British Interactive Group - Newsletter Winter 1999

ECSITE Conference Report 1999 - Prague

Ian Simmonds

After the T-shirts of Lisbon last year, the central European winter of Prague called for a rather different approach. Overcoats, some not deployed since their owners were resident in Finland, were much in evidence, fending off determined flurries of snow drifting over the towers and pinnacles of the city. With its rumbustuous history as the crossroads of Europe - alchemists, magicians massacres, battles, defenestrations, empires, invasions and intrigue, plus its masses of surviving medieval architecture, the place has a distinct feel of Terry Pratchett's Ankh Morpork (it even has a golem)., only cleaner An amazing and magical place to convene for the ECSITE conference, and a particularly appropriate one for the first in Eastern Europe, as the alchemists of Rudolph II's Prague were instrumental in the origins of chemistry, sharing his court with the astronomers Kepler and Tycho Brahe.

The conference itself was based in the National Technical Museum with its marvellous collections of Czech technology (most notably for me the futuristic Tatra cars from the 30's) kicking off on the Thursday evening with an introductory lecture by Prof Zahradnik, President of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic outlining some of the recent cutting edge advances in various fields made by Czech scientists. Friday morning's AGM, held in the Technical University's historic Bethlehem Chapel, was primarily notable for various moves to make ECSITE more democratic and accountable to members, and for an increase in membership fees intended to try and alleviate the parlous financial situation in which the organisation finds itself. It also featured some most excellent chamber music and a number of speeches render barely comprehensible by the collision of ecclesiastical acoustics and amplification.

Post-lunch we bussed back to the museum and plunged into the sessions, most interesting of the day being Graham Farmelo's "Dealing with the Threat of the Leisure Industry". Couched as a hypothetical situation examined by several experts - Marieke Burgers from Experimentarium, Jim Marchbank from Science North and Teit Reitzau from United Exhibits with some contributions from the audience, it was most thought provoking. In setting up the scenario Graham had clearly done his research - I recognised elements of a number of centre's predicaments in there - but it was somewhat wasted in the ECSITE conference format. It was crying out to be the springboard for a workshop involving everyone there. Perhaps at the BIG Event ?

With the conference theme being "Science Centres & Museums in the next Millennium: How to sustain our missions?" more of this conference than in the past was about taking stock of things and considering problems and challenges. The session parallel to Graham's was called "Is Science Losing its Status" and also engendered some fascinating insights, particularly relevant at a time when public confidence in science is heading for rock bottom and various pundits are predicting "the end of science". The evening saw us convening in the museum's main transport hall, amid the glorious cars and imposing locomotives to eat a conference dinner, accompanied by a jazz band and surrounded by director Ivo Janousek's glamourous assistants (who were very glamourous indeed!).

The Saturday's stand-out sessions were "Millennium Madness - why are yet more science centres being created ?" which, while not dwelling extensively on the UK millennials (there was an outline of these by Wellcome Co-ordinator Nick Dixon), highlighted the continuing upsurge of hands-on across the continent, even without considering Children's Museums etc. This played nicely into John Durant's afternoon session, "How to Make a Good Start" which looked at how to go about setting up new centres. While less confessional than the regular ASTC "If I did it Again" sessions, it none the less had some useful pointers for those struggling to get big projects off the ground.

This session did end up dwelling for a little longer on the UK Millennium projects and their likelihood of success, which prompted Exploratorium director and former La Villette leading light Goery Delacote, to say in his best resonant tones "You are all DOOMED" Sobering words from a man of his long experience. Of note elsewhere was the presentation made by Roy Hawkey of the Natural History Museum, where he outlined their new interactive computer network. Using an easily controlled and updated intranet, putting much of the internal material on the web for off-site access, this manages to be both cutting edge and tried and tested at the same time. This is clearly a project to watch, showing a clean pair of heels to the pre-web thinking dismayingly prevalent in many current projects.

After closing remarks and a preview of next years conference in sunny Naples, coaches took us off to what was possibly the most keenly anticipated event of the conference, the dinner and beer party at St Thomas' Pub. St Thomas', a beer cellar that opened its doors sometime in the 13th century, was serving us unlimited copious glasses of free, dark Czech beer and was full of tables groaning with sausages, pickled chillies, garlic bread and other delicacies, supplemented by a suckling pig carved in front of us. An oompah band played, animated and cheerful chatter abounded until long into the night, which, capped with Absinthe, made for a memorable close to one of the best ECSITE conferences in years.

Newsletter Winter 1999 Contents



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