Adventures in Digital Humanities and digital cultural heritage. Plus some musings on academia.
Wednesday, 5 March 2008
Moon Museum
So, apparently, some wacky funsters incorporated a miniature museum into the Apollo 12 Moonlanding unit, so there is a museum of modern art on the moon. Who to believe? The joys of the interweb, keeping speculation alive.
Believe it. My father was an engineer who worked with artists, though his day job was with AT&T Bell Labs. His lab designed integrated circuits (these were the first chips) so he got the drawings from the artists, shrank them down, made a silk screen and printed the images on silicon wafers. His crew made 40 of them and then they broke the mold. One chip got onto the lunar lander and the rest are scattered around. The Museum of Modern Art in New York has one. When they acknowledged the gift, they noted that it is "the smallest print in our collection."
The thumb in the photo is my dad's -- large fingers run in our family.
(Michael, I will contact you off-line.) I must add some information to what I wrote. The artist who conceived of the project was Forrest (Frosty) Myers. He asked a number of artists to contribute drawings and five -- Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenberg, Robert Novros, and John Chamberlain -- gave him one. Myers added one of his own, then contacted my father for help. My father made the chips and contacted another engineer who worked on the lunar lander. That other engineer, Robert Merkle, somehow attached the chip to the leg of the lunar lander. And, in the picture my father's thumb obscures Andy Warhol's picture because the genteel NY Times did not want to print it. It looks like a penis.
I am in touch with your mother about this piece that I will exhibit in September in Paris. Apparently Merkle worked with your father to produce the piece, I am not sure he was the one who attached it to the LEM. I would be very happy to be in touch with you. My email is bureaud (@) altern.org Best Annick
Would you be kind enough to email me privately, I would have other questions to ask you as I am compiling an article and documents for the show I am curating this autumn. Your help would be really good for all this. But doing it via a blog is kind of weird ;-) And I'll make my results public for everyone when I am sure of what I am writing ;-)
My father, Burt Unger made the Moon Museum in his laboratory at Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, NJ and Bob Merkle worked for him. There is a lot of interest in this since a TV documentary called Histories Mysteries is now being filmed about the Moon Museum. My father would love to talk to you about some errors in your reporting and he would also like to speak to your mother. Could you please send him your mothers phone number. His email address is buassoc@aol.com. Thanks.
I just wrote to your father. I also gave him contact info for Julie Martin of EAT so that he can make sure the archives are correct.
Thank you for contacting me! The mistakes I made were based on others' recollections, which clearly were faulty. Your father will be able to correct the mistakes and make the record accurate.
This is Annick Bureaud in Paris. I exhibited the Moon Museum in Paris last Autumn (see : http://www.art-outsiders.com). The text that I co-wrote for the catalog still has some question marks as, at the time of publishing, we didn't have some info that we got afterwards, but it was too late for the publication.
My co-writer and I intend to write a longer article for the journal Leonardo published by MIT Press (the place in the catalog was restricted). I would be happy to get in contact with your father.
If you would like to provide me with your email address, you can contact me at bureaud AT altern.org
Believe it. My father was an engineer who worked with artists, though his day job was with AT&T Bell Labs. His lab designed integrated circuits (these were the first chips) so he got the drawings from the artists, shrank them down, made a silk screen and printed the images on silicon wafers. His crew made 40 of them and then they broke the mold. One chip got onto the lunar lander and the rest are scattered around. The Museum of Modern Art in New York has one. When they acknowledged the gift, they noted that it is "the smallest print in our collection."
ReplyDeleteThe thumb in the photo is my dad's -- large fingers run in our family.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete(Michael, I will contact you off-line.) I must add some information to what I wrote. The artist who conceived of the project was Forrest (Frosty) Myers. He asked a number of artists to contribute drawings and five -- Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenberg, Robert Novros, and John Chamberlain -- gave him one. Myers added one of his own, then contacted my father for help. My father made the chips and contacted another engineer who worked on the lunar lander. That other engineer, Robert Merkle, somehow attached the chip to the leg of the lunar lander. And, in the picture my father's thumb obscures Andy Warhol's picture because the genteel NY Times did not want to print it. It looks like a penis.
ReplyDeleteAmy
ReplyDeleteI am in touch with your mother about this piece that I will exhibit in September in Paris. Apparently Merkle worked with your father to produce the piece, I am not sure he was the one who attached it to the LEM.
I would be very happy to be in touch with you. My email is bureaud (@) altern.org
Best
Annick
Annick, Thanks for correcting me. It was so long ago and I was a child so my memory may be faulty.
ReplyDeleteAmy,
ReplyDeleteWould you be kind enough to email me privately, I would have other questions to ask you as I am compiling an article and documents for the show I am curating this autumn. Your help would be really good for all this. But doing it via a blog is kind of weird ;-) And I'll make my results public for everyone when I am sure of what I am writing ;-)
Annick
My father, Burt Unger made the Moon Museum in his laboratory at Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, NJ and Bob Merkle worked for him. There is a lot of interest in this since a TV documentary called Histories Mysteries is now being filmed about the Moon Museum. My father would love to talk to you about some errors in your reporting and he would also like to speak to your mother. Could you please send him your mothers phone number. His email address is buassoc@aol.com.
ReplyDeleteThanks.
Ellen,
ReplyDeleteI just wrote to your father. I also gave him contact info for Julie Martin of EAT so that he can make sure the archives are correct.
Thank you for contacting me! The mistakes I made were based on others' recollections, which clearly were faulty. Your father will be able to correct the mistakes and make the record accurate.
Ellen
ReplyDeleteThis is Annick Bureaud in Paris. I exhibited the Moon Museum in Paris last Autumn (see : http://www.art-outsiders.com). The text that I co-wrote for the catalog still has some question marks as, at the time of publishing, we didn't have some info that we got afterwards, but it was too late for the publication.
My co-writer and I intend to write a longer article for the journal Leonardo published by MIT Press (the place in the catalog was restricted).
I would be happy to get in contact with your father.
If you would like to provide me with your email address, you can contact me at bureaud AT altern.org
Best
Annick Bureaud