{"id":538,"date":"2016-02-01T15:16:32","date_gmt":"2016-02-01T23:16:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/?p=538"},"modified":"2016-02-01T15:17:02","modified_gmt":"2016-02-01T23:17:02","slug":"the-museum-interface-flattening-interpretations-or-inciting-new-ones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/2016\/02\/01\/the-museum-interface-flattening-interpretations-or-inciting-new-ones\/","title":{"rendered":"The Museum Interface: “Flattening” Interpretations or Inciting New Ones?"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of this week’s readings\u00a0stems from the magazine Art In America, and combines the perspectives of experts to discuss and prompt critical questions pertaining to the use of digital platforms and supplementations in the museum world. What certainly stood out to me was the overall concern for works’ interpretations- specifically, who has the “say” in how people, regardless of experiencing a museum collection or piece in person or online. Rob Giampietro, a renowned leading designer and writer for Google Design, explains this best in the article, stating the example of Instagram as a method of digital delivery that is both compelling and undermining of museum experiences, particularly using the installation “The Sugar Sphinx” by Kara Walker. He says, “In Instagram’s interface, pictures of Walker’s installation appear stamp-sized on a phone’s screen, flattened in all dimensions, their likers and commenters quantified.” It’s interesting how when even the dimensions of a work or installation is put online in, say, a museum collection, it is still lacking in the experience of scale; Walker’s Sugar Sphinx is huge, but when captured in an Instagram photo, it’s size is immediately somewhat downplayed.<\/p>\n

However, Giampietro adds, “These images may document the installation, but they also document and identify each photographer’s individual presence in the space.” Instagram images, especially when captured by a user at the installation in real time, creates an interpretation that is altogether unique and different from that of other, similar Instagram images. If one were to see a collage of all the Instagram photos of Walker’s Sugar Sphinx, every single moment captured is an entirely separate interpretation and experience of the installation; something that is only brought out of documenting\u00a0through social media photographs.<\/p>\n

The new hyper-visibility is difficult because it can transform a unique installation into commodified image; the work’s lasting political power could easily be mistaken for a fleeting trend.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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A formal photo of The Sugar Sphinx<\/em> versus the variety of photos of it seen on Instagram, with commentary and initial reactions usually being rather vulgar.<\/p>\n

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Giampietro later concludes, “Those discouraged from visiting Walker’s installation in person because of its ubiquity on social media may have been discouraged not by what the installation itself offered but by what its flood of representations removed: the sense that an encounter with the work could be personal or transformative.” The numerous capturing of the installation may take away a real-life experience when seeing it in a museum setting, but it also allows users to interpret art in their own way; the argument thus lies in the allowance or legitimacy in interpretation,a s museums have long worked toward giving further context to works which essentially “give” us interpretations rather than leave room for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of this week’s readings\u00a0stems from the magazine Art In America, and combines the perspectives of experts to discuss and prompt critical questions pertaining to the use of digital platforms … Continue reading “The Museum Interface: “Flattening” Interpretations or Inciting New Ones?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}