Here’s Looking At You

Some went into teaching because they loved imparting knowledge, or more often, bossing people about. Once Anna overcame her fear of standing up in front of an audience – through therapy and practice, and in the early days, a gin miniature – Anna enjoyed lectures and tutorials well enough. But for her the raw thrills were in research.

It was the ‘eureka’ moments – where she felt like the first detective on the scene, finding the vital clue. Then she wasn’t merely consuming historical fact, she was adding to its sum.

It felt like some kind of full circle, punch-the-air joy when lovely John Herbert, curator of Byzantine history at the British Museum, had got in touch and asked if she would help him put together an exhibition on Theodora. Her inner child, who’d stared up at that gilded, domed ceiling and been transported to another time, was dancing a jig.

Anna was translating texts and helping to choose and caption the exhibits. She couldn’t think of anything more wonderful than getting to fiddle around with bits of the past, to raise the dead in some small way. Anna had only assisted with the odd aspect of exhibitions before, a good excuse to poke around at the British Museum.

This was the first time she’d been a behind-the-scenes driving creative force. She’d worked late for months to prep for it, willingly.

As she tripped off for her first meeting about Operation Theodora, she enjoyed every second of the walk through Bloomsbury, even beaming foolishly at passing strangers. This was a chocolate-box pretty part of the capital, the London of films and TV. Peaceful, wide streets, the green space of Russell Square, red phone boxes that were now historical monuments themselves, existing only for overseas tourists’ photographs, ransom demand calls and massage parlour business cards.

She arrived at the back entrance of the museum, like a VIP. She signed in, with a nod of familiarity from the reception desk, and made her way to the meeting room. It was a blazing brilliant modern white, with desks arranged in a horseshoe, as if they were having a table read for a drama. Anna would’ve much preferred something full of careworn wood and leather that was reassuringly cluttered, dust motes dancing in cidery-yellow autumnal light. Order and fluoro-lighting reminded her too much of classrooms.

John smiled benevolently at the sight of her.

‘Ah, the woman of the hour. Everyone, this is Anna Alessi from UCL. She’s our academic liaison and resident expert. You might think I’m the resident expert. However, I’m a glorified shopkeeper. She sources the products, checks what’s fit for purpose for sale, as it were …’

As he spoke, Anna scanned the room, smiling and nodding hellos in turn, until her eyes met James Fraser’s.

She almost physically started with surprise, and couldn’t be entirely sure whether she made a noise.

Her bouncy cheerfulness stopped so abruptly it almost had a sound effect. She knew her face was a mask of repulsion but it was too late to rearrange it. What. The. Fuuuuccckkkkkkk …?

James looked very disconcerted, if not quite as ruffled as she did.

John was still talking: ‘… So this is James from our digital helpers over at Parlez. James is the project leader, and his colleague who handles the technical design and development, Parker …’

Anna mumbled a vague greeting at a skinny twenty-something with asymmetric hair, and dropped with a thud into her seat.

She fussed with getting the notes out of her bag as a way of not having to meet the eyes in the room. Her heart was making a ker-plunking noise. She could hear the valves pulsing, as if they were amplified.

How in the hell had this happened? What sort of grotesque prank was being played on her this time?

17 (#ulink_768d5a1c-50d2-5f6c-9e57-deeb5f4e6c3f)

As conversation continued and John outlined the themes of the exhibition, Anna joined the dots; John joking about the necessity of having ‘the digital johnnies’ as well as marketing and comms people at the initial get together to discuss the exhibition.

At the reunion, Laurence saying of James ‘… digital agency, lots of big impressive clients.’

It was a gruesome turn of events. And it wasn’t lost on Anna that if she’d swerved the reunion, she’d have the upper hand. He’d still have no idea who she was.

So much for enlivening ideas about facing your demons. How long had that taken to bite her on the arse? Those demons weren’t meant to pitch up a few days later in navy John Smedley cardigans in professional interactions. Only this time, unlike the reunion, she’d been introduced with her surname. Would he realise who she was?

Oh God, she hoped not. It was impossible to know if he’d figured anything out. All she could do was to try to look aloof, dignified and glacially in control.

Conversation moved on, with John doing most of the talking. He concluded, ‘And now I should hand over to James, who will take us through plans for the exhibition’s multi-channel strategy …’

The academics in the room looked politely blank while Parker put both hands on his hair and shaped it into a quiff.

‘Erm, yeah, thanks …’ James said, clearing his throat. ‘Obviously, the principal thing we’ll be designing is the official exhibition app for iOS and Android devices and so on. This is key in giving the show a higher profile and will help with media coverage.’

He looked round the room and Anna thought sourly, hardly any need for this pitch spiel, when you’ve already been hired. She sensed he was nervous but she had no interest in empathising.

‘The app will include a lot of imagery from the show, and text from yourselves. Rather than merely transpose the material from the exhibition, we want to make the app hold real unique value, with original content. We were thinking of some talking heads …’

‘That’s experts, talking, not Talking Heads the old music,’ Parker said, tucking his pen behind his ear and grinning widely.

‘Old,’ John Herbert chuckled.

‘Yes. Thanks, Parker,’ James said, eyes narrowing. ‘And we want to build an A.R. layer for the exhibition, with digital versions of the artefacts we don’t have or can’t move here. What we thought we’d do is take personalities from the mosaics, and use actors in costume to film recreations of interactions. We can have them walking about the space. A virtual Theodora and Justinian and so on.’

Anna’s nerves overcame her and she spoke before she could stop herself.

‘It’s not going to be all rotating 3D scans of people’s heads, like “Wooh, heads”’ – she made a gesture with her hands, thinking, I have no idea what I’m on about either, but I sound a bit angry so people won’t dare laugh – ‘And no text, is it?’

There was usually a small tension between academics and designers over such issues and Anna was minded to make it a larger one.

‘We’ll have space for captions with each artefact. Written by yourselves,’ James said, making an ‘I am taking you very seriously’ business face.

‘How many words?’

‘Around 150 or so.’

‘That’s not a lot.’

‘I think people have a limit for how much information they can take in per artefact.’

‘We were thinking the show might attract quite a few “readers”,’ Anna said, caustically.

‘Our research suggests people start skimming after 150,’ James said, tapping his pen on his pad.

‘Well, what does actors titting about really add? Do people need reminding what people look like? We haven’t evolved significantly since Theodora and Justinian. They didn’t have prehensile features.’

James blinked.

‘It’s a way of making the artefacts more vivid. The emphasis with what we do is on the experiential.’

Experiential. These people always brought their made-up words.

‘No, I mean it’ll get in the way of looking at the mosaics, which are the point of the thing aren’t they?’ Anna said. ‘Won’t it mean visitors spend their time playing on video games, instead of looking at the exhibits?’

James put his head on one side and made a ‘trying to find a respectful way to answer a question I think is stupid’ face.

‘It’s an “as well as” not an “instead of”. To help people visualise the world and bring the scene alive. We’ll tag the videos to objects so people can choose to watch the sequences if they’re interested.’ James paused. ‘It’s a modern way of engaging visitors.’

‘Ah, that’s the thing about history. It’s not modern.’

‘But the people going to see this are. Are you doing without electricity as well?’