week 7

Readings

Key Concepts of Museology

There isn’t much discourse I can have about this text, however I would like to paraphrase and quote a few of my favorite lines about each of the key concepts as a reference for me during the rest of this course.

Collection: Not the content but rather how the container is shaped according to the content. The intentional assembly of different objects in order to best represent the meaning the museum wishes to express.

Exhibition: The center of social interaction where reality is communicated through metaphorical objects. A setting which invokes discourse about certain facets of society.

Mediation: The actions that a museum partakes in to bridge the gap “between what is exhibited and the meanings that these objects and sites may carry”. The facilitated unveiling of knowledge to lead to understanding and then appreciation.

Museum: “Attests to a specific relationship between museum and reality”. Is also a location for the individual to foster a perception of the world’s characteristics. When thinking of virtual museums, we must remember that this isn’t the opposite of reality, just a new facet of discovery. Decontextualization/recontextualization.

Object: Movable objects which represent realities. “An objects entry into a museum is the erasure of context and submission to an imaginary world”. Objects are up to their environment to interpret them, no matter how hard a museum tries to contextualize them.

The End of the Museum?

In order to first invite discourse of the museum, I want to first heavily agree with the article’s statement of a museum’s purpose. No matter how much people will try to claim that a museum’s function is some deep societal facet of change, most people simply go for their own pleasure. This doesn’t mean that museums are not spiritual entities in themselves, it just means that their main contribution to society isn’t as deep as man think it is. However, they still contribute to intellectual and societal prosperity to everyone that visits.

As many new institutions are established in the digitalization of our society, it is important to track how museums can still stay relevant. I think that museums aren’t necessarily the best at accomplishing anything. Libraries are the best places for knowledge, movie theatres are the best places for entertainment, so where does a museum find its place? However, when asking myself this, I then stumbled upon the writer’s idea that a museum is an institution for the prevention and cure of blindness. It is the institution that arranges the artistic outputs of society in a way that allows its visitors to experience these metaphorical outputs and then form their own stories of comprehension of the worlds we live in.

The author does bring up some issues of the audience’s ability to comprehend what is meant by the works in a museum, such as the fact that an audience member must have some certain knowledge before coming into a museum to be able to fully interpret the works and this is never guaranteed. However, I do not think this is a topic to worry about. As long as every individual can come to their own interpretation based on their personal experiences, that is beautiful enough in itself.

Another difficulty that is brought up is that these objects are unmovable. It is hard to fully capture our attention when there is nothing moving forward with time and space. As a museum visitor, I can definitely agree with this. When I am starting into static space, there is nothing pushing me towards a point of understanding, nothing letting me know that I comprehend it. How long should I contemplate this work before I move to the next one? Comprehension is definitely subjective. However, this issue definitely makes me think of the placement of AR in museums. AR can provide a supplementary world around these objects to make museum objects more interact-able and allow many people of many different contexts to understand the meanings of these objects. It can always be argued in term that this supplementary material can be misleading, but that is not by the nature of supplementary material, but rather just a flaw in design that needs to be addressed when developing these AR systems.

For the future of museums, and to curb the decline of their foothold in society, the institutions must create a dialogue of “cooperation between research and practice” in order to successfully portray their desired meaning, hopefully with the assistance of AR!

Museums in the Digital Age

Is the modern museum losing its foothold in society? I don’t entirely believe so, I believe that it is rather finding another niche to occupy with the digitalization of basically everything in our everyday lives. The museum is rather transcending the singular space that it used to occupy through the digitalization.

This transcending of space however, brings up certain worries, such as, if it transcends physicality, how can the physical place of a museum retain relevance and still be necessary to gain? In response, I would like to say that no matter how digitalized we become, the interconnectedness and social atmosphere provided by physical space, in this case, the atmosphere of a museum, can never be replicated in a digital sphere (at least for now). Just take a look at our zoom classes. Yes, they get the job done, but they will never provide the human contact that is experienced in a classroom setting.

While maintaining this physical space but also increasing the literacy of the digital space, museums must then work with the community to became more digitally woke in order to develop a “relationship between the institution and the community of interest”. This is integral in our internet age as the newer generation’s life is so interconnected with the internet, that every institution will have to adjust in one way or another in order to stay relevant.

An interesting topic brought up is how the digitalization that increases collaboration will evoke a larger, yet less close-knit community. It is also brought up that this is preferred to a small network of close-knit relations. At first I questioned this argument, however, it makes sense. The larger the community, the more diverse the views, and the more stimulating the discourse. This larger community, full of greater perspectives will curb the opportunity for the discourse of the museum to turn in to an echo chamber.

I think with the further digitalization of museums, these institutions must aim to not overly debate culture. It is the job of a museum to define certain aspects of culture by categorizing them into digestible parts and to use cultural productions as metaphors to understanding. Yes, museums can produce whatever kind of cultural meaning they desire, however, in order to function as institutions, they must adjust to at least to some audiences. And when your audience is growing past any specific demographic due to digitalization, you must become as objective as possible with your cultural interpretation. Museums must, more than ever, be the institution that can safely place opposing views in the same space. This will help retain legitimacy among all facets of society.

In summary, museums in the digital age must work with the community as much as possible to maintain their own legitimacy as institutions as well as to enhance interactivity, which is something that many institutions are currently enhancing. Museums must create a new image for themselves by being “place conscious and culture conscious”.

Homework

Use Case: Humboldt Foyer

The Humboldt Foyer provides a great challenge in augmenting the different highlighted objects for each museum wing. As visitors enter the foyer, we must decide how to selectively reveal these highlighted objects as the visitors approach the entrance to each gallery. The main components to figure out will be how are we going to position the highlighted objects in the space of the foyer to most accurately represent their prominence in the museum as well as how are we going to display the information about these objects in a way that gives a great objective perspective on each object as well as the rest of the galleries they are located in.

I am interested in this use case because I enjoy the design aesthetic of the foyer and I would love to work in the AR elements in a way that adds to this aesthetic and enhances the experience of all visitors. I believe such an open space provides many possibilities of what can be experienced with AR and gives a lot of freedom with what information can be expressed and where. The aesthetic of the institution is very appealing and I would love to make my work a part of that.

Before I discuss some of my visions for this project, I would like to lay out some of the things that will need to be considered among my team during the development of this project. How are we going to position our objects so that they best represent the galleries that users can visit, and in a technological note, how are we going to have them appear only in certain locations. Also, how will we use the objects as “sneak-peeks” of each specific gallery that branches off of the foyer. As in how will we contain good-background information of the object but also present it as a lure for viewers to come visit the gallery. This requires a well thought out plan for how our information will be expressed and how the interaction will occur.

A vision that I have are that when first entering the foyer, over every different entryway to different parts of the museum, there will be the different titles of each gallery as well as a subtext that reads ‘come closer to learn more’. Once the visitors walk closer they can then access the highlighted object and its information and then be given the choice to go explore somewhere else or continue to enter the specific gallery.

Another vision is to not have any specific names of galleries appear, but to rather have all of the highlighted objects float above their corresponding gallery entrances as the user enters the foyer. This way, they act as visual representations for the aesthetic and ideas presented in each gallery. Then, as the visitors walk closer, they can access different UI functions which explain the importance and information of the object as well as a sneak-peek of what else the gallery offers.

My final vision is to not have any specific information appear upon entering the foyer, but rather just have a UI interface that designates the user to approach one of the gallery entryways. Then, the highlighted object will appear as well as information that explains its importance among the gallery and as a work of art.

The one element that will remain consistent among all of these is the UI interface that will appear once visitors approach each entryway from the foyer. This UI should display the object, slowly rotating, yet positioned in one place, not following the camera. The UI that is overlaid should contain a brief overview of the object, as well as a way to entice the users to enter the gallery, possibility something along the lines of ‘to explore more artworks such as _______, please enter the _______’. The most successful implementation of interface information and object placement will result in the most effective and user friendly foyer experience.