Failed Book Proposal

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Back in January, a friend drew my attention to a book series inviting proposals for monographs. Here is my informal pitch that was knocked back within an hour of emailing it to the series editors who said the topic was interesting but wasn't a fit for them. I welcome comments, suggestions and discussion because I'd really love a crack at this and I think there's something in it.


Adaptation and Appropriation in Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable

Paula Blair

peablair@gmail.com

Dear [...],

I am writing to propose a volume for your Adaptation and Visual Culture Palgrave series. Provisionally titled Adaptation and Appropriation in Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable, the book would examine the intricacies of acts of adaptation and appropriation in Damien Hirst’s major exhibition in Venice, Italy, in 2017. ‘Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable’ exhibited hundreds of items across two major galleries, many of which were claimed to have been ancient artefacts recovered from a two thousand-year-old shipwreck. These sculptures, weapons, tools, coins, vessels and shells seemingly encrusted with coral were not what they first appeared, and upon close inspection the museum-quality reproductions instead emerged as simulacra rather than replicas. Rather than consider the show as a hoax, I aim to demonstrate that ‘Treasures’ was an adaptation on a grand, audacious scale of these kinds of real life museum exhibitions.

Within the bigger picture, many of the individual works depict mash-up adaptations, for example, the ‘Hydra and Kali’ series mix ancient Hindu and Greco-Roman mythological figures in presentations informed by contemporary (western white) film and popular culture; Kali’s swords are familiar from Lord of the Rings and the figures themselves evoke Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion models. The underwater film and photography of the marine archaeology and recovery operations throughout the show, as well as a mockumentary released on Netflix, adapt and recreate real recent and ongoing excavations. Many of the works and the exhibition guide texts take cues from works of literature, including high-brow references to Shakespeare’s The Tempest and lower-brow, more obscure allusions to erotic sci-fi such as Burrows’s The Soft Machine and Shea and Wilson’s The Illuminatus! Trilogy, all in addition to ancient-world mythologies. Many artworks and styles are adapted and appropriated too, including an upscaled sculpture of Blake’s The Ghost of a Flea and gilded copies of traditional Nigerian busts, which raises questions around cultural appropriation.

Areas the book would analyse would include:

  • adaptations of histories, myths, legends and lies

  • appropriations of cultural forms and modes

  • adapting real life research and practices to push the bounds of possibility

  • adapting language

  • adapting images from other artworks into ‘ancient’ sculptures that supposedly prefigured them, including paintings, etchings, novels and characters/personae from film and popular culture

  • adapting mythological figures and tools through the prisms of film and popular culture

  • mash-up/convergence culture (post-postmodernism?) melding the ancient, old and contemporary, the classical, historical, modern and new, etc., from a substantial range of source texts

  • exploring the idea of a ‘hoax’ exhibition as a form of adaptation

The aim overall would be to use the analysis to demonstrate research and critical thinking skills that go far beyond ‘getting’ postmodern references. Especially in the light of deep fakes and excessive tangles of misinformation, there has never been a more pressing time to show ways of questioning authoritative truth claims, and in this case specifically, ways to fact-check the statements made by museums and galleries as institutions the public trust to deliver accurate information. As we know from projects such as Sean Lynch’s on Flint Jack, museums are no less susceptible to plausible lies than the rest of us, and, while telling a wholly possible yarn, the Treasures show overtly laid its lies bare across its range of sculptural, videographic, photographic and textual works, that is, for discerning visitors willing to question their own assumptions and the exhibition text, which is not as full of fiction as you might imagine.

I have been drafting my ideas raised by this exhibition on my blog, that is, until the enormity of the pandemic became clear and I lost momentum in 2020. The 24 posts so far begin here: https://peablair.blogspot.com/2019/11/unbelievable-part-1-where-im-at-now.html. A couple of posts most relevant to this proposal can be viewed at https://peablair.blogspot.com/2020/01/unbelievable-part-12-mythology-mash-up.html and https://peablair.blogspot.com/2020/02/unbelievable-part-16-reproduction.html. There are further fragments of drafts and at least 30,000 words compiled, perhaps more, so far. The idea had been to write a weekly essay and assess how they could be redrafted and structured into a book project, which I now feel ready to tackle. The Adaptation and Visual Culture series would provide ideal framing for that to show where such work intersects with and affects adaptation and appropriation studies, while also demonstrating the value and possibilities of critical thinking.

A little about me: I hold a PhD in film and visual studies from Queen’s University Belfast and have interests in convergences between cinema and other art forms. I am the author of Old Borders, New Technologies: Reframing Film and Visual Culture in Contemporary Northern Ireland (Peter Lang, 2014). My full publication profile can be viewed at https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6400-5562. I am based in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, and have been making the Audiovisual Cultures podcast since 2018.

If you deem this idea as a good fit for your series, I would be happy to provide a more formal proposal as necessary for Palgrave. Regardless of your decision, you would both be welcome guests on Audiovisual Cultures podcast, either to talk about the series, your individual work, or both! Thank you so much for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing back from you.

With thanks and best wishes,

Paula Blair

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