These Are Not Toys: A Sculptural and Photographic Exploration of Popular Palaeontology Representation in Museums and Toys Pre-Jurassic Park
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Cook, Jacob
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Amundsen, Fiona
Clemens, Eddie
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Auckland University of Technology
Abstract
This practice-led research explores the portrayal of prehistoric animals in toys, palaeoart, and museum displays pre the 1993 film Jurassic Park. Of interest is the ever-changing nature of pop-palaeontological culture and how this constant change is reflected in representations and reconstructions of prehistoric life. My research positions 1993 as a division between a pre-digital and digital age of pop-palaeontological culture and museum display methods, and identifies their common pre-digital physical properties. The project seeks to convey that within this context, outdated representations of pop-palaeontological culture and methods of museum display, do not necessarily infer irrelevant knowledge. By constructing a fictitious museum—called The Pop-Palaeo Museum—that uses multimedia sculptural and photographic methods, I express what is lost through a disregard for pre-digital museum displays and highlight the dinosaur as an ever-changing form. Specifically, my methods draw on analogue techniques, which are reworked through contemporary processes aligned with pre-1993 representations of prehistoric life.