About HECS - Revision history

Wave Follower: /* Orientations of the HECS */

2024-04-18T11:44:07Z

Orientations of the HECS

Jxxx: /* The Heritage Education Centre Space is Open / HECS is ajar! */

2022-09-01T09:54:43Z

The Heritage Education Centre Space is Open / HECS is ajar!

Jxxx: /* The Heritage Education Centre Space is Open / HECS is ajar! */

2022-09-01T09:53:09Z

The Heritage Education Centre Space is Open / HECS is ajar!

Jxxx: /* S as in Space but... */

2022-09-01T09:52:25Z

S as in Space but...

Jxxx: /* C as in Centre despite... */

2022-09-01T09:43:42Z

C as in Centre despite...

Jxxx: /* E as in Education or... */

2022-09-01T09:38:07Z

E as in Education or...

Jxxx: /* H as in Heritage and... */

2022-09-01T09:22:11Z

H as in Heritage and...

Ky at 11:08, 20 April 2022

2022-04-20T11:08:44Z

Ky: /* S as in Space but... */

2022-04-19T16:38:05Z

S as in Space but...

Ky: /* E as in Education or... */

2022-04-19T15:50:36Z

E as in Education or...

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 === Orientations of the HECS ===
-Bidston Observatory is situated on the Wirral peninsula, in The UK. It is currently occupied by [https://bidstonobservatory.org Bidston Observatory Artistic Research Centre] (BOARC).
+Bidston Observatory is situated on the Wirral peninsula, in the UK. It is currently occupied by [https://bidstonobservatory.org Bidston Observatory Artistic Research Centre] (BOARC).
 As part of BOARC’s wider project, the Heritage Education Centre (HECS) is dedicated to critically exploring the history of the building, the surrounding area, and the global networks of transit, exploration and extraction made possible by science in the British Empire.
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 HECS looks to engage in the complexity of visual cultures necessary to address the critical enquiry into nineteenth century British history. Part of HECS’ remit is to ask questions such as: How can a local museum reflect contemporary post-colonial discourse at the intersection of art and science? And: How might it be possible to situate this dialogue within scholarly and museological debate, at the same time as responding to this location and demand from communities which surround it?
-The HECS documents spaces, objects and instruments related to Bidston Observatory - however these relations can be thought along networked, distributed or expanded forms. Most of the usual tales being told and retold about the National monuments, including this observatory, celebrate a succession of White British male scientists and their great inventions. HECS tries to make space for accounts that are extra to nation state, hetero-normative ideas of progress and the advancement of Science.
+The HECS documents spaces, objects and instruments related to Bidston Observatory - however these relations can be thought along networked, distributed or expanded forms. Most of the usual tales being told and retold about the national monuments, including this observatory, celebrate a succession of White British Male scientists and their great inventions. HECS tries to make space for accounts that are extra to nation state, hetero-normative ideas of progress and the advancement of science.
-The practice of observation, operating scientific instruments and investment in observatories is entangled with different scales of capitalist endeavour, colonialist and imperialist modes of worlding. The Bidston Observatory is connected to such modes through its contributions to the maritime industry, natural earth sciences and oceonography. HECS interrogates different instrumentations and approaches in these historically defined disciplines at various scales. It is a place to articulate these connections, and the responsibilities they bring.
+The practice of observation, operating scientific instruments and investment in observatories is entangled with different scales of capitalist endeavour, colonialist and imperialist modes of worlding. The Bidston Observatory is connected to such modes through its contributions to the maritime industry, natural earth sciences and oceanography. HECS interrogates different instrumentations and approaches in these historically defined disciplines at various scales. It is a place to articulate these connections, and the responsibilities they bring.
 HECS gathers facts about the building itself, the artefacts and instruments that it once housed and still houses, but tries to connect them to larger histories and futures. No histories are told without bias, and so are the stories in this wiki.

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 This wiki is a space for testing out ideas for the Heritage Education Centre Space (HECS) that is unfolding. HECS is not quite yet open, so we use: ajar. Open means: open for construction. Open for contributions, participation. Ajar means: there will be some effort and energy involved to open up the space, we welcome and are grateful for the involvement, and the parameters of this are not yet fixed.
-Also, "HECS" phonically invokes what has been historicized as outside of science, motions towards folkloric & pagan practices (hex). Bear with us.
+Also, "HECS" phonically invokes what has been historicized as outside of science, motions towards folkloric & pagan practices (hex). Take this as a spell:
 === Orientations of the HECS ===

← Older revision		Revision as of 09:53, 1 September 2022
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	This wiki is a space for testing out ideas for the Heritage Education Centre Space (HECS) that is unfolding. HECS is not quite yet open, so we use: ajar. Open means: open for construction. Open for contributions, participation. Ajar means: there will be some effort and energy involved to open up the space, we welcome and are grateful for the involvement, and the parameters of this are not yet fixed.		This wiki is a space for testing out ideas for the Heritage Education Centre Space (HECS) that is unfolding. HECS is not quite yet open, so we use: ajar. Open means: open for construction. Open for contributions, participation. Ajar means: there will be some effort and energy involved to open up the space, we welcome and are grateful for the involvement, and the parameters of this are not yet fixed.
		+
		+	Also, "HECS" phonically invokes what has been historicized as outside of science, motions towards folkloric & pagan practices (hex). Bear with us.

	=== Orientations of the HECS ===		=== Orientations of the HECS ===

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 === S as in Space but... ===
-HECS works with absences, removed instruments and traces. It doesn't look to conserve in the traditional sense, but to take different approaches to the relation of heritage and preservation.
+... the words 'Centre' & 'Space' are placed together, to signify a displacement of a central object, an empty middle that expelled the traditionally centered elements of both subject and object, and transports them into eccentric spaces, inner, outer, other.
-Guardians of Bidston Observatory
+... but also as in "giving space" to ourselves as well as "leaving space" for others, assuming the amount of accumulated privileges and oppresions often magnetizing around our very modes of existance and the categories imposed upon them.
-palliative care
+... but spaced in constant evacuation/eviction, with a tending-to-void middle. We understand this as non-accumulative practices, time-poor practices,
 === Questions ===

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 === C as in Centre despite... ===
-A location or point of focus
+... our intention to displace the object from the main focus. In the HECS, we understand knowledge to be co-constituted and partial. We tell multiple and divergent accounts of the histories which intersect at the site. Some of these histories are the more well-trodden contributions to British maritime trade and natural earth sciences. Some are lesser known, or expanded in surprising ways. The HECS doesn't centralise an authorial museum 'voice', but rather aims to include a diversity of accounts, told by different human and non-human actors.
-The words 'Centre' & 'Space' are placed together, to signify a displacement of a central object, an empty middle. In the HECS, we understand knowledge to be co-constituted and partial.
+...despite a displacement of the subject from the center of our attentions does not mean the displacement of the subject's response-abilities
 === S as in Space but... ===

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 === E as in Education or... ===
-co-enquiry, communal study, research &
+... experiments - in communal/convivial study, learning, co-enquiry and research. Understanding education as the passing on of knowledge within a system, which oftentimes has levels of hierarchy. Education's roots can be traced to (re)inventions in benevolence, discipline and labour. In the activities of HECS, we wish to create study space which welcomes many forms of knowledge, radical attention, genuine curiosity and openness for unlearning some bits and pieces of coercive knowledge formations. Not only between individuals or communities, but also affecting structures as bigger agents (institutions, funding bodies, disciplinar fields as a whole) with the potential to learn, themselves, in active and proactive manners.
-Looking at the legacy of Science and technological progress, in terms of both 'who benefits' and 'who is harmed', and understanding that this cannot be divorced from the application of the technology.
+... or appreciation and respect -  for the the ways that this site is cherished by different people.
-raising awareness about the intersection between science and politics, through making connections. Exploring the historical, political and cultural relations that co-constitute objects/artefacts/instruments in the HECS
+... or mutual care and respect for differences in sensibilities, urgencies, triggers or interests.
-Knowledge making and sharing involve multiple practices and have many different formats of outcome, not just academic papers.
+... or co-habitation - with the other lifeforms onsite, with the previous work done here, with complex and multiple stories of nature-cultures, science research and popular wisdom -- for example in relation to the neighbor lighthouse, or the hill informal economies, or the landscape mutations along generations.
 === C as in Centre despite... ===

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 === H as in Heritage and... ===
-Heritage for the HECS can be loose connection to situatedness, chosen traced histories, a non-original object,
+patrimony and as in inheritance and as in unexpected modes of passing on. We have learned from our ancestors and predecessors (of social constructivism in STS, of situated knowledges in feminist technosciences, of self-management in the DIY scenes accross the globe, from anti-repression and anti-colonial struggle organisation) how to critique and problematise the so-called Modern Project and its systems of values from the very tissue of it, but we try to use our imbrication to develop generative and reparative strategies. Through the H in HECS we understand heritage not as that which may be inherited, codified in ways that determine what counts as valuable or recessive (in a gradient of violent pedigree) and gets smoothly transferred. We rather try to engage with heritage as a praxis of response-ability, solidarity, friction and open-ended (sometimes even chain-breaking) critique within different communities of practice (Isabelle Stengers), acknowledging that each of them at their particular times need to transfer knowledge and modes of doing, but not necessarily following pre-set conditions for how values, notions, manners or tools get passed along. The passing along implies an intersectional unserstandings of inter-dependent generations, disciplines, positionalities and degrees of expertise.
-Heritage as both the knowledge, and forms of knowledges passed on, cannot be singular, and so our understanding of heritage in the HECS must be reflective of multiplicities.
+What would a praxis of heritage based on trans*ness operate like? The star (*) in trans* asks for a moment to consider which elements are more significantly intersected for each specific community of practice. Is it the labour conditions? Is it the gender assumptions and assignations? Is it age, ability, academic legitimacy, origin, language, beliefs, systematizations, opressions, species?
 === E as in Education or... ===

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:08, 20 April 2022
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	palliative care		palliative care

−	~~=== Additional notes ===~~
−
−	[to edit] British museums are typically still rooted in nineteenth century thought, operating as public spaces for educational emancipation, and supporting canonical versions of histories which have, at root, accumulative principles and classist or colonial mind-sets. Currently, such museology is under heavy scrutiny and collecting as a practice of accumulation is being questioned deeply; so too is the function of museums as gatekeepers of value. The visual cultures which have supported the colonial and modern projects are starting to be reimagined, and while British national museums face the challenge of examining their collections and display, local museums might respond in a more agile manner. One of the challenges however, is to maintain an expansive focus on what might otherwise become a single- topic focus of a local museum. How might a post-colonial museum - dedicated to that which might otherwise be visualised as an arc of scientific progress - tell multiple and divergent accounts of the histories which intersect at the site, as well as its important contributions to British maritime trade and natural earth sciences? How might an overarching authorial museum 'voice' preclude a diversity of accounts, told by different actors?
−
−	Besides establishing a pertinent mode of address for a local museum such as HECS, we find an attendant question in the all too well-established tradition of display specific for science and technology museums. As a contemporary museum which engage audiences in a way that negotiates the accepted and to-be- expected scenography, the curatorial research at HECS will need to find ways to be relevant and open to divergent audiences, while provoking a dignified reflection on histories of Western modernity. Particularly at the site of Bidston Observatory, which is neither solely museum nor education centre, but host to a vibrant community of invested research practitioners embedded in a careful practice of public liaising, there is potential for a sensitive, experimental curatorial approach, which combines a critical reflection on the culture of observation with a thorough rethinking of the implications of local museum display. From older audiences interested in British history, to young researchers interested in post- colonial discourse; from artists and scientists at the juncture of both disciplines, to the local general public's interest in the architecture of the building-as-monument. Framing the expanded cultural histories of Bidston Observatory therefore needs dedicated consideration.

	=== Questions ===		=== Questions ===

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:38, 19 April 2022
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	=== S as in Space but... ===		=== S as in Space but... ===

		+	HECS works with absences, removed instruments and traces. It doesn't look to conserve in the traditional sense, but to take different approaches to the relation of heritage and preservation.
		+
		+	Guardians of Bidston Observatory
		+
		+	palliative care

	=== Additional notes ===		=== Additional notes ===

← Older revision		Revision as of 15:50, 19 April 2022
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	raising awareness about the intersection between science and politics, through making connections. Exploring the historical, political and cultural relations that co-constitute objects/artefacts/instruments in the HECS		raising awareness about the intersection between science and politics, through making connections. Exploring the historical, political and cultural relations that co-constitute objects/artefacts/instruments in the HECS
		+
		+	Knowledge making and sharing involve multiple practices and have many different formats of outcome, not just academic papers.

	=== C as in Centre despite... ===		=== C as in Centre despite... ===