The guidelines given by Lambert in the “Digital Storytelling Cookbook” reminded me of many narrative videos. The last one that I saw that follows some of the rules Lambert lays out was Prison Da Vinci No. 1 Painting With Skittles from TCOLondon on Vimeo.The video was part character story, part recovery story of a prisoner who paints using unconventional materials like skittles. The video is very successful in telling it’s story due to several factors.

One factor was the narration. The story is told by the prisoner himself, who at times has a very dramatic tone and cadence. The way he tells his story is also a little unusual. It is non linear and jumps from tangent to tangent. This factor deals with how the story was assembled. The creator of this visual project chose not to tell the story chronologically and to leave a lot of the context out. Some of the context, such as his status as a prisoner, his profession, and why he uses those materials are all left out, but are details that the viewer can easily be fill in through visuals. The editing, use of audio/interview, visuals really lend themselves to give insight to the painter is even if it doesn’t clearly lay out the story of his life.

The only guidelines given by Lambert that I do not agree with and do not see in the video is his interviewing technique. The interview technique he describes seems very specific and may not lend itself to every situation. I am in the video department of the Daily Bruin and find myself interviewing subjects in front of a camera often. I find that based off the type of person you are sitting down with has a lot to do with how you go about getting them to tell you their story. Some people need more encouragement and more specifically framed questions while others just need a vague topic to jump from and start talking.

I realize that the readings for this week were focused on data and metadata but I could not get passed the poor use of technology. Going through the readings I realized the importance of doing technology right. Just because something can be done, does not mean it should be done. The same can be said for museums an their collections. Technology should be integrated into the museum because it has a use to serve in the growing demand of the public. However using technology for the sake of using technology merely wastes time and confuses people.

The Cooper-Hewitt piece is one example. While the author may have approached the subject with a particular question in mind, he did not accomplish much; nor was he able to convey anything interesting to the audience. His analysis produced a table of colors but not much interpretation. For another example, the piece by Bellander has a topic in mind and interpretation. However he spends most of his article focusing on the code and the methods he used. While this is relevant, he does not keep his audience in mind focusing on concepts most would not understand or find interesting. Only later in his article does he actually get to the important interpretations. A good example of applied technology is the DH project on Turner. The project is clear and defined in the analysis and interpretations.

In the earlier two cases, the use of technology is poorly applied; an example of when people and museums use fancy technology for projects that do not need it. Technology should therefore be applied wisely and be used to extend or supplement the current collection. If the digital applications put forth by the museum are to frustrating and boring for the public, the technology will only hinder the exhibit. For example, audio guides can be either a hit or miss with some museums. The success and attractiveness of the guides depends on the script, choice of content, narrator, and the length of each audio clip. A guide that is long-winded, mono-toned, and boring will only discourage viewers from learning more about the museum and its collections. Curators and researchers should therefore use technology cautiously.

According to Stephen Greenblatt’s article, “Resonance and Wonder,” we interpret history, just as we interpret works of art. The social practices that we study aren’t immediately accessible to us. We read about them. And their relevance to the present are not static either; the connection between the circumstances in which the text was written and our own are dynamic, rendering the idea of a “correct” or “valid” interpretation meaningless. Therefore, the key to interpreting historical texts or art is to contextualize the issue of interest, or more specifically, to make cultural connections at a given moment in both its history and our own.

Greenblatt argues that it is this contextualization of objects that leads to resonance, or the ability of an object to evoke cultural connections in the viewer. In order to contextualize displayed objects in museums, Greenblatt suggests that museums be more willing to get in touch with “aesthetic openness,” that is, share with the public details that show the object’s fragility – its wear and tear and state of imperfection that give insight into the circumstances in which the object came about.

Greenblatt’s idea of “aesthetic openness” reminded me of an installation that I saw last winter at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) called “Home within Home within Home within Home within Home” by Do Ho Suh. It’s a life-size, fabric installation of the house where Doh lived when he was studying art in Providence, Rhode Island. By meticulously measuring every inch of the apartment where he was residing and making a precise and detailed cast of it out of fabric, the artist defined a “home” as one’s intimate, clothing(skin)-like space. The installation includes not so perfect hand-stitched door-knobs, crooked etches of Doh’s and his American neighbors’ names on the mail box, cracks in the windows and wear and tear of the Victorian facade – details that seem to reach out and pull the viewer into not only the embedded message or theme of the object but also the artist’s surrounding.

A une Damoyselle Malade

Ma Mignonne

Je vous donne

Le bon jour.

Le sejour

C’est prison :

Guerison

Recouvrez,

Puis ouvrez

Vostre porte,

Et qu’on sorte

Vistement :

Car Clement

Le vous mande.

Va friande

De ta bouche,

Qui se couche

En danger

Pour manger

Confitures :

Si tu dures

Trop malade,

Couleur fade

Tu prendras,

Et perdras

L’embonpoint.

Dieu te doint

Santé bonne

Ma Mignonne

 

-Clement Marot

 

The poem itself, a silly get well card of sorts, has little relevance to museums, technology, or the digital humanities. What matters is that it’s featured as the topic of the first story on season 13, episode 1 of Radiolab. The episode is called “Translation,” and this particular story details Douglas Hofstadter’s obsession with translating the poem into English. After many years, dozens of translators, and hundreds of versions, no one poem managed to maintain Marot’s strict form, lighthearted tone, and original content all at once. Hofstadter makes the point that just as one cannot understand the essence of a person based on a single photograph, one must read a collection of translations to truly understand a poem. In a world where technology has the potential to either enhance or detract from the museum experience, where “museums will have to find new ways to tell stories and engage their audiences,” this holistic approach to translation might act as a crucial tenet of the marriage of museums and technology (Museums in the Digital Age, 2013).

The ARUP article cites collaboration and diversification as two themes that museums must seek to incorporate in our increasingly global and desensitized society. Hofstadter’s approach speaks to both of these issues: by inviting and sharing translations of the poem done by people of all walks of life, he engages disparate people in an obscure, arguably irrelevant 16th century poem, to the point that they undergo a shift from apathy (I am projecting and generalizing here, but I know that if I had come upon this poem, I would’ve glanced at it, recognized a few words I knew, and never given it a second thought), to connection on a very personal level. In fact, in the comments section on the Radiolab website, members of the general public offered their own translations and insights, proving a deeper engagement with the piece. Further, the vehicle of Radiolab, as a popular podcast, allows for the expansion of the audience of the poem in a way that an anthology of 16th Century French poetry, for example, would not. In fact, “Translation” has the most downloads of any Radiolab episode ever. Scholars of Marot can only dream of his poems, on their own, reaching even a fraction of that audience.

The integration of technology in museums can serve a purpose similar to the effects detailed above. If one applies Hofstadter’s approach to the considerations detailed in the ARUP article, technology can have the ability to contextualize objects, further their storytelling, expose diverse audiences to them, and facilitate engagement with them on a deeper level, in a way that the traditional museum setting cannot.

In “The Exhibitionary Complex,” Bennett describes the role museums played early in their inception as places though which perception is manipulated and the public, in a sense, controlled through them.  Greenblatt presents resonance and wonder which are tools, really, through which the museum is able to influence the audience’s perception of the objects.

Greenblatt’s definition of resonance and wonder are part of the museum effect, how an object, by simply being placed inside the museum, is elevated from being an object of function and décor to being seen as a fine piece of art.  Resonance and the cherishing of objects for the cultural history they carry is part of this effect.  Wonder also plays into this.  Greenblatt’s description of “boutique lighting” can be seen in LACMA’s South Asian and South East Asian galleries where works have been arranged within a dark room with their own, individual spotlights.

The effects of this curating are double sided.  While the object focus elevates the works and causes wonder or admiration for the skill and beauty, the cultures of origin are being isolated from the viewer.  The dark walls and light create such “awe” that the works begin to feel other worldly.  The works are being admired and praised out of our admiration of their aesthetic beauty and we are not given any knowledge or understanding of the culture that produced them.

I would argue that these galleries do not contextualize and justly historicize the works they present as there is little didactic information attached to them.  In essence, there is so much wonder created that the viewer is not able to place the work in a cultural context and resonate with them.

Who really benefits from museums? Is the question posed by Tony Bennett in his ‘Exhibitionary Complex” essay. In examining knowledge as a form of power, Bennett insinuates that audiences of public museums are prey to museum curators who regulate society. Making museums public is a method by the government for controlling society’s knowledge, while displaying the state’s power.

“Institutions comprising ‘the exhibitionary complex’, by contrast, were involved in the transfer of objects and bodies from the enclosed and private domains in which they had previously been displayed (but to a restricted public) into progressively more open and public arenas where, through the representations to which they were subjected, they formed vehicles for inscribing and broadcasting the messages of power (but of a different type) throughout society.”

This reminds me of my final paper for Art History 56B, Art of Africa, in Spring of 2014. In the assignment, the class was asked to visit the Fowler Museum’s Afrian Art exhibit and examine the benefit of the exhibit. Did the exhibit properly convey the true artistic climate in various African countries? Was it misleading in any way to the viewer? How can an exhibit, curated by an American for an American audience, give true homage to the African origins of the objects within?

After many hours of analysis, I answered the question by saying that the exhibit relied heavily on the assumption that the audience had no baseline knowledge of African Arts. Therefore, the exhibit became a dumbed down interpretation of the objects, which may lead to an overly simplified view of African art.

Is it problematic for curators to display art in a way that may limit the viewers’ own interpretation?  No. Curators must seek to present information as simply as possible in order to cater to a varied audience. The enlightened audience has thousands of tools at their fingertips: libraries, internet resources, worldly friends, etc, to expand their learning if they so desire to research an exhibit further on their own time. At the time of Bennett’s writing (1988) this was a less feasible option. But our class is called Museums in the Digital Age. In this world, the viewer has more power than the curator, jumping off from ideas presented in an exhibit as a baseline for research. Viewers do not take a curator’s word as law because they have the power to further expand, dispute, or qualify the ideas presented to them in the museum.

This week’s readings, specifically Resonance and Wonder, were very interesting to consider in relation to multiple exhibitions I visited at the Fowler Museum on the UCLA Campus. The Fowler aims to be a cutting edge museum that works with communities to integrate their own ideas into curated exhibit. Though they do not always accomplish this goal, their attempt to challenge historical methods of curating reflects the openness that Greenblatt discusses.

This newer approach to curating museum spaces has led to the creation of two exhibits, one on maps and one on the cabinets of curiosity that are discussed in the Greenblatt article. I believe that the acknowledgement of the cabinets  of curiosity by the Fowler opens a space for discussion, and prompts the subject of wonder to be about the museum as an institution.   By allowing the audience to be critical of the museum as an institution, I believe it opens a space for people to consider the objects both in the context of their culture, but also in the context of their history. Opening this space is crucial for individuals to gain a more complete understanding of the histories if the objects and the people that objects belong to. This space also allows individuals to consider the relationship that the museum has with the people who it aims to represent.

The Fowler also has exhibits, like the exhibit on Zuni Maps, which aim to completely integrate both the people and the objects that a culture presents in a museum. This particular exhibit was created in association with the artists and elders from the Zuni community to curate an exhibit that the community felt comfortable with. By integrating the voices of community members, the exhibit evokes wonder and openness in the experience because it allows for exposure to marginalized point of views.

These readings were effective to consider with relation to the Fowler Museum because it allowed me to contemplate the different approaches to curating museums and required me to be critical of the institution that I have attended since my freshman year at UCLA.  I believe that the museum can utilize digital technology to enhance this integration both as a method of curating and as an aspect of the exhibition

In “The Exhibitionary Complex,” Tony Bennett discusses two opposing views when exhibiting museum art and artifacts: the Carceral Archipelago, and the Exhibitionary Complex. These two opinions interpret both the public gaze and the display of art in different ways–the former seeing it as a form of incarceration, and the latter seeing it as way to educate the public through such artifacts. The articles surmises that through self-monitoring, museums acts as an exhibition which seeks to educate and inform normal everyday people by directly integrating them into it.

I had somewhat of a difficult time trying to draw an example I’ve personally experienced, but one of the first things that came to my mind was Projection LA–a public art piece here in Silverlake on Sunset Boulevard, which I’m sure everyone has seen on their social media feeds at one point or another. This article I found best describes the scene surrounding the whitewashed motel.

As you walk the western edge of the trendy hamlet of Silver Lake on the city’s storied Sunset Boulevard, it’s the palms you see first, as the monotone piece slowly emerges from the contextual beige of strip mall stucco. Actually, first you’ll see dozens of people standing precariously in the middle of four lanes of traffic to Instagram the piece, which is about as social-media ready as a public art piece could possibly be.

I feel that the first half of the description relates to Bennett’s Exhibitionary Complex because the art that is being showcased is not imprisoned or incarcerated, but is rather extremely accessible to the public, and therefore allowing the “common man” to partake in an experience that is normally thought to be that of higher-class or wealthier populations. Furthermore, the second half of this excerpt takes this exhibition from public to… I guess “super public” through social media, thereby expanding the reach of this art piece even further to populations that would normally not partake in such an experience.

That being said, it’s definitely evident that more and more museums are taking advantage of the Exhibitionary Complex–take for example, The Broad, LACMA’s Urban Light, etc.–by exposure to and incorporation of everyday people. It’s a trend that is fueled by today’s digital media, and although I love the concept of increasing art’s accessibility, I wonder if all this is just that–a trend–and how long will it last?

 

In “The Exhibitionary Complex” by Tony Bennett, when discussing world fairs there was a quote I found interesting regarding their “function less as vehvles for the technical educaton of the working classes than as instruments for their stupefaction” (22). I think with museums there is somewhat of a line drawn between what is educational vesus what is meant to amuse and entertain the masses. The need for a growth or consistancy in terms of visitorship often means curation of exhibits that will draw in the greatest numbers which does not automatically indicate a loss in educational value and purpose, but can do so. Regardless of the educational value of an exhibit, the self-celebrating quality of musuems which show human acheivments seems clear. The prestge associated with various museums of art and the pieces they display are in themselves evidence of a culture that places value in its own productions. To clarify, the issue of what is art versus what is an artifact is part of this. For example, the museum in my hometown has a number of famous pieces of art and photography from Western artists reflecting the history of the county. In a comletely separate exhibit are the pieces of Native American history that were likely originally taken without permission. The separation of cultural identities to both self-congratulate and almost voyeuristically speculate is definitely problematic. Though perhaps done to educate the masses on the history of the Native American peoples in the are, the exhibit was advertised as something exotic with if I recall correctly a tagline about entering another world suggesting the kind of alien nature of another culture. The need to create the sense of stupefaction to draw in visitors to celebrate what is not their own is problematic and undermines the value of the museum experience.

 

In Greenblatt’s article, he discusses the life f the object before it entered the museum, that these objects served a purpose and have a history that shifts when it is placed in the museum setting. He asks us to consider:

How have the objects come to be displayed? What is at stake in categorizing them as ‘museum-quality’? How were they originally used? What cultural and material conditions made possible their production? What were the feelings of those who originally held these objects, cherished them, collected them, possessed them? What is my relationship to these same objects now that they are displayed here, in this museum, on this day?

This weekend I visited the Art of the Pacific exhibition at LACMA I contemplated these questions. While the hierarchal nature of museums have historically subjugated non-western arts and artifacts, I feel that many museums have attempted to correct these wrongs by “elevating” these arts by in some ways decontextualizing their objects to display them for purely aesthetic value, as western art objects. This was apparent in the Art of the Pacific Exhibition. The presentation of the works is rather beautiful in a minimalist “white box” display with no text.

While the lack of text to give context for these pieces and their “former life’s” is problematic in itself, as many of them where not just meant for aesthetics and were stolen from their original owners through colonialism, I also found it troubling that they invited a visiting artist, Franz West, who is neither of Polynesian or Melanesian descent or an expert on the objects to present the show. While one from the culture cannot represent the beliefs of all pacific communities, I found it a bit strange that they chose a western artist to “elevate” these works to make them “museum-quality”.

When considering multifunctional cross-cultural objects that have been displaced and re-contextualized in a museum, I think that in may ways, the way to resolve the flattening of their presentation is not just through text as Greenblat’s article suggest, but unique approaches to display including digital technologies.