In the midst of a pandemic, everything is being canceled. Normally around this time, we’d be heading up to Michigan to visit Lisa’s parents and for the kids to go to summer camp with their cousins. Instead, we have *gestures everywhere* all of this. So, in lieu of that, we’re trying to make the best of it by doing week-long virtual summer camps. Each family member picks a place or topic and tells everyone else about it. First up is museum week.
On Monday, I took everyone on a visit to The National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park. Of course, Bletchley Park is famous for being the home of World War II’s greatest codebreakers who cracked the German Enigma with their Bombe machine. It has the world’s oldest original working digital computer, the Harwell Dekatron Computer, or the WITCH.
On Tuesday, Lisa took us to The British Museum, home of the beautiful yet controversial Elgin Marbles, originally from the Parthenon. It’s huge! It would take days to see everything there. They also have the Rosetta Stone. They have entire departments devoted to Egypt, Greece and Rome, and even “Coins and Medals.”
Next, Evan took us in a new direction with the Museum of Failure. He was especially amused by Crystal Pepsi and the Nintendo Power Glove.
For the last virtual museum, Ellie took us to The Broad in LA. They have some great videos like this one of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinite Mirror Room. We even made some art in the style of Ed Ruscha! I drew HALF Dome in Yosemite.
Finally, we visited an actual museum… outside! Glenstone in Potomac, Maryland is allowing a limited number of visitors at timed intervals, with mandatory mask wearing, to roam the grounds. There are a number of pieces of art on display outside, including Jeff Koons’ “Split Rocker.”
And “FOREST (for a thousand years…)”, an audio installation by Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller was really cool.
Next week, we’ll be virtually visiting some National Parks!
