Another lurker unlurks.
 
Next door to me is the Owls Head Transportation Museum, with a collection
of historic engines and automobiles and reproduction aircraft, which they
fly! One reason, then for reproductions, especially of non-art. You can
use it, see how it works, experiment. Similar work is ongoing with the
best of those experimental archaeologists in the ship reconstruction
business. The trireme project, and the excellent Scandanavian work comes
to mind. The recent Columbus stuff much less competent.
 
And I must say, when walking around the aircraft parked, the fact of "the
real thing" or a reconstruction did not really make much difference. The
sculptural qualities of a mobile art form were still there. The fact that,
if you will, the production line stopped 90 years ago and then has been
restarted, did not make much difference. The artisanal skills needed to
make them have not changed.
 
So I think we need to make some careful distinctions. We need to have a
very clear purpose for the reproduction and make it explicit. There is
indeed something mythic in the 'echt', perhaps less so in the techonology
area than in the art area. The fact that you know it is a reconstruction
or very heavy restoration does not necessarily detract from the
educational and emotional experience, as anyone who has walked aboard the
H.M.S. Warrior can say. The problem that we as a profession have with
Disney and the like is that changes that are made to history are hidden.
Of course we do them too, as books like "The Past is a Foreign Country"
show.
 
And of course, I'm sure that most of you are familiar with William
Gibson's Neuromancer series: think about Sim stars visiting museum's for
you. Brin's Earth draws one of the best pictures of what the Internet
information highway may evolve into.
 
With this discussion, the Virtual Museum and the Musem of Reproduction
discussion has merged. What we are all working on is how to unlock and
make available the information locked into nonprint.
 
B.A.G.Fuller
seabag enterprises
 (curatorial and data consulting, catalog writing, and exhibit creation
for those curious; we also do windows, paint boats, split wood)
Cushing, Maine
71161,3057