Question    What is black and white and re(a)d all over?
Answer        A newspaper (and Moderna Museet)

If you’re a fan of photography, now is a great time to visit Moderna Museet. This is because Sweden’s national museum of modern and contemporary art has decided to clear out nearly all of its paintings and sculptures, replacing them with a changing selection of photographs drawn from its own extensive collection.

The official reason for this action is to stress that the museum stays true to its reputation for “Movement in Art”. This was the title of a much-heralded exhibition dating from 1961. Visitors to today’s Moderna Museet get a taste of what this show was like through a small commemorative display timed to coincide with its fiftieth anniversary.

There is another explanation for Moderna Museet’s photographic re-shoot. Swamping the galleries with photographs is a neat way of retouching the museum so as to allow its new director (Daniel Birnbaum) to politely edit out all traces of his predecessor (Lars Nittve). Think the Louvre after the French revolution minus all the violence.

This was indeed a bloodless coup. Yet it is the colour of blood that predominates amid Moderna Museet’s sea of black-and-white photographs. Don't believe me? Well, pop along to the museum and seek out Cindy Sherman’s blouse (Untitled, 2008); Christian Vogt’s Barbara (The Red Series, 1976); Inez Van Lamsweerde’s lace gloves (Petra, 1994); Veronika Bromová’s testicles (Girls too, 1995); Eva Klasson’s Parasites (1978); Annika von Hausswolff’s wingtips (I Am the Runway of Your Thoughts, 2008); Frank Thiel’s crane (City 2/36/A (Berlin), 1988); Hans Hammarskiöld and Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd’s Laser (1971); Tuija Lindström’s Iron (1991); Lars Tunbjörk’s Pictures from Sweden (1991); Nan Goldin’s French Chris (1979); J.H. Engström’s lips (Haunts, 2006) and Irving Penn’s Mouth (1986/1992). Oh, and guess what colour all the articulated trucks were that Annica Karlsson Rixon photographed over the space of five years? That’s right: red. Just like the sofa next to the coffee table covered with books to be read.

Does this reddymade (sic) reveal the curators’ favourite colour? Or is black-and-white with a touch of vermilion a marker of photographic distinction? Evidence supporting the latter contention comes from archival copies of such magazines as Life, Se and Die Woche, examples of which are displayed in vitrines. Their covers from the 1930s to the 1960s are formed of black-and-white images juxtaposed with the logo of the journal – all of which are red.

So, if photography leaves you cold and if red is your least favourite colour, then it’s probably best to put off visiting Moderna Museet until the revolution is over and normal service has resumed…

Next year will mark the fortieth anniversary of John Berger's Ways of Seeing. In it he memorably comments on "the disingenuousness that bedevils the subject of art history" (Berger 1972: 102). He also refers to "mystification" - "the process of explaining away what might otherwise be evident" (8-9).

That Ways of Seeing is still well worth reading ought to be evident to all recent visitors to London's Serpentine Gallery. Its current exhibition - which ends today - is devoted to the Italian artist, Michelangelo Pistoletto (born 1933). He has filled the gallery with coils of twisting cardboard to create a labyrinth. Dotted around are various symbolic artefacts intended to represent the world's four major religions. This site-specific installation is called The Mirror of Judgement. Visitors, as the title suggests, encounter themselves reflected in large mirrors placed at various junctures. These link back to Pistoletto's Mirror Paintings of the 1960s, a fact mentioned in the introductory interpretation panel:

    The Mirror Paintings... reflect their surroundings and the viewer as a part of the image, linking
    art and life in an ever-changing spectacle... After moving through the maze, visitors encounter
    a number of mirrors and are invited, quite literally, to reflect on themselves and society.
    For the artist, art should inspire and produce social change, both on an individual and collective
    level. Pistoletto describes this engagement as "a winding and unforeseeable road that leads
    us to the place of revelation, of knowledge."

This sense of transformation and enlightenment is brought to an ecstatic crescendo in the accompanying catalogue, which ends with a statement by Pistoletto:

    The future for me is not about the possession of the world, but about making love with the world
    - it's our partner. But if we make love with the world, we have to love humanity. If you love humanity,
    you love yourself (cited in O'Brien 2011: 23).

There are many words to describe this sort of artspeak rhetoric, some more polite than others. It is a variation on the theme of Berger's mystification. It is also deeply disingenuous.

This is demonstrated by one of the artefacts included in Pistoletto's installation. Christianity is represented by a prie-dieu or "kneeler"(1). On it is a metal plaque that reads:

                    TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN LOVING MEMORY OF
                                                    GEORGE SMITH.
    FOR 50 YEARS A WORKER IN THIS CHURCH, BORN 1842. DIED 1915.
                            "MY GOD SHALL SUPPLY ALL YOUR NEED."

The inclusion of this item is part of Pistoletto's call for art "to produce new symbols, or to change old symbols into new ones" (cited in O'Brien 2011: 22).

The prie-dieu made me reflect on myself and society - just as Pistoletto intended. In the hope of reaching "the place of revelation, of knowledge" I asked a gallery invigilator about George Smith and the church at which he had worked for half a century. She had no idea. Nor did the chap at the information desk. He went upstairs to consult the curator and when he came back he informed me that the prie-dieu had been bought at an antiques auction. Nothing else was known about it. He added helpfully that one thing, however, was certain: George Smith was of no significance to Michelangelo Pistoletto.

It was at that moment that the scales of mystification fell from my eyes.

"Democracy", says Pistoletto, "is horizontal, it isn't a pyramid" (cited in O'Brien 2011: 21). If this is the case, why doesn't anyone care about George Smith (1842-1915)? Pistoletto and the Serpentine Gallery claim that "art should inspire and produce social change". Unfortunately for them, The Mirror of Judgement has exposed both its creator and its host. They preside over a smoke and mirrors act shot through with mystification.

One newspaper critic was duped into taking Pistoletto's "richly symbolic spiritual journey". But something troubled him: "why must [Pistoletto] be so maddeningly obscure?" (Hudson 2011) The answer is because, without the obscurity and the mystification, there would be nothing left except for strips of cardboard and bits of old junk ripped from a forgotten church.

Pistoletto talks about "making love with the world". Perhaps he's right. I certainly felt screwed by my Serpentine experience.

___
Note

(1) "prie-dieu, n. A piece of furniture for the use of a person at prayer, consisting of a kneeler with a narrow upright front surmounted by a ledge for books or for resting the elbows" (OED 1908/2011).

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References

Berger, John (1972) Ways of Seeing, BBC & Penguin (2008 edition)
Hudson, Mark (2001) "Michelangelo Pistoletto: The Mirror of Judgement, Serpentine Gallery, review", The Telegraph, 11/07, accessed 17/09/2011 at, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/8630864/Michelangelo-Pistoletto-The-Mirror-of-Judgement-Serpentine-Gallery-review.html
O'Brien, Sophie et al (ed.) (2011) Michelangelo Pistoletto: The Mirror of Judgement, Serpentine Gallery, Koenig Books
OED (1908/2007) "prie-dieu, n.", Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed., accessed 17/09/2011 at http://oed.com/view/Entry/151198

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Supplemental
25/12/2011

John Berger's Ways of Seeing is now available (in black and white) via UbuWeb.
See: http://www.ubu.com/film/berger_seeing.html

The association between museums and "sacred" or "consecrated" places has long been understood (Elliott 2002). This overlap has now been rendered complete by the National Gallery's temporary exhibition Devotion by Design: Italian Altarpieces before 1500 (6 July – 2 October 2011). One of its rooms recreates the interior of a Tuscan church from around 1500 complete with candlesticks and candle light, altar crucifix and religious music.

The exhibition explores altarpieces - their construction, commission and construal. It also tackles "the business of altarpiece design". It has far less to say about the business of altarpiece acquisition.

This silence is achieved by a careful process of exclusion, as is apparent in the room entitled "Dislocation". It is introduced as follows:

        The objects in this room are all fragments of different altarpieces. Some altarpieces were
    modified or updated quite early in their history to appeal to the prevailing tastes of the time.
    The majority, however, were dismantled following the suppression of religious institutions
    across Italy during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
        Altarpieces that were not directly transferred to art galleries in Italy appeared on the art market,
    encouraging the attention of scholars and collectors. This room examines the various methods
    used by art historians, conservators and scientists to reconstruct and recontextualize these
    altarpiece fragments.

This seemingly unremarkable statement of facts neglects to mention something that is raised in the accompanying catalogue. The chapter "Dislocation, dismembering and dismantling" begins with a reproduction of Niccolò di Liberatore's Christ on the Cross, and Other Scenes (1487). It was purchased by the National Gallery in 1881. Rumours that it had been stolen prior to its acquisition were "somewhat mysteriously" dropped (Nethersole 2011: 93). This example is used to illustrate "the potentially dubious machinations that sometimes characterised the sale of Italian pictures in the nineteenth century." The catalogue's author continues: "The art market responded to the demand for Italian "primitives" by ruthlessly hacking them up, extracting saleable elements and discarding the rest" (Nethersole 2011: 93).

So, instead of a backdrop of sacred music, might it not be more appropriate if the National Gallery's hallowed halls reverberated to the sound of saws cutting wood?

How do we account for the difference between the interpretation in the gallery and in the book? Well, opting to overlook the "dubious machinations" of the art market minimises the risk of gallery-goers asking awkward questions. Any critical reactions arise at a safe distance: namely when the interested visitor sits down at home to flick through the glossy new addition to their library.

Is this deception by interpretive design acceptable for a museum that markets itself under the mantra: "EXPLORE & REFLECT"? It is questionable whether the dissimulation evident in Devotion by Design accords with the museum's own Research code of conduct: "Good conduct in the context of research practice at the Gallery includes... [a]pplying the highest possible standards of integrity and professionalism, including observing relevant legal and ethical requirements."(1)

By marginalising legal and ethical questions the museum has presumably sought to safeguard the sacred aura of the museum. The realisation that the National Gallery has played a decidedly dubious role in the dislocation, dismembering and dismantling of religious artefacts is disturbing. But that should not make it a taboo topic for a museum visit.

The museum's curators clearly need to worship at the altar of the Church of Earthalujah and heed the words of the Rev Billy: "Blessed are you who disturb the customers, for you might be loving your neighbor."

The National Gallery ought to reward its visitors with just such disturbing love.

___
Note

(1) National Gallery Code of Practice and Good Conduct in Research, accessed 17/09/2011 at, http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/research-code-of-conduct

_________
References

Elliott, Mark (2002) "Magic House: Sacred Space and Profane Behaviour in the Indian Museum, Calcutta",
    World Art Symposium, School of World Art Studies and Museology at the University of East Anglia,
    19/01, accessed 17/09/2011 at, http://www.uea.ac.uk/~t013/Sacred%20Places/Magic_house.htm
Nethersole, Scott (2011) Devotion by Design: Italian Altarpieces before 1500, London, National Gallery Company

An occasional series documenting the first thing one
sees in your visitor-friendly museum: the opposite of a "Do Not..." sign*


    Do ... Manchester Museum
    Manchester Museum (The University of Manchester)

*   Instruction seen at Manchester Museum in relation to two bronze sculptures by
    John Macallan Swan (1847-1910) and Frank Dobson (1886-1963). (Photography was forbidden, though.)

My assisted readymade keeps abreast of Marcel Duchamp's splendid Prière de toucher (Please Touch), 1947.

___________
Supplemental

Do... Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

An occasional series documenting the first thing one
sees in your visitor-friendly museum: the "Do Not..." sign

Do Not... Ta(pple)te
Tate Modern, London

We live in interesting times. Instability and protest in the present are complemented by unease and uncertainty about the future. Such conditions provide the perfect breeding ground for nostalgia: a yearning for familiarity and a longing for the past.

Our lives unfold in the post 9/11 era. We are forever told that the tragic events of a decade ago changed the world. The origins of our troubles are rooted in that historical moment. How much more tranquil, peaceful and certain things must have been prior to the autumn of 2001.

This blog posting, ten years to the day since 9/11 is a modest attempt to challenge this pervasive myth. It seeks to memorialise the victims of terrorism, and to prompt us to remember that wars on terror and wars of terror began long, long before the destruction of the World Trade Center.

At the same time as these two towers came tumbling down, another was in the process of being constructed. This is the so-called "Gherkin" in the City of London. Norman Foster's iconic silhouette on the skyline of Britain's capital is only where it is thanks to an act of creative iconoclasm. For at 9:20pm on Friday 10th April 1992 the Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonated a bomb on St. Mary Axe, just outside the Baltic Exchange. This Grade II*, early 20th century building was so badly damaged that it was removed - thus allowing Foster's skyscraper to take its place.

Of far greater significance to this loss of architectural heritage was the loss of three innocent lives. They were Paul Butt, aged 29 and a securities dealer; Thomas Casey, a 49-year-old doorman at the Baltic Exchange; and Danielle Carter, a 15-year-old schoolgirl.

Their names appear on a wall at the foot of the skyscraper. The memorial stone reads:

            In memory of
               Paul Butt
           Danielle Carter
              Tom Casey
    who died on 10 April 1992

The inscription thus forgets far more than it remembers. How many of the passers-by who notice this bland statement of facts are able to decipher its meaning? We are told that three people died - but not where, how or with what consequences. The bloody background to the weirdly shaped building towering overhead remains unspoken and ignored.

Terrorism exploded on the mainland of the United States exactly ten years ago. And the world changed. But we should not allow the tenth anniversary to inspire nostalgia for the lost innocence of our pre-9/11 world. Each time we glance up at the "Gherkin" we should remember the bomb that brought death and terror to the streets of London all those years ago. And we would do well to reflect on the fact that one of the ambulance workers who arrived at the scene of the Baltic Exchange bombing never recovered from his experience. He shot his girlfriend five months later and tried to commit suicide. He is now in a secure psychiatric unit (Burch 2008: 470, note 6).

So, yes, the world probably did change on 11th September 2001 - just not that much, unfortunately.

________
Reference

Burch, Stuart (2008) "An Unfolding Signifier: London's Baltic Exchange in Tallinn", Journal of Baltic Studies,
Vol. 39 (4), pp. 451-473

Building Britain's Future was a policy initiative launched in 2009 by the then British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. It was his government's "radical vision for a fairer, stronger and more prosperous society". One of its goals was to invest in affordable housing of the sort being implemented by the Newlon Housing Trust. This "not for profit" association is developing 537 homes in Tottenham Hale, a district in the London Borough of Haringey. A large billboard at the building site on Ferry Lane advertises this fact. On it is the Building Britain's Future logo.

Directly opposite this sign are bunches of flowers tied to a railing. It was here on Thursday 4th August 2011 that a police officer shot and killed Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old resident of Tottenham's Broadwater Farm estate. It was his death that sparked off riots across London and in other parts of England.

The destruction and despair wrought by this sustained violence represents an enormous setback for all attempts to build Britain's future. The riots have not only caused physical damage. The international image of London (and with it Britain) has been tarnished by the media attention given to the aftermath of Mark Duggan's shooting exactly 27 miles from Stansted Airport.

Who was Mark Duggan? A loving father of four who had maintained a relationship with his childhood sweetheart from the age of 17? Or a drug-dealing gangster who carried a gun following the murder of his cousin last year?

Whoever he was, he has attained posthumous fame.

The site of his death has become a spontaneous shrine, a temporary memorial and a "fatal attraction". I chose to visit the spot on the day of his funeral. The flowers were dead or dying. The messages have become indistinct. Rubbish had begun to accumulate. Most revealing is the floral tribute that probably originally read: "N17". This is presumably intended to signify the postcode of the Broadwater Farm estate where Duggan was born and grew up. The number "7" has been damaged. Was this caused by thoughtless vandalism or a deliberate act? If it was the latter, it would imply that the perpetrator was a member of a rival gang and that the floral tribute was no innocent sign of remembrance but a token of an endemic turf war.

Soon the flowers and other items will be cleared away - and with it the memory of Mark Duggan. Will a plaque be erected there one day? A statue to the fallen "martyr"? A memorial to the riots of 2011?

No. Instead it will all be forgotten. What occurred on that spot will be erased, just like the vast majority of lifestories. But traces of the past will remain - such as this blog posting. It has been motivated by the belief that we need to remember Mark Duggan and what he stood for. In doing so we will be forced to ask some difficult and distasteful questions.

Many would, however, much prefer it if we could just sweep him aside as easily as removing the flowers on Ferry Lane.

But if we do that we will have learnt nothing from the violence that erupted in the summer of 2011. Our ignorance and forgetfulness will mean that the same things will happen again and again. For it should be recalled that Duggan was three years old when the Broadwater Farm riot of 1985 broke out. His own children are also growing up under the shadow of violence and disorder. If we choose to forget Mark Duggan then his death will count for nothing except despair.

The little boy with a paper crown that I spotted on Ferry Lane deserves so much more. It is our duty to see that he grows up in a Britain with a future.

Today's issue of the Swedish newspaper, Dagens Nyheter features an article entitled, "Humans are like parasites" (Björling 2011). This interesting idea is derived from a statement made by the American artist Andrea Zittel at the opening of a new exhibition of her work.

Zittel's view on human behaviour resonated with an item on the previous page of the same newspaper (Söderling 2011). This concerned a dispute between two historians. One is Ulf Zander, the person with whom I collaborated on the article, "Preoccupied by the Past – The Case of Estonia's Museum of Occupations" (Burch & Zander 2008). The other is Tanja Schult. She attended a seminar I gave at Stockholm University earlier this year. After my talk she kindly gave me a copy of her book, A Hero's Many Faces: Raoul Wallenberg in Contemporary Monuments (Schult 2009).

It is the existence of this publication that has given rise to claims of plagiarism. Zander stands accused of incorporating translated extracts into his own book, Hjälten: Raoul Wallenberg inför eftervärlden (Zander 2010). A panel responsible for investigating such cases has previously rejected this claim; but now the publisher of Zander's book has decided to withdraw it from sale.

Zander plans to reissue an amended version of his book under a new title. He dismisses the plagiarism claim, arguing that the extracts in question concern widely known facts rather than specifically attributable ideas. He also points out that Schult is mentioned both in his introduction and conclusion as well as being listed in the references. (One might add that a similar acknowledgement was not reciprocated in an extended article that Schult (2010) had published in the newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet.)

This affair is regrettable, not least because Zander and Schult were originally professional colleagues. Their partnership ended in acrimony, leading Zander to publish Hjälten (The Hero) on his own. Of wider interest is the sense in which this wrangle threatens to overshadow the importance of their research. Raoul Wallenberg's actions during the Second World War saved many Jews from the Holocaust. The commemoration of Wallenberg is therefore not only morally necessary, but also an excellent case to study from a public history perspective. Both Zander and Schult have done much to promote this cause and improve our understanding of the struggle for "ownership" of historical events and personalities. Such legacies of the past are negotiated and contested in the politics of the present. Ironically enough, there can be no better demonstration of this fact that the unfortunate conflict between the academics, Ulf Zander and Tanja Schult.

_________
References

Björling, Sanna Torén (2011) "Människor är som parasiter", Dagens Nyheter, 08/09, Kultur, p.3
Burch, Stuart & Ulf Zander (2008) "Preoccupied by the Past – The Case of Estonia's Museum of Occupations",
    Scandia: Tidskrift för Historisk Forskning, Vol. 74 (2), pp. 53-73
Schult, Tanja (2009) A Hero's Many Faces: Raoul Wallenberg in Contemporary Monuments, Palgrave Macmillan
Schult, Tanja (2010) "Monument med mänskliga proportioner", Svenska Dagbladet, 27/01, accessed 08/09/2011
    at, http://www.svd.se/kultur/understrecket/monument-med-manskliga-proportioner_4157797.svd
Söderling, Fredrik (2011) "Känd historiker anklagad för fusk", Dagens Nyheter, 08/09, Kultur, p.2
Zander, Ulf (2010) Hjälten: Raoul Wallenberg inför eftervärlden, Forum för levande historia

The sculptor, Gustav Kraitz designed the memorial Hope (1998) on Raoul Wallenberg Walk adjacent to the United Nations building in New York. It features a bronze copy of Wallenberg's briefcase. This element is sited in other locations, including the Beth Shalom centre in Nottinghamshire (below).

Our urban landscapes are saturated with symbolic meaning to such an extent that even a humdrum pedestrian crossing can become a significant place marker. This is the way with all street furniture. Yet their banal presence and utilitarian function effectively masks their potential meaningfulness.

This is arguably the case with the subject of this blog posting: a bus-stop in the unremarkable town of Royal Tunbridge Wells in the south east of England. Hovering over the waiting passengers is a bronze bayoneted rifle held in the iron grip of a soldier statue. This is the work of the sculptor, Stanley Nicholson Babb FRBS (c.1873-1957) and dates from 1922. It forms the centrepiece of a memorial to the First and Second World Wars. It in turn provides a name and a geographical anchor for the bus-stops that traverse the street in front. They are: War Memorial.

Questions    Do many travellers reflect on this fact or cast an eye up to the ever-present soldier? Of those that do, how many look at the panels listing the dead? As they read the names, do they concur with the sentiments inscribed beneath the bronze feet of the statue: OUR GLORIOUS DEAD?

This token of death seeps into the hurly-burly of the living. Those that fought and died so many years ago still exist, but they have taken on new forms: metamorphosed into stone and bronze; transfigured into bus-stops; inscribed into bus timetables.

___________
Supplemental

I have since discovered that, following a recommendation from English Heritage, the memorial has been granted Grade II listed status (BBC 2011). This should afford it some protection - something that might be necessary if plans go ahead to redevelop the civic centre complex (Pudelek 2011).

BBC (2011) "Tunbridge Wells war memorial given listed status", BBC News, 16/07, accessed 08/09/2011
    at, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-14173615
Pudelek, Jenna (2011) "Tunbridge Wells War Memorial achieves listed status", KOS Media, 16/07, accessed 08/09/2011
    at, http://www.kentnews.co.uk/news/tunbridge_wells_war_memorial_achieves_listed_status_1_970474

Wolfgang Wagner of Vienna University of Technology was, until recently, editor-in-chief of the open access journal, Remote Sensing. He has now resigned from that post for reasons set out in an editorial statement (Wagner 2011). It focuses on a "controversial paper" that sought to question the science of climate change and which appeared in the July 2011 issue of Remote Sensing (Spencer & Braswell 2011). Subsequent criticism of the article has convinced Wagner that it contains both "methodological errors" and "false claims" (Wagner 2011: 2002). As such he now regrets allowing it to be published. His resulting resignation was intended "to make clear that the journal Remote Sensing takes the review process very seriously" (Wagner 2011: 2004).

It is that "review process" that has failed. Remote Sensing is not primarily a journal concerned with climate change. Be that as it may, the three unidentified reviewers of the paper were well-published "senior scientists from renowned US universities". However, it now appears that all three "probably share some climate sceptic notions of the authors" (Wagner 2011: 2003). Wagner is at pains to stress that climate change scepticism is not in itself a reason to deny publication. Indeed, "minority views" make an important contribution to debate, ensuring that science progresses through argument and even controversy. Instead, what made the paper in question unacceptable was the fact that it "essentially ignored the scientific arguments of its opponents" (Wagner 2011: 2003). It was this "fundamental flaw" that was missed by the reviewers. Their failings and Wagner's own lack of oversight prompted the editor's resignation.

This affair is the latest in a series of cases in which the nature of academic peer review has come into question (Burch 2011b: 11). One such example concerns a paper I had published in the open access journal, Museum and Society (Burch 2011a). This was approved through the usual system of "double blind" review. However, following its publication the editor of the journal - Professor Richard Sandell of the University of Leicester - received complaints from fellow members of the board. This led Sandell to delete the article. I have since republished the work in its original form and supplied an introduction setting out the background to its "withdrawal" (Burch 2011a; Burch 2011b).

The Remote Sensing and Museum and Society cases differ in a number of respects. However, one thing that connects them is the protection granted to the "go-betweens", i.e. the peer reviewers. The identities of the people who forced my paper's removal are hidden. So too are the names of the three biased reviewers who saw to it that a "fundamentally flawed" piece of research appeared in Remote Sensing. Anonymity is central to the practice of peer review. Yet those who undermine this system should surely be identified and asked to account for their actions. They should have the courage and professionalism of Wolfgang Wagner - a man who deserves credit for "taking responsibility", admitting to a mistake and resigning for the sake of the academic system and its contribution to scholarship and to knowledge.

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References

Burch, Stuart (2011a) "A Museum Director and His Go-Betweens: Lars Nittve's Patronage of Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska", Museum and Society, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 34-48, accessed 17 May 2011 at, http://www.le.ac.uk/ms/m&s/Issue%2025/burch.pdf

Burch, Stuart (2011b) "A Journal Editor and His Go-Betweens: Richard Sandell and the University of Leicester’s Museum and Society", uploaded 05/08 at http://www.stuartburch.com

Spencer, Roy W. & Braswell, William D. (2011) "On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance", Remote Sensing, Vol. 3, No. 8, pp. 1603-1613, accessed 03/09/2011 at, http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/3/8/1603

Wagner, Wolfgang (2011) "Taking Responsibility on Publishing the Controversial Paper 'On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth's Radiant Energy Balance' by Spencer and Braswell, Remote Sensing, 2011, Vol. 3, No. 8, pp. 1603-1613", Remote Sensing, Vol. 3, No. 9, pp. 2002-4, accessed 03/09/2011 at, http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/3/9/2002


___________
Supplemental

The peer review system is clearly a matter of widespread interest and concern, as can be seen from this recent newspaper article:

Colquhoun, David (2011) "Publish-or-perish: Peer review and the corruption of science", The Guardian, 05/09, accessed 06/09/2011 at, http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/sep/05/publish-perish-peer-review-science

In my blog post "Sites of sickening sights" (26/08) I took up the issue of "dark tourism". An example I cited related to the murderers Fred and Rose West, a married couple whose brutal crimes came to light nearly two decades ago. Unbeknown to me, this case has once again become highly topical. This is because the interviews the police conducted with Fred West have formed the basis of a new two-part British television drama.

Whether this is an appropriate topic for primetime viewing is tackled in this week's issue of the Radio Times. It features interviews with the writer of the screenplay, Neil McKay together with its lead actor, Dominic West who plays his namesake. Both men sought to justify their involvement by arguing that their work might save lives by helping alert people to similarly predatory people. The actor referred to a newspaper article written by one of West's daughters that appeared in the Guardian newspaper in the late 1990s: "she ended it by saying the worse thing is that people forget this case and don't discuss it. And that was really my [Dominic West's] moral justification for doing the part" (cited in Midgley 2011: 12).

For his part, Neil McKay, argued that crimes such as those committed by the Wests "shouldn't be swept under the carpet, and left unexamined" (cited in Midgley 2011: 12). There is an irony here given that this is just what has happened at the house where the murders, rapes and abuses took place: it is hidden under a carpet of concrete.

Yet the demolition of the house has not deterred curious tourists, including the Radio Times's own critic, Alison Graham. Her comments in this regard are revealing: "Curiosity and outrage took me to 25 Cromwell Street after it was demolished. I'm not particularly proud, but it was the same compulsion that led me to Ground Zero on a trip to New York... I won't make any cheap, flowery claims that I could feel the terrible silence or hear the restless cries of the dead. I didn't. It's now a pathway to the city centre. Nothing more" (cited in Midgley 2011: 13).

This raises some important questions:

• Was the "silence" also all-consuming at Ground Zero - or could the "restless cries of the dead" be heard there? Why should there be a difference?
• Is it right to allow 25 Cromwell Street to be "nothing more" than a shortcut - a perverse "path of desire" - to Gloucester city centre?
• Is there really no plaque remembering the victims? If so, is this forgetting not also a sort of additional death? A death of remembrance?

With this in mind, perhaps the television drama isn't such a bad thing after all. Howard Ogden remains to be convinced, however. He was Fred West's lawyer in the run-up to the trial. Ogden is quoted as saying: "Victims are forever overlooked and trampled over. I'm more concerned for their feelings than for mine" (cited in Midgley 2011: 12). Interestingly, Ogden reveals that he and his fellow members of the defence team were obliged to wash West's underwear: "Nobody was tending to him... There was no prison officer, there were no regular checks" (cited in Midgley 2011: 12). This must have played its part in allowing West to commit suicide before the trial, meaning that he was never brought to justice. Perhaps the attitudes of the police and the prison officers ought to have been the subject of the television drama? Society's craving for evil scapegoats permits us to forget our own failings and complicities - the sorts of behaviour that allowed Fred and Rose West to kill and abuse for years before anyone noticed.

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Reference
Midgley, Neil (2011) "Breaking the last taboo", Radio Times, 03-09/09, pp. 10-13

The wing-tip of the aircraft blazes in the dying light of the setting sun. Night is falling. The day is drawing to a close and with it my time in Scandinavia.

In an effort to repress this deeply depressing thought I reached for the in-flight magazine. Only then did I realize that I was racing through the skies in a flying memorial. This was not an intuition that the plane was going to crash. It was instead based on an article entitled, "Norwegian's tail icons" (Blågestad 2011). The low-cost airline, Norwegian has opted to dedicate each of its aircraft to "famous Scandinavians". Their faces appear on the empennage (i.e. the fin or tail of an aeroplane). The list includes Roald Amundsen (1872-1928) – a memorial to whom has featured in an earlier blog posting. His entry in the in-flight magazine notes that he was "one of the greatest polar explorers of all time. The Norwegian explorer was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles" (Blågestad 2011: 110).

One person missing from this roll call of famous Scandinavians is Dénis Lindbohm (1927-2005). You've probably never heard of this Swedish science fiction writer. But he features in my own personal canon of famous Scandinavians. Lindbohm would be a doubly-appropriate candidate for a flying memorial given that he wrote Bevingaren (The Wing-Giver). It tells the tale of John. One day whilst out walking in the forest he comes across what looks like a crater left by a falling meteorite. Closer inspection reveals it to be filled with pristine, ice-cold water. Stooping down he drinks from this unearthly spring – and soon realises this fissure was formed by no shooting star. It was caused by a crash-landing spaceship. The watery remains of its unfortunate pilot enter into symbiosis with John. It teaches him things that will change not only John's life but that of everyone on the planet. For this parasitic extraterrestrial is, quite literally, The Wing-Giver. John becomes the first of a new species of para-humans. He hides this fact until the day comes when he climbs to the top of a mountain, unfolds his wings, leans ever further over the edge...

    "Then gave out a sudden cry, an exultant and almost wild laugh, and flung himself forwards,
    upwards, straight into the wind, beating down with his wings. And flew.
        "The ground fell away as he ascended like an express elevator... He climbed like a kite in the wind.
    The treetops and then the whole landscape disappeared beneath. He couldn't stop laughing in
    furious jubilation. He literally threw himself upwards into the blue, blue atmosphere" (Lindbohm 1980: 44).

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References
Blågestad, Nina (2011) "Norwegian's tail icons", Norwegian in-flight magazine, no. 4, pp. 108-111
Lindbohm, Dénis (1980) Bevingaren, Vänersborg

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Supplemental, 02/09/2011
A flying memorial of a different and far more tragic kind took place today. The Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team - more familiarly known as "the Red Arrows" - conducted a ceremonial flypast in the skies over Chatsworth House Country Fair in Derbyshire and at a RAF Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire. Both events were dedicated to the memory of Flight Lieutenant Jon Egging. He suffered fatal injuries when his aeroplane crashed during a public event that took place near Bournemouth Airport on 20th August.

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Supplemental, 23/09/2011
The BBC reports that Flt Lt Jon Egging is to be honoured with a permanent memorial located near the scene of his fatal accident. See Anon (2011) "A Red Arrows pilot Jon Egging memorial for Bournemouth", BBC News, 22/09 accessed 23/09/2011 at, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-15012137.