Week 02 2018

Week 2: Aura and authenticity in the age of digital reproduction

Lecturers
Sarah Kenderdine
Assisted by Stephanie Romon

Site visits - Basel

• Antikenmuseum Basel (10am)
• Haus der elektronischen Künste Basel (12pm)

Note: Tours starts at 10.00am. All students need to be on site in Basel by that time but are free to make their own way there. Train tickets will be reimbursed. Please contact Stephanie Romon for payment and collect by submitting your ticket/invoice to her.

Content

1. Site visit #1: Scanning Seti. The Regeneration of a Pharaonic Tomb, Antikenmuseum Basel 
2.  Fill in the IShoU app
3. Site visit #2: Future Love. Desire and connectedness in the age of formed nature, Haus der elektronischen Künste Basel
4. Assignment # 2

Assignment #2
Reflect on your experiences of the Seti exhibition from the perspectives of aura and authenticity. Describe the juxtaposition of the real and virtual – is it meaningful? What does scale have to do with the experience? How could the overall experience be improved? How could the facsimile be improved? 1 page due on Week 4 with in-class presentation (10%)

Readings (PDF & print)

• Kenderdine, S. (2013a). ‘Pure Land:’ Inhabiting the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang. Curator, 56(2), 199-218. (download PDF)
• Kenderdine, S. & Yip. A. (2018). ‘Proliferation of Aura: Facsimiles, Authenticity and Digital Objects’, in The Routledge Handbook to Museum Communication, Drotner, K. Dziekan, Vince, Parry, Ross & Schrøder, K. (eds), Routledge, (in press- download PDF)
• Latour, B., & Lowe, A. (2010). The migration of the aura, or how to explore the original through its facsimiles. In T. Bartscherer & R. Coover (Eds.), Switching Codes: Thinking Through Digital Technology in the Humanities and the Arts (275-298). Chicago: Chicago University Press. (download PDF)
• Jeffrey, S. (2015). Challenging heritage visualisation: Beauty, aura and democratisation. Open Archaeology, 1, 144–52. (download PDF)
• Jones, S. (2010). Negotiating authentic objects and authentic selves: Beyond the deconstruction of authenticity. Journal of Material Culture, 15(2), 182–203. (download PDF)

Websites

Jones, J. (2016, April 7). The digital Rembrandt: A new way to mock art, made by fools. The Guardian. 

Exhibitions
Scanning Seti. The Regeneration of a Pharaonic Tomb >>

The rock-cut tomb of Pharaoh Seti I, discovered in 1817 by Giovanni Battista Belzoni, is the most outstanding burial site in the Valley of the Kings. Once extolled for its immaculate preservation, the grave is now in a pitiful state owing to the depredations of ruthless souvenir hunters. An exact copy of the 3,300-year-old royal tomb is on display in an impressive special exhibition at the Antikenmuseum Basel. Thanks to watercolors documenting its wonderful decorations, made at the time of the discovery, combined with the most up-to-date scanning and reproduction processes, it has been able to recreate the tomb in its original beauty. Climb down into the magnificent burial chambers of Seti I and discover the pharaonic monument in all of its ancient glory, as Belzoni did 200 years ago.

 

Future Love. Desire and connectedness in the age of formed nature >>

The group exhibition "Future Love" examines the impact of new technologies and social media on our emotional relationships and our sexuality.The exhibition "Future Love" offers both critical, unconventional and imaginative perspectives on the life ahead as well as an examination of the present development of society as well as the changes, challenges and opportunities that might affect our behaviors. The exhibited works are speculative, critical and sometimes utopian. They invite us to reflect on our models of emotional relationships that determine our situation as humans and our presence in the ecosphere.