virtual-exhibits-virtual-museums
In this week’s seminar, I will be starting my presentation by giving a brief overview of some of the different forms and functions that virtual exhibits can take, illustrating these with examples. I will also present the highlights of a paper I wrote last semester on the digital affordances used to curate a virtual exhibit while we navigate through the exhibit online. After this, if we have time, I am hoping we can address some theoretical or ethical issue(s) related to virtual exhibits. I am very open to any of your suggestion(s) about what the class discussion should focus on and I am also open to presenting any virtual or visual material that you would like me to include. You can let me know in advance or else surprise me on the spot.
Before I give a brief summary of this week’s readings, I would like to start this blog post with a quote from a book that is not part of our course readings, but that is of great interest and use to me in my inquiry into the parallels between street art and web art, as well as between public space and virtual space. This book was written by one of my Concordia University art history professors who, for her doctoral research, travelled all around the world to document street art and graffiti, interviewing artists to gain insight on the function(s) of these art movements that have garnered increasing recognition by art world institutions and stakeholders. I am deliberately picking a quote, and a context, that is not directly related to the topic of “new media and the museum” to cast a wider net for our class discussions in the hope that you will consider ideas of space, context, and function that go beyond current new media scholarship.
“The problem with galleries is that 99% of urban artists use urban art as a stepping stone into galleries. It’s a fatal error because in galleries they’re seen by 40 people, in museums they’re seen by 10 people, but in the streets they’re seen by 100,000 people. And that’s the integrity of an artist’s work: to be seen. Not to be sold or to be recognized in a museum – but to be seen by the world.” (Street artist Blek le Rat qtd in Waclawek, 2011, p. 70)
Tate Gallery London 2007 - "Lady Diana and the shadowman", street art stencil by Blek le Rat. Source: WWW : the artist's website
So far our course readings have mostly provided us with a scholarly perspective on art, archives, as well as tangible and intangible cultural heritage in relation to the museum, its institutional discourse, and its relationship(s) to communities of practice that produce cultural artifacts. This seems perfectly reasonable since this is the title, and topic, of our course. However, in discussing virtual exhibits, as an agent provocateur, I felt it was important to draw your attention to two other important players, namely the artists themselves and the curators.
(SR #6) I found Gansallo’s (2010) article most intriguing in this respect in that it addressed the problematic relationship of both these parties to a well-established high-profile contemporary museum. The author discusses the difficulty of curating web-art embedded in a museum’s institutional website (in this case, the Tate website) when 3 different artists are individually commissioned by the museum itself to create web-art that calls into question how art is viewed (p. 346, para. 1). As curator, Gansallo became the go-between that enabled “the artists [to] have the right to present their ideas and their work without any interference whatsoever from people telling them what art is and what they should and shouldn’t do” (p. 348, para. 5).
PDQ : How can dominant culture/high-art institutional infrastructures accommodate and support subversive web-art that challenges the existing power structures institutions legitimize and shape?
(SR #5) In providing readers with an overview of many of the forms in which tangible and intangible cultural heritage is presented today, this article raises important question with regards to the role of digital technologies in preserving this heritage. Quoting Lowenthal (1994), Silberman (2008) urges us to consider the epistemological and discursive nature of cultural heritage, because, he argues, it may tell us more about the present than about the past: “the more realistic a reconstruction of the past seems, the more it is part of the present” (p. 83, para. 2). Alternatively, he suggests that cultural heritage can also be understood as a means to illuminate how the past has brought us into the present. Finally, he adds that our quest for essence in digital heritage may reflect “an overall understanding of why the Past is so important no less than what it is [sic]” (p. 90, para. 2).
In week #5’s readings, Fiona Cameron (2008) discussed this notion of the “essence” of cultural heritage in the following terms:
“A new way of looking at cultural materials in a digital format and as a model for organizing complex information online is to engage Andre Malraux’s idea of the museal, the museum characteristic of citation (quoted in Bournia 2006). Citation rejects the notion of a permanent pattern of human experience around the idea of art, or indeed heritage. In dissociating cultural materials in digital format from a sense of permanence as heritage, as an expression of their enduring essence, and instead reading objects as citation, opens selection and significance to other values and to the creative interaction between social and cultural systems as complexity” (p. 182, para. 3)
PDQ : In what way(s) does digital media problematize the “essence” of cultural heritage?
(RR #4) Comparing the exhibitionary techniques of traditional museums to those of today’s virtual museums, Lewi (2008) describes how the concept of architecture was central to the design of the CD-ROM project titled Visualising the architecture of Federation, a virtual exhibit representing the heritage of Western Australian architecture for Australia’s Centenary of Federation in 2001. She examines how architectural design was the organizing principle used to structure both information and the virtual exhibition space itself, an idea that was conceptually consistent with this project which was intended to celebrate the Western Australian Museum’s “architectural monumentality, its social status as a public space, and as an institution for research and public education” (p. 202, para. 3). Lewi offers a detailed discussion of some of the formal and logistical limitations and problems associated with the creation of a virtual counterpart to the traditional museum, in particular, lamenting the fact that lack of funds has not permitted to make this endeavor accessible on the internet.
PDQ: What is the relationship of virtual architectural exhibits to the real architectural structure(s) they aim to represent (if we reflect on it in terms of pros and cons)?
(RR #1) Tracing some of the origins of the virtual museum, Huhtamo (2002), identifies the emergence of exhibition design – a practice pioneered by avant-garde art movements of the early twentieth century – as a key factor that challenged the “relationship between exhibition spaces, exhibits and spectators/visitors” (p. 123, para. 2). The author also argues that the use of technology has historically led to a redefinition of these relationships which are still in flux today. An example he gives of this is how technology has provided audiences with a channel to bring art, and exhibits, into the home – and this can be as mundane as a series of reproductions on the walls of one’s home to a CD-ROM (pp. 128-129). I was most enchanted by Huhtamo’s essay because in my own view, exhibition design is instrumental in displaying art and cultural heritage. I believe that smoke and mirrors and lots of illusionistic cheap tricks are absolutely necessary in presenting art as they constitute an entry point into new “ways of seeing” and invite viewers to reconsider and rethink what they think they know. Citing Gell (1992), Isaac (2008) has discussed how this can be problematic if we view such strategies as “technologies of enchantment” that cast a spell over us and mystify reality (p. 291. para. 2).
PDQ: How do the magical tricks of technology enhance or disrupt our experience of art?
(RR #2) Bandelli (2010) offers some alternative examples of how virtual museums can augment and extend the physical setting of a museum space by proposing to look at what he calls the “social space” that can seamlessly be created between the ‘real’ activities and the ‘virtual’ experiences. To illustrate, he cites two major examples. First, one where students worked on their projects in computer labs located inside a science museum. Second, a virtual exhibit system that provided contextual information on a need-to-know basis. The author argues that in these scenarios, the social space is increased rather than reduced (cf. isolation). The key, he suggests, is to take into account how technology can complement the function(s) of the space in which it is implemented: to “understand social actions in space and time” (p. 152, para. 1).
PDQ: Can physical space and virtual space be combined to form a new ontological experience that does not serve to isolate the museum visitor?
(RR #3) Müller’s (2010) article extends a similar argument, except that his concern is with expanding the reach of the museum exhibit rather than enlarging the social space of its audience. Virtual space and physical space, he writes, provide different frames of reference for museum artifacts or collections and it is because of this difference in their discursive function that museums can provide the public with multiple ways to understand what they are seeing (cf. modes of reception). This, he says, is in keeping with the museums’ shift “from object-centered to story-centered exhibitions, while still maintaining the importance of the real object experience” (p. 297, para. 7). Aside from providing several examples of how digital technology can be more or less successfully applied to museum exhibits, Müller suggests seven features that he identifies as “necessary for the development of online exhibitions: space, time, links, storytelling, interactivity, production values, and accessibility” (p. 301, para. 1).
PDQ: Can you think of other features or medium affordances that could be identified to make the best use of digital technology when designing virtual exhibits or virtual museum space?
Take your pick or let’s do them all. I am looking forward to your contributions and invite you to forcefully push back and debate on issues related to week #7’s readings and presentation. And please feel free to interrupt me as often as you would like during the seminar…as well as demand that I immediately go to a URL of your choice. This week, your wish is my command: Let me be thou’s humble servant in thy seminar.
Week #7: possible themes for class discussion (feel free to add to this or state your preference(s) in class):
- subversive art practices in the context of virtual exhibits and venues;
- the notion of “essence” of cultural heritage (cf. “essentialism” applied to cultural heritage);
- experiencing architectural cultural heritage virtually vs. physically;
- how does technology affect our experience of art (cf. Gell’s “enchanted technology”);
- the ontological experience that results from virtual space combined with physical space;
- looking at the affordances of digital media to understand its potential in virtual exhibits.
Sources
Cameron, Fiona (2010). The politics of heritage authorship: the case of digital heritage collections. In Y. Kalay, Kvan, T. & Affleck, J. (Eds.), (pp. 170-184), New heritage: new media and cultural heritage. London and New York: Routledge.
Gansallo, Matthew (2002). Curating new media. In R. Parry (Ed.), Museums in a digital age (pp. 344-350). London and New York: Routledge.
Gell, Alfred (1992). The technology of enchantment and the enchantment of technology. In J. Coote & Anthony Shelton (Eds), Anthropology, art and aesthetics (pp 40–66). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Huhtamo, Erkki (2002). On the origins of the virtual museum. In R. Parry (Ed.), Museums in a digital age (pp. 121-135). London and New York: Routledge.
Bandelli, Andrea (1999). Virtual spaces and museums. In R. Parry (Ed.), Museums in a digital age (pp. 148-152). London and New York: Routledge.
Isaac, Gwyneira. (2008). Technology becomes the object: The use of electronic media at the national museum of the American Indian. Journal of material culture 13 (3): 287-310.
Lewi, Hanna. Designing a virtual museum of architectural heritage. In Y. Kalay, Kvan, T. & Affleck, J. (Eds.), (pp. 261-274), New heritage: new media and cultural heritage. London and New York: Routledge.
Lowenthal, David. (1994). Conclusion: archaeologists and others. In P. Gathercole & D. Lowenthal (Eds.), The politics of the past (pp. 302-314). London: Routledge.
Müller, Klaus (2010). Museums and virtuality. In R. Parry (Ed.), Museums in a digital age (pp. 295-305). London and New York: Routledge.
Silberman, Neil (2008) Chasing the unicorn? The quest for ‘essence’. In Y. Kalay, Kvan, T. & Affleck, J. (Eds.), (pp. 81-91), New heritage: new media and cultural heritage. London and New York: Routledge.
Wacławek, Anna (2011). Graffiti and street art. New York : London : Thames & Hudson.
Beautiful synopsis Claude! I mentioned Shepard Fairey to you just before break (sorry I’m only following up now!) He is a street artist who is famous for creating the Obama ‘Hope’ posters and the ‘Obey’ stickers. He was arrested on his way to a gallery opening (of his own work) at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston (I was on tour with a dance show in the theatre of the ICA that night!) This exhibit did show Fairey’s work in a traditional exhibit, in a gallery, visited by traditional audiences, without a digital media component (unless you count the press he got from the arrest). It is a weird paradox that he is so well known for his street art (from being on the street… not a gallery…) and also his Obama ‘Hope’ poster to see his work in a gallery environment. However, the gallery did have a huge ‘Obey’ poster on the outside of the building, and the exhibit had prints at such a huge scale it was an experience that was probably difficult to reproduce stealthily on the street.
Fairey’s website:
http://obeygiant.com/
Arrest incident:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/07/shepard-fairey-arrested-i_n_164872.html
Wooster Collective’s discussion on arrest:
http://www.woostercollective.com/post/was-shepard-fairey-arrested-to-embarrass-the-mayor-of-boston-a-first-hand-a
Fairey also has a very interesting perspective on his own work, relating it to phenomenology and Heidegger in his Manifesto:
“The OBEY sticker campaign can be explained as an experiment in Phenomenology. Heidegger describes Phenomenology as “the process of letting things manifest themselves.” Phenomenology attempts to enable people to see clearly something that is right before their eyes but obscured; things that are so taken for granted that they are muted by abstract observation.
The FIRST AIM OF PHENOMENOLOGY is to reawaken a sense of wonder about one’s environment. The OBEY sticker attempts to stimulate curiosity and bring people to question both the sticker and their relationship with their surroundings. Because people are not used to seeing advertisements or propaganda for which the product or motive is not obvious, frequent and novel encounters with the sticker provoke thought and possible frustration, nevertheless revitalizing the viewer’s perception and attention to detail. The sticker has no meaning but exists only to cause people to react, to contemplate and search for meaning in the sticker. Because OBEY has no actual meaning, the various reactions and interpretations of those who view it reflect their personality and the nature of their sensibilities.” (Fairey, 1990: from the artist’s website)
So in a way, the institution supported what he stands for. But I think it was in a way that was productive for both parties.
AND to connect to the SR#5 (Silberman) – Fairey’s manifesto is directly talking about problematizing the ‘essence’ of your present environment/ world/ situation/ self. I really love this concept of problemitization (its so exciting in research!) and I think its very connected to the RR#1 (Huhtamo) article as well. While lots of smoke and mirrors can definitely be important to present an enhanced experience of a display, I think the design of the smoke and mirrors is the most important part here. If too much focus is on the magic being magic, it disappears. The audience looks for the ‘trick’ or the how the button works, and the interest is lost in the object on display (if any interest even made it onto the object).
Well-designed smoke and mirrors can present the ‘essence’ of the object without bringing any attention to the magic (or the magic simply transfers to the perception of ‘essence’). Understanding what the ‘essence’ of an object is however – and knowing how to design magic to bring it out – is not simple. Problemitization comes in at this stage: needing to find ways of understanding the ‘essence’ in a way that can be pin-pointed and communicated to others. Problemization is also part of the presentation I think – finding a way to use the smoke and mirrors/ magic to activate the viewer (Huhtomao, 2002, pg. 125) to see the ‘essence’ themselves, without being spoon-fed. Muller’s seven features necessary for online exhibits (space, time, links, storytelling, interactivity, production values and accessibility) provides excellent frameworks for both of these problemitization perspectives (2002). These features can prompt analysis and identification of ‘essence’ of an object while suggesting presentation design. So to prematurely give my answer to the PDQ under RR#1, I think that smoke and mirrors can either enhance or disrupt an experience, depending on how it is designed. I don’t believe that either is very easy to accomplish though – it might be easiest to just create an ‘eh’ experience. (Lots more to discuss on this on Tuesday…)
Awesome, Kristin! I love it…the thought that immediately comes to my mind though is that Fairley’s OBEY stickers also got a great deal of exposure (especially abroad and through media) from both broadcast news and the internet as well. So there was a real synergy happening there between physical spaces and digital (?virtual?) ones. Thanks for your comment, Kristin.
In response to Claude’s question: What is the relationship of virtual architectural exhibits to the real architectural structure(s) they aim to represent (if we reflect on it in terms of pros and cons)?
Virtual museums seem to have a conflicted relationship with architecture—as physical space and as metaphor.
As Huhtamo points out, early CD-ROM-based virtual museums and most current museum websites have “rarely attempted to simulate in 3-D the physical space of the museum”, instead using virtual media to highlight “treasures from the collection” and “useful background information” ” (Huhtamo 2002, 122). At the same time, many contemporary initiatives in virtual museums purposefully work to “transcend physical space, opening up new possibilities for both art and its display (Huhtamo 2002, 130).
Yet there are clearly many ways in which virtual museums mimic physical architectural space. In her article on designing a virtual museum of the Western Australian museum’s architectural heritage, Hannah Lewi notes that the architectural metaphor has been applied to both digital information systems and virtual spaces, and in turn has therefore been aptly applied to virtual museum language and design. Lewi’s case is particularly unique, since the subject of the architecturally designed virtual museum is architecture itself. But her case-study, as she suggests, seems to apply to a much wider range of virtual museums. Her example of museum foyers, for example, is useful for comparing a wide range of physical and virtual museum spaces: “main foyers are rooms where the visitor explores for information and signs that access other parts of the museum” (Lewi 2008, 263). From the foyer, visitors are given a number of possible pathways (or in Lewi’s example, “hyperlinks”) through which they can explore the museum. Both physical and virtual museums tend to present visitors with a highly designed architectural space and set of possible pathways entered via a foyer and navigated via a map.
Muller takes quite a different (and slightly paranoic!) view, arguing that “virtual museum ‘spaces’ can take on any shape they want, but they lack the conventional authority and emotion a museum building evokes” and that “a visit to a virtual space might not be as intentional as a visit to the physical museum, where visitors wander dutifully through the galleries” because “everything is just a click away” so that web spaces and links “encourage rapid decisions” (Muller 2010, 301).
In looking at some of the examples you posted, Kate, most virtual museum spaces teeter between Huhtamo’s “treasures from the collection” model and Lewi’s mimicked “traditional” museum architectural spaces. In the Google Art Project, for each institution you can choose between viewing artwork in a sort of slideshow (much like Huhtamo’s examples) and “exploring the museum”, which allows virtual navigation through galleries.
The Virtual Museum Canada’s highlighted “In Search of the Canadian Car” has a “showroom” (a physical space metaphor) but presents “objects” (images of cars) in a slideshow format. Likewise, the MOMA’s Cartier-Bresson exhibit works much this way.
The Adobe museum seems to come closest to inventing virtual architectural space in the way Lewi describes—each time you enter the site you see a different opening moving image—in one of them you float over a virtual Guggenheim-esq foyer—before you enter a virtual foyer from which you can choose to enter various exhibits. When you click on them you either encounter a Star-Trekky video screen or virtually “float” through a kind of hallway into another architectured space. Even Goetz’s black space mimics a gallery by use of imaginary perspective and floor reflections. Valentino’s virtual exhibit works in much the same way (very obviously virtual architectural space in which you click on “real” fashion pieces.
The BM’s “A History of the World in One Hundred Objects” is somewhere in between. Clicking “Start Your Journey Now” brings you into an odd window where small icons float around in virtual space which can be loosely navigated through time.
I also posted this in the discussion on Jeremy’s post, but I’d also be interested to see what you all thought of Greenaway’s Last Supper, since in a kind of opposite move, Greenaway created virtual spaces in physically designed architectural space.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFTs_6C919g&feature=related
and a scathing review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/arts/design/06armory.html
Cited:
Huhtamo, Erkki 2002. “On the origins of the virtual museum”. In R. Parry (Ed.), Museums in a Digital Age. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 121-135.
Lewi, Hanna. 2008. “Designing a virtual museum of architectural heritage”. In Y. Kalay, Kvan, T. & Affleck, J. (Eds.), New heritage: new media and cultural heritage. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 261-274.
Müller, Klaus 2010. “Museums and virtuality”. In R. Parry (Ed.), Museums in a Digital Age. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 295-305.
Ahhhh, Greenaway…the cinema Master with the twisted mind…I am adding your Youtube link to my Presi, Diana (your courage inspired me to try this wicked tool…)
Hey Everyone,
Claude, I really like how you formatted your seminar notes…Maybe I will re-format mine to look like yours 😉
Speaking of time, I wish I had more time to reply everyone…I am trying to get a draft of my final project’s abstract done by tonight though…sigh!
May the muse be with you, Jeremy. (It may be helpful for you to know that Dr. Hennessy changed the deadline for the abstract to the date of your presentation).
I found this seminar article presentation, very well organized, provided with great and challenging questions which demand a deep level of contemplation.
In answer to this question: “In what way(s) does digital media problematize the “essence” of cultural heritage? “, I would like to reference another paper from week8 Barney (2010): which references a concept from Martin Heidegger ‘s article :‘The Origin of the Work of Art,’(1971, 15-86)
The main article argues that the essence of art is poetic. It means that, “the essence of art is the work it does to unconceal what is, the truth of beings and the world”. and its argument is based this quote from Heidegger ‘s article: ‘Art is the setting-into-work of truth … the becoming and happening of truth … the letting happen of the advent of the truth of what is.’”
My understanding is that, digital media introduces an informative user experience, which might be intrusive and in conflict with an artful and playful experience of artifacts, objects, and architecture of museums. Barney , mentions this fact while criticizing an AR application in Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver. (MOA)
I argue that, the design of Virtual exhibit plays an important role in user experience, as Muller brings up elements such as Time, space, narration, interactivity, etc. as important factors in designing online digital museums which can approximate the real artful experience.
I go beyond the concept of real space experience approximation, and claim that, the virtual exhibits even can expand the artful experience in new dimensions. For example, designing, and embedding a virtual element, such as an interesting narrative cut scene about a historic or cultural event can create the sense of fantasy in audience, which can create an interesting playful and artful experience in return. While not every participant in MOA is able to imagine the native community rituals and stories, a cinematographic and animation approach can help people to better imagine the context of stories though. BTW, if the experience design shape in an intrusive way, it might be insufficient and not very successful. I can argue that, providing design elements in virtual exhibition which can replicate the physical space features, and releasing some constraints which might exist in physical experience can cause an immersive experience for end users.
Thanks for the Heideggerian reference, Bardia. Essence is indeed a big topic on my mind and I think we need as many definitions as we can to chew on that question. Here is an excerpt from 35 sonnets by Fernando Pessoa that I think refers to essence in a most elegant and melancholy way:
Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others’ dreams.
Fantastic posts, per usual. Looks like a great conversation this afternoon. I want to pick up on two PDQs: What is the relationship of virtual architectural exhibits to the real architectural structure(s) they aim to represent (if we reflect on it in terms of pros and cons)?
And
Can you think of other features or medium affordances that could be identified to make the best use of digital technology when designing virtual exhibits or virtual museum space?
I want to problematize the virtual architecture argument just slightly by asking the following question: Why do virtual spaces attempt to replicate physical spaces? It seems to me that the metaphor of physical and virtual space is often stretched too thin. I’m sure most of us have read some of Bolter and Grusin’s Remediation where ‘new media’ refashion ‘older media’—we might think of the way DVDs have ‘chapters’ in them, or the way that Photoshop has tools that reference darkroom techniques (burning, dodging, etc.). I think that this is one way to consider the design of ‘space’ in virtual environments.
In Levi’s project, I can understand the creation of virtual architecture since the project itself is on architecture—the form fits the topic. However, in terms of Claude’s second question, I am not convinced that the affordances of our interfaces necessarily lend themselves to the physical metaphors of being in an architectural space. Often, I think, they get in the way.
Let’s take the Google Art Project as an example. Is the Google-maps negotiation of the museum layout the best interface for exploring the art of a particular museum? Personally, I use the drop down menus; I don’t need the experience of ‘walking’ around the museum, and honestly that is not why I want to use this site anyway. (Okay, I’ll admit that I have spent time ogling the Palace of Versailles, but the experience itself is not like I am in the museum.) Usually, I want to take advantage of the high quality images of the paintings that allow one to see things like the way Van Gogh builds up thick, viscous globs of paint—if this had only been around when I was an art history major.
This particular affordance is incredible. However, it breaks down the moment one tries to use it with sculpture. I can’t zoom in enough, I can’t rotate the object…it makes me want to go back to look at paintings. It seems as if the designers are shoehorning works of art into the interface, instead of stepping back and asking, “What is the best way to experience this piece of art in a web browser?” It lacks the exhibition design perspective, the “smoke and mirrors” do not just get in the way, but they are the wrong ones for the task at hand (uh-oh, I’ve added more PDQs into the mix). Are they going to digitize a Richard Serra sculpture? Is it just going to be a photo, or will we be able to move down the oxidized metal and examine each pockmark of rust the way we can examine each glob of paint? What about installation art? Land art? Will we use the same tools to examine such works?
That was more of a rant than I meant to go into, so I will cut myself short and just say I look forward to our discussion!
Interesting points made on texture and explorations of spaces that are more cultural. If I am not mistaken, Tyler, you have some knowledge of land art? I would be very curious to know what you think about virtually representing pieces of land art. Which medium affordances could heighten the viewer’s experience? If it were not for photography, I would never have seen land art myself (I am talking about the famous pieces in art history textbooks). So representation was the only way I was able to first experience it. I wonder how the digital medium could optimize one’s experience of environments like land art? See you in class.