Ray Norman <zingHOUSEunlimited>
The lifestyle design enterprise and research network
The lifestyle design enterprise and research network
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NOTE: The earliest articles
appear first
A BACKGROUND: Musing in the 21st Century in 'Australia'
appear first
A BACKGROUND: Musing in the 21st Century in 'Australia'
Currently musingplaces – museums, art galleries, heritage properties/buildings, etc. – are increasingly under intense scrutiny given that they are almost invariably imagined as 'cost centres'. In order to purposefully manage them in a 21st Century context there is pressing need to reimagine them. Many are founded in imaginings of the past – many in a 19th C paradigm – that impinge upon current and changing world perspectives and challenge the status quo. Hubert Humphrey is quoted as saying "if there is dissatisfaction with the status quo, good. If there is ferment, so much the better. If there is restlessness, I am pleased. Then let there be ideas, and hard thought, and hard work. If man feels small, let man make himself bigger." .... There is nothing more risky than maintaining the status quo and especially so when it's against the odds. However, there are huge differences between a punt and a calculated risk, wisdom requires that one divines the difference. .............Read More _CLICK HERE
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MUSINGPLACES: A Perspective
Musingplace? What do you mean? Where do you mean? What are they? Why call them that? What are they for? ... English is, thankfully, a living language and the places where we go to muse upon something, to contemplate an idea, to recollect and collect stories, to ponder something, to meditate, to mull over an idea, to consider something, to discover something new, hold particular places in our cultural imaginations. Musingplaces figure large in our cultural realities and they have done so for a very long time..............Read More _CLICK HERE
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Musingplace? What do you mean? Where do you mean? What are they? Why call them that? What are they for? ... English is, thankfully, a living language and the places where we go to muse upon something, to contemplate an idea, to recollect and collect stories, to ponder something, to meditate, to mull over an idea, to consider something, to discover something new, hold particular places in our cultural imaginations. Musingplaces figure large in our cultural realities and they have done so for a very long time..............Read More _CLICK HERE
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Musingplaces, Placedness And Collecting
A musingplace, properly speaking, should not 'believe' in itself. Any ethical researcher will tell you that our histories are littered with stories to do with doubt and mistakes and accidental discoveries. Musingplaces hold within them histories of doubt and mistakes and accidental discoveries. ... In the 21st Century as much as any time before what is not required is faith in people with prestigious degrees. Sadly, they are just as likely to be evil and corrupt as anyone else. Rather, we should be investing our trust in critical thinking, which, by the way, is at the core of the scientific method – indeed research methodology per se. .............Read More _CLICK HERE
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A musingplace, properly speaking, should not 'believe' in itself. Any ethical researcher will tell you that our histories are littered with stories to do with doubt and mistakes and accidental discoveries. Musingplaces hold within them histories of doubt and mistakes and accidental discoveries. ... In the 21st Century as much as any time before what is not required is faith in people with prestigious degrees. Sadly, they are just as likely to be evil and corrupt as anyone else. Rather, we should be investing our trust in critical thinking, which, by the way, is at the core of the scientific method – indeed research methodology per se. .............Read More _CLICK HERE
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The Importance Of An Inquiry Into Musingplaces
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Speaking as I do from a place outside where some would argue that I no longer have any business to be speaking about musingplaces – NSW musingplaces that is. I challenge that perception and as they say, I have form – and I have company. These places belong to many and those with interests in them are as far flung as they are near. .... To a large extent my life has been shaped by musingplaces of many kinds and in many places, sometimes overtly, other times subliminally, on others covertly. Sometimes the experiences in, and via, them have been awkward and tenuous – peculiar even. Mostly however, despite their sometimes inadequacies, they are nourishing places..............Read More _CLICK HERE
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THE OWNERSHIP ISSUE
Foreword This discussion paper has been prepared in response to the NSW Upper House initiative to hold an inquiry into museums and art galleries – musingplaces. It is also a part of my ongoing research into an appropriate 21 Century governance models for ‘musingplaces’ – the Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery as an institution being a case study [LINK]. An important issue that persists and that needs clarification is the one of ownership. For example, Launceston City Council (LCC) asserts that it “owns and operates the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery”. This assertion is contestable in 'law and lore' and there seems to be a considerable body of opinion that would fundamentally challenge this LCC assertion..............Read More _CLICK HERE
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11 Reasons To Think About Changing Public Musingplaces In The 21st Century
Musingplaces in the 21st Century are hopefully quite different places to the 16th Century Kunstkammers and Wunderkammers that their foundations are rooted within. Just about everything except human curiosity has changed yet public musingplaces in particular somehow seek to cling to a status quo established a rather long time ago..... These places are commonly understood as 'museums and/or galleries' but in reality they are more diverse than that would suggest. It also seems that such places are more than important to communities and their ability to sustain the fundamentals of humanity. More on this can be accessed by clicking here ..............Read More _CLICK HERE
11 Reasons To Think About Changing Public Musingplaces In The 21st Century
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Musingplace Relationship Chart
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CONTEX This chart is based on the proposition that a 'musingplace' stands alone as an entity rather than exist under the aegis of some other entity – Government (Federal, State, Local), University, organisation, business. An analogy here would be any not-for-profit incorporated association that is incorporated to protect its membership and ensure its accountability as a not-for-profit 'operation'..... Typically,'public musingplaces' operate under the aegis of 'government' as statutory authorities, a special committee, department, etc. There is increasing evidence that while this provides 'notional accountability' functional accountability is not automatically guaranteed. ..............Read More _CLICK HERE
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Online Accountability And Efficiency Dividends
Accountability standards across the 'musingplace sector' is best described as being uneven. Arguably the pace of change has left musingplace policy determiners (Trustees, Governors, etc.), and the administrators of the policy settings they put in place, somewhat behind the game. Nonetheless, the Internet and digital technologies can come together to deliver on accountability reporting in ways unimaginable say two decades ago – or even less time than that. ....The National Museum of Australia Media Release Archive serves not only as a very useful research tool but also a mechanism for documenting performance outcomes. Likewise, the archive offers an opportunity to deliver on the efficiency dividends available to the musingplace's operation..............Read More _CLICK HERE
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Accountability standards across the 'musingplace sector' is best described as being uneven. Arguably the pace of change has left musingplace policy determiners (Trustees, Governors, etc.), and the administrators of the policy settings they put in place, somewhat behind the game. Nonetheless, the Internet and digital technologies can come together to deliver on accountability reporting in ways unimaginable say two decades ago – or even less time than that. ....The National Museum of Australia Media Release Archive serves not only as a very useful research tool but also a mechanism for documenting performance outcomes. Likewise, the archive offers an opportunity to deliver on the efficiency dividends available to the musingplace's operation..............Read More _CLICK HERE
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Musingplaces And The Emerging Paradigm
As audiences grow so too musingplaces Communities of Ownership & Interest along with employment opportunities. However, it has to be asked how sustainable are musingplaces imagined as Micawberish COST CENTRES dependent on conscripted 'public funding'? The other question that needs to be asked is, when opportunities do 'turn up' how ready are musingplaces to take them up and deliver on the efficiency dividends as they become available? ..............Read More _CLICK HERE
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As audiences grow so too musingplaces Communities of Ownership & Interest along with employment opportunities. However, it has to be asked how sustainable are musingplaces imagined as Micawberish COST CENTRES dependent on conscripted 'public funding'? The other question that needs to be asked is, when opportunities do 'turn up' how ready are musingplaces to take them up and deliver on the efficiency dividends as they become available? ..............Read More _CLICK HERE
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Citizens And Curatorship
OVERHEARD CONVERSATION ... "Why does all curating need to be done in-house and have a lot too much to do with gatekeeping?" ... Tandra Vale ... "Is because the SSC (Secret Society of Curators) want to keep each other in work?" ... Unidentified student .............Read More _CLICK HERE
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A muser's tale
As 11 year old boy who had been presented with “an alligator’s voice box”, an Aboriginal stone axe head and various ‘interesting rocks’ as curios, my arrivals at the entrances of Sydney's Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, the Australia Museum and the Art Gallery were filled with all kinds of expectations. .... Moreover, as a ‘bush-kid’ from Mullumbimby and I arrived to these places mostly by tram having travelled to Sydney by steam train. So both the journey and the arrival were always destined to be memorable. ............Read More _CLICK HERE
A muser's tale
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