How Haunting Benefits Visiting Experience in Museum

PARALLEL PHOTO ESSAY

How Haunting Benefits Visiting Experience in Museums: A Study of Sir John Soane’s Museum

FOREWORD This photo essay is parallelled with essay How Haunting Benefits Visiting Experience in Museums: A Study of Sir John Soane’s Museum. It aims to illustrate and visualize the haunted characteristics in Soane's Museum more vividly. Five main haunted characteristics are presented here, displayed in following order: • A conflict and bond between homely and unhomely; • No systemized order of exhibits; • Countless mirrors; • Unexpected spaces and mazelike layout; • A ruin-themed museum and overwhelmed experience.

All photos included in this photo essay were taken by author, Lianjie Wu, in 2016.

10th Jan. 2017

Chaper One

Conflict and bond between homely and unhomely

Uncanny object, a tomb model for Soane's family, is displayed in the living room.

Homlely space, a living room, is crowded by exhibits.

Monk's parloura, a room for tea, is filled with crowded exhibits which were collected from ruins. The room is disfunctional visually.

As a house-museum, Soane's Museum fundamentally present a combination of homely spaces and unhomely spaces. Homely spaces disarm visitors. Meanwhile, unhomely museum exhibits might more easily cast an uncanny shadow on visitors.

Chaper Two

No systemized order of exhibits

Randomly arranged objects in Sonae's Museum

The second contributing characteristic lies in the difference of the order. In most conventional museums, exhibits are organized in a country-based or era-based logic. But in Soane’s Museum, exhibits are not placed according to a specific system. The order is not based on country, neither chronology. Sir John Soane himself was constantly rearranging the display and adding exhibits during his whole life, mainly according to mood and atmosphere.

In Sonae's Museum, objects are not systematically arranged like ones in conventional museums. They are displayed according to size, mood and atmosphere.

Chaper Three

Countless mirrors The third haunted characteristic of the museum is the use of mirrors. Hundreds of mirros are used in Soane's Musem, creating an illusionary world. A distorted world, a placeless world, an infinite world and a world connected with other spaces.

Mirrors also doubled the number of collections. Curtis in his work Dark Places (2008, pp.12) concludes this doubling effect could bring mysteries into a house and blur the time through reflections, encounters and repetitions. The increased number of collections is also argued as a factor which contributes to a overwhelming impulse on visitors.

Mirrors create a placeless, virtual and unreal world. Visitors see themselves there where they are absent (Foucault and Miskowiec, 1986), engaged individuals into a virtual world. This absent person is frequently interpreted as another ‘me’ or another personality in horror films. As for the ‘fanciful’ density proliferated by mirrors, Curtis (2008, pp.39) puts forward his opinion towards that. He states that the density of old collections and interiors is menacing.

In Soane’s Museum, visitors could always notice that hidden spaces are reflected in mirrors, for instance, an excess of corridors, cupboards and doors. Curtis (2008, pp.66) suggests those objects psychologically produce a metaphoric portal into other unknown spaces. Similarly, Doors and cupboards present a piercing anxiety and uncertainty about thresholds, functioning as portal to other subliminal realms.

Mirrors benefits to a dramatic effect of light and shades.

Visitors have a chance to encounter an unreal stage addressed by the dramatic effect, instead of the real existing museum. Curtis (2008, pp.60-61) further explains that mirrors and the effect of light and shadow dematerialize objects, confusing a real world from an unreal world. A night tour, especially a candle lit night tour, highlights this spectacular effect of light and shadow. A dense view of flickering lights and shades at night brings life back to the museum (Furján, 2002).

Discrete light cuts integrate objects into pieces.

Dramatic light and shades create an unreal spectacle.

Mirrors reflect light sources, adding more elusory sources.

Those spot lights sparkle in the room. In this nine square meters breakfast room in No.13, visitors are surrounded by 122 plain and convex mirrors. Stepping into the breakfast room is like falling into Alice’s Wonderland. Soane described the room as ‘a succession of those fanciful effects’ which are created by the lightness of shadow and the use of more than one hundred pieces of mirrors.

Chaper Four

Unexpected spaces and maze-like layout

In Soane’s Museum, spaces and rooms are disoriented and are not exposed to public visitors straightforward. They are hiding themselves and playing hide-and-seek with visitors. This maze-like layout casts a shadow of uncertainty and insecurity, especially in an uncanny surrounding with chaos as well as mysterious light and shades.

A view to Picture Room from Monk's Parlour when the movable wall is closed.

A view to Picture Room from Monk's Parlour when the movable wall is opened.

Spaces in Soane's Museum could be observed from different perspectives and most of them turn out to be disoriented.

Chaper Five

A ruin-themed museum and overwhelmed experience A ruin theme is deeply interwoven in Soane’s Museum.

Soane bought the property in 1722, demolished it and then rebuilt it. He perceived ruin as a recurring theme in his lifetime (Hill, 2012, pp.90). Hill (2012, pp.90) points out the museum itself is running as ruin, as Soane aimed for. Soane stuck with this theme not only with the building itself but also filled the house-museum by collecting objects from ruins. Spaces, especially dome area and colonnade, are crammed with damaged fragments from ruins.

Soane exposed his collections without any protection measures. Exhibits are exposed and left to decay. Visitors confront ruined collections so closely, embedded by historical traces. This is a direct and straightforward dialogue between visitors and exhibits, present and past, human time and geological time, much more powerful than the one in other museums.

Monk’s yard accommodates a monk’s tomb and ruins of his Monastery, as well as ruins of the old Palace of Westminster.

British Museum’s former director, Neil MacGregor depicts Sonae’s Museum is a museum ‘getting the whole world in one building’. Individuals confront a whole universe in Soane’s Museum. Furján (2002) highlights in Soane’s Museum, a series of wonder spectacles, which are swarmed with old objects and details, projects a highly illusionistic and overwhelming world. And it has the ability to destabilize visitors (Furján, 2002). The infinity of time is embodied in ruins, generating a feeling of helplessness and weakness.