A constellation of enterprising ideas about art and artifact collections.
My interest, naturally, lies in the dataset used to curate the show. In other words, the algorithm bloodhounds the internet for traces of digitized collection information from cataloged objects relevant to the prompt entered into ChatGPT. In other words, the catalog information of the collection available online. In other words, the work of registrars and collections managers.
The idea of questioning the purpose of caring for collections and thus the jobs of registrars, conservators, shippers, insurers, attorneys, curators, administrators, archivists educators, and more stems from the furor from my colleagues surrounding the multiple incidents of climate activists gluing themselves to works of art. Naturally, when your job requires you to take a symbolic bullet for your collection, a nauseating incident like this fans angry flames.
The logic of the argument focuses on carbon emissions where air freight vastly out-pollutes sea freight. While I fully side with the GCC’s goals and intent, sea freight hardly qualifies as clean as it emits other noxious bi-products including CO2 by fueling the tens of thousands of ocean vessels with fossil fuels.
