Re-Imagining the Museum. A Review by Juan Ramón Cárceles Román

Re-Imagining the Museum. Beyond the Mausoleum Andrea Witcomb A review by Juan Ramรณn Cรกrceles Romรกn

SUMMARY

Introduction

PART 1. THE BOOK 1. Structure and contents

PART 2. PERSONAL REVIEW 1. First approach 2. The external agents 2.1. The quotations 2.2. The case studies 3. The lacks 3.1. The graphical material 3.2. The architecture 4. The evolution 4.1. The web 5. Conclusions

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Introduction

In this essay my intention is first to set an idea of the book and then put an analitic point of view on it. To discuss about it in general terms as well as focusing in some specific aspects that I found convenient, both in terms of structure and content. To do this, the structure of the essay is divided into two parts: â&#x2C6;&#x2019; PART 1. THE BOOK: treats specifically about the book, mentioning the structuration and contents of it as well as the importance and order of them; â&#x2C6;&#x2019; PART 2. PERSONAL REVIEW: is divided into five chapters, the first as preliminar approach, the following three treat about independent issues, acording to what I think are the most relevant aspects to discuss about. Ending with a last chapter of conclusions.

PART 1. THE BOOK

1. Structure and contents

Going from Quatremere de Quincy in the eighteenth century with the concept of museum mausoleum, through the napoleonic era with all the art-trophys arriving to the Louvre, until the debate around the opening of the Museum of Sydney, Andrea Witcomb tries to expose the difficult situation in which are museums nowadays, facing so many changes on a process of break with the past, towards a new era. Witcomb along her argumentations about museums treats economic and commercial issues as well as new media ones as the really influential factors on the current changes of museums toward entertainment areas. Moreover she reminds us that similar kind of changes in museums are not something new, taking examples of cases from the XIX century. The book also shows the actors participating on this debate, in a confrontation between those who say that museums need to change – renovators – and those who defend its traditional practicies – traditionalists –. She without opting for any of them, uses it as an excersise of debate between this points of view. On the issue of the progress one of the main features transforming the museums are the new multimedia technologies, which are used to create a more succuesful relation between museums and the audience, but present the inconvenience of making losing the traditional concept of museum as an institution with an specific social responsability. The confrontation goes through on how to exhibit, specifically about how the information arrives to the audience. All of that is argued with the help of some case studies from her personal experience. The book is structured in six chapters, with a linked theory that

sometimes merges. On the first chapter – Unmasking a different museum: museums and cultural criticism – she talks about the historical relation between leisure, tourism, urbanity and museums, and therefore the museum as important instrument to revaluate areas of the city. On the second chapter – Floating the museum – she analyses two australian examples of museums, the Australian National Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour and the new Western Austrualian Maritime Museum in Freamentle with whom she has been related. Explaining how this two cases are a clear evidence of tools used for conversion of urban areas into tourist leisure precincts, that’s why she is interested on expose museums as key point for economy and tourist orientation. Also she talks about how we interpret museums as institutions to educate and reform society, as she argues «that one of the most important effects of these developments is a questioning of our received understanding of the museum as, above all, an institution with a mission to educate or reform society»1. On the third chapter – From Batavia to Australia II: negotiating changes in curatiorial practices – she talks about the lost of research practice in museums giving the blame to complex causes, not only to the clear comercialization because of the tourism. On the fourth chapter– 'A place for all of us'? Museums and communities – is treated the relationship between museums and comunities with two of her examples. This chapter is very related with the ideas of Benett, as it goes around one of his arguments, «museums are not involved in the business of representing comunities but of actually constructing them»2. On the fifth chapter– Beyond the mausoleum: museums and the media – a discourse about democratization is put around the terms of audiences 1

A. Witcomb, Re-Imagining the museum. Beyond the mausoleum, Taylor & Francis Group, London, New York 2003, p. 5. 2 Ivi, p. 6.

and the new technologies. Simple objects can become an important source of information as using them in a variety of ways by adding some media displays – films, audios… – , she also mentions the way of creating more open exibitions to the visitators, as well as giving the oportunity to curators to create exclusive ones with new interpretations. Finally on the last chapter – Interactivity in museums: the politics of narrative style – she talks about interactivity in museums. Witcomb sees a relation between media and interactivity. She mentions different kinds of it, going from material things to some ways of showing the data, and stablishes three types of interactivity: technological interactivity, spatial interactivity and dialogical interactivity. She questions following the argumentations exposed on chapter four about the relations between museums and comunities if it is really more democratic to introduce an interactivity for the audiences. About this, she finishes by arguing that an increase of interaction allows a more didactic space, as well as the creation of places for dialoge. Also she relates it with no linear dispays, which give more freedom to the user, reducing the narrative role of the musem.

PART 2. PERSONAL REVIEW

1. First approach

As a main remark after the reading of the book I would like to say that it is not easy to do a critic of such a dense text with a high variety of points of view in the theme of museology. Not only because of my complete and avowed amateurism in this field, but mainly because the book on itself is actually an exercise of confrontation, a debate created by the author, generated by a huge and constant introduction of opinions of various experts. In the other hand, despite the difficulty of the reading and clearly understanding the text I would like to recognize as well the huge effort behind the work that Andrea Witcomb has developed.

2. The external agents

In this first point I’m going to talk about how Witcomb makes use of external references in the book, particulary about the effectiveness in the use of them, by one side of quotations of other authors, by the other to the case studies and examples. 2.1. The quotations As it comes to my mind I’m going to start talking about the use of quotations to other texts that she does, referring to how it affects to the interpretation of the book mainly in terms of content. While reading the book she defines some topics as well as points of view, and for all of them she always brings into scene its correspondent defenders and detractors. This constant mention of opinions from other specialists in such a continuous way, added to the sometimes excesive detailed explanations, generates a high quantity of different opinions in a few lines, sometimes becoming exhausting and disorienting for the reader, as well as difficult to take from it a clear idea. That’s why I can’t see as completely possitive such a huge effort of confrontation made by Witcomb. Also related to this is the aspect not less important of leaving her opinion on the background as becoming of little relevance, like hidden by the mix of huge quantity of opinions that generates the confusion. A secondary unsuccessful aspect, supplementing the last one, is the fact that Witcomb rather than identifying with any established side in the debate, takes what she calls a transdisciplinary approach, which means

that, despite of the already comented difficulty to take a clear conclusion, she takes a neutral position, as well as in my oppinion making her voice going unnoticed. Moreover, with this aspect, Witcomb achieves what she mentions clearly in the introduction and in the conclusions of the book, one of the main aspects, as to act just as informator or mediator putting on the table all kind of opinions between the different agents related in the museum field – cultural critics, curators… – without showing a clear affiliation to any of them, and just with the intention of giving evidence of the width of the current debates going on nowadays. And I completely agree with that because despite the dominance of Tony Bennett, the positive fact of not having used a reductive number of text references is that doing so she has given a clear taste of all that has already been written and discussed about all the museum topics she mention. In my opinion, the position she takes in this aspect is correct, not because doing so she acquires an easy neutral position, but because as herself says in one of her last conclusions, it is the way how more opinions of the people should be, more open and less specific. Suggesting it as a solution to the difficulties of the public facing all the current museum changes, as well as the confrontation between the two sides. As she says in the conclusions, this book «has enabled a fresh encounter between cultural studies and the historiography of museums enabling a more positive relationship between academic theory and museological praxis»1 2.2. The case studies Conversely I would like to talk about the use of the case studies and 1

A. Witcomb, Re-Imagining the museum. Beyond the mausoleum, Taylor & Francis Group, London, New York 2003, p. 165.

examples of museums along the book, with which doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t happen the same. The fact that a huge amount of her arguments are based and reported through the use of examples from Australia, North America, Britain, and France, is really appreciated. In my opinion is positive the fact of using a reductive number of them, focusing just on a few well known cases from her big background of knowledge, just to the ones mainly realted to her personal experiences in Australian museums. That makes more believable and of better understanding her arguments, as well as awaking in the reader a major interest. It is also appreciable the fact that she has focused on a few specific cases that she has directly experienced, particularly the Museum of Sydney and the Western Australian Maritime Museum, instead of having used a lot with a low approach. Despite the succesfull use of it, the only unseccesful point, which is not less important is the fact of the nearly unexisting graphical mateiral to support the explanations, which in my opinion makes it quite poor. This will be comented next.

3. The lacks

3.1. The graphical material Along the book, even the difficulty of the text in some tangible aspects, just a few graphical material is used to illustrate the ideas. As it is the case of the photographs attached to her discussions during chapter two about the area of Darling Harbour and hence the Australian National Maritime Museum, which are used in my opinion in a proper way. Despite of this part, for the rest of the book, the lack of more photographs, plans or drawings being used to justify or argue all that is explained, is in my opinion one clear foul, making this aspect one of the poorest points on it. For example, and as I think it should have been one of the clearest parts to be efficiently illustrated with some kind of graphical material, is during chapter six on the pages where she talks about the differentiations of the various modes of interactivity, as they are, unlike the rest amount of theoric arguments, descriptions of physical dispays or spatial organizations. Sometimes the explanations are not enough clear as they should be, what makes really evident the lack of some graphical material, and if being the case of a high difficulty on representing it generically with a diagram of the idea, then at least the insertion of few a photographs illstrating some examples of any of them could have been really helpful. Another case, is in the last chapter, when she talks about the orientation of the public during their visits to the Australian National Maritime Museum, where are used the floor plans illustrated with a few diagramatic arrows to demonstrate the arbitrary paths that they follow, as

they get lost inside. In my opinion, this simple use of the detailed floor plans that are displayed makes it strange and low efficient, as they are low relevant to help to the explanation, for being used only as a base of a very simple diagrams. I think that a better way could have been to first use them to explain the building to the reader, receiving a greater sense as contributors to make understand the reasons why the arbitrary paths are taken by the visitors. This point of the loose graphical material in my opinion is straight linked to the way it has been written the book nay to the author herself, as she comes from a sociological field, which in my opinion is also the cause of another unconvincing aspect, the one of the low discourse around the architectural issues of the museums, which if had being present for sure had contributed with more images. 3.2. The architecture That problem of the disconnection with architecture is maybe one of the aspects that personally have surprised me, making the reading quite different from what I expected, as it seems to have been forgotten of the discourse all along the book. It also creates in me a thought about the separation that is being generated with it even in later stages of the argumentation of the interior of the building, becoming the main focus among others the displays and the new technologies, which in the end seem to be nothing more than points of atraction in the interior, apparently independent or not relevant from a general architectural configuration of the building. This is quite clear in the last example of the Museum of Sydney, as she mentions how the museum disappears, allowing some of the interactivity displays to go to the street. This situation also makes me come into question the relevance of architecture unconsciously understood as the concept of a built box, which seems that unfortunately despite being seasoned with

all kind of artefacts it can still only be understood as a container of artworks, although anyone likes it because of the old connotations with the past of museum mausoleum it carries. In my opinion the problem for most of the current cases is that following the same line instead of being the autonomous mauseoleum box are the seducing envelope as it is the well known Guggenheim of Bilbao or the new Soumaya Museum in Mexico City. I think that are completely succesful the cases when everything seems to work in symbiosis, of corse the solution depends on the type of museum and to what is exposed on it. A great example of this is the Castel Vecchio of Carlo Scarpa in Verona. Even though I understand that nowadays, due to requirememts of new media social elements, the desire of change from the classic container museum is not easy, as they require special condition as well as possibility of wide changes, arriving to that solutions that despite its autonomy offer a proper way to avoid the natural light as well as high flexibility in front of any kind of change. Which is really interesting by the fact of the vertiginous evolution of museums.

4. The Evolution

In this last point I am going to talk about the issue of new technologies envolving the museum, refering to the link with the rest of the world through the Internet. Relating it to its later evolution after the publication of the book. As it use to happen with all media topics they use to get a vertiginous evolution in a short time, that’s why also in this case, as Witcomb writted the lines of chapter five and after the release of the book, she was concious of the so many changes and improvements will happen, specially around the field of the Internet and hence the museums in the web. That’s why to take a slight look on these aspects is a good idea, to see how it’s being the progress with an example, and check if the arguments that Witcomb had preluded were right. 4.1. The web She introduces the theme of the use of websites as a great succes, allowing a museum to be known from all the world, as she exemplifies with The Peabody Museum at Harvard, and the Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello where you can see what’s going on as well as some of them collections. Recently neraly all museums had developed a virtual sites, at last to be connected to the world, as well as offering some of his collection as has been done with the Prado Museum coinciding with his physical new extension, but the case I would like to talk goes further than this obvious fact. As I found few years ago through a TED conference the

GoogleArtProject, which in my opinion is a completely break with the other ideas. It is, as his creator Amit Sood explains, a project that involves a lot of well known museums around the world, like the Ufizi, the Moma, the Hermitage... merging them in a virtual platform, where you can visit them as if you are inside, you can go around and have the possibility to select an artwork and know all its data as well as see it in a astonishing high resolution. But more than this, is the fact that you can create your own collections with your selection of artworks from different museums. With this last fact it is produced an unlink from the museum and the artists, and this is in my opinion the most breaking aspect questioning the concept of museum. In the end, as he said, there’s a question that people use to do to him, «Did you do this to replicate the experience of going a museum?»2 He answers that it is to supplement it, while I don’t so, but to break even more the concept we have in mind.

A. Sood, Building a museum of museums on the web, TED Conference 2011

5. Conclusions

After the reading, and later comprehension of the book, I first want to say that this is definitely a very specific book, with an elaborated content, coming from a huge research made by the author on the field of museology and social relations. It has been written to create a confrontation of opinions, trying to find out, with a huge effort, an acceptable common ground to go on in the future. I completely agree with the following advice note that Witcomb gaves in the begining of the book, «I hope to avoid an interpretation of the current moment as a radical break from the past»3, because I like to see as equal valid all museums, as they carry the essence of what a museum is, each of them according to its necessities, without seing a break and change from what them had traditionaly been and trying to found the new formula of what they really should be today. That’s why following this argumentations, and after reading all the points commented in the book, it comes to my mind the fact that nowadays the term museum is used for almost every kind of place in which are exposed a set of things related by one topic, which I don’t think is wrong, but leads into a huge amount of different kind of places under the concept of museum. And it is because of that, and depending on the circumstances, context and what is exposed, that makes them be one way or another, but having as equal valid all of them. Maybe ones could be just as a mausoleum container, while others more like an completely integrated media machine; on the other hand maybe 3

A. Witcomb, Re-Imagining the museum. Beyond the mausoleum, Taylor & Francis Group, London, New York 2003, p. 5.

one could offer a perfect linear distribution, while another a completely random one. I think that there are places where you just like to go with a previous learned knowledge, just to see the artworks you are interested in, among a huge offer, as it happen with big museums like the Louvre in Paris or the Prado in Madrid. While others with a secondary thematic offer present a sense of discovery or curiosity to the public, for example as it use to happen with the city museums, where specially tourist like to go when they arrive into a city, to know about the mood of it, its history, the current sitaton, as well as some other interesting aspects of it. In my opinion, and going in the same direction, I don’t think that a museum would be better for using one kind of interactivity or another, even if it doesn’t have any. That’s why the question that makes Witcomb quoting Tim Flannery «Is it true that it is only through the use of multimedia that museums can become interactive and more democratic?»4 brings me to the chapter six, and specifically to last one of the interactivities, the dialogical interactivity, which she explains as a complete interaction with the user, allowing absolute free learning ways, and this is where in my opinion the argument goes much further from what a museum should be. I’m not rejecting the use of interactivities from the moment that I think that an interaction can be fine if it helps to the user, but not If it becomes the only possible solution, because it also as the rest, can entail some negative aspects, going from an excesive focalization on the displays instead of the objects until being created by artists not curators, if not becoming very specific museums more similar to educational adventures, as she says «this is a museum for museum lovers and for those with an interest in contemporay media installations. It is not a museum for the general public»5. 4

A. Witcomb, Re-Imagining the museum. Beyond the mausoleum, Taylor & Francis Group, London, New York 2003, p. 2. 5 Ivi, p. 163.

What I mean with all of that argumentation about the concept of the museum taken from ideas of the book, is the fact that, as she in some way mentions, one of the solutions to find a common ground in the current difficult times of changes can be a more tolerant behaviour beetween the factions acting in the debate, as well as between the public and the museum, and in this way reducing the confrontation to find a proper solution. But what is more relevant in my opinion is another fact that I want to mention to end with the conclusions, as I relate it also to the difficult essence of the text on itself. This is a fact that Witcomb herself reminds us, giving it as the cause of most of the mistakes on the assertions that have been given by the theorists of all time, going from Michel Foucault to Tony Bennett. And it is the fact of the uselessness of the huge teorizations that are still being done, with the desire of bringing new contributions to the wide debate, and which unavoidably fail by the fact of going too much deep into arguments which are neither specific nor framed, until arriving in the end to a never completely successful nor efective end, as it happen the same with the main concept of the museum itself, of which we use to forget the complexity it embraces.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

WITCOMB, Andrea, Re-Imagining the museum. Beyond the mausoleum, Taylor & Francis Group, London, New York 2003. SOOD, Amit, Building a museum of museums on the web, TED Conference 2011.