluids into or out of the body. To accomplish this, the physician needed knowledge of pathways, appropriate pressure, and how to monitor the device in use. Pump makers needed to understand materials and their fabrication. The manual piston, stop-cock, and plunger designs echoed much larger industrial machines for regulating liquids and pressure. The medical instruments were used to deliver enemas, cleanse the intestines of dysenteric soldiers, as well as force-feed patients and pump the stomachs of people poisoned by accident or intention. Physicians taught themselves how to use the instru-ments through trial and error and shared their techniques with one another. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History division of the history of Medicine and Science has ex-amples of stomach pumps commonly used in the mid and late 19th-century. This talk examines the tacit knowledge embedded in the devices and evaluates the efficacy and cultural symbolism of stomach pumps.
Laura Ronzon:
A cinema evening. Handle with care. The Story of an Ob-ject
“Handle with Care – The Story of an Object” tells the story of the enhancement of a Cockcroft-Walton accelerator owned by the Museum of Milan (as we announced that last year in London). The movie, shot in a pure observational style, shows in details the process that transforms a ‘thing’, taken from reality – in this case a science instrument – into a museum ‘object’. Clerici questions different issues of the museums working with the contemporary heritage of science. Along with the restoration of the machine, the museum restores the memories, recalls the ges-tures, the sounds, the everyday context of the workers who used that object, and transfers them into the process of enhancement. The object reveals to be also an “object of identity”. The process is also a way to transform intangible values in a historical source. The physical restoration is care-fully described by the images, revealing the large amount of manual work and artisanal expertise included in the finished museum display. With his peculiar poetics and aesthetic, focused on ges-tures, Clerici helps to shed light on the conference theme, proposing a meta-reflection on the mu-seum work as a performance in itself and revealing the ‘tacit museology’ expressed in it.
Francesco Clerici (1983) is an independent director, producer and writer. In 2015 he was awarded by FIPRESCI (Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique) at the Berlin Film Fes-tival for his first movie “Hand Gestures”, screened in dozens of theatres and festivals around the world. He has been collaborating with CICAE (Confédération Internationale des Cinéma d’Art e d’Essai) since 2009 and he participated as jury member in many festivals around Europe. “Handle with care” is his second work, entirely conceived and made during a five-months voluntary resi-dence in the Museum.
Alexandra Rose and Jane Desborough:
Science City : a gallery in the making
The Science Museum is planning a new permanent gallery, working title London: Science City 1600-1800, due to open in June 2019. The gallery explores the rich heritage of London as a city of science, and in particular the institutions, practices and professions of the 17th and 18th centuries that were the origins of modern London’s scientific and technological culture. Over this period, London transformed from a bustling commercial city to the administrative hub of a growing glob-al empire. Science was intertwined with the city’s activity; the quest for new ideas, knowledge and practical techniques was shaped by the preoccupations of the metropolis and reflected the interests of a nation on the verge of an unprecedented industrial revolution.
This focus enables us to showcase three unique and internationally important collections - the Sci-ence Museum’s 17th- and 18th-century scientific instrument collection, the collection of the Roy-al Society, and King’s College London’s George III collection.
A strong theme running through the gallery is the practice of instrument making. Traditionally, attention has been given to how instruments work, but an equally important story is how they were made. We are hoping to improve the ways in which we tell these stories of making in two ways. Firstly, we will be collaborating with practicing artisans to produce around four ‘How it’s made’ films, which will enable us to show visitors the processes involved with engraving brass, glass blowing, globe making and marking out a scale with a dividing engine. Specimens from this pro-cess will be displayed next to the screens on the gallery as ‘touch objects’ that visitors will be able to engage with. Secondly, we will be undertaking a participation project where we will invite young apprentices to act as an expert focus group and provide feedback on our plans for telling the making story. Through a series of focus groups we will respond to their feedback with the aim of making our interpretation more relevant to the younger sections of our target audiences.
Klaus Staubermann:
From Material Culture to Maker Cul-ture - or how can we can bring ‘things’ back to life
Things, or objects, found in museums often appear dead. It’s the responsibility of the historian or curator to bring them back to life (in some instances literally). But how do we do that? Exploring archival sources, speaking to practitioners and, of course, exploring the ‘things’ themselves are essential ways for understanding them. But how can we move further and open up the hidden con-texts and comprehend the tacit knowledge embodied in them? This talk explores familiar and new ways to access and understand things, thereby marking a shift from previous concepts of ‘material culture’ to more comprehensive concepts of a ‘maker culture’.
Artemis Yagou:
Between Play and Work : developing professional skills and attitudes through construction toys
This paper will discuss how construction toys have been developed and used as a testing ground for gestures, skills and professional attitudes necessary during the late 19 and early 20th centuries in increasingly industrialised European societies.
Play has been defined as a “free activity standing quite consciously outside ‘ordinary’ life as be-ing ‘not serious’ but at the same time absorbing the
player intensely and utterly” (Huizinga, 1950). Roger Caillois (1958) advanced this definition by concluding that play is best described by six core characteristics: that it is free, separate from the routine of life, uncertain, unproductive, governed by specific rules and involving imagined realities. Within his framework, he made one further distinction: between Paidia or uncontrolled phantasy in spontaneous play activities, and Ludus, which requires effort, patience, skill or ingenuity.
Construction toys, such as building blocks made of various materials, may be problematized with-in the conceptual space defined by Caillois and can be described as hybrid artefacts, gravitating ambivalently between free play and systematic work. Typically, construction sets are accompa-nied by booklets including extensive and detailed instructions on what to build. Playing with con-struction toys is a systematic pursuit, involving patience, manual dexterity and attention to detail, as well as perseverance. By looking at descriptions and images of play activities with construction sets, we will explore how craftsmanship and engineering draw on skills learned by children during play, in their dialogue with materials, in the discipline of following or remaking rules. What are the values and tacit knowledge residing in the intermediary space between this type of play and work, and what are the consequences?
9.00 Bryan Dewalt (Canada Science and Technology Museum) : The Surgical Touch: Exhibit-ing Medicine Beyond the Historic Instruments.
As part of the renewal of the Canada Science and Technology Museum, we are developing an ex-hibition about medicine and five senses. Medical Sensations is an exploration of the role that the five senses have played in medicine throughout history to the present, and into the future.
Touch has played and continues to play a central role in medicine, from the physical examination of patients, to use in medical education, to patient experience, to the more delicate use of touch in surgery. Our greatest challenge in this latter subject has been to capture and evoke the complexity of the “Surgical Touch“ beyond the instruments – for centuries surgeons have developed sophisti-cated knowledge to extend their sense of touch and master surgical technologies. Instrument mak-ers and educators have embodied some of this knowledge back into instruments and teaching. How can we show the whole context of how these technologies have been used, and the knowledge and context that surrounds them? With the emergence of new surgical technologies (e.g. robotic and vision based), the role of touch has changed dramatically, but it is still present in new ways.
We have tried to bring this broad sense of “touch” to life through the selection and arrangement of compelling artefacts, the use of instruction and imagery in historical texts and trade literature, and research into the changing use of touch in surgery. We have also developed interactive elements that bring the tacit knowledge and skills to the surface to be experienced by the visitor. In a second part of this exhibition being considered for another venue, we are looking at the current trend to-wards surgical training through simulation technologies.