Let's give Russia back its brains

02/16/2010 / No. 47 / p. 1 / Natalia Demina, Boris Stern / The problem of popularization / No comments

A banner with a slogan consonant with this title was unfurled at the award ceremony for the winners of the next “Science Museum in the 21st Century” competition. The competition is organized by the Dynasty Foundation and is being held for the third time. The organizers try to make each ceremony bright and unforgettable, so that the story about each museum or exhibition is organically woven into the outline of the overall scenario of the presentation, and is not a simple listing of names and surnames.

The award ceremony took place at the theater center named after. Sun. Meyerhold and was called a “popular science opera”. With all its style and all its meaning, it contradicted the spirit of the times. The (real) heroes were devotees and enthusiasts from all over Russia. The symbolic anti-heroes are terry consumers and ordinary people with littered heads. The main symbol is the brain. The theatrical performance was stylized as the Age of Enlightenment (18th century) and at the same time had the features of a modern skit. However, let's start from the beginning.

The evening was opened by Foundation employees Anna Piotrovskaya (Executive Director) and Roza Khatskelevich (Director for Development of New Projects), noting that from 2006 to 2010, 38 projects from different regions of the country received Dynasty support. They introduced their colleagues working on the project and called on Russian scientific museums to actively apply for the competition ( www.dynastyfdn.com/grants/museums ).

If last year the ceremony was held with the participation of actors from the AKHE theater from St. Petersburg ( www.akhe.ru ) in a fusion of two genres - pantomime and engineering improvisation, then this year the audience saw a modern opera in the baroque style.

The idea, libretto and scenery were invented by laureates of Russian and international awards in the field of contemporary art and cinema - Natalya Pershina-Yakimanskaya and Olga Egorova. But on stage they turned into presenters Gluklya and Tsaplya (by such names they are known in the artistic world), appearing in incredible crinolines, wigs and glasses. The highlight of the ceremony was the Choir of the Trinity Scientific Center, which performed to the music of the 18th century. (Jean-Philippe Rameau, arrangement by St. Petersburg composer Mikhail Krutik, accompaniment - harpsichord) thundered: “Let us rejoice! Let's rejoice! There are people in Russia who carry the idea of ​​enlightenment! To cities and villages, to children and adults, to everyone, everyone, everyone! Long live the light of knowledge! Long live the light!”, setting the leitmotif of the ceremony. The choir sang Odes to the Winners with words composed, among other things, from short well-known quotes such as “I think, therefore I exist”, sang powerfully and professionally, which left an unforgettable impression. One of the singers, Sergei Kanevskikh, best defined the genre: “This is high banter.”

Additional characters were represented by talking clothes: a red dress - a terry consumer, dressing gowns - the mental victims of television and yellow newspapers, a black men's suit - a temporary worker, a white dress - the “collective conscious of scientists”, quoting the words of Russian physicists and biologists. During the ceremony, the characters gave characteristic remarks, the most talkative was the red dress, which said goodbye: “See you in Antalya!”

Everyone was delighted by the children who appeared on stage dressed as a robot, a mobile phone, an astrologer, a snowflake and an astronaut. They were the ones who presented the winners of the competition with prizes from the Dynasty Foundation.

The Samara Space Museum in Samara and its project “Waiting for Space” were presented first. The short video showed mock-ups, simulators and stands combined into a single composition. The authors of the project are Evgeny Strelkov, Elena Kuzina, Alexander and Olga Filimonov. To the laughter and applause of the audience, a child dressed as an astronaut presented the winners with the Dynasty Foundation Award, and the Trinity Choir sang to them an Ode about the dream of space: “The living are struggling... And only those whose hearts are devoted to a sublime dream are alive.”

The Glazov Museum of Local History submitted a project for a mobile astronomical complex “The Universe and Man” to the competition, becoming, together with the museum from Barnaul (about it below), the winner in the category “Creation of interactive exhibits that popularize science.” The authors of the project are Nadezhda Kislova and Olga Yakimova. To the playful question of the presenters: “How many cosmonauts will come out of Glazov?” — Pavel Vershinin, a representative of the museum, said: “We’ll do as much as we need!” The stargazer boy handed him the prize, and the choir sang an Ode about the accessibility of knowledge: “Little man, you have a thousand questions. There's a whole world in one suitcase. This is enough for a start."

“Siberian Scythians as a topic of exact sciences” is the name of the project of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk, which also won the 3rd competition of scientific museums. A special place in the museum’s exhibition is occupied by a sensational find from the high-mountainous Ukok plateau in Altai - the mummy of an “Altai princess” (woman) and a warrior with tattoos, whose age is more than 2.5 thousand years. To the question of the presenters: “Who preserved this beauty?” - Museum director Irina Salnikova replied that it was found in 1993 by Novosibirsk archaeologist Natalya Polosmak, then the same specialists who keep V.I.’s mummy in order worked on it. Lenin, and now the “Altai princess” is taken care of by the Institute’s staff. “Did permafrost take part in this process?” “She not only took part, but also saved all this for us and gave us the opportunity to see it now,” answered I. Salnikova. In honor of the museum, an Ode to the Inquiring Mind was performed based on the words of Descartes: “I think, therefore I exist. I'm thinking! Therefore, I exist!” and the Snowflake girl, personifying the permafrost of the Pazyryk mounds, presented the director of the museum with the Dynasty Award.

The winner of the 2009 competition, “Entertaining Science Park” in Barnaul, was presented with a video - a short journey through the world of automata, robotic manipulators and other entertaining mechanisms. To the question of the presenters: “Why is the work of mechanisms so fascinating?” — the author of the project, museum director Pavel Neishtadt answered briefly and clearly: “Because it’s interesting!” The Trinity Choir performed an Ode about mechanisms in honor of the laureate: “Mechanisms are our servants, but by washing our clothes, you do not let us forget that the world, according to the laws of which you work, is beautiful and reasonable!”, and presented him with the Dynasty Prize boy in a Clock costume.

Another laureate, the Irkutsk Museum of Entertaining Science in a complex with a planetarium, was awarded the Dynasty Prize, presented by a child dressed as a Firefly. To the question of the presenters: “What is your favorite exhibit?” - Museum director Konstantin Kravchenko gave not a short, but a detailed answer. First, he spoke about the employees and visitors of his museum, and then noted that “the most beloved exhibit is the one that has not yet been created. We have many unrealized ideas, but sooner or later we will implement them.”

Then the guests of the ceremony were presented with the project “Self-organization of systems - facts of nature”, created at Petrozavodsk State University. Its author, Alexey Shtykov, responded to the presenters’ question “How to overcome chaos within yourself?” — gave the following advice: “Read books. Information reduces entropy and chaos decreases.” The humorous self-organizing system “pull and push” presented the winner of the competition with a prize from Dynasty. Then the Ode sounded: “Seeing how the chaos in nature is overcome, overcome the chaos in yourself!”

In the video of the project “Unknown Land” of the Central Museum of Soil Science named after. Dokuchaev Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences (St. Petersburg), we saw how, accompanied by guides, its visitors plunge into the underground world of nature, observing the amazing life of the soil. “The ground is under our feet. What is more important than you? Food, water, what is more important than you? Only by breaking away from you can our dream take off! Thank you, beetles, worms and moles, for loosening the soil for our dreams!” - this is the Ode the Trinity Choir sang to the museum on the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island and its director Boris Aparin.

The mobile multimedia exhibition “Science-Technology-Art” of the MediaArtLab center (Moscow) attracted attention because it can become a natural part of many science and technology museums; it can be easily expanded, supplemented and changed. The author of the project, Olga Shishko , said that part of this project is already on display in Chukotka, the schoolchildren there really liked it, and in the near future the exhibition in Magadan will be supplemented with new elements. The encyclopedic telerobot presented her with the Dynasty Award, and then an Ode about the encyclopedia sounded: “Blur the boundaries, overcome barriers, present the world as coherent, united, beautiful!”