Biomedicine on Display

My impression of the first and only Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST) conference I’ve attended (Malmö in 2008) was quite mixed. The academic quality wasn’t particularly high, there were pretty few theoretically interesting talks, not much surprising stuff, almost no nerds around, no sudden bursts of creativity — and new media were (with few exceptions :-) totally absent. The whole thing was smoothly organised but there was an aura of a public and business management hanging over the conference venue. I think these biannual meetings are a major hang-out for science communication managers.

But things can change for the better. And even better if researchers and curators from science, technology and medical museums were to attend (there was almost none in 2008). The next meeting will be held in Firenze in April 2012, and the programme will include themes such as:

• What does quality mean in science communication?
• Evaluating public communication of science
• Art and/in science communication
• Ethics and aesthetics of science communication
• Reflexive challenges: communicating PCST?
• Emerging trends and issues in science communication
• Changing media, changing formats, changing science communication models?
• Public communication of technology: the ‘Cinderella’ of PCST?

In other words, a lot of themes that are central to curators and researchers in museums of science, technology and medicine. Deadline for proposals is 30 September. More here http://www.pcst2012.org.

There has been some noise around the new medical Twitter Journal Club in the last couple of days.

This specific virtual journal club (via #TwitJC) is a Twitter-based chat forum for doctors, medical students and others who are interested in research and clinical practice.

In spite of the recent noise about it, it’s not the first one. I fell over a blog post claiming that the first medical journal club on Twitter (or any specialty) was launched back in 2008. And there has been journal club chat rooms on other platforms, e.g., one through the The Stack Exchange Network and the Science and Society Journal Club organised by the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy (IGSP). There may have been several others (historians of contemporary social media: please fill in the details!)

In retrospect it’s astonishing that so few have found out to use Twitter as a virtual journal club medium. You miss the tea and cakes, of course (which is part of the charm of the traditional journal club), but on the other hand Twitter very efficiently forces participants to shut up after 140 keystrokes. Not a bad idea at all.

A very special artefact from Medical Museion’s collections in on display in a new exhibition at the Copenhagen Post and Tele Museum, celebrating the centennial of the Danish Association for the Blind.

The insect compund eye looking thing is actually a Braille version of the writing ball patented by Rasmus Malling-Hansen in 1870.

Selling well in Europe (Remington was the favourite typewriting machine in the US), it received prizes at a number of international exhibitions, including the World Exhibitions in Vienna in 1873 and Paris in 1878.

The most famous owner of a Malling-Hansen writing ball was in fact Friedrich Nietzsche, who got one in 1882, but apparently didn’t use it much. (More about the writing ball on the Malling-Hansen Society website.)

Malling-Hansen’s Braille writing ball is part of a collection of more than 4,500 material artefacts (and a number of braille-typed books) associated with the history of blind therapy and training that was acquired by Medical Museion last year when the Danish Museum of Blind History, one of the largest of its kind, was closed down.

One of our conservators, Charlotte Vikkelsø Hansen, has cleaned the writing ball thoroughly before sending it over to our colleagues in the Post and Tele Museum:

The physical writing ball can be seen here from 8 June until 30 November.

(See also the earlier post about Jan Eric Olséns research project ‘Vision and Touch: A Material History of the World of Blindness’).

I have had a paper accepted for the annual joint conference of the Society for European Philosophy and Forum for European Philosophy. Here is the abstract:

Molecular being – philosophy between genes and proteins

In this paper, I will attempt to connect the sparking wires of post-genomic molecular biology and new materialist philosophy, particularly the so-called object-oriented ontology.

Life is changing. The gene has, as historian of science Evelyn Fox Keller wrote some years ago, “had a glorious run in the twentieth century.” Since the publication of the working draft of the human genome in 2000 and the completed genome in 2003, however, it seems that the life sciences are at a juncture, requiring new concepts, terms and metaphors to grasp life in productive ways. It is increasingly being suggested that a straightforward relation between genes and their expressions is not tenable. The faith in the genome as the key with which to understand, decipher and decode ‘life itself’ is changing, partly due to the realisation that the translation process from gene to cell is a world unto itself. In other words, the list of parts that the Human Genome Project revealed turned out not to be a complete wiring diagram.

Post-genomic biomedicine is increasingly turning to the study of proteins for new concepts, terms and metaphors. In the hands of 21^st century biomedical scientists, ‘life itself’ is taking on new forms. The understanding of life is shifting towards ideas of a multidimensional material body, made up of a complex system of proteins, where molecular structures, movements and interactions carry out the regulated work of the cell. Post-genomic researchers are no longer satisfied reducing the organism to the informational logic of coding system embedded in biological software (DNA); rather, the organism is now increasingly seen as a substantive, material architecture, filled to the brim with three-dimensional protein interactions.

Molecular biology, then, seems to be reconfiguring its underlying conception of life. And philosophy is similarly finding itself “in the middle of time and in the middle of objects, with a desire to become part of this material world,” as Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht writes. The change from a genetic to a protein-based understanding of life in molecular biology runs in an interesting parallel, I will argue, to the attempts to develop new material and object-oriented ontologies. Using empirical examples from the world of molecular biology and protein research, I will argue that understanding what takes place within molecular biology and its changing conceptions of life can be fruitfully accomplished at the intersections of philosophy, genes and proteins.

The annual joint conference of the Society for European Philosophy and Forum for European Philosophy (SEP/FEP) is coming up soon. The call for papers (available here) was held under the title “Philosophy & …” and urged contributors to submit contributions that explore the limits of what can be placed together with, and within, the category of philosophy. Despite the somewhat bleak times for academic philosophy in England (the closing of the philosophy department at Middlesex being the premiere example), the organizers have struck a celebratory and exploratory note in the call for papers:

In a year when the UK has seen devastating cuts in the funding of the arts and humanities, it would be easy to be pessimistic about the future of Continental Philosophy. Yet, while reflection on the challenges ahead is certainly necessary, recent events also offer us the opportunity to respond to those who dismiss European Philosophy, not only with a vigorous defense, but also a demonstration and celebration of the profound impact it has had and continues to have on an enormous range of other disciplines.

So, while this year’s conference follows recent tradition in not having a theme, and thereby welcomes proposals from the broadest range of European philosophical thought, we particularly welcome papers and other contributions that explore the limits of what can be placed together with, and within, the category of philosophy.

Circling the philosophical wagons, so to speak. The conference has keynotes from Joan Copjec, Michéle Le Doeuff and one of my personal favorite philosophers at the moment, Graham Harman. His work under the banner of object-oriented ontology is fresh and stimulating, me thinks. Visit his (incredible active) blog here.

The Nordic Research Network for Medical History (in which we play a minor role) is organising a workshop on ‘Categories and Concepts in Health, Medicine and Society’ to take place in Umeå in northern Sweden, 15–17 March 2012 (very chilly place at that time of year, but also a charming academic town with birchs tree all over and lots of sun and snow).

The workshop takes its point of departure in the fact that health and disease concepts and categories are ubiquitious, both in everyday life and in science. The organisers (Per Axelsson, Umeå, and Signild Vallgårda, Copenhagen) want to discuss different types of concepts and categories, the role of categories, and different theoretical approaches to the study of concepts and categories in medicine and health policy. For example, change and continuity in social categories in epidemiological research; comparisons of the uses of race and ethnicity classifications in different countries; inclusion/exclusion of populations; the evolution of new concepts and categories; effects on health policy of categories used; and how categories are shaped and how they shape those categorised. They have invited Eviatar Zerubavel, Department of Sociology, Rutgers University to give a keynote speech.

The network grant will cover accommodation and conference fees (but not travel expenses). So send a <500 words abstract and a short CV to Per Axelsson (per.axelsson@cesam.umu.se) before 15 September. More info from Per Axelsson in Umeå (per.axelsson@cesam.umu.se) or Signild Vallgårda here in Copenhagen (siva@sund.ku.dk).

Many museums struggle with how to integrate Facebook (and other social media) in their collections, exhibitions and physical venues.

Therefore it was interesting to read Benjamin Thompson’s report from a Eureka Live event, ‘Facebook: bad for friendship?’, held at the Wellcome Collection in London, some time ago.

One of the discussion topics was whether you can have too many friends on FB. Spreading yourself ‘too thin’ means you can’t invest as much time into each ‘friend’.

Agree! And, by the way, what does the word ‘friend’ really mean? Frankly I just hate the word ‘friend’ in this context. Facebook is actually more an ‘acquaintancebook’ than a ‘friendbook’. And when people have more than 150-200 ‘friends’ (Dunbar’s number), these aren’t even ‘acquaintances’ anymore, they’re reduced to fans. In fact, institutions, including museums, mainly use FB as a broadcasting platform.

Accordingly, there seems to be a trend that people are purging their Facebook accounts, leaving only close real friends and family, using Twitter instead for the broadcasting of their thoughts. Maybe that’s why our museum recently has put more emphasis on being present on Twitter?

So whereas Facebook is about branding and broadcasting under the disguise of ’friend-making’, Twitter is a least honest — it’s openly broadcasting, period.

Our colleagues over at the fabulous rete list are just now busy recommending the Museum of Technology
in Hemel Hempstead in northern London. It doesn’t have regular opening hours; one has to make an appointment. Writes Tony Constable:

If you can manage a short trip north of London to Hemel Hempstead there is the excellent Museum of Technology on the old village High Street there. The instruments are very well looked after and well displayed – and there are some good demonstrations. It is run by Trevor Cass and Rosemary Hourihane. Telephone to make an appointment.

And Brian Styles seconds:

Their collection is astonishing and remarkable for the condition of the exhibits and the standard of display. In a modest space, there’s a vast range of items, many of them really scarce. And it’s wonderful to see some things working. I didn’t think I’d ever see a WWI spark transmitter in action, for instance! Exhibits are labelled with just the right amount of detail and, of course, the curators are well-versed in all that’s there. Many a professional operation would do well to pay them a visit …

According to the website, they have an awesome collection of medical instruments too — not all of which seems to be on display though.

We’ve just produced this simple piece of genomic jewellery — a necklace made by a gene chip in a thin silver chain (see larger image below).

This particular gene chip (BeadChip) is produced by the San Diego-based company Illumina, which develops and manufactures platforms for the analysis of genetic variation and biological function for the rapidly growing sequencing, genotyping and gene expression markets.

First, here’s some technical description of the Illumina BeadChip (based on what our senior curator Daniel Noesgaard has found out):

A BeadChip is a ~30 x100 mm silica slide containing twenty-four arrays, each allowing for genotyping of a single biological sample. Each array contains a very large number of microscopic microwells etched into the surface of the slide. The microwells (<3 micrometer in diameter, 3 micrometer deep) are uniformly spaced across the silica surface, i.e., each array contains more than 0.5 million about microwells. The microwells are filled with tiny silica beads (one type per well) held to the wells by non-covalent forces. Each bead is covered with hundreds of thousands of copies of a known short nucleotide sequence (50 nucleotides long). In addition, each bead also contains an address sequence that allows for decoding, once beads have been randomly distributed across the chip wells. The design allows for 3,000 to 90,000 bead types, each of which represents one single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) to be analysed.

The assay is based on genomic DNA that is extracted from blood samples. The DNA is amplified, fragmented, precipitated and resuspended before being loaded onto the BeadChip for hybridization with the short nucleotide sequences on the beads. After hybridization, the chip is washed to remove unhybridized or non-specifically bound DNA. Then fluorescently labeled nucleotides are added to extend the hybridized DNA that thus act as primers. Finally, the chip is coated for protection against photo bleaching. Following coating, the chip must be scanned immediately. If necessary, the chip can be stored for up to 72 hours in a dark vacuum with minimal signal loss.

The necklace has so far been produced in one copy only — made as a gift for Bodil Busk Laursen at the occasion of her retirement as Director of the Design Museum Denmark last week.

It was our senior curator Bente Vinge Pedersen who suggested we could use one of the chips left over from the ‘Genomic Enlightenment’ art installation earlier in the spring:

(see also the video from the installation work here; more about the ‘Genomic Enlightenment’ installation in a later post).

Senior curator Niels Christian Vilstrup-Møller and conservator Nanna Gerdes did the craft work and the necklace was handed over to Bodil Busk Laursen at a reception last Monday.

And here’s a larger image of the piece:

Just a reminder of the Artefacts meeting on ‘Conceptualizing, Collecting and Presenting Recent Science and Technology’, 25-27 September, 2011, in the Museum Boerhaave, Leiden. The central question is what intellectual and practical approaches should be developed to document, preserve and present the history of recent science and technology? Deadline for proposals is 1 July — read more here.

“Why Proteins Have to Die So That We May Live”. This was the title of the talk given by Nobel Laureate Dr. Aaron Ciechanover at the international symposium entitled Protein Chemistry: Applications to Combat Diseases held at the University of Copenhagen earlier this week. Three days packed with talks from the world’s leading protein chemists and researchers. The focus of the conference was the life of proteins from their synthesis to their degradation. This was highlighted by talks from three Nobel Prize laureates: Ada Yonath, Avram Hersko and Aaron Chiechanover – each of whom have contributed immensely to our understanding of these processes.

The symposium featured talks from invited speakers only, and as such the quality of the talks reflected this in being very high. The papers presented were mostly already published, but some did include unpublished data (although I’m sure these were already on their way to being submitted). Each speaker was given twenty-five minutes to present their papers, and unfortunately due to a complete lack of control by the chairs, this was exceeded over and over again. Annoying. Not only are breaks important when you sit through three hours of talks, they are also where a lot of the magic happens! They must be respected and cherished! Thumbs down, organizers!

The conference format for communicating science is interesting. It takes the researchers out of their daily routines (well, more or less), and to some extent forces them to listen in on subjects that they otherwise wouldn’t have paid the slightest attention. This is good. Even the most experienced researchers cannot keep up with all the data being published. Meeting colleagues in an informal setting and discussing work over food and wine also works great. It’s brilliant for networking! However, this must happen organically and cannot be forced. The organizers attempted to schedule informal meetings betweens speakers and audience during breaks (“science dating”), but I think that defies the point of informality. In this case, a lot of empty slots emphasized this. Or maybe it was just the lack of breaks?

What about social media? I’ve been going to a number of medical conferences over the past few years, and to be honest I haven’t really noticed anyone actively using it. My first conference in the museum world was very different. Granted, it was a conference about the web, but everyone was tweeting throughout the entire event. Online forums were being used actively for discussions. And (of course) all information about the conference was available online. Including all abstracts. This is very far from the case at medical meetings I’ve attended. Where the rest of the world is moving towards Web 3.0, they remain an early beta. And this is sad. It seems there is too much focus on controlling information rather than letting it flow free. Sharing. Engaging. Not only for the benefit of the meeting attendees, but perhaps also the rest of the world? Am I being naïve?

“While much has been written on the history of psychiatry, remarkably little has been written about psychiatric collections or curating”, says the back-cover of Exhibiting Madness in Museums: Remembering Psychiatry Through Collection and Display, edited by Catharine Coleborne and Dolly MacKinnon.

A first sketch to a comparative history of collections of psychiatric objects, the volume, which will be published by Routledge in August, investigates collectors, collections, displays, and the reactions to exhibitions of the history of insanity.

Unfortunately, it’s limited to museums in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK, but that’s a good start — we’re eagerly waiting for a sequel treating the many rich psychiatric museum collections in continental Europe.

I have just had a proposal accepted by Nordisk Sommeruniversitet who will be holding their Summer Symposium in Falsterbo, Sweden, July 30th - August 7th, 2011. NSU is organized by a Swedish non-profit organization sponsored by the Nordic Council of Ministers. It focuses on fostering cross-disciplinary research networks in the Nordic countries

There are eight study circles and I will be doing a practical workshop in study circle #7, Artistic research – strategies for embodiment.

The study circle will invite distinguished researchers and artists in the field, who have contributed to this emerging discipline. Building on the experiences from the upcoming anthology of the previous study circle 7, the new study circle will end with a new publication. This publication will focus on sharing methodologies and specific examples of artistic research and dissemination through applying multimedia. The aim is to reach out to our peers and art students interested in the field of Artistic Research.

Researchers and artists from all fields will take part in discussions about development of strategies for embodying and disseminating the experiences drawn from the field of Artistic Research on the theme: Strategies for Embodiment within Artistic Research; questioning and probing ways of embodying and communicating artistic research processes and their outcomes.

Previously I gave a paper at the NSU Winter Symposium held at Arkitektskolen in Aarhus. This unusual and lively three day symposium included choreographers, theatre and dance researchers, sculptors and animators and filmmakers, photographers, philosophers, art historians and drawers from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, UK, Greece, USA, Germany, Ireland, Portugal and Czech Republic.

A healthy array of PhD candidates presented. Some used the symposium as a platform to ask questions around their own research and others looked for responses and criticism. Elina Saloranta a doctoral student at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts presented her paper ’What does silence sound like?’. This included a video and a script of a conversation between herself and her sound technician Eduardo Abrantes, a PhD student at the Center for Subjectivity Research at the University of Copenhagen, who investigated the phenomenology of voice as a medium for sharing in his presentation ’On the uses of the voice-sharing through resonance and other metaphors’.

Some like Angela Rogers who uses drawing to investigate dialogic interaction, held workshops. Others, like Francis Halsall a lecturer in Modern & Contemporary Art Theory at National College of Art and Design, Dublin, were art historians and theorists but not practitioners at all. His paper ’Embodiment and Drawing: De Duve on Robert Morris’ caused lively debate amongst those of us who are academics and also practitioners.

My paper, ’Drawing your way into understanding’ examined how we can come to know something by drawing it. It claims that the relationship that develops between object and viewer that occurs during the process of drawing, is central to the viewer gaining greater understanding of an object. Furthermore, the nature of drawing means this information can be communicated to others offering new insight and knowledge. The use of drawing here is based on a simple but poignant premise: that we do not look at things closely enough. By not looking we don’t see and without seeing we do not gain knowledge. I presented evidence of drawing as a research method based on previous investigations into understanding the experiences of a rare disease, Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva and from data taken from groups of non-artists who have used drawing as a method for investigating medical artefacts.

The NSU Summer Symposium takes place over five days. The first three days will focus on ‘knowledge generation’ and the final two will focus on ‘knowledge sharing’ and issues regarding the often problematic question of the means of dissemination of the knowledge generated through artistic research in the academic context and beyond.

Here is my proposal for the Summer Symposium.

Engaging with the unfamiliar

This is a proposal for a practical participatory workshop. The aim is to bring to the attention of the group, something unfamiliar which they will then have an opportunity to get to know.

Using observational investigative methods, the group will be asked to engage with an object. The journey of how they come to understand the object will be evidenced through the phenomenological activity of drawing. By this I mean the action of moving the tip of a pencil on paper in correspondence to the observational investigation they make. The emphasis is not on the drawing as a noun – a finished artefact, but on the verb – the action of making and experiencing the encounter they have with the object.

The question I will be asking is, where is knowledge embodied? Is it purely in the act of looking, in the act of looking while drawing (looking ‘through’ the tip of the pencil) or is knowledge embodied in the realized outcomes?

I understand knowledge to be embodied within this fugitive collection of experiences that formulate a breadth of understanding through each unique encounter. But I would like to find out where and how participants come to understand an object they encounter. Perhaps they will confirm my theories or maybe they have a whole new perspective on how actively engaging with an object can bring knowledge.

Study circle #7 then aims to publish an anthology in 2013 focusing on communicating methodologies, specific examples of artistic research, and the dissemination of knowledge through various media and multimedia solutions.

Proposals for presentations in various formats were welcomed, ranging from demonstrations and presentations/excerpts of artistic work, to theoretical reflections in the form of short papers and suggestions for panel discussions.

In small ethnically homogenous countries like Denmark, Poland and Finland, there is a thick aura of nationalism around museums. For that reason alone, the planned conference on ‘Transnational History of Museums’, 17-18 February 2012 seems like a relief.

Organised by the Institut für Kunstwissenschaft und Historische Urbanistik at TU-Berlin, the aim of the conference is to go beyond the national framework in analysing the museum institution:

Temple of muses, custodian of cultural heritage, site of memory, space for the mediation of taste and knowledge: The functions of the museum are manifold and are given different emphases, depending on the type of museum and the disciplinary outlook. However, the argument that the institution is a major venue for the construction of national identity has recurred again and again since the first royal collections were opened to the public around the middle of the eighteenth century. Indeed, the number of museum foundations was particularly high in Europe during the nineteenth century, when the modern nation-state was being established. Yet the tight linkage between nation-building and the birth of public collections has increasingly been called into question by recent scholarly work on the history of museums. Instead, local traditions have been stressed or international comparisons have been drawn upon in order to explain policies of collecting, the display of exhibits or the architectural design of individual galleries.

The planned conference will reflect from a transnational perspective upon the purposes and concepts of museums, museum practices, and the perception of museum culture:

• Which models from abroad were imported by museum representatives in order to give their own collections a certain profile?
• To what extent were “foreign” principles of order and hanging appropriated?
• Can the international networks on which museum experts relied be reconstructed?
• How can we describe the activities of commissions that were assigned to explore the organisation of museums beyond their geographic borders?
• Did an internationally inspired taste have any influence on the planning, the architectural settings or the compositions of collections?
• Do documents such as letters, travelogues or diaries written by museum visitors give concrete indications of a comparative, transnational perception?

Central to the conference is the discussion of the museum as a space of, even product of, cross-border processes of exchange and transfer. Seen from this angle, an examination of the museum of art, in particular, is to be carried out, also taking into account archaeological and historico-cultural collections, arts and crafts museums and the so-called universal museums inside and outside of Europe.

The conference will be held 17-18 February at TU-Berlin. Short proposals (approx. 150 words) for papers not exceeding 30 minutes should be sent by 15 June to Bénédicte Savoy (benedicte.savoy@tu-berlin.de) or Andrea Meyer (andrea.meyer@tu-berlin.de). Be prepared to listen to contributions in German and French as well :-)

A couple of years ago, Camilla Mordhorst and I were playing with the idea that the museum was like a blog. What would Medical Museion be like of it was modelled on Biomedicine on Display?

I thought about our discussions when I read Mia Ridge’s report from the recent Digital Communication and Heritage meeting at Nordiska Museet in Stockholm. She says, among other things:

I was thinking about new metaphors for museums – what if we were Amazon? A local newspaper? A specialist version of Wikipedia? A local pub? A student blog? A festival, a series of lectures, or a film group? A pub quiz? Should a museum be at the heart of village life, a meeting place for art snobs, a drop-in centre, a café, a study space, a mobile showroom?

So what if Medical Museion was an operation theatre? A GP waiting room? An IVF clinic? A café for medical students? A meeting space for patient organisations? Or a showroom for medical device producers?