The unbearable dryness of being
…in Albuquerque. The elevation (over 5000 feet above sea level), combined with the dryness of the atmosphere means that I am a) continually thirsty and b) I have an almost constant headache. Add in the fact that my body still seems pretty confused about what the time of day is, and you will understand that I am feeling more than a little fragile.
On the other hand, the presentations today have been really good on the whole. I enjoyed the plenary session first thing - especially the ritual humiliation of some large institutions via the Wayback Machine.
However, there is still an issue about the material being presented here. All to often it is from large institutions supported by corporate sponsorship in major, but one-off, projects. The question needs to be asked: what relevance has all this to the majority of museums which lack all these resources of institutional profile, sponsorship and staffing? What can the groundlings get out of it? I think the answer is ‘quite a lot’, but I haven’t heard that yet.