Narrated by a Geordie – the Geordie history/voice... (talk to Sherrie)
Genius, invention and the progression of ideas (spurred on by objects)
Critical (and creative) analysis/Structuralism/Shadow Self (hence studio crits also)
Kabul? Founding impetus...
“Radical pamphlets” - people thrown out of the committee for over politicized opinions e.g. Thomas Spence - The Iniquities of private Property pamphlet... Pushing ideologies NOW?? Objects themselves ‘property’? Ownable? Really? Objects which span a period of time (often hundreds or thousands of years) can these be ownable?? Many of these objects now ‘owned’ by institutions which are themselves immaterial/abstract/ineffable beings... stamps of ownership and progeny transgressions and transactions...
Catalogues and the taxonomy of 'objective' knowledge/ classification of meaning. Typologies > the development of objects (cf ‘The evolution of culture’ by Pitt Rivers)... The way that collection presented - such an amass of objects that can never be wholly comprehended or understaood... narratives vs. atoms... The favouring of narrative in early archaeology... e.g. the misplaced/erroneous concept of ‘The Celts’
EXPLANATORY TEXT PANELS - idiom of science and preordained knowledge/understanding/provenance
“scientific” vs “not scientific” and “natural curiosities” vs “artificial curiosities” false dialectic... Dividing antiquities/utensils of ‘savage practitioners’
A bone ornament whose value is ascribed by the owner
Value and aura in/of Objects (cf The System of Objects), objects as vehicles for meaning, memory, value and resonance. “An object becomes an art object because a person is interested in it” DEAD MATTER > THE GAZE AS ACTIVATING FORCE...
(the prehistoric objects.... parallels to the enlightenment collection at The British Museum - attempting to understand the world through historical objects... the distant/dark past...) Objects taken OUT OF THE GROUND … the dark, wet earth... into the air, the light (equivalence)
Bring back and reignite (reintegrate) these objects through film and photography... laden with different perspectives (the artist's/philosopher's hovering eye)....
Paul – contact for extra access
Chris Calvier – Structure and History of the lit and Phil building
I am an empty bell, resounding with the song of the universe
Volatizing History/taxonomies and dominant/overarching narratives - a gentle touch, a moving between things, apophenia of the (artists) gaze, returning to a time prior to the division of intellect, knowledge and research, before taxonomy or scientific certainty...where things are interconnected, cross-pollinating, liquid, before the ‘sectional societies’ which emerged from the Lit and Phil... Fereyabend, Le Roy (Epistemological Anarchism, critique of scientific knowledge)
During the Victorian Era many collections would have been mixed (e.g. the Wunderkammer) without labelling/ dividing into subgroups... Now (Discovery Museum) the biological display intended to reflect current view of the world i.e. all the birds together and not divided, to see the whole world laid out before you systematically...
The way in which all knowledge is shifting and ephemeral e.g. the Flint arrow heads in Victorian times believed to be made by fairies and only with discovery of a wider world/frame of reference and the Native Americans using such a technology did the ‘truth’ emerge... the potent place where explanation not fully resolved - the edge of human understanding... where poetry and magic still possible (like Quantum Mysicism)
The fire of 8th February, 1893, the destruction of words, language and meaning... the water damaged books, the leaking ink... Fire as catharsis, the change which came about afterwards... breaking things apart in order to remake (better)
The smudge and smell of the fire on y fingertips after handling 18th century books of comparative anatomy. The map of the moon. The Protorosaurus skeleton.
The Lit & Phil - a rhizome, a seed from which so much springs forth... Began with the objects (1793) then books chosen according to the objects “...the books were to be generally such as would relate directly to the expressed objects of the society” Parish, Charles p.7... Objects informing intellectual momentum (much like the way objects and their classifications {language} defined the specialisms of archaeology/ethnology/antiquities)... The Society of Antiquities developed in parallel to the Lit & Phil - first meeting in The Turk’s Head 23rd january 1813 - at the same time many of the Lit and Phil’s collections of objects moved to the society...
ETHNOGRAPHIC MATERIAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL MATERIAL - Disciplines and ‘keepers’ divided and specialised according to the necessity of the objects... MY THEORY i.e. inverse of the Pitt Rivers idea that people develop technologies... technologies develop/evolve us... (cf The Selfish Meme) we evolved according to objects and their necessity to be... they brought us into existence...
(Idea - New Society “Show & Tell” manifold perspectives on a single object... Institutional critique...)
The Ladies Room (1899)... The lady in the attic... the hysterical woman...
How to bring something exploding in, something joyful and wondrous... ideas - rituals, DANCING (male and female), that dream I had about the antler and the mirror... walking round the Lit and Phil in a motion similar to Joseph Beuys talking to a dead hare, talking about history and narrative... CHANCE ENCOUNTERS...
Culture and values reflected directly in which objects in the collection have survived... during the mid 19th century many ethnographic and animal materials thrown out and replaced by “better examples” e.g. the taxidermy birds (ones which were kept tended to be those sketched by Bewick despite their anatomical inaccuracies). What this says about the underlying ideologies/what is considered as important/rationale/bias... parallel to what is happening NOW in Newcastle in regards to TOWN PLANNING, the destruction and remodelling of the city according to newer ‘better’ principles...
Perhaps it is about inserting RENEGADE objects e.g. African objects (excluded from history up until the point when the continent became of importance for trade/slaves/sugar/commerce... how our world view/perspective shifts according to commercial culture and ‘necessity’) - THE OTHER, ORIENTALISM and THE OVERLOOKED.
Line of Enquiry?
Seed/rhizome > the first objects > objects informing books and disciplines >
The arrival of the Mummy in Newcastle - the city broke out in ‘Mummy mania’... posters around the city declaring that the Mummy had been stolen from the Roman Wall...
To Do
Speak to Sherrie - geordie voices
Talk to Paul - Letters, minutes and Hedly papers relating to original objects of the Lit&Phil’s collection
Figure out list of original objects to revisit, photograph/film and research
compile a ‘map’ of ideas and connections within the group alongside history to base audio on
To Find
“Literature as Revalation” (Book) Gilbert Murray, 1917 (Lecture delivered at the Lit&Phil)
“A Catalogue of the manuscripts, books, Roman and other antiquities belonging to the society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne” 1839
“Antiquarian Gleanings of the North” Scott, W.B. 1851
“History of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne” (book) R.S.Watson 1897
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