Rich Pell | This Is Not An Artifact

Rich Pell

This Is Not An Artifact

Berlin, Germany: K. Verlag, 2023

440 pp., 24 x 18 cm., hardcover

Edition of 1200

The first pages of This Is Not An Artifact feature endorsements from some prestigious colleauges: Mark Dion, the Critical Art Ensemble, The Yes Men, Trevor Paglan and bio-artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg. The latter describes the book as “like a visit to the Museum of PostNatural History followed by a long dinner chat with its ingenious creator, Rich Pell.”

While in Pittsburgh last week we were lucky enough to do both. Pell toured us around his incredible museum, and then joined Roula, Jon Rubin and myself for tacos on the corner. This Is Not An Artifact successfully captures the genius and unassuming quality of Pell, who introduces the book claiming that the ideas it contains are neither complicated nor earth-shattering. They are actually both, in the best possible way. 

The notion that “human desire, curiosity and fear shape the evolution of certain plants and animals just as they shape architecture, technology, art, music and sports” is both immediately and indisputably true, but also somewhat staggering. Only four percent of mammals are wild (lions and tigers and bears) while sixty percent are domesticated (sheep, pigs, goats, camels, horses, etc). By biomass, even domesticated birds outnumber the wild by more than two to one (with poultry farming tipping the scale considerably). 

Pell's introductory text is titled “Who Left The Dogs Out?” and notes that a natural history museum is far more like to display an elephant than a dog, or a chicken, or other animals bred for human consumption, companionship, labour, clothing or transportation. He describes his museum (now operational for over a decade) as a kind of sequel to Natural History museums, picking up where their efforts end. The focus is both narrow enough to distinguish the collection from other ventures, and broad enough to include SeaMonkeys. 

The Museum focuses on deliberate human intervention - such as the selective breeding of fruit to taste better or not have pits - versus the unintentional ways that human affect nature (eg. pollution).  Examples span from the dawn of domestication to contemporary genetic engineering. 

A display of SeaMonkeys and related ephemera date back to Pell’s own childhood, when he ordered them from the back page ad of a comic book. 

Harold von Braunhut invented the two most dubious and ubiquitous items advertised to children this way: the X-Ray Specs and the SeaMonkey. Originally called Instant Life and sold for half a dollar, von Braunhut changed the name to "Sea-Monkeys" in 1962 and secured a patent in ’72. They were essentially just brine shrimp, bearing little resemblance to the friendly illustrations by Joe Orlando (associate publisher of Mad Magazine, vice president of DC Comics, etc.), disappointing thousands and thousands of kids. 

Another display illustrates the wide approach to PostNature: a sound booth featuring recordings of bird calls sang by virtuoso singers who added enough embellishment and interpretation that the songs became a bird and human hybrid sound. 

Only open one or two days a week, admission to the museum is ten dollars, five for kids and students, and free to those who reside in the zip code. Entrance price includes a pair of 3D glasses, which can be used to view a number of the displays. The book, too, provides a pair and select images are presented in this format. 

The book aims to function as traveling version of the museum. There’s about a dozen compelling facts per page, and half of them sent me down my own research rabbit holes. I was surprised to learn, for example, that the domestication of dogs precedes agriculture, by a couple of thousand years. 

A visit to the museum should be on the schedule for anyone traveling to Pittsburgh. This Is Not An Artifact can be purchased for $40 from Printed Matter, here, or directly from the Museum, here. 

“This truly brilliant volume elucidates the deep history and nuance of artificial selection, providing a visually lush and beautifully written contribution to the history of natural history. In fact, natural history museums would do well to use Rich Pell’s brilliant book as a road map for how to move away from the colonial romance of nature and towards a progressive, fresh culture of nature. This Is Not An Artifact hybridizes biological research, the history of science, museology, and art, to produce an impressive and visually stunning volume concerning the future of life. Essential reading for anyone invested in the culture of nature."

- Mark Dion