As others have pointed out, the concept of materiality (which was touched upon by JeeHee Hong) is a concept that can best be described not by saying what makes up the “matter” of a particular artifact, materiality goes onto a far deeper level than that as well. For starters, materiality is a concept that is directly applied to the museum setting because the value of the artifacts that are present in the museum are made valuable by the fact that they exist as a piece of important history preserved in a material form that onlookers can observed in a direct sense.
Now that I have given my understanding of what Materiality is, I want to look at the actual topic of the class which is “Museums in the Digital Age.” Why bring this up? Well, Digital means exactly what you think it would mean, Digital, as in digital museum displays will exist through technological means only. Now, of course, digital exhibits can be a fantastic way to see the topic of the exhibit in a whole new light. However, the concept of materiality is put in jeopardy in these cases.
Is it possible that people who visit exhibits to establish the same connection to an exhibit that is all digital? I would argue that, no, it is not. Materiality is a way to connect with a certain exhibit by the means of actually looking at a piece of history or at something that comes from the real world which makes an exhibit that more engaging. Without being actually able to see the material artifacts that prove the events which the exhibit talks about actually happened cannot be replaced by a digital counterpart. The same experience cannot be recreated and therefore, the point of the exhibit might be lost on a great number of people who visit it.
Just to demonstrate what I am talking about, I would like you to recall the George P. Johnson collection that we all got to observe last class. Ask yourself, if you were watching a digital presentation on the same topic, even the same collection, and it consisted of scanned documents and an interactive digital exhibit, would you still be able to have seen the reality of what African American movie actors, directors and producers had to go through in order to overcome the obstacles that they had going for them?
My answer would again be, no. We actually got to see the large amount of artifacts that he had collected himself through out the years. Some of us got to see the various notes that he himself had written, which explained how he worked as a postal worker for forty years while being involved in the Lincoln motion picture company. Also, we saw things that he had highlighted and circled that he thought was important, not what a curator thought was important. So as a result, if this was a digital display, a lot of the history and experience would have been lost. A digital exhibit would be a nice addition to the actual collection, but nothing can replace that materiality that the artifacts of the past posses.
If we were to scan the texts he had written, highlighted, etc., does that really create such a detachment? I agree with you that digital elements are meant to supplement an exhibit rather than dominate, but to what degree is there too much digital? I think that will be something we struggle with in this process. Because visitors will not have the opportunity to touch the artifacts in the way we did, perhaps if they can interact with them digitally while seeing the physical artifact in front of them might make it more “real” or “material” for them.
I think your idea is interesting here, presenting a hard dichotomy between the physical and digital archives. But my question is, is a digital presentation not similar to having someone stand in front of a class with the physical documents from the archive and give a little presentation? If we cannot put our hands on the archival material, is the effect not the same? I think the ability to handle the objects is what gave them their power in the archive, museums struggle with that in a physical or digital format, because not every visitor can touch the exhibited material without significant damage.
I think you’ve provided a very interesting point and a demonstration of thorough understanding of the whole concept of materiality. I have to agree with your idea of physical attachment to the objects being crucial in terms of our appreciation and am certainly against digitizing all the museums out there (which I don’t believe would be possible). But I just wanted to say that digital exhibits can provide us with more precise and thorough understanding of an exhibit especially if it’s historical. In other words, both the physical objects and digital exhibits have its advantages and disadvantages, which I believe is what you were trying to say in your post.