When George Orwell died, all that was left of his possessions fit comfortably into a shoe box. He was obviously a minimalist. A rare breed almost completely extinguished by the last industrial revolution. So many of us have a vast collection of virtual and not so virtual items, turning us the curators of our lives and our houses into museums of our existence. There are many sites that are the public display of their owner’s possessions. There are reading lists, and catalogues, little private museums. Matthew McClintock now went the extra mile and is documenting EVERY item in his home and turning it into an online museum’s catalogue. He is currently working on it and you can watch his collection grow at mc.clintock.com. A handsome site with plenty to look at and to explore. A tour de force. Enjoy.
And don’t forget to visit his shop there are some very nice mouse pads there.
P.S. Of course did George Orwell leave more than a shoe box full of stuff. The good man left so much to us, it can not be described in box sizes. Hmm. Quite a marvelous thing. Isn’t it?
hmmmm, i don't know. it looks a little bit too trivial. there is nothing i can't see anywhere else, and isn't that exactly the reason for having a musuem or an exhibition, too be inspired by things i don't have? it's just a huge piece of tiddious busywork. sorry.
Hmm... It seems trivial to you, because you are a privileged gadget obsessed art director with background of two continents. I am sure your museum would be quite exciting too. Just imagine what this site will look like in 30, 50, 100 years. Will it be the next Grace-land?, maybe not. McClintock seems to like comics much more than Elvis ever did. : )
This site should inspire you to start your own museum. Online or not. : )
hm... i refuse to be a privileged gadget obsessed art director :-) and unfortunately i'm not a collector. i arrived here in NY only with minimal equipment/stuff and i can part with 95% of my belongings quite easy. but you're absolutely right, putting the stuff that i don't need anymore in a virtual deposit/museum would preserve it for future generations. but would they be interested in it? i doubt it. can they find the stuff somewhere else? most likely. so while i'm on my quest to create a future i leave the task of preserving the past to others.
Here's a ponderous rationalization: Much as the Impressionists eschewed naturalistic representation in order to foreground the expressive painterliness of their works, so, in a museum of quotidient household objects, the ordinariness of the collection foregrounds the art of curatorial arrangement. Perhaps someone with different sensibilities would employ a different ontology. The man could invite guest curators in, one supposes. The only thing that makes it tedious is that he's curating his own house. Cataloguing someone else's house, perhaps by means of burglary, would make it much more interesting.
oi...what's wrong with comics.
Woow, looks like we are hitting a nerve here.
Jørgen, I have to disagree with you. I think that generations after you will very much be interested in your preferences and habits and possessions. Especially the Geerds family in 2099 will be more than excited to see what their acnestor who came to America liked and did. Do not underestimate the uniqness of your life.
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Iggy, it somehow feels that this project is just the beginning of things to come. Throughout history only the most privileged were able to have collections large and interesting enough to be worth becoming the Louvre or the Hermitage. Or the Guggenheim.
In our current environment it becomes not only possible for each one of us to realize that we have have potentially interesting collections, but also to display these possessions to large audience. What used to need a large building, now needs a good server and a nice URL.
As much as everybody used to have the potential to be an artist, according to Beuys, and as much as everbody had the possibility to have a few Minutes of fame, according to Warhol, now everybody will be able to be the curator of their own collection. And guest shows will certainly be possible and burglary will take place.
Oh, and I definitely suggest that we all visit the The Museum Of Jurassic Technology, to get yet another look at the possibilities of a Museum.
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Em!ly, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Comics. Quite the opposite. Our collector seems to have quite a selection of rare Chris Ware work, which is pretty stunning stuff.
What i meant is that Elvis’ house was made into a museum even though he was not really famous for good taste. Or was he? Am I hitting a different nerve now?
i find this completely uninteresting if it is an exact inventory of his actual posessions. what would be interesting to me is if mc clintock does not exist, or at least his posessions do not, all fictional, created for the site.
recently i heard an interesting story about Marcel Duchamp. it has been discovered that his "ready made" art (hat rack, urinal, etc.) were anything but ready made. art historians are unable to find the objects original manufacturers. this means that Duchamp painstakingly and purposely made the items to look mass produced, but in reality, they were not. A brilliant joke on the part of Duchamp left to be discovered long after his death. now that is interesting!
i find it ironic that future people will have to visit an actuall physical museum of jurrasic technology housing very old computers to view the virtual museums like that of mc clintock.
where else will future people find machines capable of viewing (then to be) antiquated html?
That is incredibly fascinating. I knew that he had some of the works done by calling his sister in Paris, who would then prepare the things for him. I might be wrong. (looking for Catalogue Raisonné of Duchamp’s work... Only able to find “Marcel Duchamp Work and Life, Epheremides on and about Marcel Duchamp and Rrose Sélavy”) I really hope that we somehow manage to pull an expert into this discussion. Let me try to reach one.
I knew a Duchamp expert once who almost had “Underwood” tattooed on her arm.
Hmm...
I find the McClintock Museum very interesting. It is a very nice little document, isn’t it? I wanted to create a little gallery of the mundane on my site too, but I gave up looking at the books and books filled with stamps. I have one of the world largest collection of Inactionfigures.
(1)... This is getting out of hand.
I will have to focus more on my art collection. Les on my various junk drawers.
I have a mint PowerBook 100 here and it runs Claris works 1.0
Which I have with original box and all.
: )
One would think that HTML will survive, yet the time capsule installed in the back of the Museum of Natural History does not contain information that can only be read by a computer, I think. The curators there opted for laser engraved metal plates and analogue records. They last longer. ; )
Oh, wait... There is a Macintosh mouse there too. New York Times Capsule content.
why would you need Netscape 6 in 3030ad???
I don't understand this argument at all...We don't need record players to listen to older recordings.
things get transferred with technology, losing some, but transferred all the same.
I dug up the report of Duchamp I referenced.
http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/segment_display.cfm?segID=144186
em!ly - unfortunately, it seems only things with the potential to make some one money get transferred with the technology. i have a garage full of lp record albums that have not yet been transferred to cd and probably never will. and even if it is transferred there is something to experiencing it delivered through the medium it was design for.
so, the question is...after mcclintock is gone, will someone still remember his work and feel it worthy of transfering to new media?
odd to think my great grandfathers generation never had to transfer media during his entire life. in my short life of 36 years i have seen audio transferred from lp to eight track to cassette to cd to mp3.
gosh, I had better get back to work or i will soon be fired. then i will have plenty of time to document all my posessions and transfer old media.
thanks for the mid afternoon thought provoking diversion!
it's true griff, I agree..
perhaps not in the case of mac will his "art" or whad'eva' be transfered to a different format, but I was talking somewhat generally.
Wow, this discussion is far more elaborate than my original post. Thank you. I think I should let Matthew know what happened here.
: )
Wow. Pretty interesting comments - and not in the direction I would have anticipated, to tell the truth.
Right off the bat, I wouldn't have labeled my site a museum, probably because I visit museums with the same expectation as Joergen - I expect to be inspired by the work displayed. Nothing inspirational about the things I own. But that that doesn't render the entire site worthless, does it?
I'm not entirely sure I know why I continue to work on the site, except that I enjoy the process, and I think it's funny. Maybe that's the best reason anyway: it's a ridiculous idea, and considering and re-considering the goal of the site is engaging (to me).
You know, the more I read over your comments the less I think I can say; everything you folks are bringing up is interesting, and in the end my intent doesn't matter -- it's the end effect that counts.
So I'll make these quick notes:
-- Like Joergen I feel like I can easily part with 95% of my stuff without any difficulty.
-- I'm not curating, I'm documenting.
-- Yes, it's tedious busywork. But pile enough of that on and it's kind of impressive, I hope.
-- Iggy's correct, I believe, in that the banal aspect of my belongings puts the site structure and the commentary into relief. Because I don't have to choose items to document I get to focus on the other aspects.
-- Griff, how come you're so certain these things really exist?
-- I'm really glad someone brought up Duchamp. There's nothing in my website that's even remotely related to his work, but I find everything he created to be worthy of extended contemplation. And what I admired about the *way* he worked is how he (apparently) incorporated the creation of art into his day-to-day life.
Matthew - thanks for the post! i admire you for bravely entering a conversation of mixed reviews.
even though i may not care for the site, you have generated great conversation - a basic criterea of art!
I have been meaning to collect all the Web exhibitions I can find, but never have the time. Some of my favorites are:
http://www.davidrumsey.com/
http://www.mmworks.nl/typewritermuseum/collection/index.php3?machine=underwood5&cat=kf
http://ic.media.mit.edu/JBW/JBWJava.html
http://360degrees.org/360degrees.html
http://www.digitaldocumentary.org/economy/
http://www.mixedgreens.com/mixedgreens/film_and_video/featuredproject_template.jhtml?projectId=100006