Trigger

The incident as pictured in a contemporary newspaper

It's been a century since that 28^th of June which ended the world as it was known since then, although The Great War wouldn't start until a month later. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austria-Hungarian throne, was in a trip to observe the scheduled military manoeuvres in Bosnia, as commanded a year earlier by the Emperor Franz Joseph I (Empress Sisi's husband, for those of you fond of romantic literature). After a brief inspection of the military barracks, the six car motorcade led Franz Ferdinand and his wife Duchess Sophie to open the state museum of Sarajevo in its new premises.

Danilo Ilic, local leader of the Serbian Black Hand, had spread six of his men along the motorcade route to make they wouldn't miss their chance. Two of them missed their shot. The third one, Nedeljco Cabrinovik, threw his bomb at 10:10am but the timed detonator made it explode under the next car or the parade. Alerted by the explosion the procession sped away towards the town hall, cancelling the visit to the museum. The other three murderers failed to act as the cars passed them at high speed. History would have been so different if Franz Ferdinand stayed in instead of going to the Sarajevo Hospital to pay a visit to the affected by the explosion. On that second motorcade they were supposed to avoid trouble using a different route, but no one told the driver and thus they ended up being too close to Gavrilo Princip position, one of the murderers who after failing had moved to a better position. Princip got as close as five feet and fired two shots with a Belgian-made 9x17mm semi-automatic pistol. The first bullet wounded the Archduke in the jugular vein, the second inflected an abdominal wound on the Duchess. Both died the same day. The Austria-Hungarian Empire demanded Serbia an explanation, this one answered that the matter did not concern the Serbian Government. So the former sent the July Ultimatum, which was not conceded, and then the declaration of war. Germany was an ally of the Empire while the Kingdom of Serbia was supported by Russia, member of the Triple Entente alongside France and the United Kingdom. Hence the conflict between Serbia and Austria-Hungary was the trigger of the first world wide conflict.

Alliances map of Europe in 1914

But why did Serbia attack its neighbour? That goes back to the Treaty of Berlin signed in 1878 by the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Austria-Hungarian Empire, Italy and the Russian Empire. With that treaty Serbia, Romania and Montenegro where recognised as independent kingdoms, but Bosnia remained attached to the Austria-Hungarian Empire. On the first years of the 20^th Century Serbian military officers led by Dragutin Dimitrijevic, who also took part on the 1914 assassination as the leader of the Black Hand group, stormed into the Serbian Royal Palace, killed the former king and installed in its place Peter I of Karadordevic. A new dynasty more nationalistic was born and their purpose was to reunify all the territories that belonged to the Serbian Empire (which collapsed on 1371, get over it!) including Bosnia.

So even if Austria-Hungary (and Germany) longed for an excuse to attack, it was originally Serbia who, in the shadows, broke the Treaty of Berlin. Once the conflict started the Allies came out defending one each other and although the Triple Entente was helping the “guilty” kingdom it really didn't matter any more because all these countries had little unsolved issues between them. The tension had been in the air for so long and the death of Franz Ferdinand was only the straw that broke the ice.

What would had happen if the Archduke had listened to his wife fears instead of enjoying the chance of a day out with her (as a Czech countess she was treated as a commoner at the Austrian Court so public displays of affection were not aloud, not even to sit next to her husband)? Highly probably, and sadly, history wouldn't have change much. Germany or Russian, the most eager for battle, would have found another excuse among their allies to face each other and extend their territories. Who knows if in that case Germany would also have had to pay, unfairly, most of the costs of the war and hence lead Europe, and the world, to the second major conflict of the last century. Because, after all, the Second World War was in a huge part the continuation of these unsolved issues that had been wounding Europe for so long time.

Archduk Franz Ferdinand and Duquess Sophia on 28th June 1914 in Sarajevo

A secret behind Les Miserables: Victor Hugo's paintings

Les Miserables, original novel by Victor Hugo turned into musical, has been already 29 years succeeding on stage. Since the première at the London Barbican Theatre in 1985 it has been continuously represented around the world, while starting to be an important part of the history of musicals as a theatre type. The Spanish production of this play is now on tour around the Mediterranean country, garnering a great success.

How come could its creators, Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, think that their work would be represented around the world in the most important theatre and would win various awards, including eight Tony. Furthermore the stage fame turned the play into a movie which won three Oscar under Tom Hopper's direction.

But one of the more relevant facts we want to talk you about is the scenic renovation on the sets assembly, which hits the original novel essence and spots a new difference. This material change took place four years ago, in occasion of the 25^th anniversary on stage. Cameron Mackintosh present us in this new production some fresh air to renew the interest and passion for this realist, passionate and human literary work. The atmosphere in general terms changes from a light and coloured area to a gloomy and grey environment, mimicking with the feeling of the characters and the real historical situation. The new use of these colours does not create monotony in the plot but on the contrary: it gives a poetical depth.

However, there is another key aspect to high-light the misery and poverty atmosphere: Victor Hugo's paintings projected at the back of the stage. Although he is mostly known as a poet, novelist and playwright, Les Miserables author worked also with fine art. As a result from his autodidact character the French poet and painter created a whole fine art production based on watercolour and charcoal techniques, which according to coetaneous sources helped to inspire him. As they were conceived as a sort of rehearsal and not for the public audience, Victor Hugo never showed them for fear of the critics as it could shadow his literary production, which was the one that really succeed.

Who could have told to the author of Les Miserables that his novel would had triumphed as a stage musical and that his paintings would be projected! We can only add to wish to to enjoy the play if you ever had the chance to see it.

Antoni Obiols

Best-sellers and Junk-books

These days are specially joyful: there is a lot of people on holidays, celebrating Easter, or not, with traditions like the Spanish processions or the “Mona”, a traditional cake eaten in Catalonia the day after Sunday of Easter. But this year it is very close with Saint George: two festivities almost the same week. And we, who have never before write a post about literature, have decided to write our very first.

Biografías, 2003. Alicia Martin intervention at Palacio Linares Casa De America, Madrid

We want to know how are our followers: do you read only in summer, next to the beach? Or do you read so many books a year that you need to write down a list with your new acquisitions? Do you buy them? Do you borrow them from libraries? Do you give them as a present with hidden meaning? Are books your loyal travel companions? Do you read on the tube, bus, train...? We would like also to have a though not only about how do we read but about what we read. Are we really what we read on the same way it is said we are what we eat? A couple of months ago El Cultural hosted a debate about the existence of high and low literature, various literature levels; and they went as far as to say some books are not literature: the best-sellers. What do you think? Are they literature? Just hobbies? Junk books? Does that really exists? Something with such a low quality we could called it junk? A best-seller is a book that in a shot time gets to a huge audience, usually with addictive stories which, perhaps, are close to banality and with a simplicity in its form. There are always exceptions and books of great literary value had become a selling success – like Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose – although the problem maybe is not in the book itself but in the speculative market around it, which is closely connected with the speculative market of art, governed for trends and the rules of supply and demand. The book's culture acts within a merchandising and publicity much savage, with a huge amount of money in the game and other interests. In this humor post it can be seen how, unfortunately, most people don't read or only read best-sellers, so we can always say that what matters, after all, is to at least read something.

Most read books according to http://todayilearned.co.uk

But is that true? The important thing is to read anything? Here I could use my colleague Ricard for a duet pro-against best-sellers, like that that article we did for the blog's anniversary! Clearly there are books with more or less quality, but in what is that based? On the writing or on the conceptualization? The purpose we search in reading is different depending on our mood or the moment of our life we are in. Sometimes we will look for books to feed our soul and reflect about the world and the human being; other times we will want a complex story, or perhaps just an occasional entertainment. After all everything might be ok. Everything? What do you think?

Guiomar Sánchez

@guiomar_sp

Wikipedia Phenomenon

It is undeniable that heritage and technology are closer day by day. Apps, games and a long etc. but when what is wished is to get opened to a wider audience (scholars, researchers, visitors, onlookers...) there is a perfect way: Wikipedia.

Since not so far a lot of museums have incorporate the position of the resident Wikepedian, which means a person dedicated to spill on Wikipedia all the information about the institution and its collections. Some of the Catalan museums that have opened their doors to the Wikipedian are the Museu de la Música, the Museu d’Història de Catalunya, the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya and the Biblioteca Museu Víctor Balaguer in Vilanova i la Geltrú.

Inside view of the Biblioteca Museu Víctor Balaguer. Source: Wikipedia

In this last museum is from the will of showing the collections, open it as if it was the museum database, with accurate information and high quality images. An excellent way of proving to the digital audience and the outlooker: look what a collection we have, we offer it to you, is yours!

When a museum propose to itself a challenge like that must know what is the purpose of it and how must the project be developed. In our case, when we met for the first time, it seemed like an unapproachable thing: all the museum's collection, with preference on the displayed works, upload the images being careful of the copyright, author profiles, artwork profiles... but fortunately we all took Nike's slogan: Impossible is nothing.

We divided the task and created various work methodologies on the go, and almost without realising at the beginning/mid-term of January we had already uploaded to Wikipedia all the artwork (painting and sculpture) displayed in the Museum: images at Wikimedia Commons, at the proper profiles, posts about the authors and posts about the artwork. Once achieved this purpose, we continued working actualizing the already existing posts: add bibliography, complement with quality images... As well as uploading some images from the storage.

Also, every Wikipedian has taken an individual challenge: to do a quality article, one totally trustful, with quality sources, a good redaction and a list of parameters, which must be presented for its aproval.

The Nesi mummy has been the quality article shared between the 3 Wikipedian. Besides each one has done an individual one.

A part from all this it must be said how spectacular it is to keep watching the results. As a bit of a taste:

Defense of the Artillery Park of Monteleón Defense of the Artillery Park of Monteleón Image positions (museum images have been used in about 480 different articles and in various languages) and in approximately three months there has been an average of 175.000 monthly views of images of the collection artwork! Besides the succes of Joaquín Sorolla's painting Defense of the Artillery Park of Monteleón. Only in Desember it had a total of 78.000 views.

And this is the project in which I have been working almost five month: working for the collection of the Biblioteca Museu Víctor Balaguer of Vilanova i la Geltrú to be accessible from every corner of the world. And the best of it, as part of a team, as we are three resident Wikipedians in the museum: Marina Padilla, Elisenda Almirall and myself.

Among us and the other resident Wikipedians, as with other people related to the phenomenon, there is a collaborative link and a networking that is, perhaps, the future of working in culture.

Screenshot of the edition process at Wikipedia

Montse Medina

@montsemedina_

For more information:

Post in Catalan Wikipedia about the Wikiproject of the Biblioteca Museu Víctor Balaguer.

 Collections Online: motto and aim. Let's do it with 3 Wikipedians in Residence at a time. Article about the singularity of being three Wikipedian workers

#MuseumWeek, museum-what?

There has been a week on Twitter where culture has become Trending Topic each day. Seven days and seven hashtags have taken – or have wanted to take – the European museums to all the community on this social network.

Lately it has been the week of museum on Twitter which, under the hashtag #MuseumWeek, represented a whole week to promote and publicize the work carried out by the institutions that have participated.

That is not new; Twitter had already host previous activities and cultural days like the #AskACurator ongoing since 2010, o the #MuseumSelfie days on this past 21 and 22 January. But the difference this time has been the will to implicate as much museums as possible, moving it from one or two days to a complete week engaged to the museums. The pioneers where museums from Great Britain, and at the end there were included French, Italian and Spanish museums. In Catalonia, from where we write this blog, we could find big institutions like the national museum MNAC (Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya), the Museu Picasso or the Fundació Miró, up to more local museums like the Museu d'Art de Morera (Morera's Art Museum) or the Museu d'Art Modern de Tarragona (Museum of Modern Art of Tarragona). All of them have desired to give some space to the questions and opinions of the Twitter users, as well as publicize the museums but also giving voice to the intern works that we usually won't see when we visit them, like the restoration team and the educational or maintenance services.

The methodology of this initiative was to propose activities and show something of the museum throughout various hashtags: on Monday #DayInTheLife to show the daily routine of a museum worker, from directors or curators to maintenance or security team; moreover, must be thought most museums close their doors on Monday and that is a good way to show what they do and how they work even if the galleries remain closed, emphasizing the internal tasks like management, curatorship, maintenance, restoration, etc; on Tuesday we had #MuseumMastermind where Twitter users were encouraged to answer questions about the collection, history, building, etc., even with some prizes! Wednesday was time for #MuseumMemories, where everyone could explain anecdotes and memories about museums, thus creating a relaxed and friendly environment with a good mood and the most original stories. The fourth day was #BehindTheArt, where the museum has taken prominence, talking about his artwork, museology, architecture, etc., making clear the changes and remodelations that have evolved the institution over time, including iconic or curious facts that have happened inside those.

Friday was the #AskTheCurator day, a hashtag that has already been long time in the network, whose objective was for the users to ask questions to the museum workers about internal or external issues around the exhibitions, the favourite exhibitions for directors or curators, how difficult is to restore certain materials or which educational policy are they following are some of the tweets we were able to see.

It has been left for the weekend, successfully, two topics where the principal action is on the Twitter users and no on the institution: I am talking about #MuseumSelfie, consisting on upload selfies taken inside the museums; and #GetCreative where the user of this social network was encouraged to use their wit and produce creative pictures or reinterpreting an artwork, among other options. However it must be said that the museums' CM have been active during the whole weekend doing a commendable job with some probably underpaid overtime, so it has been a very intense week for both freelance and institution affiliated Tweeter users.

Therefore we can say this week has been a great success for the participating museums: for the big institutions it has served to enforce audience loyalty and for the smaller ones to release themselves and acquire some followers, which means more diffusion. Though there is still a lot to do, as it has been fun and entertaining but we must think that, maybe, this diffusion we guess they have had it has only been a mirage: we must take account that an important part of this social network users, specially the ones not linked, directly or not, with the museums and culture, hasn't find out about this initiative. This, anyway, is a task for the next #MuseumWeek, because what does have been clear is the desire and will of the museums, professionals and cultural sector in general, to create links, to get out of the museum rooms and to show the inside of every institutions, as it has been proved this last days with games, riddles and upstanding their most fun and playful side; pretending to develop a quality, open and participative job. 

Guiomar Sánchez

#guiomar_sp

Objectiu Actiu: Tarragona's second photography meeting

On 19 March it was held at the Cafe Metropol of Tarragona (Spain) the Second Edition of Objectiu Actiu, an initiative of four citizens with the objective of getting to know the photographers of this Mediterranean city. To do so they organize periodical hangouts where the photographers can show their work with total freedom on the subjects.

Adrià Borràs (photographer), Joel Giné (graphic designer), Pau Luzón (visual editor) and Roberto Eduard (visual amateur) give the opportunity to any photographer, amateur or professional, to show their work. That is how they describe themselves: “we want to be a platform for the young talents and the social voice for the photography community in Tarragona”.

On their web page you can find the projects shown on all the editions of the festival and also a news blog! Please take a look, you will find very interesting projections! On this second edition I myself presented a visual project made with my colleagues Gerard Mateo and Pablo Gonzalez. You can take a look here, we hope you like it: http://vimeo.com/89343368

But... why Objectiu Actiu (Objective Active)? The team assure us the first thing they were sure about was the red bulb logo, a wink to the red light needed in a photography laboratory. Afterwards they had to deal with the riddle of a name, so they look for a clear and catchy pun, and that is how they end up with Objectiu Actiu: Objectiu means either a goal and the camera lens, while Actiu reflects their will and enthusiasm on this project.

You want now to do an audiovisual project and present it at the Cafe Metropol? Then here is the link with the requirements you must follow:

http://www.objectiuactiu.cat/participa/

A great initiative that was born when Adrià finished his studies of photography in Tarragona's School of Art. In that moment he came up with a good idea and created this event with friends who had studied and worked on the world of visual arts to keep themself busy and somehow contribute to Tarragona's cultural life.

The Objectiu Actiu team states their satisfaction with the two editions and explain us that the first one was more about the novelty of being born as a collective but still being a success. On the second edition they were looking for reaffirmation and to connect with audience and participants, and so they did. With hard work and passion they have got a nice place in Tarragona's photography world, which gaves them plenty of energy to keep working forward to grow and improve.

Adrià Borràs

Adrià Borràs

But this young team will not remain only with projections, their are getting stronger and even if the shows are at the base of their project we will see soon new contents like conferences, meetings and much more! 

Paula Arbeloa Suárez

http://www.flickr.com/photos/paula_arbeloa_photography/

The Silence of the Museum of Yugoslav History

View of Belgrade from the Museum

The sky is cloudy. Some falling raindrops. From the House of Flowers the whole city of Belgrade can be seen. The Saint Sava and a concrete building monopolize the view. In front of the Mausoleum of Tito it looks like time has stopped. A lady with a folded umbrella is reading “Josip Broz Tito 1892-1980” in golden letter over white marble.

Inside of the House of Flowers. Tito's mausoleum

At the same time, in the current Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a sunny sky, thousands of people from all ethnic groups take the streets. Some go for a walk. Other for shopping. But a lot of them take part in a demonstration. Unlike what had happen in the last years they are not out to show the division between them but the social union. They are workers against corruption and in favour of justice, who don't want their public heritage to be sold any more.

And with all that the Museum of Yugoslav History is still, like a fossil, at the former capital, now in Serbian territory. There we will not find a historiographical reading of any past, at least not at first sight. Surely the effects of the war, which was over not so many years ago, and some wounds that are still bleeding, might made impossible an official reading without hurting any sensibilities. A lot of their borders are still in question marks. Or maybe they explain that to us using the silence.

Outside the Museum. Allegorical sculpture of Yugoslavia

The Museum is somehow of a cult to Tito, with his mausoleum as the epicentre of it, surrounded by the torches that Yugoslav youth brought there when his anniversary was near. Outside there are statues over the grass, not only his but also with interpretations that some artists made about his position or about the old State in general. In the same set there are included a series of rooms with the presents this marshal received from various countries and regions. In addition to an interpretation centre and some rooms used for temporary exhibition, the artists who expose today are war orphans. They are still too young, which proves we are still to close from the latest bombings.

Temporary exhibitions rooms with war orphan's paintings

Actual state of Belgrade's Defense building after OTAN's bombing in 1999

Surely not everyone agree with Tito's ideology. What is clear is that his internal and foreign politics gave Yugoslavia a period that was little expected to end as it ended, at least as seen from its context and outdistance. Surely that cult, which still today has its reminiscence in all Balkan republics, could explain how everything collapsed after Tito's death, on May 4^th at 3:05pm.

Obviously that neither explains Yugoslav history or provides any revelatory vision of the former federation. However, if every history museum must have and historiographical reading, this is a possible one that we can take from the absence of it. A project that writes his history from the figure of a leader. A mausoleum which calls himself as museum. With the leader the ethnic tensions get to a balance position for the collective sake and class need. With his death, his project dies also. And it remains the House of Flowers, the Museum, as a witness of peace, a quiet space, an oasis inside the capital, isolated from traffic and daily headaches of such a complex big city.

Complementary information:

TheGuardian about Bosnia and Herzegovina protests

Bosniaprotests picture gallery "La Directa"

Ramon Lobo (12/02/2014) ¿Primavera en Bosnia? "Infolibre" 

Igor Bogdanovic (2005) Els Balcans. Publicacions de la UOC. Barcelona.

Gabino Martínez

@gabinotgn