Course: HIST 635 – Internship in Archives
Internship: Art, Culture and Technology Archives and Special Collections at MIT
Week 6 Time: Sun. 7/25, Mon. 7/26 – 12 hours
Total Time: 62 hours
Part 1: Sunday July 25
Today I started my WordPress draft for the Sky Art virtual exhibit. It’s taking longer than I thought it would, just because I’m not slapping up images and calling it a day. I’m trying to think about the placement of the images and text, as well as quotes from Piene himself. It’s really fun and I’ve learned SO much about this section of the art world, especially avant-garde pieces. I’d say that Piene’s work is definitely modern art that I can get behind.
I’ve drafted two pages so far. I’ve created a general Sky Art page to introduce the concept. It has a quick description of what this art is and what forms it comes in. The page is decorated with a bunch of interesting photographs I found in the ACT Dropbox, which unfortunately don’t have too much context, so I can’t really include them in the other themed pages. I don’t necessarily even know which ones were created by Piene (although I’m 99% sure they’re all his). They include all kinds of strange creatures and interesting balloons, both outside in the open air and inside museums.
I also worked on a page dedicated to Otto Piene himself. He was an incredibly fascinating person. He grew up during the Third Reich and was drafted into service of the German Army during World War II when he was sixteen (wowowowow, also YIKES). Apparently his whole class from school was drafted with him and they all became child soldiers manning anti-aircraft guns. The sky played a huge part in his task, as he was charged with shooting down planes, and the weather could predict whether or not he would have to engage in combat (clear sky = likely, raining = unlikely). I think this is a super super complicated aspect of his life, because he was clearly a child and too young to enter into war, and in his interviews he talks about how resistant he was to things like the Hitler Youth, which he was forced to be a part of. Still, he definitely had to shoot down planes, and if he was at all successful then he probably killed people. There must be a whole form of trauma of children forced to be in war. I’m sure people have researched it before. I haven’t seen an interview where he was “remorseful,” but that doesn’t really mean anything, I’m sure there are tons of his interviews that I haven’t read, and those feelings also might not be something he talked about with interviewers. Also, he went on to dedicate his life to peace and I’m pretty sure antiwar movements as well. Anyways, I don’t truly know this man at all, and if he were still alive, I would love to meet him. I wonder if he has a full biography out there somewhere. Probably.
But yes, getting back to the project, Piene’s section of the exhibit has small summaries about his life, large quotes of his from interviews, and images of him and some of his work. It’s a chunky page, I like it a lot. Hopefully it’ll meet the requirements of an exhibit? I’m trying to compare it to a physical exhibit and I think it’s definitely similar.
Tomorrow I’ll meet with both Thera and my advisor Jess for a mid-internship interview. As of then I will officially be halfway through my required 120 hours. I’m excited to speak with both of them and potentially show them what I’ve been working on.
Part 2: Monday July 26
On Monday I finished the Sky Art exhibit and then got to show it to both my supervisor and advisor at our mid-internship meeting. It took a lot of work and I’m proud of how it came out. It’s aesthetically pleasing and has some really cool information about a super interesting style of art. I’m glad Thera introduced me to the concept of Sky Art at our in-person meeting a couple weeks ago. The next step for the exhibit will be to include other sky artists on the front page (Otto Piene wasn’t the only one, and we should show that). I’m also going to be doing research into all of the images I selected so that I can provide proper captions for them. In addition to the exhibit, I need to go back and do some work on the EMS finding aid (checking subjects against the LOC authorities), and Thera will soon be giving me access to the MIT ArchivesSpace so that I can add the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) collection finding aid and the EMS finding aid. Busy busy!
Kayla Allen 