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No Earthrise in China?

December 28, 2018 by Museum Fatigue

This week was the fiftieth anniversary of the perspective-changing image of the Earth taken from Apollo 8 while in lunar orbit on Christmas Eve 1968. The iconic photograph of the Earthrise—the first color image of Earth from space—and its effects on our understanding of our home planet were the topic of many articles in the media this past holiday week. So imagine my utter surprise when I showed this photograph to a classroom of over seventy Chinese college students at […]

Categories: China, Environment, Photography, Scripts • Tags: Earthrise

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Hanging “Public Relations Advertisements” (Propaganda Displays)

November 4, 2018 by Museum Fatigue

Yesterday, for the first time ever I passed some workers installing one of the many displays of the “Core Values of Socialism” that have proliferated around the city over the past few years. The Core Values can be found in numerous formats (paper posters, painted on surfaces, printed on surfaces, carved in stone and displayed or projected visually) and in a wide variety of locations (at street intersections, at bus stops, on construction barriers, on or in busses, in taxis, […]

Categories: Advertising, Scripts • Tags: China, marketing, propaganda poster

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Essentializing Eastern and Western Culture Through Infographics

July 19, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

While going through some old files on my computer this morning I came across a file I had saved with a collection of graphic illustrations of differences between “Eastern” and “Western” culture. Drawn a few years back by a Chinese artist named Yang Liu in Germany, some of them are very humorous and thoughtfully executed. For folks who have experience crossing the differences between, say, China and Europe or the US, some of the images certainly seem to capture something useful. […]

Categories: Anthropology, Culture, Representation, Scripts • Tags: infographic, Liu Yang, The East, The West, visual culture, Yang Liu

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What The Photograph Takes, What the Photograph Misses

June 12, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

Fujiazhuang Beach in Dalian presents a dizzying array of of activities and actions, social and personal trajectories of participation and involvement—all jostling up against one another on a small strip of sandy shore. My first day there, as I walked its length I saw a huge group of Russian children having a squirt gun fight next to Chinese couples cuddling nearly fully clothed on beach blankets. While some young men fished at the shore, a large group of retirees sat sunning […]

Categories: China, Mythologies, Photography, Scripts • Tags: Dalian, wedding photographs, 婚纱

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Experience Japanese Culture Free of Charge! Let’s Try!

June 9, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

Just as I was heading to the gate to catch my flight leaving Narita airport I passed a last-chance culture display. In the vast neutral space of the terminal the small tatami covered stage, complete with paper screen, umbrella, lantern with Japanese characters and a koto was like some kind of cultural drinking fountain. A last sip before leaving? A final opportunity to get with Japanese culture, to collect a final experience, to take a photo. It was even free! Free culture […]

Categories: Culture, Exhibitions and Fairs, Japan, Representation, Scripts • Tags: display, Free culture, Japanese Culture, music, Narita Airport

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Amanda, The Computerized Telemarketer Who Insisted She Was Human

January 14, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

“The Master created humans first as the lowest type, most easily formed. Gradually, he replaced them by robots, the next higher step, and finally he created me, to take the place of the last humans.”― Isaac Asimov, I, Robot I just had the strangest conversation with a telemarketer. Well, actually I’m not sure I can consider it a conversation—because I’m sure the telemarketer was not even human. It was an exchange that quickly turned into a kind of Turing test, with a […]

Categories: Cyborgs, Fakes and Forgeries, Language, Scripts • Tags: Issac Asimov, lifegivingmoments.com, robocalls, Sarah Palin, telemarketing, Turing test

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What Weibo Wipes: A Collection of Censored Images

November 17, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

Sometime this last week a colleague shared a link to a very interesting collection of images erased from the Weibo microblogging website (“China’s Twitter”). The collection is being made by ProPublica and also includes some very interesting related articles about online censorship in China, such as “How to Get Censored on China’s Twitter.” I saved the link and didn’t really get a chance to look through it until last night. What an interesting collection it is—and most of the images have basic […]

Categories: China, Internet, Scripts, Surveillance, Visual Anthropology • Tags: censorship, censorship in China, ProPublica, social web, Weibo

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On Becoming An Anthropologist (in 1970)

August 26, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

Last month, while doing some deep cleaning in our anthropology lab, I came across a small booklet titled On Becoming and Anthropologist: A Career Pamphlet For Students. Prepared by Walter Goldschmidt at UCLA, it was published by the American Anthropological Association in 1970. Its attractive burnt orange color, retro font, and the unidentified “ethnic symbol” on the cover caught my eye. I set it aside, thinking it might be a nice time capsule—a snapshot of what becoming an anthropologist was […]

Categories: Anthropology, Books, Retro, Scripts, Work • Tags: 1970, American Anthropological Association, career, pamphlet, students

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Tom Skype’s Sensitive Words: A Trove of Keywords for Contemporary China

March 10, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

In China, pretty much everyone knows that the Internet is heavily policed. The people know. The government knows the people know. The people know the government knows the people know. In fact, the “open secret” of the Great Firewall is surely an important part of the way censorship works in China. Precisely because people know Internet censorship exists, the party-state benefits from the efficiency of self-policing as a means of control rather than relying exclusively on external enforcement in real […]

Categories: China, Discipline, Internet, Language, Scripts, Surveillance • Tags: censorship, internet, language, sensitive words, Skype, technology, 敏感词

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Cultural Script: How to Use Chopsticks

February 23, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

Categories: Food, Scripts • Tags: Chinese Food, Chopsticks

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