Slight Identity Crisis

Before submitting my final thesis title, I realized that my title did not reflect what I was doing in my thesis. My title said I was doing conservation but my case studies reflected inspection reporting. After about five more tweaks to the title, I finally settled on a title "Inspecting Nitrate Silent Cinema: Case Studies from the John E. Allen Collection of the George Eastman Museum." 

Now that my identity crisis is over, I've been continually working through feedback from three different people and finishing up unfinished sections. One section I am struggling on is finding the historical significance of my case study films. The films date early enough in the 20th century that there is little to no information. I have searched through database after database but no luck. My next task is to visit the GEM and look through their books. 

That is all for now, I don't have too much to report. By next post my paper will be complete! 

The Home Stretch

As we come to the end of March and the full draft deadline approaches, I am enjoying seeing my paper begin to come together. At this point, I am writing my recommendations for how the Kodak Archive can be developed and improved, based on standards and best practices established in the field. This is a lot easier said than done, because the Kodak Archive is a very unique case study. There is nothing written about how to approach a corporate archive at a company that has recently suffered financial disaster and is moving in a completely new direction. My recommendations are based on my own observations and experiences working with the collection, as well as best practices and advice from those in the archival field. I am looking forward to seeing my project come to fruition, and I am hopeful that it will be useful to Kodak as they move forward with the archive.

March Forward

As March comes close to an end, I see the end in sight as well as how far I've come. I know the work that has to be done: Completing the write-up of my case studies is chief among them. I have applied to internships over the summer, and I am slated to present at the Museum Association of New York in just a couple weeks. It is a weird feeling for me, as I come close to finishing my thesis. I still have one more semester left to do after this one as a consequence of switching into the Museum Studies program at an odd time in my undergraduate career. I sit in class and listen to the laughs and the discussions of my classmates, who are more than eager to walk the stage in May and continue on to the next phase in life. Sometimes I am left feeling bereft....and other times, I am grateful for that extra semester. I will get the chance to learn and connect with my college more than I had in my first two and a half years at RIT (when I was in my previous major). 

I am finding that I truly enjoy my major and the people and opportunities within it. There are days of course, where I do feel a bit overwhelmed, but I figure that's par for the course. Moreover, I realize that I do have an entire network of people within the MUSE program that I can convene with to discuss any concerns I may have and discuss plans of action that I can feasibly carry out. 

The next week for me will be filling out the remainder of my thesis and rearranging certain passages so that it follows with more fluidity than it does now. I know that if I go two weeks without checking in on my progress with thesis my anxiety will get the better of me in the midst of all my other responsibilities and deadlines. 

Until then, I will continue to march forward. 

The End of No Man's Land

After correcting my entire paper once more I am now ready to send it to my advisors who will correct them once more before the paper is finished. I am eager to finish the paper once and for all yet I will not slacken my effort as I reach the finish line. My poster will be the most challenging part of my Thesis project and I know that I have a lot of work ahead of me.

Despite the daunting task before me I know that if I call upon my advisors for help and feedback on my paper as I near the due dates I will be fine. I hope that by adding the few additional pieces of information and fixing the few mistakes that are hidden throughout the paper I will have a great paper.

Kat and Kitten Relationships

With the database completed, I have finally been able to move into the visualization stage of my thesis. For visualizing the more quantitative data, I have looked into Piktochart to make my findings concise and visually presentable. An example of such data is demonstrating how almost a third of the artists in the database had their careers based in New York City prior to coming to Artpark. I like the graphics available from the templates, but the challenge is making them readable on my poster.

For visualizing artist networks and artists' relationship with museums and galleries, I have decided to use MindMeister. I really appreciate Dr. Decker's help in getting an upgraded version for all of us to use on a shared account. I believe I can trust her not to sabotage my work. Regardless of whether betrayal occurs or not, MindMeister is really easy to use! It's simple to have a central point of reference (Artpark) and to branch out from there. Artpark functions as the initial "Parent" ("Kat") while the associated institutions and their artists are the "Children" ("Kittens") in the visualization. The visualization includes both established art museums as well as more alternative spaces, and the connections between these institutions demonstrate that despite competing interests, they did not operate entirely independent of each other in the art network. I will include observations about the included institutions in the final paper.

The Final Stretch and a Second Wind

In these past few weeks I have made a lot of headway on my thesis and am glad to say that the finish line is in sight!

I have continued revising the main body of my thesis and have begun my concluding ideas. For this, I begin by turning to the idea of History Communication, as put forth by Jason Steinhauer. His initial proposal of the idea is modeled off of the idea of Science Communicators (think Bill Nye, Neil de Grasse Tyson, etc.), who communicate complex scientific ideas in a more digestible way to the general public. Although Science Communication also implies some sort of involvement in policy decisions or reform, I intend to focus away from this aim and focus more on the simple communication aspect.

Now this may just sound like something we're all familiar with, public historians, but what I think is interesting and different about the idea of History Communicators specifically is its cultivation of a public-facing identity at the forefront, maybe even more so than content. What I mean by this is that History Communicators work to create an identity that the public can learn to recognize and trust, so that no matter the specific content taught, the presenter communicates credibility and maintains a relationship with the audience.

Neil de Grasse Tyson is an extremely accomplished and knowledgeable astrophysicist, and through multiple programs, books, essays, etc. has been communicating science for years. His public-facing identity and work combined with his knowledge of science created an instantly recognizable and trustworthy Science Communicator that can not only teach, but excite audiences. This is the way that I believe that podcasts can function as public history, as identity-focused productions that appeal to people's attraction to presenters before content.

This may seem backward in regards to other public history models, but with an audio-only medium the "presentation" is almost everything. Without additional visual stimulation, if you do not like the presenter's voice, tone, editing, formatting, etc. than you won't listen again. You wouldn't listen to a song you don't like, so why a podcast?

At this point I've rambled on far too long and should just be writing this explanation into my thesis itself, but overall I think that podcasts can form identities that create trusting and exciting relationships with audiences different from that of larger institutions, facilitating a wide, new range of public history interactions.

Finding Inspiration... With Fish?

With regards to progress on my thesis, I can keep this update short.
I am continuing to work on writing the various sections of it. By the end of today (March 20)
I hope to only have my introduction/conclusion/implications left to write, and
I will tackle those in the following week.  I have also prepared and presented a first
draft of my thesis poster, which I will work to improve in the coming weeks.

Today I’d like to write a bit about inspiration, specifically how it can be found
in unexpected places.  For example, I would not have expected to find inspiration
for Native Peoples of the Americas at an aquarium in Canada, but I did.

This past weekend I visited the Ripley’s Aquarium in Toronto, ON, Canada.
While wandering around in their Canadian Waters exhibit, I noticed that instead of traditional
labels accompanying each tank, there were screens that would rotate through the
various occupants of the tanks and give facts about them.  This, to me, seemed like a
brilliant solution in many respects. For example, it makes updating or correcting information
easier than having to create a whole new label, as the screen could simply be turned off, a
correction could be made in the program, and it could be turned back on with minimal lag time.
Similarly, if there is a large variety of fish in a tank (or, in my case, objects in a case), but
minimal space available for text, then a single scrolling or interactive screen could save space.
And then, if the screen is a touchscreen, this not only gives visitors a low-level interactive to
participate in by scrolling through and looking at the information in “bite-sized” sections, but
allows for greater connections between items (or fish) on display via linking and internal reference.

While it was already my intention to recommend the inclusion of digital and/or touchscreens
to Native Peoples, if for no other reason than to bring the exhibit firmly into the 21st century
and provide visitors with a “moving” or interactive element, having seen them in action in a
museum setting (I believe that, as formal collecting institutions, aquariums and zoos should
be considered part of the larger museological family) confirms my initial belief that they
might be a good solution for the RMSC.

A pair of sharks swim past at the Ripley's Aquarium in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

When Deadlines Attack....

As we reach the middle of the semester, I am feeling pretty good about where my thesis is at the moment. I am mostly done with the research portion of my thesis, so right now I am working on churning out as much of the process writing as possible. The hardest part is communicating my experiences to my audience in a way that makes sense. I am looking forward to having a couple extra sets of eyes look over my paper and point out any noticeable gaps in the narrative. 

I have also been trying to incorporate more visuals in the paper, to break up some of the space and make it more manageable. I have many pictures from my internship at Kodak that I can use, and I am trying to develop some tables and charts as well.  

The most stressful part of this process is balancing my thesis with other classes, especially during midterms. Thankfully, many of my other professors have been more than accommodating to my schedule and have been a big help in making sure my deadlines don't all pile up at the same time!