Science Museum Group Journal Issue 17
Science Museum Group Journal Issue 17
Science Museum Group Journal Issue 17
Welcome to Issue 17 of the Science Museum Group Journal. Here James Mansell et al explore how audiences can engage with sound objects through listening; Sophie Vohra traces the complex meanings behind commemorative celebrations of the Stockton and Darlington Railway and Efram Sera-Shriar goes back to the original photographic material to re-examine Harry Price’s famous investigation of spiritualist William Hope. Two space objects are discussed in depth – the Black Arrow rocket (by Doug Millard) and the BepiColombo model (by Abigail McKinnon), while Meredith Greiling reflects on curatorial challenges in collecting contemporary transport. An article by Elizabeth Bruton et al focusing on the Zygalski sheet (a tool developed by Polish code-breakers to help crack the Enigma code) gives this achievement deserved attention, while also considering the role of reconstructed objects within exhibitions. The issue is rounded off with two book reviews – Shelly Saggar’s reflections on Jack Davy’s Native Americans in British Museums, and Sara Stradal’s discussion of Volume 16 in the Studies in the Visual Culture of the Middles Ages (edited by Marcia Kupfer, Adam S Cohen and J H Chajes), which explores the visualisation of knowledge.
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Item type:Book review, Book review: Native Americans in British Museums by Jack Davy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021)(2022-03-30)Saggar, Shelley - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Journal article, The BepiColombo ‘model’: looking beyond the ‘original’(2022-03-30)MacKinnon, AbigailThis paper examines the role that models and replicas typically play in aerospace museums, which is to use them as references for the original or final product. Using the BepiColombo Structural Thermal Model currently on display at the Science Museum as well as other models in the Exploring Space gallery as examples, this paper argues that looking at models as objects in their own right offers more diverse and inspiring narratives for visitors. It presents opportunities to showcase the complex development process for space technology, uncovers surprising stories, and helps to debunk the traditional narrative of progress and advancement that science and technology museums often adopt. BepiColombo is a joint mission to Mercury developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace and Exploration Agency (JAXA). - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Editorial, 1 1 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Journal article, Commemorating the past, shaping the future: the jubilee and centenary celebrations of the Stockton and Darlington Railway(2022-03-30)Vohra, SophieThis paper examines how and why communities connected to the railways celebrated anniversaries of important moments in the industry’s history. It focuses on the jubilee (1875) and centenary (1925) anniversary celebrations of the Stockton and Darlington Railway (established 1825) by railway companies, workers and local communities. While these anniversaries were used to symbolically affirm a continuity in railway history, they occurred under different organisational conditions – 1875, during the heyday of multiple smaller companies and 1925, during the consolidated control of the amalgamated ‘Big Four’. A comparative study of these commemorative events reveals continuities and changes in the construction of railway history, and corporate and community identities. To demonstrate this, the analysis will focus on narrative construction, temporal interplay between the past, present and future, and the role of agency. Conveyed through a series of commemorative ‘components’ (Papadakis, 2003), these elements converge to establish the shape and function of the events, and highlight the motivations of different groups for celebrating the past, how commemorative narratives were developed for select audiences, and what vehicles were used to carry said narratives. These core narratives concertinaed elements of the industry’s past, present and future, and were deployed to validate cultural values, draw together communities and consolidate political or economic loyalties. Overall, the paper will demonstrate how and why different stakeholders create and foster commemorative cultures, and critique and measure the efficacy of the forms and functions of this performative engagement with railway history. - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Book review, Book review: The Visualization of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe(2022-03-30)Stradal, Sara - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Journal article, Smart and sustainable: collecting urban transport and mobility innovation in the 2020s(2022-03-30)Greiling, MeredithHow can museums collect transport objects to reflect the changes that we can see happening on the streets around us today? Much of what is changing relates to behaviour and integrated transport systems, both of which lack material ‘objects’ to collect. Some transport changes might be more easily acquired for the historic collection – the arrival of on-street hire bikes, for example – but much of what is different with the emerging systems is about attitudes, behaviour and the use of smart technology. Scotland’s cities are experiencing a revolution in smart, sustainable transport and active travel. City centre transformation schemes, already several years in the planning, have been radically accelerated by the response to Covid-19. During lockdown in 2020 cities prioritised pedestrians and cyclists over motor vehicles as part of the public health emergency. At the same time electric vehicles, cargo bike delivery collectives, bike and scooter hire schemes, extended tram network and hydrogen-powered public buses are all making an impact on how Scottish cities operate. This article explores the changes we see today to vehicles, systems and infrastructure on the streets of Scotland’s cities as a microcosm of the wider global transport revolution and provides two case studies of recent acquisitions made by National Museums Scotland to illustrate how museums might capture this moment. By considering the Lutz Pathfinder pod, a prototype fully autonomous vehicle, and items relating to Edinburgh’s Cargo Bike Movement, this article brings together two ends of the sustainable transport technology spectrum: futuristic driverless cars and low-tech bicycle deliveries. Furthermore, this article suggests approaches to how museums might collect other areas of change in transport systems and infrastructure. - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Journal article, Zygalski sheets: Polish codebreaking and the role of reconstruction in the Top Secret exhibition at the Science Museum(2022-03-30) - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Journal article, Photographic plates and spirit fakes: remembering Harry Price’s investigation of William Hope’s spirit photography at its centenary(2022-03-30)Sera-Shriar, EframDuring the opening decades of the twentieth century, William Hope was a well-respected medium amongst the spiritualist community in Britain, with positive endorsements from major scientific figures such as the chemist William Crookes and the author and physician Arthur Conan Doyle. Hope was often seen as one of the few mediums to be able to produce authentic spirit photographs. However, all that changed in late February 1922 when the magician-turned-psychical researcher Harry Price claimed to have caught Hope cheating during a sitting, by discovering that he was swapping blank photographic plates for ones with supposed spirit ‘extras’ already on them. Hope was publicly exposed as a fraud, and what ensued was a major debate between believers and sceptics over the legitimacy of the medium’s alleged spirit photography. The Hope-Price affair became a media sensation in the months that ensued, with a series of articles about the investigation and its aftermath appearing in the major spiritualist magazine Light. While much has been written about the Hope-Price affair as a key example of fake mediumship, most of these accounts tend to prioritise the sceptic’s perspective, with little attention paid to spiritualist responses. This paper will provide a more balanced narrative, focusing on one of the main criticisms of Hope’s defenders at the time: the credibility of Price’s testimony. Because Price actively misled Hope and his associates in a bid to catch the medium cheating, his trustworthiness as an objective observer and investigator of extraordinary phenomena was questioned. Key to this analysis is the essential role material evidence played in this case, with particular emphasis on the photographic technologies and processes used.3 2 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Journal article, Staging listening: new methods for engaging audiences with sound in museums(2022-03-30) - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Journal article, Black Arrow R4: the object behind the screen(2022-03-30)Millard, DougThe Black Arrow R4 rocket passed through many hands on its way to and within the Science Museum. Sets of relationships were established around and enacted through the object at each stage of its journey, so imbuing it with a range of meanings. This journey was in turn built around preceding sets of circumstances, people and relationships that contributed to the rocket’s creation as an artefact. This paper seeks a better understanding of the Black Arrow rocket as a museum object. It does this first by reviewing the relationships mediated by it during its ‘lifetime’ before and at the Science Museum. In so doing it seeks a voice for the ‘mute’ object, one that can bear testimony to the beliefs and actions of those people involved with it, so foregrounding previously hidden or undervalued meanings of the museum object. However, the paper touches briefly on whether the rocket itself, as a physical object, may be encountered in its own right – as a ‘thing’ in the gallery and not necessarily tied to any suggested or implicit meanings.