INTERACTION

Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art

6 March 2008 - 18 May 2008
Barbican Art Gallery

I think someone has done this sort of thing in fiction. Coke bottle caps come to mind from somewhere but here's the Barbican's take on the idea as a means of looking at modern art from outside the planet.

"Anthropologists from outer space set out on a mission to understand life on earth. Imagine that they begin their mission by examining the curious phenomenon that human beings call ‘contemporary art’. What does Art tell them about human life and culture?

"Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art presents contemporary art works under the fictional guise of a museum collection conceived by and designed for extraterrestrials. Playful and irreverent, the museum’s collection features some 150 works by over 100 artists, from modern masters to bright new stars including ..."

I remember this -- tongue in cheek -- story where Martians archeologists examined remnants from Earth's civilisation (film reels), and when they found out how to play them, they were absolutely astonished at the incredible things those 'humans' could do...

They were watching cartoons (maybe Roadrunner or so, not sure). I think it was a Fredric Brown story, but am not sure.

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Vaguely recall that story, too.. but I thought the cartoon was Mickey Mouse..?


The "historical documents" parody-thing was done well in Galaxy Quest.

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You're probably thinking of "History Lesson" by Arthur C Clarke:-

http://web.math.hr/~veky/T/T1/historylesson.txt

Brown did a story called "Star Mouse" in which aliens encounter a mouse called Mickey, sent up in a rocket by a scientist, and boost his intelligence to learn about life on Earth.

Another source of the idea might be the 'Martian Poetry' phenomenon of the late 1970s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_poetry

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I'm sure I remember a 50's (?) story where future archeologists, alien or human, were puzzling over Earth's relics and could not explain the multitude of round metal disks with curled over serated edges they kept unearthing. Most of the disks had curly faded red symbols on their flat tops.

Pete: that's the one! And now I see that the archeologists were from Venus, not from Mars...

Oh well.

Your memory for classic stories is incredible...

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In the Plane of the Ecliptic

It's open now and there's a reviewhere.

Maybe we should run a charabanc outing from Eastercon.