Kwame Opoku has written an interesting response to Paul Mason’s recent article suggesting that virtual reality and 3D printing could be a solution to the Parthenon Marbles problem.

Parthenon Marbles in British Museum

From:
Kwame Opoku (by email)

CAN MODERN TECHNOLOGY HELP RESOLVE DISPUTES ON RESTITUTION OF CULTURAL ARTEFACTS?
Kwame Opoku
20 February 2015

There is no doubt that modern technology can contribute a great deal to arts and education generally in spreading knowledge about the cultures of the world. For example, a child in Nigeria can learn a lot about Africa if she has access to Internet, IPhone or IPad. She can learn about African History, the drinking habits of the English, German family relations, Ghanaian Music and Dance. She could also learn about Yoruba cosmology, costumes and sculpture. But it still remains to be established whether modern technology could help resolve thorny problems of restitution of cultural artefacts.

Paul Mason has in an article in the Guardian, ”Let’s end the row over the Parthenon marbles – with a new kind of museum” has suggested that technologies such as virtual reality and 3D printing could make the physical location of ancient artefacts less important:
“However, the rise of digital technology should allow us to imagine a new kind of museum altogether. The interactive audio guides and digital reconstructions found in some museums should be just the beginning. It is now possible to extend the museum into virtual space so that exhibits become alive, with their own context and complexity. Hard as it is when you are managing a business based on chunks of stone and gold, we should challenge museum curators to think of their primary material as information.”
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Following the recent articles about 3D printing and museums, Paul Mason looks at how new technologies could perhaps provide a solution to the long running Parthenon Marbles dispute.

This is not the first time that such a proposal has been made – Something similar was proposed by Neil MacGregor in 2003. The big sticking point though is that while both sides feel that a replica may be a solution for the other side, they want to hold onto the originals themselves.

Part of the Parthenon frieze in the British Museum

From:
Guardian

Let’s end the row over the Parthenon marbles – with a new kind of museum
Paul Mason
Sunday 15 February 2015 20.00 GMT

In the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, a marble statue of the river god Ilissos is displayed in heavily guarded isolation. Purloined by Lord Elgin in 1805, it was loaned to Russia by the British Museum last December, in the face of protests from the Greeks, who want all the Parthenon marbles back. The move was highly controversial. Russia and the EU had imposed mutual sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine, and critics made much of the fact that Brits could move statues to Russia, but Greek farmers could not export peaches there. It was a reminder that the politics of culture is always the politics of physical things.

The 21st-century museum keeper is faced with many voices clamouring for justice: for the return of stolen goods, for recognition of imperialist wrongs, for racial justice and women’s rights. They have offered two broad responses to such claims. The first builds on the “universal museum” principle, outlined by a group of influential directors, in 2004. Their argument is, first, that the present location of treasures such as the Parthenon marbles is, itself, a historical fact to be respected. Since antiquities fertilised the British Enlightenment, they have become part of our national culture. On top of that, they argue that, by maintaining large, free and well–secured collections in metropolitan centres, the “universal museum” gives global access to collections that are global in scope. This argument gained strength after the US military recklessly damaged archaeological sites in Iraq, and then Islamic State fighters overran them.
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Using the Layar app for phones & tablets, it appears that it is already possible to see what the Duveen Gallery at the British Museum would look like if the Parthenon Marbles were returned.

I’m not sure exactly who the target market is for this, but it can help to generate a lot of publicity for the issue, particularly if people use it obviously while visiting the British Museum.

The original article is on Mark Skwarek’s blog & consists almost entirely made of images, so you will have to follow this link to view it.

Neil MacGregor talks about the digital future of museums & tries to suggest that the issue of the Elgin Marbles is “yesterday’s question”. This seems more like wishful thinking on his part however, as it is very much a current issue – particularly with the opening of the New Acropolis Museum. Furthermore, if he believes that the future of museums is digital, then why doesn’t the British Museum return the Elgin Marbles & keep a digital copy for themselves so that they can be taken care of by people who still see the value in the physical as well as the virtual.

The British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles have also published a response to this article.

From:
Guardian

Museums’ future lies on the internet, say Serota and MacGregor
Museum chiefs paint multimedia future for institutions
Wednesday, 08 July 2009

Two titans of the British museum world, Sir Nicholas Serota and Neil MacGregor, last night sketched out their visions for the museum of the future.

Both said that the relationship between institutions and their audiences would be transformed by the internet. Museums, they said, would become more like multimedia organisations.
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Virtual reunification is often put forward as a means of resolving cultural property disputes. Whilst there have been notable uses of technology for this purpose, the proposals are not normally seen by both parties involved in a dispute as an acceptable solution.

From:
Ulster University

Virtual Repatriation – The Way Forward
23rd February 2009

Dr Bill Hart, an expert on Sierra Leone’s rich artistic heritage, makes a good sound on a 19th century ceremonial horn

University of Ulster academic Dr Bill Hart is to play a key role in a multi-disciplinary research initiative that will make Sierra Leone’s rich cultural heritage accessible to a worldwide audience.
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