I’m mp3′d, emailed, phoned and audio’d out…and it’s only 3pm. This reporter-on-the-run thing has no coffee breaks! Plus i’m probably buzzing with a mix of excitement (at having spoken to curators, critics and clerics at this morning’s press preview for the new Hadrian exhibit at the BM) and frustration (at not being able to record everything I wanted to from the exhibition because the compact flash in my M-Audio packs it in after 27 minutes). So really I want to dance around my hostel-cell with my M-Audio…and then slam it through the wall…

It's all here - the archaeology, the art critics, the atmosphere and THAT roof!

As one of two hundred journalists at the BM this morning I have to say I was impressed by what I saw. It would be hard not to be. Audio guides with narration by BM Director Neil MacGregor and curator Thorsten Opper, dimmed lights, poetry and prose etched across the walls of the exhibit (combined with the ancient writings etched on parts of Hadrian’s own wall!), gigantic marble sculptures, the minutae of papyri parchments, a scale model of Hadrian’s villa in Tivoli sprawling beneath a 10-foot cinema screen showing images of the resplendent ruins themselves… all nicely packaged underneath what, for all intents and purposes, is a Hadriatic Dome itself: the British Museum’s former Round Reading Room. (Try saying that a dozen times fast…)

But, beyond the chic design (which competes in scale with the O2 exhibit but clearly targets a more sophisticated spectator) there were a number of interesting things to note.

Antinous...in all his Egyptian splendour

Firstly, the rich potential for interview talent present under the same dome. I managed to get interview with Angus Stewart (fellow Antipodean and Head of the British sector of the International Assoc of Art Critics), Benjamin Ward from Brunswick PR (charged with marketing and push, push, pushing the exhibition to journalists and museum-goers), Tom Devonshire-Jones (a cleric, reportedly…I may have to google him), Jim Kennedy (a somewhat eccentric American antiquities dealer) and Thorsten Opper (the exhibition’s chief Curator!). However, I did also record a great interview with Assistant Curator Charo Rovira which my M-Audio took an apprent disliking to… not to worry. I scored an email address and an in-road to further interviews.

They made some interesting points – everything from the spectacularly appropriate setting to the modern political relevance of the exhibition (Hadrian was the Roman Emperor who, among a great many other feats which include building the Castel Sant’Angello and commissioning the Pantheon in Rome, first expelled the Jews from the Holy Land 2000 years ago, supressing an uprising and granting Judea a new name – the contemporary “Palestine”).

Audioguides: battling with technology

One of the most interesting things to emerge was the general opinion on audio guides. As Angus Stewart pointed out, the guides lead you through the exhibition – yet audiences end up engaging less with the artefact and more with the audiophone. Also, they have a tendency to ‘lead’ you to a popular conclusion – and allow an ideology to be placed on the exhibition’s theme – in this case, the memory of Hadrian.

Looking around, it was true. The overwhelming theme to emerge from the exhibit was Hadrian’s homosexuality. Branded on the wall, in a section devoted entirely to Hadrian’s offsider Antinous:

Hadrian had a young Greek lover called Antinous. For the Romans homosexual relationships were not unusual, but the intensity with which Hadrian mourned Antinous’ premature death and encouraged his cult in the eastern empire was without precedent.

So, “Hadrian: the great Emperor, not only did he build the wall up north, but he was gay at the same time” seems to be the take-home message for viewer’s of the BMs latest project. Indeed, it was a theme which featured heavily on Sunday night’s BBC documentary.

All that history under one...Dome

No doubt the show’s producers were part of the Hadrian press junket. Interesting, isn’t it, that a Museum constantly fighting for funding would cough up for an exclusive press trip (for only half a dozen top journalists) to visit Hadrian’s villa in person. Escorted by the exhibit’s curatorial staff, it was thought the trip would give the influential journalists a “better feel for the exhibition”. Just in case they couldn’t get that from the exhibition itself – is it not enough to be wowed by the amazing artefacts and exhibition space like the rest of us?

Anyhow… I must be off. This afternoon I feel there’s a need to explore the possibilities of the “private” museum – completely self-indulgent and with no public agenda.

If my legs can carry me there…!

{AMY: [Roman salute to computer terminal]}

xx

Romans in rear projection...