From Hunor Deak
I would first like to extend my thanks to Matthew Sheard, Head of Experience and Engagement for University of St Andrews Libraries and Museums (pictured right), for helping me write my article and answering my questions along the way. I would also like to thank Ana at Visitor Services for putting me in touch with him. The exhibition has its own soundtrack on Spotify, assembled by the curators and members of the public (so you can ask them to add your favourites!). You can find the playlist by searching "Wardlaw Museum Alien Worlds" on Spotify.
Who are you and what is your role at the museum?
I’m Head of Experience and Engagement, which basically means that I’m responsible for all the public facing aspects of what the museums do. That covers programming and exhibitions, events, visitor experience, marketing, retail, our digital offering and a lot more! I’ve got two brilliant teams without whom I couldn’t do any of it.
Museum exhibitions are often about the past or the present. Why did you choose to set up an exhibition so heavily focused on the future?
Exoplanets are fascinating worlds that are currently impossible to visit and will remain impossible to visit unless we have a significant new technological discovery. The potential for what these worlds might be like is extensive, and this allows us to use a great deal of creativity and imagination to investigate them. So, the exhibition is not about the future as such, but about what these places might be like now, what we’d experience if we are able to visit them in the future, and what barriers we need to overcome to get there. One of the big messages is that all these difficulties mean that the idea of these planets as a so-called ‘Planet B’ – an alternative place for us to live if we destroy Earth – isn’t realistic. We need to protect the planet that we’ve got now!
That said, we do touch on the past and the present. We have a handwritten dedication by Galileo, for example, and a rare first edition of the book in which Nicolaus Copernicus argued that planets revolve around the sun, a controversial idea at the time – you can see in the copy on display how the page was once censored – that was vital to us first spotting exoplanets. We’re also displaying meteorites that are millions of years old, including one that broke off Mars!
The exhibition has a nice music playlist on Spotify. When and how did you decide that this exhibition should have a soundtrack? Which piece on it is your favourite?
A key message of the exhibition is that imagination and creativity are vital to helping us understand exoplanets. It’s a little over 30 years since the first exoplanet was discovered, and scientists have since identified over 7,000! But, because they’re so far away, we can’t send probes there and the best photos we have of them are just a few pixels, so we have to find other ways of investigating them. We look at how science-fiction has generated ideas about exoplanets that we’ve then been able to test, some of which have turned out to be true. Star Wars, for example, suggested the existence of a planet with two suns, and we’ve since discovered that one does exist: Kepler 16-b.
It's not just film and literature, there are countless songs and pieces of music that explore space. A playlist therefore gives us the opportunity to dig into some of these songs; some of which are whimsical, but there are some with serious considerations of the issues the exhibition seeks to tackle. We liked the idea of visitors being able to soundtrack their visit by listening to these songs while exploring the exhibition.
I’m a big fan of Paul Simon, so my favourite song on the list is St Judy’s Comet. It’s not really about a comet at all, it’s about Paul trying to get his son to go to sleep, but it does say something about the role that space plays in our imagination.
This exhibition is really interactive, with elements such as making your own planetary landscapes using AI or listening for exoplanets. How do you come up with the interactive exhibits and how do you fit them into the wider exhibition? Why did you include AI art in this process?
We’ve got a really creative team who think very carefully about the best ways to help visitors discover new and exciting things. One of the big ideas we want you to come away with when you visit Alien Worlds is that you have a role to play in the study of exoplanets. The creativity of writers and film directors has allowed scientists to learn new things about exoplanets, but anyone can be creative. We therefore ask you to describe an exoplanet, which our designers then create – with a little help from AI – so that visitors can return to the museum and see their planet through the 'window' of our Command Centre.
The landscapes are not exclusively AI, designers play a role as well, but without AI this kind of interactive experience would be impossible. It would take too long to create each planet and prove too costly as well. AI is going to unavoidably have a role in museums going forward, so using it like this allows us to practically explore what role it might play and consider some of the ethical issues associated with its use.
Do you have a favourite piece or artifact in this exhibition? Which one has the best story behind it?
There’s so much that I like, but I am particularly excited by the notes and drawings from two award-winning science-fiction writers, Ken MacLeod and Iain M. Banks. Iain’s work in particular is an excellent demonstration of how creativity can help us explore the possibilities that might exist within our universe. He didn’t just write books, he built entire universes, and his drawings really show that. One drawing shows a tiny drone that only appears briefly a handful of times in his novels, yet the care he’s put into designing it and the detail he’s gone into is astounding. This is the very first time that any of Iain’s many, many drawings have gone on public display, so that also makes it particularly exciting.
I also, of course, have a soft spot for the Dalek, which visitors really enjoy engaging with.
I really like how Alien Worlds is not a standalone exhibition, but is part of a wider series of events (such as the spaceship escape room experience at the Bell Pettigrew Museum). What other events do you have in store? How do you come up with these events?
We have loads of exciting events coming up! Because we’re a university museum we try to design our events programme with a spirit of innovation and host events that are unexpected, hence asking how we can explore the issues around exoplanets and space travel through a museum-based escape room experience.
We’re really excited about a screening of Aelita: Queen of Mars, an early silent science-fiction movie that features in the exhibition. We’ll be showing this accompanied by a live soundtrack performed by pianist Matthew Shiel. That’s on September 21st.
Our regular free Wee Wardlaws programme, which happens on the first Friday of every month for pre-school children and whoever looks after them, will also be exploring space, aliens and exoplanets for the next few months through songs, stories and messy play. There’s lots more happening and we’re still firming up a couple of exciting events for later in the year, so keep an eye on the website for more.
You can visit the museum’s website to see what events will be happening from September until the closure of the exhibition on the 5th of January 2025: alien-worlds.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk
Image courtesy of the University of St Andrews.
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