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Ben Miller

@extinctmonsters.bsky.social

4K followers 770 following 2.5K posts

Mostly posts about the art history of paleontology in museums. Exhibit developer at the Field Museum, opinions my own. Proudly from DC. he/him Website: extinctmonsters.net

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · Nov 19

I’m closing in on 2k followers (thanks!) so I think I should clarify what I mean in my profile when I say the fun dinosaur pictures I post are a form of art history (besides wanting to sound elitist or something). 🧵

Triceratops skeleton between two T. rex skeletons in a bed of artificial ferns. Photo is taken behind and beneath one of the rexes, so we're looking up through it's lower jaw. Against a blue and purple simulated sky backdrop.

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 1d

I highly recommend watching this 1993 documentary on the making of the Africa hall. It's a great look at the exhibit-making process in general, as well: americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-...

WTTW Journal; No. 502; Africa: A View From the Field

"According to Michael Spock, Vice President for Public Programs at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, 'When you look around America, there are really very few exhibits that address the is...

americanarchive.org

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 1d

And the choice to open the concluding section about the African diaspora with a walk through the hold of a slave ship has gotten some well-deserved commentary. (This section was removed last year).

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 1d

The exhibit did have some issues: the area about Africa's natural biomes and the lives of western scientists in the field gobbled up more than its share of budget (because the development process was finished faster), but always felt out of place.

Recreation of a late-80s field camp, complete with folding chair, clothesline, lanterns, and other gear under a shade tarp.

Display about the differences between rhino, hippo, and giraffe digestive tracks, with models of intestines hanging over a light-up interactive.

Recreated wall of a field cabin. Wooden construction with hanging map and postcards, and photo the camp outside the "window"

Desk nook in field scientist's cabin covered in books and paper, with interview with scientist playing on a TV monitor

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 1d

The exhibit also featured some pretty extraordinary craftsmanship: the full-sized giraffe, baobab, acacia, and date palm made in-house are particularly impressive.

Realistic model giraffe alongside acacia tree

Large model baobab with cut-out people, a TV on a stand, and artifact case at its base

A recreation of a well in the desert alongside a replica data palm under a blue ceiling.

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 1d

Africa hall opened in 1993, and everyone's go-to description is that it was "ahead of it's time." The goal was to showcase contemporary Africa through the lived experiences of Africans, rather than cases of decontextualized artifacts.

Four life sized cut-outs of men gathered around tea. A TV plays behind them.

A motorbike with a rack of cassette tapes for sale is parked in a corner with ornate stonework.

A recreation of a street mural showing man in white robes in front of a mosque.

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 1d

Some photos from my last walk through the Field's Africa hall, which closed forever last week to make way for a new version. 🧵

Colorful, abstracted mural of a cityscape surrounds the exhibit entrance. A hanging sign says Welcome to Senegal and to Dakar...gateway to Africa (Ministry of Tourism)

Large exhibit space with cutout camel resting alongside water jugs and a realistic date palm replica. Immediate area is tan, walls and ceiling are sky blue.

Africa-shaped panel with header "Art and Society." Replica bellows in a corner with cases of metal artifacts.

Suggestion of street scene with storefronts and life-sized cutouts of people. A realistic baobab tree behind them.

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 1d

Ok but I dare anyone to know for sure which part of that building they’re in at any moment

Reposted by Ben Miller

Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah. TikTok is out. It's an arm of the ruling fascist party at this point.

Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 1d

Huh: TikTok took down my 8-second video featuring this image of Debbie Brockman — the news producer just detained by Trump’s CBP agents — saying it violates the “joy of TikTok”

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 2d

Oh, really interesting about the understanding of extinction! And should have mentioned that Peale’s mastodon was primarily built by Moses Williams, an enslaved man.

Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 2d

Can you say more? I've only read parts of that book!

Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 2d

I was out on the des plaines constantly for like six months, then put it away forever apparently. But I should definitely start again next summer!

Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 2d

Yeah I bought a kayak and haven’t touched it since that year

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 2d

There are only drawings of the original display to go on but it was likely reassembled a few times as it changed hands

Illustration of mastodon skeleton made during original Peale museum display. Differs from photos above in that head is held higher and tusks are much shorter

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 2d

Yeah I’ve memory holed nearly everything except this exhibit, haha

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 2d

Originally at Charles Wilson Peale’s museum in Philadelphia. It was eventually sold to the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Germany, which is its permanent home

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 2d

It was such a great exhibit. Too bad it was in the depths of pandemic times

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 2d

The specific reason, I believe!

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 2d

The Peale mastodon at the National Portrait Gallery in 2021.

It’s the 1st mounted fossil skeleton displayed in the US (1805), and 2nd worldwide. Its original viewers didn’t know about evolution. Even extinction was a new concept. More fossils interpreted as history and art, please! #FossilFriday

Mastodon skeleton with long tusks on a gravel bed between two white columns in an art gallery. Seen from the front.

Same from driver side rear view. Red curtain entrance to exhibit is visible from
This angle

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Reposted by Ben Miller

Fossillocator @fossillocator.bsky.social · 3d

Hey paleonerds, guess who just won a Roy Chapman Andrews signed letter in an auction!

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 3d

Throne room, private suite, clubhouse…

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 3d

Looks like it's 80% plaster but still

Top and side view of big croc skull for scientific publication. The tip of the snout and jaw and some parts of the back portion of the jaw are darker and presumably original, the rest is lighter in color and probably reconstructed.

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 3d

Another cool find from poking around the AMNH digital archives: the big Deinosuchus skull (*why* isn't it on display anymore?) and the background mural by Walter Ferguson.

5+ foot crocodile skull, mounted with open jaws. Not sure how much is reconstructed. Text below says A Giant Crocodile From Texas

Painting of Chasmosaurus with sprawly front legs looks sheepishly at the water where a stupidly huge crocodile is emerging, mouth open.

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 3d

I'm sure the phylogeny organization could be done well, but I don't think they cracked it.

But it's the sterile, looks-good-for-a-gala exhibits that the big architectural firms have been doing for decades that I'm very much over.

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 3d

I think I'm getting increasingly irked about the current AMNH fossil halls and exhibits like it that go out of their way to make the objects boring

A glass case with a maroon backdrop and five skulls floating in front of it. There's a black and white photo in there, and some white labels with a cladogram.

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 3d

So this AMNH Andrewsarchus display from the 60s is sick as hell, allowing for the outdated reconstruction and all that.

Museum display with a long-snouted, toothy skull in front of a mural of an awkward, dog-like creature.

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