The readings this week take on the essential topic that we have been talking about for many weeks now in class. The article “Museums see different virtues in virtual worlds” looks at how the Met and The Brooklyn Museum have had two different approaches to their digital efforts. The Met reflecting its encyclopedic perspective reflected in its online presence, the Brooklyn Museum, by comparison, is a more local museum by nature, its online presence attempts to engage its local community.
“The Museum Interface” is a direct conversation with two museum site designers who discuss the complications with the museums and their content online. A large part of their conversation centers on Kara Walker’s installation of, A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby, a mega installation. The problem presented but the conversation was that many people were deterred from going and experiencing the work in person because of the installation’s proliferation in social media.
This removal or distancing from the object is one that I personally, am most concerned about. Images and other online engagement would preferably incite wonder and a desire to see the works in person. I think we forget that we miss part of the experience of the object when we only see it on a 2D screen. With the Walker exhibit, we are missing a personal sense of scale since we cannot be in the same room with it; in addition to missing the we miss things like our sense of smell. With the Walker show we miss the scent and atmosphere of the sugar factory of her works are installed in.
I had the opposite reaction that the commentator’s friends had to the proliferation of the exhibit on social media. Instead of seeing images or video and being satisfied, I would love to see it that much more.
This link describes the process that Walker went through for the exhibit. This video shows the Walker’s process and the final product.
I find it interesting people were satisfied by just the image. As you said, I was intrigues and wanted to see the sculpture in person. However, my dismay with the object came from the disrespectful viewer interactions on social media. This massive sugar subtly was meant to empower the denigrated mammy figure, but in social media interactions with the object we see the disregard and objectification of the black female body.
I agree that the reflections of the work in social media were disappointing and that the main figure was objectified. I would argue that the objectification was part of Walker’s point. That she was highlighting how the black female body has been portrayed. I think that is why she chose the mammy figure as her model, because in the creation of mammy, black women were typecast and stripped of the variety and uniqueness and made to fit into this idea.
I agree that sometimes seeing art pieces visually isn’t satisfying and only drives you to want to see the object in person, but I think that only heightens the reason to why you should put stuff up on social media. Social media of art isn’t always designed to replace the actual process of seeing it, but to promote the art or art space to possible attain more viewers.
The video that you have attached to this is very interesting because it can only exist as supplementary information to the object. In this specific case, the experience of watching the process is extremely different from the experience of viewing it in person. This difference is primarily because the piece relies on multiple sensorial experiences, not just looking. Works of art such as this are creating new questions and opportunities digital humanities scholars.
I actually am surprised that social media proliferation deterred people from going to see the work in person, given the recent trends in LA’s museum attendance. Perhaps this could bring up an argument about the varying attitudes to social media proliferation in different regions? I personally would love to see this in person, but since I’m from LA, perhaps that’s just my attitude being influenced by my location.
Also, Hanna brought up a really interesting observation: unintended outcomes of social media’s presentation of art.