The time we spent was filled with sessions, preparing for our own presentation, keeping up with IMA work and seeing what the city had to offer.  We did a lot of everything despite the inevitable jetlag.  A 12 hour time difference is a doozie.

Nonetheless, we made the most of it.  Of all the sessions we attended I found the last one to be the most compelling.  It was a lecture by Khairul Azril Ismail called Pudu Jail’s Graffiti: Aesthetics Beyond the Walls of the Prison Cells.

The presentation had two main ideas: documenting the graffiti of the Pudu Jail in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and studying it to determine its cultural and historical meaning.  Built in 1895, the institution had a reputation for cruelty and is an example of architecture that is vanishing from the Malaysian town.  The site is currently slated for destruction.

K. Azril Ismail presented a brief overview of the jail’s history and then presented some of his haunting photographs.  The black and white photos (give this link some time to load) document graffiti, architecture, vacant spaces and the memory of the people that passed through them.

His photos have captured a wide variety of graffiti, (the literal sense, not in the urban, underground style you might think of) and the second half of his talk was devoted to analyzing, sorting and categorizing the text and images left behind on the walls.  Their work struggles to make sense of images created by motivations that all human beings share as well as others that few experience.  And K. Azril Ismail continues this project despite considerable personal risk, a fact that he has seemingly suppressed with his dedication to the project.

Immediately following this presentation was the session Daniel and I led, Cramming Aesthetics, Art Appreciation & Education into a Fun Museum Experience.  Our talk focused on the exhibition, Nature Holds My Camera: The Video Art of Sam Easterson.

We shared the ways in which we worked with educators, exhibition and graphic designers, the artist and others to juggle a variety of goals.  Primarily we wanted to offer visitors a unique, fun and memorable trip to the museum that would also teach us something about how visitors participate in their own art viewing experience.  Those in attendance at ISEA seemed interested in the project and some even stayed after to ask Daniel and I more questions and get more info about IMA.  Of course we also took this public opportunity to run through IMA stuff on Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, iTunes U and the IMA Blog.  How could we resist?!?

And of course, we saw Singapore: ate a bunch of food, met with staff at the National Museum of Singapore, checked out Chinatown and Little India…discovered a new point of view.  As much as we gained from attending sessions, it felt equally invigorating as a person and as a professional to be exposed to the unfamiliar and allow the experience to overwhelm our senses.  Both creatively and academically this trip was a great success.

So it might seem less than ideal to create a “Photo of the Week” post for an audio project…but it is a great way to introduce you to a new IMA project created by Nugget Factory intern, Zack Barr. He spent the summer recording various ambient sounds of IMA, creating an audio library, and composing his own tracks mixing, editing and enhancing the raw audio files. And now we are handing them all over to you. Want to submit your own mash up? Keep reading…

Here is an excerpt from Zack’s abstract about the project:

The 20th Century saw innumerable developments in the ways by which humans could document and describe their lives and surroundings. Experiences and perceptions that had previously been subject to the distortions of memory could increasingly be captured and preserved in new and improving mediums. In the early half of the 19th Century, the ability to produce permanent photographs was solidified; with this, a natural and logical inclination lead people to use this ability as a means of creative expression. In the 20th Century, developments in film and cameras, the increasing ability to produce them, and the general shift from analog to digital have allowed modern man to capture, realize, and share visual perspectives with never-before-seen dexterity. Likewise, developments in sound technologies have given us the ability to capture and preserve the myriad sounds that surround us. We have the ability to record, and replay at any time, the grind of any machine or the song of any bird. This ability is especially important for the purposes of historic documentation as, for instance, the sound of some particular city was likely vastly different 50 years ago from the sound of that same city today. We can’t really comprehend what the world would have sounded like to the 15th-Century man. Thus, these “field recordings” can prove very useful in documenting life in the aural realm, just as paintings, photographs, and films have done in the visual. Using these visual images, people have come to creatively explore ideas, tell narratives, and share perspectives. The images are processed, arranged, and displayed in ways that suit these creative needs. In saying this, similar expression can be realized through the interpretation of sound recordings.

• Did you know that you can buy an “Audio Mash Up Construction Kit” on Amazon.com?
• In addition to this project, IMA offers a ton of its audio and video content (really high quality video!) for free download on iTunes.
• Want to share your mash up with us? Submit a comment and give me an e-mail address to get in touch with you. We’ll add your contribution to the available downloads on the iTunes U project.
• Read about the controversy DJ Dangermouse created when he mashed Jay Z’s Black Album with the Beatles White Album to create The Grey Album.

Remember how we said we were going to beef up content on Flickr? Well, it has begun with this set of images documenting the anoxic treatment of a work of art by Thornton Dial.

What is anoxic treatment? Well you either know or you don’t…so if you know, aren’t you dying to see how IMA conservators did it? If you don’t know…aren’t you dying to? Don’t miss out on this chance to expand your vocabulary and knowledge of art conservation.

You will see more conservation on Flickr as the year goes along. The photo-sharing site has proven to be a very useful tool to feature this kind of content. We hope that it is useful in sharing some behind-the-scenes insight for our visitors (and blog readers), but we also hope that those of you who are conservators from other places will find this to be a useful forum for discussion.

And if you visit Flickr you will also find:

• A brand new set of photos Daniel and I created during our visit to the ISEA 2008 conference in Singapore
• New answers to the question: “If you lived forever, what would you take with you?” (Of course inspired by the current exhibition, To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum)
• Photos documenting the Earthworks Camp, a collaboration between IMA and IPS

That’s right. There are Nuggets in Singapore. Daniel and I arrived on Saturday, July 26th as you may have learned from his post yesterday. We are attending the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA 2008). It is a gathering of artists, museum professionals, university faculty and others who use technology to inform, educate and interact with audiences.

The sessions include a variety of perspectives that range from topics like how gaming relates to learning and actual behaviors of people to how technology affects viewer’s understanding and appreciation of art. Daniel and I are closer to the latter, presenting on Wednesday, July 31st about the integration of technology in the exhibition, Nature Holds My Camera: The Video Art of Sam Easterson. We will share how we organized the exhibition to maximize the use of technology and make visitors to the gallery feel more comfortable in the role of an art viewer.

Thus far we have attended some sessions, including a keynote Lecture by Larry Lessig. He talked about the Creative Commons project and how US copyright laws affect the creative process. The discussion is a complex one that has many opposing viewpoints. If you are interested, you should check out an engaging lecture that Lessig presented at last year’s TED conference.

And what about Singapore? Well here are a few nuggets for you about the Garden City:

• Singapore was settled by the British in 1826. You can still see this influence today in things like street names, high tea service at restaurants, and architecture.
• In 1965, Singapore became an independent nation.
• The time difference between Indianapolis and Singapore is 12 hours!
• The infamous Singapore Sling was said to have been invented at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. If you want a recipe, you can find one from the National Library Singapore.
• Don’t miss our Flickr set with images from Singapore!

Have a burning question about Singapore or the ISEA conference? I’ll do my best to answer it…

It took 3 flights, about 19 hours of flying time and 6 hours of airport mulling to make it here.  How does someone that works in new media stay occupied, engaged and sane on a trip like this?  The glamour of economy class, cheap wine and tasteless food can only go so far.  I’m talking about other options – but with a new media twist.  So here goes –

Think about the next big thing.  Think about nothing.  Or, think about Flickr.  I always opt for the window seat.  It allows uninterrupted moments of thought and a great view.  I love clouds and the landscape below, so in between naps, reading or thinking of the next IMA project, I take photos, lots of them.  With that in mind, check out one of my favorite flickr groups, From the Airplane Window.  You might even see some of my snaps and you’ll think about flying differently the next time you take a flight.  And speaking of flickr, have you checked out IMA’s latest set of images?  You should, because they’re kind of cool.

I love planes and am happy to discuss my favorites or least favorites.  But hands down, the only plane for me is the Boeing 747.  It’s a beautiful piece of design – massive but elegant, stylish and timeless.  Which of course leads me to mention IMA’s blog – specifically our first guest blogger, Patrick Smith, who submitted a superb post on the 747, Pan Am, the Concorde, and the Jetliner as Art.  So – if you’re stuck in an airport with your laptop and looking for something to do (other than check work e-mail), read his post, then impress the person sitting next to you on your next flight, with your new knowledge of aircraft design.

If you’re not the chatty type, recline your seat, turn on your iPod and watch or listen to Indianapolis Museum of Art content.  Yes, you better believe it.  The IMA has its own iTunes page where you can check out some of our latest audio and video content.  And unlike airline food/drinks, our stuff is free, educational, engaging and sometimes funny.  Anyone remember the I love the A.D.’s webisode from the Roman Art from the Louvre exhibition?  It’s on our iTunes page.  Just click, here (make sure you have iTunes installed on your machine).

The NES practically raised me as a kid, so I still hold a special place in my heart for video games.  Recently, I’ve given more and more thought to the role that new handheld devices can assist our visitors in a more meaningful experience.  For instance, when our Art and Nature Park opens next year, should we provide visitors with handhelds such as iPhones, PSP’s or PDA’s?  I don’t know the answer to that…yet, but staff at the IMA are already thinking about the next innovative visitor experience.  Flying 35,000 in the air, I messed around with the Sony PSP as a possible device.  I watched our latest video with Jim Irsay and of course, played some video games – Lego Star Wars II being my favorite (who doesn’t love R2D2?).  It’s unlikely the IMA will partner with Rockstar Games to create an Art Museum Curator game, but we might just create content that will live on your PSP, iPhone/iTouch, or the next popular device.  We’re crafty that way.

It’s now 8:30am Monday morning (8:30pm Sunday night in Indy) and I’m off to some conference sessions.  I would love to hear your thoughts on how to use technology when traveling.  I’m sure I missed something.

Instead of continuing with our speculation, I thought it might be cool to ask you, our readers, what you think. So tell us, what is most compelling about our blog, and what is lacking?

We began with a few writers and over time have added more in an effort to up the quality of the content, diversify the topics we cover and well represent many areas of work at IMA.

Over time we have noticed our Google analytics numbers going steadily up. This makes people happy, in the simple “more is better” way. But we know that this is not always true…sometimes less is more. Right?

So, lately we have started getting feedback that the voice of the blog has become too fractured by the large number of regular contributors. This feedback was unexpected at first, and seemingly in opposition to our growing readership, but as we grapple with it, the juxtaposition makes more sense now…

So before we go and change things again, we thought we would ask you to weigh in and let us know if you are dying to read more from a particular author, want to see more in-depth category pages, or if you just want us to shut up about it already and write something good. So let us have it!

What I did on my Summer Vacation

or, How I learned to Stop Worrying and be a Good Intern

No kidding, internships have the potential to be awful. You could be stuck on coffee and filing duty. If you’re in that situation, you kind of have to put your ego to the side and be willing to do the grunt work. You can think about it as the chance to earn the respect of the people you are interning for, thus leading to your acquiring more thought provoking projects. A truly lucky intern will have both a boss that lets them manage some projects throughout their time at the institution, and the foresight to take advantage of this opportunity.

Even if you have a great situation with your boss, it can be difficult to get comfortable in your duties. In the beginning, one of the hardest parts for me was feeling confident in taking initiative. Not because I am not capable of it, but because I really wanted to make sure I was doing everything right.

As I was vacillating about the details of my summer project, one of the most helpful things Despi said was, “I can write this for you, but I think it will be more valuable to have you try it yourself.” She gave me the permission I needed to take control of the project, but also to potentially fail. Project management is one of the most difficult types of experience to gain, because it can only be learned through hard work, trial and error. It’s those ‘real life’ experiences of deadlines and organization that make internships a vital part of the learning experience.

So, I’ve learned a lot this summer. I’ve learned to write down everything. Simple but effective; this also really helps fight ‘the yawns’ in a boring meeting. I’ve also learned not to be afraid to ask all the clarifying questions you need. Your manager will not be annoyed, but instead will be thankful that they have someone who pays attention to details. Try to make yourself indispensable! Another major goal of interning is to meet the people in your future field. When a position opens up at the museum, you want every person you worked for to think of your name.

• Always say yes when another opportunity to help arises. Be flexible and available. (this one’s from me!)
• “Be open minded and willing to try new things. Look for opportunities to grow. Don’t be too hard on yourself if it doesn’t pan out. “- Emily Blyze, Development Researcher
• “Don’t be afraid to ask for the job you want. If there’s an opening, go for it! Internships are an opportunity to get your foot in the door.” - Amber Laibe, Manager of Affiliate and Volunteer Services
• “Get involved in as many things at the organization as possible. Put yourself out there!” -Meg Liffick, Communications Manager
• “Other than hygiene? Make the most of it.”- Daniel Incandela, Director of New Media

If you have advice about internships in general, or to someone thinking about interning at the IMA, leave a comment!

In closing,

To the staff in MIS, Education, Marketing, and Development, thank you for a wonderful Summer. I was very lucky to get to interact with so many departments. To New Media, I hope I haven’t scarred you too much. I had a great time!

Maybe CT Scan of the Week is more accurate. But we all know what a mummy-scan means… To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum opened this past weekend, highlighting ancient Egyptian art from the Brooklyn Museum!

This summer, I was at the IMA leading up to the debut of the website, and now during the exhibition opening. It has been really exciting to see all of the planning and thought that goes into making a website entertaining and informational for the online visitor.

The works of art in the exhibition detail Egyptian beliefs of afterlife, including where you go, what happens, and what you need. The IMA web team has tried to highlight a variety of the objects that are in the exhibit on the website with an online gallery, an interactive mummy-scan, and an interactive timeline of the objects, showing the works from Brooklyn contrasted with works from the IMA’s collection.

The Nugget Factory also filmed and produced videos with Brooklyn’s conservator (below) and curator, which are featured on the website, as well as being played in the gallery. New videos will be going onto the website throughout the run of the exhibition

There is also a page from the TLF Flickr set, featuring pictures of people around the Indianapolis community and their answers to the question, What can’t you live or die without? Check out some of the hilarious answers. I don’t think my picture is up yet, but I think my choice is black mascara and my cat Osiris. That surely will get me some bonus points with the green guy.

I also got to be a part of a very unique event the IMA hosted this past Saturday. Despi and Daniel decided to preview the digital content of the TLF site, as well as some other aspects of the advertisement and design, to the other museums who will be hosting this traveling show at a later date.

I think there was generally a lot of excitement about what they would be able to do for their own exhibitions with access to content like this. It’s also a great way to show a wide variety of audiences and professionals in the field the type of work that is done here, increasing the renown and reputation (and notoriety?) of the staff at IMA. I don’t know if anything like this has happened before, but I think it’s brilliant.

The IMA is also hosting a handful of events in celebration of the TLF exhibition, which will be the meat of your bullet list this week.

• Friday July 18th, starting at 6pm, is an afterlife Double Feature with Performance Immortal, a dance show by NoExit Performance, inspired by the To Live Forever exhibit, and after that, Summer Nights features The Mummy.
• August 9th at 11am and 14th at 7pm join us for the tour Immortality in Art, a look at To Live Forever and immortality in cultures throughout the IMA’s galleries.
• Thursday, August 28th at 6:30pm is Deciphering Egyptian Art, a lecture on some of the forms seen in the To Live Forever exhibition.
• You can always check out programs and events for classes, tours and lectures on the IMA calendar.
• Some ancient Egyptians painted their coffins yellow in imitation of the gilded coffins of royalty.
• The Nile river flows North through Egypt, and is 4135 miles long.

Enjoy poking around the website and let us know what’s thrilling you to death.

I assert that it has to do with how much you love technology. My life, for example, is steeped in it. I read art blogs, watch YouTube videos people send to me via e-mail and spend nearly every moment wired in to some form of technological interaction. So of course I think art, like everything else in my life is fair game for technological enhancement.

But I know there is another point of view. One that firmly holds art and its viewing in a quiet, pensive place, unfettered by the white noise the digital world can create.

The difference in these perspectives is often attributed to a generational misunderstanding, that somehow if you were born before the internet was commonplace then you have no hope of ever understanding it. But I think that is an unfair generalization. Perhaps there is some truth somewhere in that stereotype, but like all stereotypes, that logic is flawed.

Instead, I would assert that it has to do with experience, and the quality of those experiences. If you hate technology, could it be because you tried to use something, or find something and couldn’t? If you love it, isn’t it because it makes your life easier and gives you access to fabulous things?

So, with these extremes in mind, we set out to create digital content that allows people to passively consume or actively participate depending on their desires. So discover IMA on the internet if you haven’t already. You can find us…

• Posting images on Flickr. You can just look or get into it and join our groups and even add your own content.
• Creating videos and adding them to IMA’s YouTube channel. Feel free to watch, share and critique these.
• Writing this blog gives you an insider’s view of what happens at IMA. We always love seeing your comments here.
• Adding content to our iTunes U site. Download IMA audio and video to your iPod or iPhone.
• Developing new web stuff for IMA exhibitions and projects. We recently launched a site for To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum.

If you are reading this list and still wondering why we do it all, I will offer a couple of reasons. One of the key motivations for creating digital content is to allow IMA to compete in the global marketplace. Not entirely in the way a for-profit corporation might, but to help the museum raise its profile, giving attention to its projects, exhibitions and permanent collection.

Another great reason to utilize these technologies is to provide content in places where people are already participating. iTunes, YouTube, and Flickr have established global audiences, and by providing content on these sites, IMA can expand its reach to people who could never make it through the front door.

Perhaps the most compelling motivator for us is potential. Potential to create diverse audiences, and to serve audiences we don’t even know about yet. Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief for Wired magazine wrote an article called, The Long Tail, describing how the internet creates a never-before-seen possibility to direct content to increasingly smaller audiences for increasingly less expense. Since we can customize content in all of these places, we can meet the needs and desires of people who want to know about very specific things without it costing us any more to produce or maintain.

We also have the potential to provide an experience through photos, video or online activities that gives a new viewer his or her first glimpse into what the art world can offer. A simple Google search for a topic might lead someone to IMA’s website, or to one of IMA’s projects on another website, allowing us to be the ambassador of art-related content.

Lofty goals? You bethca. But why would we bother otherwise?

And for those who are more interested in the finite, quantifiable reasons, we consider those too. We track numbers and look for projects that increase viewership or interaction with our content. A recent example is a partnership we are working on to provide access to IMA-produced video in local schools, boosting our outreach to school-aged children and teachers, and consequently, providing an under-served audience with high-quality art content, for free.

So there is the last nugget. Free. Everyone loves free stuff. All of the things we do are free to those who use it. You can search on your computer at home and find us, or go to your public library and use their free internet to get our free stuff. No matter what, you can’t beat free!

Still not convinced it is all worth it? Feel free to tell us why! (And we would also love to hear from those of you who love it!)

To date we have created a number of sets, usually to document an event at the art museum, and some groups that support specific projects. Lately, though, whenever someone says, “I have this great project and want to share it…”, we respond with, “Flickr!” And while it is true that we will be creating a handful of new sets that feature some super-cool behind-the-scenes images, we also have some other stuff up our sleeves, too.

Recently we have started thinking more seriously about what Flickr can really do for us, or more accurately what it can do for you. We have evolved in our thinking about it primarily as a place to share memories of things past and are newly focused on making what we share more exciting and encouraging you to share your own stuff. How are we doing it?

First of all, we are creating more sets and groups and thinking about how we manage them, promote them and what role they play in our on-line exploits. The most recent example is coming to the To Live Forever site. We have created a set that plays a role on the site by adding visitor feedback that puts faces with ideas, and we are working on a collaborative group for the site, too (come back soon to hear more about that). We hope that individuals will engage with the TLF site through the Flickr components and find ways to make personal connections to the big idea of that exhibition.

We have created groups in the past, most recently the big push was the ‘My Fashion’ group we created to offer Project IMA designers a place to share their fashion with the world. While these images weren’t IMA produced, the goal of the group wasn’t really all that community driven…we had an objective and mediated the content through partnerships with contributors to offer IMA site visitors additional content. This project was good and useful for Project IMA, but it really didn’t express our desire to build online communities. So what’s the difference?

We have discovered that the difference is in the process. Sort of like the difference between good science and bad science. Allowing the experiment to reveal its own results versus having an objective to prove and building an experiment that will make it true. Even though we created ‘My Fashion,’ to support an IMA project, it has taken on a life of its own, with new members outside of the scope of our project contributing to a new identiy for that group. It is this evolution that I find most compelling.

While we have learned a lot seeing our own Flickr projects change and grow, we also keep an eye on what the museum community is up to. We were recently shamed and inspired by the Tate’s new Flickr project, Street and Studio. (Check it out and enter!) And we are always learning a thing or two from the Brooklyn Museum, that recently made its way onto The Commons. (Congrats!)

There are also some museums that we would love to see more active on Flickr, like the van Gogh Museum that has a mere 15 images. That number seems disproportionate for the insanely popular artist it represents. On the flip side, the Milwaukee Art Museum has a visually rich display of images with a contemporary feel. If you are a museum considering Flickr, check out all the names I am dropping and perhaps this article or this one will push you through any remaining doubt…

As for us, over the next couple of months you will start to see a couple of different things from IMA…you will still see sets, but more of them will have more heavy-hitting content that will give you a glimpse into the real work of an art museum. You will also see groups that ask you to contribute with renewed focus on what your ideas will combine to create. In my opinion we haven’t yet been very successful as Flickr scientists, but we are observing, learning and internalizing and we will get better. While our efforts have at times been a bit clumsy, they are sincere, so I hope you will visit us on Flickr and come along for the ride as we figure it all out.