There is a hushed gravity in the open halls of the Brooklyn Museum's Egyptian Collection. The precious stone figures and monuments, which still stand in the exact spot they belong, have been digitally stolen and compromised.
"We're art historians," says Gus at the front desk, showing his badge. "We're here to investigate the digital theft." While the guards phone the offices, Art Guy wanders the gallery in his jeans.
Not more than fifteen minutes later, a powerful-looking man with no hair, a black t-shirt, a tan Italian suit minus the vest and alligator-skin slippers comes out of the elevator. He deposits an iPhone into the inside pocket of his jacket and approaches the art historians.
"You must be Art Guy in Jeans," he says to Gus, even though Gus is not wearing jeans, but chinos and a black t-shirt.
"Gus. But I'm on Art's team."
Art Guy pulls himself away from a porphyry bust and introduces himself to the host.
"I'm Art Guy, pleasure to meet you."
"Piacere. I am Sergio-Rachmaninov Greci, but just call me Sergio." He removes a pair of perscription light-adjusting sunglasses, which he begins using as a gesticulation prop. "I am the director of marketing at the Brooklyn Museum and also the liason between New York museums and the Digital Art Theft Agency (DATA). I published the tweet you saw on your iPhones."
"I understand someone has stolen some kind of online content related to your Egyptian Collection," says Art Guy.
Sergio smiles. "In a small way, you are quite right, Mr. Guy. But in the largest possible way you are wrong. Come."
They follow Sergio through a winding labyrinth of back rooms which are difficult to imagine existing alongside the public galleries.
After ascending several stairways, they are brought into a vast triangular office area near the roof, with windows overlooking New York on two sides. There is a triangular table, reminding Art Guy of Judy Chicago's piece in the collection, with hip looking professionals seated around it.
Introductions consist of much confusion. The director of the musum is there, as is the curator of Egyptian art, but the rest of the people are from outside institutions with exciting job titles that are difficult to remember.
When Art Guy and Gus are seated, our hero notices that every table-spot has a wireless microphone, a small built-in computer screen with a digital pen poised over it in a stand, and a mini-electric espresso machine.
Sergio gestures towards the espresso machines. "Fuel for intellectual adventure!"
Everyone laughs. When the laughter subsides, the director of the museum speaks.
"We are glad you could join us today, Mr. Guy. Gus," she says. "Despite the humorous optimism provided by our colleague Sergio-Rachmaninov, there is nothing light or fanciful about the current situation at the Brooklyn Museum."
She lets the curator of Egyptian art take the floor. As he flips some switches to prepare the room for a presentation, the windows seem to magically darken. The wall facing the inside of the building becomes a digital screen. On the screen appears a 3D model of a fantastical New Kingdom Egyptian temple interior, filled with all the objects in the collection.
"The thousands of objects which make up our Egyptian collection," he begins,"have two existences. One, the stale, context-less existence of their physical arrangement in the museum. This existence is furnished by their hijacking from a meaningful context years ago in Egypt and reappropriation in the building. Their second existence is the Brooknak Temple, a palatial New-Kingdom hypostile space, a theater created in the digital universe, the one you see before you. This, as many of you know, is the direction we are moving with all of our collections."
On the screen, the camera begins to pace through the temple, room by room. Art Guy leans forward to inspect. The space juxtaposes pieces from mismatched periods, but they are cleverly arranged. For instance, there is a room of objects made of lapus lazuli. The space is annotated with little triangles, each marked with a circled letter 'i,' to which presumably one gets closer and learns more about the objects.
"What you see on the screen is a video capture of the space taken two days ago, when Brooknak Temple was finalized and released to the museum server, where final test runs were to be taken before its release as a public online exhibition for 2013."
The audience expresses their adoration by grunting and saying "huh," "hmm," and an occasional "ahh."
"Today at 2 PM," says the curator, "a malicious hacker attacked the monuments with malicious software, dismantling our raster data, dismembering our object files, and razing our access interface to dust. The virtual vandal is still at large, and has exclusive access to all the objects. We must ensure the safe return of this precious collection, which has so long been jewel of our museum."
Art Guy is about to ask questions to help him with the case, such as 'what is a raster data,' but the other guests start in first.
"Have you thought about representing uncertainty?" says one collaborator. "Perhaps a shaded scheme integrated with a timeline of when the crime most likely occured, linked to an open-source graphics engine."
The curator diligently takes notes on his digital tablet.
Another collaborator says, "It would be interesting, don't you think, to visualize the networks of conversation, as a dynamic and interactive web of lines, perhaps integrated with the same timeline?"
"In what ways have you considered, from an analytical perspective, the change over time of these recent events, and the new affordances of these revolutionary digital technologies?"
The curator writes frantically on his tablet.
"If I may," says Sergio, "because my friend the curator, he looks a little bit overwhelmed." Everyone laughs.
He continues, "I think, this project is not simply a case about who stole the temple. Maybe you stole the cookie from the cookie jar, maybe I stole the cookie jar; this is the realm of old-world, traditional scholarship. If we face this new-world challenge only in the traditional way, we are sure to be lost at sea."
Sergio has everyone's rapt attention, including the director who looks at him in an unsold way.
"We are not a community of dinosaurs, like they have on view in the Natural History Museum downtown." More laughs. "We at DATA know the mind of the digital criminal. It is not the mind of the digital dinosaur. We will not catch him. It is impossible, if I may be so blunt. Instead we must treat this as a public narrative, a transformation of the real and virtual fabric, drive the, how you say, event horizon."
Art Guy notices that the 'how you say,' is disingenuous, as Sergio clearly knows the language of his trade.
"I ask you all to realize, this is a digital theft, but it is also an institutional history, that the lack of the object, the digital trace, the institutional void, is now part of the exhibition, as real as the very object that the void now replaces."
"What are you saying?" says the director.
"I am saying, give up on the case," says Sergio. "And start preparing for your 2013 spectacular: 'The lost treasures of the Brooknak Temple.'"
To be continued...
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