No Picture of Lucy

Brian Moore

Brian Moore

Moderator
I heard on the radio last week that Lucy was at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, which isn't very far from where I live.

Lucy is the 3 million year old bipedal hominid (Australopithecus Afarensus) whose bones were found in Ethiopia 20 or 30 years ago. I had read about Lucy long ago and I am quite interested in paleoanthropology and so Meg and I took a run over to the Bowers this afternoon to see Lucy before she departed for home later this month.

Unfortunately photography is prohibited in the Lucy exhibit but I did get pictures of other exhibits throughout the museum. Here's one of my favorites. It is a diorama depicting a Twenty First Century room re-model. (There were no signs to say as much, but I quickly deduced that museum patrons are not allowed closer to the exhibit than the orange cone.)

Wait,...actually, now that I think about it, the cone is part of the diorama.

Canon 7D and Tokina 11-16 f2.8.


Work by brian-moore, on Flickr
 
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Art at it's finest Brain - did the workers stop for coffee, and stand around discussing what they would be doing if they ever actually got back to the job? ;)

Hate exhibits where they ban photography - they clearly don't want any viral marketing!

Titanic was the same - which really ticked me off. :(
 
Art at it's finest Brain - did the workers stop for coffee, and stand around discussing what they would be doing if they ever actually got back to the job?
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No Chris,...the Bowers Museum is in America, not Britain. ;)

Yeah,...I was disappointed not to be able to get any pics of Lucy.

Thanks, Chris.
 
LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think the cone represents a barrier as an existential commentary on the inability to communicate real meaning in a fragmented society. Note the worker wearing the white hat (an ironic reference) and the arm of the other worker in the blue (another color coded reference) sweatshirt. That's clearly a reference to class divisions in our society based on economics. We, the patrons of this "insitution," are unable to experience the true spectrum their lives due to constraints placed on us by socioeconomic stratification. Are they one individual torn asunder by the cruel hand of capitalism?

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Chris Dodkin said:
Art at it's finest Brain - did the workers stop for coffee, and stand around discussing what they would be doing if they ever actually got back to the job? ;)

Hate exhibits where they ban photography - they clearly don't want any viral marketing!

Titanic was the same - which really ticked me off. :(
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I suppose if they were in France they would be on strike?
 
My thoughts exactly, Steve.

Also, don't be misled by the artifice of the image. There is nothing at all not un-innocent here. What you cannot see behind the wall, but yet is plainly imaginable (and indeed, is clearly what the artist wants you to perceive), is the jackboot of the oppressor on the good man's neck.

And yet, Steve, there is another powerful metaphor employed here by the artist that you have neglected to mention: It speaks to the exploitation of the Meso-American peoples by post-Columbian Christian, evangelist, gold-seeking conquerors and land-grabbers. (Note, if you will, the obvious Indian features of the slave, which contrast markedly with the anonymity of the master, who is clearly symbolic of numerous and sundry Western European overlords.)
 
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Brian, I'd say it's an intriguing image.

Referring to my earlier post - This is your space. Yet, this morning I was fuming my dislike of bans with my less understood abstract satire.

Again, a meaningful frame, Brian.
 
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I think you are all completely misreading this. I'm pretty sure the cone is not only part of the installation but the main part. The shadow it casts clearly represents the shadow cast by the discovery of Lucy by the Leakey's into the future and its impact on our understanding on the evolution of humans. It cleverly references popular cultural elements such as the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey and the room in which Dave Bowman transends to the Star Child. And the deconstructed worked is a very nice touch. Is man's impact on this world through his physical activity of importance or are ideas, as difficult to see as currents of air in a room brushing our face (as represented by the fan), the true legacy of our presence and relationship with our ancestors? ;)

A fascinating shot indeed. :)
 
Nihat Iyriboz said:
Brian, I'd say it's an intriguing image.

Referring to my earlier post - This is your space. Yet, this morning I was fuming my dislike of bans with my less understood abstract satire.

Again, a meaningful frame, Brian.
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What earlier post, Nihat? (Abstract satire, you say? I shall look for it!)

Anyway, I thank you, Nihat.

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Paul Lange said:
What a wonderful blend of installation and performance art. I am so moved I am about to visit my own personal Duchamp exhibit in the small room by the upstairs landing. I call it "Fountain" and often turn the water works on. ;)

For those who have no idea what I am talking about Fountain (Duchamp) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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I find it delightful that my image should move you so, Paul. ;)
 
Pete Askew said:
I think you are all completely misreading this. I'm pretty sure the cone is not only part of the installation but the main part. The shadow it casts clearly represents the shadow cast by the discovery of Lucy by the Leakey's into the future and its impact on our understanding on the evolution of humans. It cleverly references popular cultural elements such as the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey and the room in which Dave Bowman transends to the Star Child. And the deconstructed worked is a very nice touch. Is man's impact on this world through his physical activity of importance or are ideas, as difficult to see as currents of air in a room brushing our face (as represented by the fan), the true legacy of our presence and relationship with our ancestors? ;)

A fascinating shot indeed. :)
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Pete, I must say that you are a very persuasive chap. Your words were so convincing I was nearly seduced into revealing that you had spoken my thoughts exactly. That is to say, until I reached the midway point in your second sentence, wherein the fatal flaw in your argument revealed itself to me like a clarion blast at the walls of Jericho. Alas, it were not any of the notorious Leakeys who discovered Lucy.

I will admit, however, that my initial compulsion to snap the fotie was driven by a remarkably clear image of The Monolith conjured by the black wall and stark light inside the diorama. And indeed, the slave in the white hat seemed not unlike some prehistoric ape--dare I suggest of the Australopithecine species (Africanus most likely, yet Robustus not impossibly)? Why, I expected a femur bone to twirl skyward at any moment!

No Pete, I'm afraid your misidentification of Lucy's discoverer has rendered your thesis, compellingly romantic though your rhetoric may be, quite null and void, since all other parts of your argument are now tainted by the specter of possible error. :p
 
Damn, I have been seen through. Due to a mistake so common with critics. In an attempt to lend further weight to my interpretation I sought the association with great names from the past. A mistake, as although Mary Leakey was involved in setting up the dig it was of course Johanson that made the famous find. I am humbled and shall slink off to lick my wounds! ;)
 
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