Noah's Ark theme park, brought to you by the Kentucky taxpayer

The governor of Kentucky is pushing for major tax breaks to a Christian fundamentalist group who plan to build a full-size "reproduction" of Noah's Ark as part of a theme park in the northern part of the state. Expected to open in 2014, the park will be run by the same group, "Answers in Genesis", that runs the nearby Creation Museum (where "Biblical history is the key to understanding dinosaurs").



The question in the New York Times today is, does public funding for creationism violate the separation of church and state? Duh. As usual, the Times gets into elaborate hand-wringing over obvious questions. (Though such funding may not be illegal since a recent Supreme Court decision.) On the other hand, if the project does pump the projected $500 million per year in tourist dollars into the area, I see why the governor is into it.

But let's talk about the proposed attraction. Though their ideological agenda is a bit stomach-churning, Answers in Genesis does represent some "best-practices" in building a museum. They did a national survey to assess the attractiveness of their museum concept. They have a well-organized, accessible website with great graphic design (I love the font!) and a clearly-identified audience that will be bombarded with a sophisticated fundraising campaign (you can become a 'Peg', 'Plank', or 'Beam'-level supporter for donations of $100, $1000, or $5000).



The Ark Encounter will be a 800-acre (320 ha) mix of amusement park, mall, and zoo with lots of multimedia action:

The Walled City: Along with plenty of shopping and food, guests experience Bible events through various themed venues situated on 40 acres.

The Ark: A full-size wooden Ark.

Noah’s Animals: Live shows with animals from around the world, and a large petting zoo.

Children’s Play Area: A highly themed, interactive environment where kids can explore and play.

The Tower of Babel: A 100-foot-tall themed building with exhibits and a 500-seat 5-D special effects theater.

Journey Through History: This themed attraction takes visitors on a trip through events of the Bible, experiencing spectacular special effects.

The First-Century Village: This attractive area presents a town as it might have appeared in the Middle East.

Aviary: three bird sanctuaries presented in a natural setting, plus a nearby butterfly exhibit.

Special Events Area: A venue for large gatherings; this area will also showcase some of the Leader in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) building techniques used to build the Ark complex.

Let us pause in admiration of the complexity and diversity of the project. A themed 'ancient walled city' environment, sort of like Disney's Main Street USA but with an ancient history vibe. Play area for the kids, plus bird sanctuaries with pretty critters. A replica first-century village, which I'm sure will have costumed actors. 5-D special effects in the Tower of Babel?!?!?! I have no idea what the other 2D are but it sounds tight. And the buildings are LEED-certified and environmentally friendly? Damn. There is definitely something for everyone here. Honestly, I would probably go to this, just to see it for myself.



The introductory video is fascinating. Experimental archaeology is the basis of the whole project: since the overriding mission is to prove that the Book of Genesis is a historical text, building Noah's Ark and showing that people and animals could actually have lived inside will serve as "proof" that the story is not just a myth. Lived experience is much more persuasive than text, and millions of people will leave the park believing that the biblical stories could have actually happened. It's a totally accessible, non-elitist approach to presenting a historical vision.

Don't get me wrong, it's a vision based on the false assumption that myth and history are the same thing (though archaeologists used to do this, sometimes with success: cf. the life of Heinrich Schliemann!). As someone who likes the Bible and Jesus and goes to church now and again, I am appalled and frustrated at the way these guys completely misunderstand Genesis and Christianity. But they are good at presenting their vision. Their art director worked for the 1984 Olympics and at Universal Studios, for chrissakes!

Contrast this to a climate for museums with real historical artifacts, where selling off their collections seems the only possible way to pay for basic infrastructure in the current economic climate. But what do you see in those museums? A bunch of static objects in cases. You have to read a book or two before you visit, or you won't understand anything. You're expected to be silent and worshipful no matter how bored or confused you feel. God forbid you try to touch or interact with the exhibits. As I've said before, ever since the cultural élite stopped going to church, art and history museums have tried to fill the gap and give us that experience of awe and reverence. But they do a bad job of it. The creationists, on the other hand, know how to tie history and religion together into a lived experience that is fun, kid friendly, and compatible with modern lifestyles. I wish I could say that of the rest of the museum world.

The Holy Relics of Banksy

Mark Stryker in the Detroit Free Press reports a multilayered story that says a lot about the contemporary attitude to art and, indirectly, heritage (h/t to Jon DeVore for the tip!). British street artist Banksy has been on an American tour, doing pieces here in there. (One suspects there's a tie-in to the new documentary about his work, now showing in the US.) He stopped at the Packard factory in Detroit, a huge, sprawling, abandoned car factory with a romantic, run down air that's a ton of fun to wander around in if you have any love at all for ruins.

Yours truly at the plant last year. Somehow I picked up a case of poison ivy!

So Banksy left this piece on his visit to Packard. I like his work but I don't think this is one of his best I think this one is weak as hell (it feels a little oversentimental to me, and a little bit mistimed since trees are in fact growing everywhere inside the factory, and parts of the city itself are reverting to forest):

(Jason H. Matthews/Detroit Free Press)

The interesting bit is not the piece but what happened next, and what it says about attitudes to art and heritage. The owners of the 555 Gallery, a notprofit gallery and studio space, took it on themselves to "save" the work and take it to their gallery. Check it out:



Naturally, the act was controversial, a sort of 'privatization' of public art. It's also a classic case of starf•cking in a city full of great graffiti art. (I have this image of the 555 guys muttering 'the precious, the precious' as they scurry toward West Vernor with their new treasure.) At the end of the article there's a shocking quote that made me want to laugh and cry at the same time:

Staff member Eric Froh said that while the painting’s meaning has shifted outside of the Packard plant, it retains an expressive power akin to Renaissance religious artifacts or antiquities uncovered by archeologists and now seen in museums. He also noted that the controversy has already become part of its accumulated meaning.“The work can now live on for many years,” said Froh.

I was really flabbergasted by this statement, and it's taken me a week to sort out what I think it means. First the laughable part: people need to stop kissing Banksy’s ass with such slobbery abandon. I like his work, much of it is at a very high level and achieves poetry - but it’s the first sign of irrelevance as an artist when you stop being controversial and start being revered. The beauty of his work comes from its engagement with a urban space and the things going on in it. It's intended to be temporary and site-specific. Putting Banksy in a gallery destroys much of the point, or rather transforms it into something totally different. (Click here for the full irony of putting Banksy in a gallery setting.) I think the 555 guys' choice to take the piece demonstrates either that they really have no idea what his art is about, or that they care more about owning a relic than an artwork.

Which brings us to an important question: is Banksy's work holy? In archaeology, as in art, there is a great battle between two ways of understanding, two epistemologies if you will. On the one hand, there’s the idea that art is part of society and serves a social function, that it fits into your daily life. Then there’s the idea that art or artifacts express Universal Truth, which is basically saying that Art is God. (After modernism, I suppose, that was all the religion one was allowed to feel.)

For archaeologists, old stuff is interesting because it gives us a window into everyday experiences of people in the past and how the human world once was. Most of us would rather not find gold, which is just a distraction. Everyone’s happy to find an attractive artifact, of course, but the meaning of archaeological artifacts is in their context and their relationship to each other. Taking them out of that context takes away almost all of their meaning except whatever 'prettiness' something has. This is why it’s such a tragedy when people buy looted artifacts – no one begrudges people for wanting to touch the past, but the whole process of looting robs us all of knowledge that could add so much richness to our understanding.

Hey Banksy - all this IS trees, bro. Come back in the 20th century.

A lot of collectors justify buying looted artifacts by saying that they have a kind of eternal truth of their own, or represent some cosmic aesthetic ideal. It's basically a religious attitude. And it’s that religious attitude to art in itself is something I’ve never understood, and makes it hard for me to take museums seriously sometimes. The things that David Froh of 555 parallels to the Banksy piece - archaeological artifacts or renaissance Jesus paintings - were created to serve a social purpose, not to be contemplated as aesthetic icons in themselves. A Greek vase without the context of funerary customs or the symposium might be pretty but bores me to tears. And a Christian icon without religious feeling is nonsense, even blasphemy. Maybe you want a bloody Christ on the wall if you're into the aesthetics of torture or something, but I think mostly it's just pretentiousness - unless you really understand it in a spiritual sense.

I feel like, if you want a religious feeling, you should get a religion. What can you even say about people who are too ‘sophisticated’ or ‘postmodern’ for a religious practice, but then go looking for spiritual fulfillment and eternal truth in abstract paintings, performance art, or Banksy pieces? I'm not saying one has to be religious, but I wish people would be self-aware about the spiritual impulse that is common to almost everyone, and direct it accordingly.

Unfortunately the rhetoric of ‘preservation’ and 'conservation' of artworks or artifacts leans pretty heavily on religious-emotional arguments. Which makes it hard to make obvious observations, like: not every archaeological artifact needs to be in a museum. Not all art is worth saving. Not everything old can or should be preserved. For all its wonderful aspects, the preservation impulse also has the aroma of fear hanging around it - the fear of death. In a western society which has only the most vague and ephemeral expectations for the afterlife, preserving the past seems like a way to hold on to the present and not let it slip away.

But trying to save everything can become a pathology that keeps us from engaging with our lives right now. And an ephemeral work in an ephemeral media, put intentionally on a structure that so eloquently expresses the ephemerality of an industrial empire that once seemed permanent? Trying to save such a thing verges on the pathetic.

Endnote: This rant is more or less friendly - I was a patron of 555 in its Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Detroit locations. I've had fun there, and I appreciate the hard work that has gone into keeping the space alive in an extremely rough economic and artistic climate.