The Science of Aliens, the Science Museum, London
The Science Museum has come in for a lot of flak over the past few years for a series of spin-offs from films such as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Lord of the Rings, and the James Bond and Star Trek movies. The museum continues to vigorously defend these unashamedly popular (and money-making) exhibitions - and the public has kept coming.
But sniffy types like me still argue that you can make science accessible without the shade of Gandalf uttering his incantations to liven up the technical bits.
So I approached The Science of Aliens - an exhibition produced by the museum rather than bought in - with a degree of expectation. OK, the title sounds completely kiddie/Trekkie-friendly, but perhaps there would be something to interest my adult, ET-phobic self.
The exhibition is divided into four distinct sections: Alien Fiction, Alien Science, Imagined Alien Worlds, and Alien Communication (or rather our not-very-successful search for extraterrestrial beings).
The first, Alien Fiction, is a piece of fun that cleverly tries to aim itself at adults and children alike: huge models including the Alien Queen from the 1986 film Aliens, and a Vogon from the Hitchhiker's Guide, appeal to the sci-fi lovers.
I was immediately drawn to a 'spirit photo' by Lewis Carroll, and (to my great delight) Christopher Lee's blood-spurting fangs from the 1958 Dracula, slightly alarmingly reused in a later film - but then Hammer was always short of money.
Young children are more likely to be interested in the 'cute' aliens. Well, who could resist a Clanger? The more serious point is to show how we like to invent aliens and monsters, particularly in times of crisis (a 1950s poster for a double bill: Nameless, Shameless Woman! and I Married a Communist nicely made the point).
Equally, in less troubled times, aliens can be morphed into cute, anthropomorphised creatures popular with children - the more they look like us or cuddly animals the better.
The exhibition makes some interesting parallels: Watching the Skies, a section filled with unearthly sounds and films including UFOs Over Dakota and the Roswell 'alien autopsy', makes connections between the search for aliens and older ideas about angels.
The parallel between the story of the Pied Piper and alien abductions was not one I'd thought about before. It's all a bit broad-brush, and managing the grown-up bits and the children's bits was clearly tricky, but as an introduction it works well and raises some interesting ideas.
So that's the culture bit. What about the science? The second, and largest section, Alien Science, is really the core of the exhibition: the bit that's most educational and the bit with the hardest job to do.
This is the section that has to show that life forms evolve in response to the natural environment (temperature, food sources, predation etc), because in the next section, Scientists Imagine Aliens, the public will be confronted by two interactive, imaginary worlds.
Without the underpinning of the second gallery, the third would just be a piece of fun - although the technology in the Alien Worlds interactives, which has been developed in conjunction with a Channel 4 TV series, is impressive.
The final section, Alien Communication, allows the visitor to beam messages out to space, while the more serious-minded can learn about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and the myriad possible reasons why we've never found any.
The Alien Science part of the show marries concepts with real museum objects - or at least starts to, something that shows such as The Lord of the Rings are never going to achieve.
In this section, the design team has created two tentacle-style areas displaying undersea specimens with explanations of the ways creatures have adapted to the environments of the ocean. While some children immediately asked their parents what this had to do with aliens, they soon seemed absorbed by specimens that fascinate and horrify simultaneously.
Long tables carrying specimens are stretched across the room. These address issues such as 'Aliens may have characteristics we recognise', 'Where do new creatures come from' and 'Things that can survive in extreme environments'.
At the back of the room an enormous photograph of the galaxy introduces the search for planets like earth while two models effectively demonstrate the telltale signs of a planet orbiting a sun: a gravitational 'wobble' and a 'shadow' passing across the face of the sun. I didn't learn anything new, but at least I could enjoy the objects and the presentations. Most of the visitors seemed engaged and excited by what were plainly new ideas for some.
There's a lot riding on The Science of Aliens, and not only because it is a proper Science Museum-produced exhibition, unlike previous, bought-in shows.
The exhibition is the first in a ten-year series to be backed by Fleming Media, which hopes to make money by touring the exhibitions abroad (there is a dearth, apparently, of big, high-quality science shows, which the Fleming Media/Science Museum partnership is designed to exploit).
To recoup its investment, £2m in the case of The Science of Aliens, the team is going to have to produce exhibitions that have popular appeal but which are credible and educational as well as entertaining and fun. It is also going to have to create exhibitions that tour easily.
This obviously imposes design restrictions, but one of my caveats about the exhibition was that there were some nasty bits of finishing. There's nothing wrong with modular design, but did we really need hanging plastic sheeting?
The other great restriction that touring exhibitions face is the quantity of cased museum objects that can be easily shifted. None the less, I hope this won't deter the museum from attempting to marry concepts, interactives and graphic elements with the collections: after all, it is the objects, not the concepts, that make science museums unique.
While The Science of Aliens isn't the great historical science show - the Einstein or Brunel exhibition that personally I'd love to see - it is a welcome step away from overt commercialism to a mass-market exhibition with education at its heart.
This is more the sort of thing you'd expect from a publicly-funded museum, although it is still an alien concept to many European touring science exhibitions.
Jane Morris is a freelance arts journalist
Project data
Cost: £2m
Exhibition design: Urban Salon
Exhibition concept: Science Museum/The Science of...
Interactives: Zone 1 'Sorry game' - Martine Corompt,
Zone 3 Large tables - Art + Com, based on content from 'Alien Worlds', a Big Wave/Channel 4 International documentary
Zone 4 message consoles - AllofUs
All other interactives: Science Museum/The Science of.../Urban Salon
Exhibition ends: 28 February 2006
The Science Museum has come in for a lot of flak over the past few years for a series of spin-offs from films such as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Lord of the Rings, and the James Bond and Star Trek movies. The museum continues to vigorously defend these unashamedly popular (and money-making) exhibitions - and the public has kept coming.
But sniffy types like me still argue that you can make science accessible without the shade of Gandalf uttering his incantations to liven up the technical bits.
So I approached The Science of Aliens - an exhibition produced by the museum rather than bought in - with a degree of expectation. OK, the title sounds completely kiddie/Trekkie-friendly, but perhaps there would be something to interest my adult, ET-phobic self.
The exhibition is divided into four distinct sections: Alien Fiction, Alien Science, Imagined Alien Worlds, and Alien Communication (or rather our not-very-successful search for extraterrestrial beings).
The first, Alien Fiction, is a piece of fun that cleverly tries to aim itself at adults and children alike: huge models including the Alien Queen from the 1986 film Aliens, and a Vogon from the Hitchhiker's Guide, appeal to the sci-fi lovers.
I was immediately drawn to a 'spirit photo' by Lewis Carroll, and (to my great delight) Christopher Lee's blood-spurting fangs from the 1958 Dracula, slightly alarmingly reused in a later film - but then Hammer was always short of money.
Young children are more likely to be interested in the 'cute' aliens. Well, who could resist a Clanger? The more serious point is to show how we like to invent aliens and monsters, particularly in times of crisis (a 1950s poster for a double bill: Nameless, Shameless Woman! and I Married a Communist nicely made the point).
Equally, in less troubled times, aliens can be morphed into cute, anthropomorphised creatures popular with children - the more they look like us or cuddly animals the better.
The exhibition makes some interesting parallels: Watching the Skies, a section filled with unearthly sounds and films including UFOs Over Dakota and the Roswell 'alien autopsy', makes connections between the search for aliens and older ideas about angels.
The parallel between the story of the Pied Piper and alien abductions was not one I'd thought about before. It's all a bit broad-brush, and managing the grown-up bits and the children's bits was clearly tricky, but as an introduction it works well and raises some interesting ideas.
So that's the culture bit. What about the science? The second, and largest section, Alien Science, is really the core of the exhibition: the bit that's most educational and the bit with the hardest job to do.
This is the section that has to show that life forms evolve in response to the natural environment (temperature, food sources, predation etc), because in the next section, Scientists Imagine Aliens, the public will be confronted by two interactive, imaginary worlds.
Without the underpinning of the second gallery, the third would just be a piece of fun - although the technology in the Alien Worlds interactives, which has been developed in conjunction with a Channel 4 TV series, is impressive.
The final section, Alien Communication, allows the visitor to beam messages out to space, while the more serious-minded can learn about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and the myriad possible reasons why we've never found any.
The Alien Science part of the show marries concepts with real museum objects - or at least starts to, something that shows such as The Lord of the Rings are never going to achieve.
In this section, the design team has created two tentacle-style areas displaying undersea specimens with explanations of the ways creatures have adapted to the environments of the ocean. While some children immediately asked their parents what this had to do with aliens, they soon seemed absorbed by specimens that fascinate and horrify simultaneously.
Long tables carrying specimens are stretched across the room. These address issues such as 'Aliens may have characteristics we recognise', 'Where do new creatures come from' and 'Things that can survive in extreme environments'.
At the back of the room an enormous photograph of the galaxy introduces the search for planets like earth while two models effectively demonstrate the telltale signs of a planet orbiting a sun: a gravitational 'wobble' and a 'shadow' passing across the face of the sun. I didn't learn anything new, but at least I could enjoy the objects and the presentations. Most of the visitors seemed engaged and excited by what were plainly new ideas for some.
There's a lot riding on The Science of Aliens, and not only because it is a proper Science Museum-produced exhibition, unlike previous, bought-in shows.
The exhibition is the first in a ten-year series to be backed by Fleming Media, which hopes to make money by touring the exhibitions abroad (there is a dearth, apparently, of big, high-quality science shows, which the Fleming Media/Science Museum partnership is designed to exploit).
To recoup its investment, £2m in the case of The Science of Aliens, the team is going to have to produce exhibitions that have popular appeal but which are credible and educational as well as entertaining and fun. It is also going to have to create exhibitions that tour easily.
This obviously imposes design restrictions, but one of my caveats about the exhibition was that there were some nasty bits of finishing. There's nothing wrong with modular design, but did we really need hanging plastic sheeting?
The other great restriction that touring exhibitions face is the quantity of cased museum objects that can be easily shifted. None the less, I hope this won't deter the museum from attempting to marry concepts, interactives and graphic elements with the collections: after all, it is the objects, not the concepts, that make science museums unique.
While The Science of Aliens isn't the great historical science show - the Einstein or Brunel exhibition that personally I'd love to see - it is a welcome step away from overt commercialism to a mass-market exhibition with education at its heart.
This is more the sort of thing you'd expect from a publicly-funded museum, although it is still an alien concept to many European touring science exhibitions.
Jane Morris is a freelance arts journalist
Project data
Cost: £2m
Exhibition design: Urban Salon
Exhibition concept: Science Museum/The Science of...
Interactives: Zone 1 'Sorry game' - Martine Corompt,
Zone 3 Large tables - Art + Com, based on content from 'Alien Worlds', a Big Wave/Channel 4 International documentary
Zone 4 message consoles - AllofUs
All other interactives: Science Museum/The Science of.../Urban Salon
Exhibition ends: 28 February 2006
