{"id":252,"date":"2017-01-18T20:03:36","date_gmt":"2017-01-18T20:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/?p=252"},"modified":"2017-01-18T20:15:32","modified_gmt":"2017-01-18T20:15:32","slug":"blog-post-1-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/2017\/01\/18\/blog-post-1-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Post 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In\u00a0Do Museums Still Need Objects<\/em>, Steven Conn argues that as objects in museums gradually lost their visual and epistemological power, the professional aspects of museums themselves are also eclipsed by the expanding social roles. Although the niches for art objects in museums are vastly restricted during the modern times, according to Conn, he insists that the thrill of “being in the presence of real things” and seeing remains the most attractive attribute of art objects.<\/p>\n

As much as I am inspired by the evolution of museums depicted by Conn, I found his last statement less convincing. By stressing the emotional satisfaction, namely the sense of involvement, in the\u00a0museum-visiting experience, he simultaneously ignored the drawbacks of a physical trip, such as being swarmed by a huge crowd, \u00a0forced to leave before viewing all the accessible objects, or simply tired to walk through five more floors of galleries.<\/p>\n

Indeed these are not part of the\u00a0major concern, as Conn’s topic is the importance of objects in a modern museum; yet after exploring Smithsonian’s X3D objects<\/a>, some of the strengths of a digital museum become apparent. For example, the interactiveness of online objects offers a more impressive and convenient experience for visitors. It achieves a next level of\u00a0physical accessibility, which used to be the main feature of real museum objects.<\/p>\n

Relating to the\u00a0debate over the concept of material, I feel more comfortable skipping the tricky definitions, and focusing on what the museum objects -virtual or real – deliver to the viewers. In this way, it is obvious that although the Smithsonian objects do not acquire\u00a0physicality, they\u00a0possess\u00a0potential from its association with non-physical matter. Thus in this case the virtual objects are largely material: as ridiculous as it sounds, the online museum is capable of offering most of the functions of a real museum with a lot of additional capabilities. Of course, one of the shortcomings of a online museum is the lack of spatial expression: the visitors have difficulty understanding the relative scale of objects, and consequently have an incomplete viewing experience. However, with the development of VR technologies it can hopefully be resolved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  In\u00a0Do Museums Still Need Objects, Steven Conn argues that as objects in museums gradually lost their visual and epistemological<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}