Newsgroup: it.cultura.fantascienza
Titolo: Dalla rivista Nature, Bear scrive del museo di Seattle

Nature 430, 147 (08 July 2004); doi:10.1038/430147a  
 
Science in culture 
GREG BEAR 
Greg Bear lives in Lynnwood, Washington, USA. His most recent 
science-fiction novel is Dead Lines.
The Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle opens up a
whole new world. 
Alien visitors
Perhaps the most fun I've had in Seattle's arts and sciences scene 
began more than two years ago, with a mysterious e-mail message asking
if I would like to advise on a science-fiction exhibition. As a 
professional science-fiction writer, my response was immediate: of 
course.
It turned out that Paul G. Allen, investor, philanthropist, co-founder
of Microsoft and life-long science-fiction reader, was thinking of 
creating the world's first comprehensive museum of science fiction.
In the project's exploratory phase, fellow science-fiction author Neal
Stephenson and I attended meetings with future curators and museum 
staff. We set out to determine how such a museum should be designed, 
and whether it could fit into the space available - sharing a portion 
of the Experience Music Project building, also developed by Allen. 
Allen was dead set against just having four stone walls and glass 
cases gathering dust. Instead he wanted the museum to reflect science 
fiction's greatest asset: its sense of fun in the face of complicated 
and even cosmic questions.
That summer, my wife, Astrid, and I escorted a group from the 
Experience Music Project around the World Science Fiction Convention 
in San Jose, California, dropping them into the thick of 
science-fiction fandom - the culture that has nurtured so many 
science-fiction writers over the decades, including Ray Bradbury and 
Arthur C. Clarke.
Later we helped a team hired by Allen's Vulcan production company, 
already convinced of science fiction's impact on scientific and 
popular culture, to condense the history of science fiction into a 
handful of succinct themes. Reflecting science fiction's textual 
origins, the museum designers set out to show that it all begins with 
the written word: a story, a novel or a screenplay. They also wanted 
to show the connection between science fiction and science - the 
symbiotic relationship between imagination and discovery. The 
challenge became how to prove these two contentions historically and 
demonstrate them to the public. Over several months, the team put 
together a comprehensive design featuring interactive exhibits mixed 
with display cases filled with key artefacts, such as books, 
magazines, artwork and film props.
The Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, a marvel of passion, 
technology and design, opened its doors last month. It represents a 
proud and dynamic reversal of years of cultural neglect of the story 
of science fiction - of its history, aesthetic philosophy and 
symbiotic relationship with science.
The exhibits are organized into five thematic galleries: Homeworld, 
Them!, Fantastic Voyages, Brave New Worlds and the Science Fiction 
Hall of Fame. Each gallery reflects a tributary that feeds into the 
main river of science fiction: these are, respectively, history, 
aliens and robots, getting from here to there in unusual ways, the 
changes that will occur in society, and the literary and artistic 
personalities that created these visions.
Much of the collection is provided by Allen himself, but many display 
items have been loaned by studios, film-makers, writers and fans. 
Among my favourites are Poul Anderson's idea notebook, the original 
manuscript of E. E. Smith's The Skylark of Space (the first major 
novel of interstellar adventure), and many pieces of original art by 
Chesley Bonestell, including his classic covers from Collier's 
magazine and the lovely Saturn As Seen From Titan. Film buffs will 
meet the original E.T., on loan from Steven Spielberg and Universal 
Pictures, and the Alien Queen from James Cameron's Alien - all 
terrifying six metres of her.
Among the centrepiece exhibits are Captain Kirk's command chair from 
the original Star Trek, a line-up of famous film robots, as well as 
interactive wall displays showing cities of the future and a wide 
variety of speculative spacecraft. The Hall of Fame, a curved wall of 
polycarbonate bricks engraved with glowing portraits, enshrines many 
of the finest names in science fiction.
One of the most pointed demonstrations of science fiction's impact on 
technology is the choice of Donna Shirley as the museum's director. 
Shirley was inspired by Robert Heinlein, Bradbury and Clarke to 
venture into a career in aerospace engineering, and led the team that 
built the Mars Sojourner microrover, which landed on Mars in 1997. She
has loaned a half-scale copy of the rover and a chunk of martian 
meteorite to the museum.
Science fiction is a product of the poetic, dreaming mind of the 
sciences. Its considerable influence in books, films and television is
ample proof of the need for a well-funded and disciplined study of the
field, open to the general public. The Science Fiction Museum and Hall
of Fame is an exquisite beginning.
 
http://www.sfhomeworld.org
-- 
Ciao
       Kluge

of Microsoft 
"Filantropo" e "co-fondatore di Microsoft" non possono stare nella
stessa frase ;-)
-- 
Paradoxally,
Jan AxHell

 stessa frase ;-)
Come no: il primo dice come usa i soldi, il secondo come li rub.. pardon, 
fa :-)

On 8 Jul 2004 11:10:38 GMT, Cristiano Sadun
<cristiano...@THIShotmailOUT.com> wrote:

Beh, come direbbe il saggio, "pecunia non olet"...
;-)
Cips
Roy Batty
('72, AL, 150-158 & 125/80-0, BS)
"Bianchina" & "BiondaTuttaCurve" munito
http://roybatty72.altervista.org

  
http://www.sfhomeworld.org
The museum people are spammers.  They've hit my mailbox three times
now, through the "courtesy" of 
www.thecampaigncenter.com
 and
www.emplive.com
, AKA 
directservices.com
 .  At this point, 
I would be entirely pleased if the above spammers, along with 
the ownders of 
sfhomeworld.org
, disappeared from the face of the
earth.