1. art and entertainment
2. visual art and design
3. art museums and galleries

NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2011 1
●
Forord
Den femte NODEM1-konference om digitale medier og kulturarv
blev afholdt i København den 24.-26. november 2010 med titlen
”From Place to Presence”, hvor de digitale teknologiers betydning
for centrale museologiske emner blev præsenteret og diskuteret af
oplægsholdere og deltagere fra museer, styrelser og universiteter.
Konferencen var flersporet og bestod af præsentationer og demonstrationer af igangsatte digitale museumsprojekter fra Norden,
USA og Australien, workshops med diskussioner og mere teoretiske
forelæsninger om digitale teknologiers indflydelse og betydning for
museums- og kulturarvsbegrebet.
Fra denne konference2 har Nordisk Museologi valgt at publicere
fem artikler, som sammen med tre andre indsendte artikler danner
grundlaget for dette nummers fokus på Digital museologi.3
Digital museologi er ganske vist ikke et helt nyt felt, hverken videnskabeligt eller institutionelt. I 1999 publicerede Steve Dietz,
der dengang var leder af New Media Initiatives ved Walker Art
Gallery i Minneapolis, netartiklen ”CyberMuseology: Taking the
museum to the Net/bringing digital media to the museum”,4 hvor
han argumenterede for, at ”cybermuseologien” ville flytte museologiens fokus fra fysiske samlinger til digitale databaser, fra særudstillinger til on-line-udstillinger, fra envejskommunikation til interaktivitet og kommunikation. Han opererede både med et museum
2.0 og 3.0.
Om ”Museum 3.0” skrev Steve Dietz i samme artikel: ”‘Museum
3.0’ will be a hybrid that is both physical and digital, both center
and a node in the network, destination and portal, museum and
archive. The more seamlessly the aspects are integrated, the greater
FORORD
2
the potential to engage our audience, anytime, anywhere, including
here and now. To achieve this evolutionary mutation, we must learn
how to socialize cyberspace. It must be a place and a means for interaction between people, not just ideas.”
Museum 3.0 er endnu langt fra en realitet for de fleste museer, men
museerne verden over har været og er forsat nødt til at gentænke sig
som sted, organisation og sin samfundsmæssige funktion. Artiklernes
forfattere i dette nummer beskæftiger sig især med gentænkningen af
museumsformidlingen og vidensindsamlingen ved hjælp af nye sociale
medier.
I de næste mange år vil den digitale museologi sætte sit præg på museerne og tilsvarende kulturarvsinstituioner og justere eller ligefrem
ændre deres selvforståelse og samfundsmæssige opgaver; og teorier fra
de beslægtede medievidenskaber vil give ny næring til museologiens
begrebslige grundlag.
Sigurjón Baldur Hafsteinsson og Ane Hejlskov Larsen
1. NODEM er en forkortelse for Nordic Digital Excellence in Museums og har holdt konferencer siden 2003.
2. Konferencens hjemmeside for 2010 var: http://www.nodem.dk/. Senest set 13.maj 2011.
3. Redaktionen for Nordisk Museologi takker for et godt samarbejde med NODEM-komiteen om publiceringen af udvalgte artikler fra konferencen.
4. Denne artikel findes ikke længere på nettet. Den var i 1999 en central artikel sammen med
andre artikler af Steve Dietz.
NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2011 1, S. 3-14
●
Social Media and Community
Involvement in Museums
A case study of a local history wiki community
DAGNY STUEDAHL*
Abstract: The article focuses on a study of knowledge creation and organizing in
a local history wiki. The background for this study was to understand how web
2.0 and social media might open new possibilities for museums to collaborate with
communities and lay professionals in cultural heritage knowledge creation. Digital
technologies provide tools that in many ways overcome challenges of physical
collaboration between museums and amateurs. But technologies also bring in new
aspects of ordering, categorizing and systematizing knowledge that illuminates the
different institutional as well as professional frameworks that writing local
historical knowledge into digital forms in fact represents.
Key words: Digital cultural heritage, wiki and social media, collaborative
knowledge creation, online local history.
During the past twenty years, there has been
considerable practical and theoretical interest
in the relationship between heritage sites and
communities, and we are facing many new
initiatives undertaken by museums, archives and
heritage institutions with a view to community
involvement. These are profiling museums
as responsive, democratic and reflective
institutions that promote civil participation of
communities actively (Stevens, Flinn and
Shepherd 2010). The interest can be traced
back to the promotion of community
development ideas in the 1950s and 1960s,
which was understood as an opportunity to
involve civil society in public policy (Crooke
2007). In addition to creating social practices
that could transcend institutional borders, the
involvement of communities has also become
an ethical issue in the ICOM Code of Ethics –
where museums are defined as being in the
service of the community, respecting their
interests and working in close collaboration
with communities “from which their collections
originate” (Crooke 2007).
Social media have lately been embraced due
to their potential to meet with this call for
museums and heritage institutions to be
responsive, democratic and reflective and
subsequently take “museum conversation”
beyond the museum (Black 2010). We find
a considerable amount of practical and
theoretical studies of the ways digital
DAGNY STUEDAHL
4
technologies are being used by museums to
involve visitors and communities (Witcomb
1999 and 2003, Cameron and Kenderdine
2007, Parry 2009, Bowers et al. 2007). Many
studies show how museums are comfortable
using social networking technologies, such as
Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and
blogging, and are welcoming the possibilities
these provide to invite communities and
participants into dialogues and sharing (Dicker
2010). Meanwhile, social media are yet to have
a significant impact on museums’ overall
strategic approach to communication and
engagement with visitors, audiences and
communities. Museum communication remains
fundamentally one-to-many and has been slow
to recognise visitors as active participants
(Russo et al. 2007). Studies of blogs authored
by curators suggest that such activities do not
align easily with the physical practices of
curators, which are still strongly linked to
collections, objects and their stories (Dicker
2010). It seems that the integration of social
media into museums’ curatorial and pedagogical
practices preserves a situation in which these
media are primarily used to engage visitors in
short-term voting and rating, or to engage
communities in collecting images. Accordingly,
the social and institutional boundaries
established by authority, authorship and
ownership challenge the relationship between
museums and its communities when social
media are introduced (Russo et al. 2008).
Meanwhile, numerous cultural heritage
communities such as local history organizations
and genealogical societies, organizations and
NGO initiatives have integrated social media
technologies into their practices. This article
draws attention towards these cultural heritage
communities outside, and interdependent of,
the museums’ institutional frameworks and the
way they integrate social media to invite
members and registered users to contribute
with their local knowledge as well as their
stories of private experiences related to historical
sites, objects and places. As introduction of
social networking technologies may give
communities a role in new relationships between
museums, policy politics and the cultural
heritage knowledge field (Stuedahl 2009), it
becomes emergent to ask how communities use
these technologies, and how social media
support or constrain the interpretation and
writing of history and heritage, as well as how
they enhance the collaboration between
community members.
Local history organizations have taken
interesting directions enhanced by wiki
technologies, and this article reports from an
ongoing study of a Norwegian Media WIKIbased site for the production and sharing of
local historical knowledge from numerous
districts and small towns around Norway.
Launched in 2008, the www.lokalhistoriewiki.no project has collected over 9593 articles
and 10174 photos,1 written in collaboration
between 700 lay and professional local
historians who have registered into the wiki.
This community collaboration provides an
interesting case for studies of how wiki
technologies frame knowledge building in
heterogeneous communities and how the
structuring, categorization, writing and
production of representations of historical
knowledge take place between amateurs and
professionals within this framework. The
article will seek to answer the following
research questions: How does wiki technology
enhance and constrain collaborative activities
of writing history and categorizing historical
site, artefacts, photos and events – building
historical knowledge and facts?
SOCIAL MEDIA AND COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
As virtual communities in the cultural
heritage sector are increasingly seen as
supplementing institutional knowledge (Affleck
and Kvan 2008), it seems imperative that
collaborative approaches get explored in ways
that allow institutions and communities to
work on an increasingly even footing and to
augment the leadership role played by
community groups when establishing
partnerships (Perkin 2010). The last research
question therefore asks how existing wiki
communities can inform involvement of
communities in museums?
CONCEPTS OF COMMUNITIES AND INVOLVEMENT
The responsiveness museums have established
to meet communities and the cultures they
represent has taken many and diverging forms
of re-contextualising and re-localizing cultural
heritage objects and knowledge (Message
2006). Still, critical voices have been raised
claiming museums are “floating above the
community”, and are not as hospitable as we
expect them to be (Hazan 2007). This points
to the complex processes of boundary crossing
and partial connections that collaboration
between museum institutions and communities
involves (Meyer 2010). These communities
represent groups of people linked by a shared
interest, who collaboratively build knowledge
and negotiate facts about historical artefacts,
sites and events outside the museum, but are
still deeply related to the institutional
frameworks that museums and heritage
institutions represent. Also, the critique
challenges the traditional understanding of
museums as places that attempt to achieve some
form of homogeneous order by classificatory,
aesthetic or narrative means (Hetherington
1999), and push the issue of community
IN
MUSEUMS
involvement in museums into considering
new forms of collaboration as well as
re-contextualising museums’ knowledge
responsibilities into new forms of engagement
and involvement.
The multiple forms of communities,
community dynamics and social actions related
to communities are highly linked to the
character of community in question, as well as
the perspectives used in studying them.
Communities can be understood as social
spaces for the formation of identity, they can be
understood as tools in local and national
government and they can be understood as a
form of social action (Crooke 2007). The
symbolic, the political and the civic
communities are involved in societal and
political processes at different levels, and as
such ask distinguished and specific questions
related to the type of knowledge building
featured by community engagement. Models
of engagement can be highly successful, but
without caution can also result in unsustainable
projects that might erode the trust of
communities (Perkin 2010). Understanding the
character of the community thus clearly deserves
attention, as do its forms of engagement, how it
comes to be assembled concerning the
work, the politics, the materialities, the
identities and the uncertainties that go into the
formation and maintenance of a community
(Meyer and Molyneux-Hodgson 2010).
Moreover, involving communities also calls
for a deeper understanding of the knowledge
building processes that are prevalent and that
might affect involvement endeavours.
Understanding communities in the heritage
sector might need other perspectives and
approaches than studying – for example – the
involvement of communities in health sector
policy. The notion of involvement of
5
DAGNY STUEDAHL
6
communities also needs to be specified: is it
part of a trajectory where communities are
invited by museums into developing the
knowledge frameworks for curating exhibition,
or the societal activities related to visitor
programmes, are communities involved in the
collecting and documenting activities on a
practical level, or are they involved in the
indexing and categorizing of objects as well?
These are only brief examples.
There are several related concepts of
communities that are relevant for an analysis of
cultural heritage communities, such as the one
we meet in the local history wiki in our study.
Overall, the different concepts point to
different goals and orientations of the
community, such as the policy-relevant
knowledge denoted by the concept of epistemic
communities (Haas 1992), which is used in
studies of how activist groups and self-help
groups are emerging in the health sector
(Akrich 2010). Or the more activity-based
concept communities of practice, which is a
concept that involves the knowledge production
that takes place in informal settings inside and
between collectives. Communities of practice
have developed a repertoire of languages,
routines, sensibilities, artefacts, tools, stories,
styles, etc. in building a shared understanding
of what their community is about (Lave and
Wenger 1991).
The notion of communities of practice has
been used to describe the connections and
collaboration between amateurs and
professionals related to museums collection
(Meyer 2010 and 2008) and exhibition
development (Høg Hansen and Moussouri
2004), arguing that these also consist of partial
connections in which participants not have
clearly defined roles. These collaborations are
based on the enrolment of lay people in the
professional knowledge building in museums,
and have been used as examples in the
discussion of re-thinking museums in terms of
their relation to wider society (Meyer 2008).
Collaborations between lay people and
professionals is boundary work, in which the
practices of amateurs and professionals are
articulated, performed and protected. Protection
of time builds one practical example, where
amateurs collaborate in a different time frame
from professionals. Collaborating in their
leisure time, amateurs seem to refuse deadlines
and devices that bind them to the time regime
of museums’ practices. For collaborators,
deadlines can be disabling since they limit or at
least clearly frame their activities. Also,
amateurs’ spatial situatedness leads to located
performances of (for example) collecting data
as based on other criteria than those used by
professionals. Private life and the practical
restrictions this poses for collaboration are one
concrete example (Meyer 2008). When the
museum and the collaborators work together,
different spaces, times and practices are
brought together – challenging the alignment
and enrolment between amateurs and
professionals.
There are multiple, varied, more-or-lessengaged and inclusive ways of being located in
collaborative participation (Lave and Wenger
1991, Meyer 2008). Involving collaborators in
the scientific work of museums makes it clear
that the connections between amateurs and
professionals are fragile. “When they do
science, where they do science, how they do
science and with what tools they do science is
what differentiates collaborators from museum
staff members and more generally, amateurs
from professionals” (Meyer 2008: 48). Involving
communities in museums’ knowledge work may
therefore produce demarcations between
SOCIAL MEDIA AND COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
amateurs and professional that requires
boundary work.
Reports from projects that involve new
communities, such as indigenous people, point
to the inadequacy of standard collection
documentation (see Verran et al. 2006, Verran
2007; Brown 2007; Witcomb 1997 and 2003;
Cameron and Robinson 2007) as examples of
how categorization involves boundary work
when involving new collaborators. These
studies also show how multiple categories can
be integrated and play a role for involving new
communities in the indexing. In historical
studies of development of classification systems
at Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, a
more pragmatic view of categories as tools in
boundary work is put forward. The studies
show how understanding of categories might
be heterogeneous in that they work as
boundary objects, in the sense of flexible
concepts that build a common framework for
defined communities (Star and Griesemer
1989, Bowker and Star 1999). The development
of categories in online cultural heritage
communities, as well as the role of technology
in this development, therefore makes an
interesting entry point for understanding the
role of technology as tools for boundary work
and knowledge building between amateurs and
professionals. We need deeper studies of how
the online collaboration and knowledge
building in fact takes place, to understand how
time, space and materiality might have different
shapes and roles in online communities of
practice than in physical collaborations between
museums and their communities.
WIKI AND CULTURAL HERITAGE COMMUNITIES
With the advent of digital technologies, new
social practices emerge, such as user-led
IN
MUSEUMS
content creation. New forms of community
develop that are defined through voluntary,
temporary and tactical affiliations and that are
held together through the mutual production
and reciprocal exchange of knowledge (Jenkins
2006). In what has been defined as convergence
culture (ibid), everyone is a participant,
although participants may have different
degrees of status and influence. As with
understanding online communities, understanding
members as participants that are both
producers and consumers of content has caused
the evolvement of new concepts to capture the
co-creative engagement of online community
members: “Producers engage not in a
traditional form of content production, but in
produsage – the collaborative and continuous
building and extending of existing content in
pursuit of further improvement” (Bruns 2008:
21). In Wikipedia, the produsage principle
becomes clear in the work with unfinished
articles in a continuing process. Related to wiki
communities, the concept of produsage speaks
directly to the perceived affordances of wikis as
emerging knowledge spaces that are
collaboratively created and edited, and where
the form of knowledge representations
significantly departs from encyclopedia, which
encapsulate the current state of accepted
knowledge. The content creation of wiki spaces
is an always incomplete and continuing process
that relies on constructive participation.
Contrary to the discussion of encyclopedia, this
builds an ability to arrive at a full and complete
definition of any topic (Bruns 2008).
The concepts of produsage and co-creation
may not give a basis for understanding the
novelty of knowledge production in online
cultural heritage communities per se, given that
historical knowledge and memory have always
been cumulative and modified through
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DAGNY STUEDAHL
8
articulatory practices that stand in relation to
the context, as for example the technology
(Reading 2003). Meanwhile, online heritage
and the writing of history in wiki form require
structuring and categorizing the past, and give
room for establishing new structures that might
give communities opportunities to develop
their own indexing of knowledge.
WIKI COMMUNITIES – BRIDGING EXPERT AND
LAY KNOWLEDGE IN LOCAL HISTORY
The wiki community we are studying was
launched by the Norwegian Institute of Local
History in 2008. This is an independent public
institution partly financed by the Norwegian
Ministry of Culture. Founded in 1955, the
institute has kept its purpose of promoting
local and regional activity through providing
services, research and documentation with a
focus that spans from local historical interest
and engagement to professional and academic
interest. The institute collaborates closely with
the Norwegian Association of Local History,
founded in 1920 and established by 421 local
history associations, comprising 80,000
individual members among local historians in
Norway. The political and historical
background and goal for the community of
local historians evolving at the local history
wiki is therefore closely related to the
Norwegian modern local history movement
that took shape in the early 20th century. The
cultural and ideological background can be
traced back to the agrarian populist and
national democratic movement of the time
(Alsvik 1993). There was a reinforced local
history trend from the 1970s onwards,
connected to the general upsurge of (leftist)
populism, regionalism and the emphasis on
history from below (Burke 1992).
The Institute is connected to most history
departments of universities and colleges in
Norway, since staff historians have been
engaged in major local history projects. In
Norway, the publishing of “Bygde” books
(book collections rendering the history of the
rural, urban district or town) or the farm and
family history accounting for individual
farms and families are financed by public
authorities of the municipalities and mostly
written by professionals. In addition,
approximately 300 local history annuals – in
which local history amateurs dominate – are
published every year.
The story of how the Norwegian Institute of
Local History tried to provide technology to
enhance community activities in several
iterations informed us that efforts are needed to
customize and match technology to actual
community needs, ease of use and providing
means for learning and development. As early
as 2003, they opened a site on the Internet that
was originally thought of as a site that could
open up for collaboration with, and between,
different institutions. This initiative was met
with low activity and the institute reorganized
the site to present the activities of the institute.
In 2006, the institute started a local history
network to connect people working with local
history projects. These projects shared the
common need for a methodology and solving
practical problems. However, this initiative
ended up being one-way interaction; the
institute serving other institutions, organizations
and people.
While considering re-editing the Norwegian
Historical Lexica, the institute started to
develop the idea of using a wiki format for
organizing the contents. In 2008, they
launched lokalhistoriewiki.no, which now has
close to 900 registered users. Unlike a forum,
SOCIAL MEDIA AND COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
participating in a wiki requires that users are
registered as clearly identified individuals.
Individuals cannot participate in a wiki
discussion without being registered. In addition,
wiki collaboration is based on participants
having different roles. These roles are defined
by 4 “bureaucrats” for the wiki administration,
17 technical administrators and 12 vocational
supervisors who help users with questions of
method, defining source qualities, etc. as well
as license questions, editing or closing pages –
these being just some examples of the functions
involved.
Reporting from the first steps of this
longitudinal study of how the local history wiki
is developing, this article will focus on how the
co-construction of knowledge is evolving in
relation to the development of concepts and
categories that structure the wiki space. The
wiki contains an own space for categorizing
discussions. We have chosen an excerpt that
evolved during summer 2010, in which
professionals and lay historians negotiate about
categories for ships, boats and marine vessels.
The discussion thread was started by one of
the professional historians, beginning in June
2010 and stating that categorizing boat types is
challenging, because most formal categories are
built on categories in the registration systems
provided by the Directorate of Fisheries, which
does not cover all the historical boats and
vessels in the Norwegian tradition. Pointing to
the fact that in the future boats might be
described in numerous articles in the wiki, the
collaborator (here anonymised as AK) states
that it might be wise to start making a system
of categories that does not need to be
reorganized. AK notes that a group from the
west coast of Norway has started to build a
structure of categories based on a registration
structure on fishing boats provided by the local
IN
MUSEUMS
museum, and publishes a hyperlink to the page
as a proposal.
This structure contains information about
localities in the municipality, formal category,
attribute, name of the boat related to type of
operation, name of type of boat, materials used
in construction, building year, size, volume,
name, year in which the motor was built, etc.
The structure clearly captured both the
material and the functioning aspects of the
boat. All in all, the proposal suggested
providing 15 subcategories for categorizing
boats.
The request was immediately responded to
by the administrators (anonymized as OU, SJ
and IT), who discussed how the structure of
categories could be built in more simple ways.
Suggesting that marine vessels might be the
main category, and then start building
subcategories, the administrator OU tries to
keep the amount of categories on a decent level.
After some discussion with his fellow
administrators, he suggests opening up for
categorizing vessels after type. SJ asks how the
type of vessels would identify the material
character, the function and the use of the vessel.
At this point, one of the collaborators points to
the many vessels that are characterized by their
functions (cargo ships, oil tankers, service
–ships, etc.). At the end of the day the
administrator OU proposes categorizing vessels
by type, function, progress and construction.
Next day, the collaborator OH (the member
of the community on the west coast that started
the discussion, and also an active amateur
expert in marine history) posts a new question
into the discussion. He asks about using a
structure of categories that is well known and
widely used among people on the coast as well
as in maritime communities. He points out
that the index used by the Directorate is based
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DAGNY STUEDAHL
10
on well-known acronyms that have been used
for 100 years, and that these concepts are
integrated in the category system that his
community has developed in collaboration
with the coastal museum. He points to the
importance of the system of categories used in
the wiki being developed close to the categories
that are well known and used in communities
and museums outside the wiki – because, as he
argues, it will be important that the concepts
are used in their natural form in writing and
storytelling.
The post from OH resulted in the
administrator IT suggesting categorizing on
the basis of type, function, material and
construction. This was responded to by “Å”,
arguing that this system will neglect the open
traditional boats of Norwegian maritime
history and suggesting that the categorizing
enrols type, function, material, construction
and rig. Å also ends his post by pointing out
that the wiki should develop according to
normal thesaurus practice – and that it is
important to clarify this early in the wiki
discussion.
Two days later, the administrator IT asked
whether the categorizing could start on a
simple level – to be extended when it is clear
what needs people in the wiki community
have. Å answers by asking what would be
fruitful for the wiki – seen in relation to the
concepts used by management institutions
such as the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural
Heritage and the Cultural Heritage Act. The
discussion thread ends here, and at the
moment of analyzing this category discussion
three months later, the lokalhistoriewiki.no has
built the structures of categories related to
vessels based on locality, vessel according to
period and vessels according to type, and boat
types.
DISCUSSION
While the open structure of the wiki platform
clearly provides the technological means that
enhance the negotiations – crossing time,
making the multiple contributions visible,
providing access to participate in discussions
from multiple viewpoints – it still seems that
the administrators are given an important
degree of authority, in that it is their
responsibility to find solutions that solve the
challenges of establishing a category structure
that is simple and easy to use for all. It is also
their job to find a granularity of categories
professional enough to provide a conceptual
level that makes the wiki sufficiently specific for
professional knowledge building.
The vocational supervisors appointed by the
Institute of Local History have the role of
checking the articles to adhere to professional
criteria, and they have competencies in history
and/or in related fields. Supervisors can also
discuss relevance, use of methods and questions
related to resources with authors of articles in
the wiki, and will check referencing, validity
and source criticism related to published
articles. The technical administrators have the
role of adjusting wiki technology, helping new
users and following up on new publications in
the wiki. They can delete or re-publish pages,
they can lock pages, they can block individual
users, they edit messages in the system and they
can import from other wikis. As such, they
have a double role as both technical and
administrative gatekeepers, and their boundary
work contains technical and systemic
challenges as well as professional evaluations.
The discussion of categorizing boats, ships
and vessels mentioned above shows the
importance of administrators (IT, S and OU)
and supervisors (AK), who started the
SOCIAL MEDIA AND COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
discussion. We also see how the collaborators
(OH, GE and Å) participate by providing their
knowledge in the field. Interestingly, what we
do see in this thread is that collaborators are not
in the periphery of practice – instead they are
in the centre of the discussion, providing their
experience and practices as well as negotiating
the quality level of categorizing a new field in
the wiki. Being lay people, they demonstrate a
high level of competence, and they also show
how their competencies lean on formal
indexical systems used by maritime institutions
and museums. The argument of using existing
indexing because this is what is well known to
people indicates that the boundary between lay
and professional knowledge in this field is not
important for practical reasons. Rather than
observing a boundary between lay and
professionals in the categorizing of vessels, we
observe a boundary related to the multiple
requirements that are related to the wiki. We
see how the role of wiki administrators to keep
the amount of categories at a low level collides
with the shared responsibility they have with
the collaborators and supervisors to keep the
quality of the wiki at a high professional level.
As such, we need to study the practices of
administrators of wiki in their endeavours to
align conflicting interests and controversies to
understand how the writing of local history
and heritage crosses boundaries between
communities, museums, institutions and
technology.
Our observation of the negotiation of
categories tells us that in fact we observe several
communities of practice that are involved in
building the knowledge space of the wiki; the
administrators, the vocational supervisors and
the collaborators. Each of these communities is
involved in knowledge development with other
communities outside the wiki. Developing a
IN
MUSEUMS
policy of categorization for the wiki therefore
becomes a complex alignment of diverging
practices and considerations. The participants
in this discussion thread are well aware that the
outcome of the discussion, achieving a solid
tree of categories that will structure future
articles about marine vessels, will in fact decide
whether this wiki will be interesting for coastal
historians and historians of coastal culture as
well as for communities and museums outside
these. Because they are in positions of
responsibility regarding the growth of the wiki,
the participants in this discussion are therefore
also aware that the discussion has a policy level.
As such, the wiki community could be defined
as an epistemic community that has a
recognized expertise and competence in a
particular domain and an authoritative claim to
policy-relevant knowledge (Haas 1992), in
which normative and principled beliefs inform
the administrators, according to prescribed
qualities of a wiki.
The knowledge building on lokalhistoriewiki.no can as such be understood as being
based on negotiating practices between several
diverging communities – the community of
historians as well as the community of wiki
administrators. These negotiations become on
the one hand an epistemic discussion in which
the quality of knowledge structure will be an
important part of building trust for new
participants to become involved in the wiki
community, as well as for building the wiki as a
knowledge space that connects well with
diverse communities. Apart from this
constraint, we also see that the collaborative
negotiations on lokalhistoriewiki.no enhance
discussions that illuminate relations to
institutional frameworks and to official
knowledge systems as well as to multiple
community knowledge. This might characterize
11
DAGNY STUEDAHL
12
the cultural heritage field apart from the
knowledge production in other wiki spaces,
such as Wikipedia, and we need further studies
to understand if and how cultural heritage
communities differ in their uptake of technology
and how this gives new opportunities for
knowledge creation and sharing. For now, only
brief contours of a complex and intertwined
network of relations between actors, institutions
and communities are drawn that calls for
deeper understanding of the epistemic
collaborations and reliance in the cultural
heritage field. For museums to find entry
points into these community negotiations, it is
essential to understand what role they may fill
and it might be necessary to turn the question
of involvement around, asking how museums
can be involved in the knowledge building of
networked communities.
NOTES
1. Statistics from January 2011.
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*Dagny Stuedahl, dr. polit og MA I folkloristikk
ved Universitetet i Oslo.
Adresse: Universitetet i Oslo,
P.o.box 1161, Blindern,
0375 Oslo
E-mail: [email protected]
NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2011 1, S. 15-34
●
Challenges for the Technological
Augmentation of Open-Air Museums:
Bridging Buildings, Artefacts and Activities
LUIGINA CIOLFI* AND MARC MCLOUGHLIN*
Abstract: This paper reports research and design work focused on enhancing visitor
experience of an open-air museum, Bunratty Folk Park in County Clare (Ireland). We
will discuss how existing work in the domain of museum technologies has so far dealt
little with open-air sites. Our approach aimed at developing themes of participation
and visitor contribution at a site that differs from indoor exhibitions on the grounds
of size, structure and material on display. We will describe the background research and
design research towards an interactive multi-device installation entitled “Reminisce”
for Bunratty Folk Park, informed by a focus centred on visitor activities and their
experience of place. We will then provide examples of visitors’ interactions with
Reminisce in order to show how this approach can lead to successful design
interventions.
Key words: Open-air museums, interaction design, place, interactive installation.
We present a design case that was conducted as
part of a feasibility study for the introduction of
Information and Communication Technologies
(ICTs) at museums and other visitor attractions.
An integral part of the project was the
investigation of current visitor experience at
one particular site, and the development of
design recommendations and scenarios. The
project was conducted in partnership with
business/marketing experts and telecommunications engineers. Our role was that of envisioning
new tools and services that would bring added
value to the visitor experience of a heritage site.
The particular perspective we adopt is that of
Human-Computer Interaction and Interaction
Design, whereby technology is always designed
from the point of view, needs and requirements
of users and participants. The design approach
includes examining the nature of visitor
movements, social interaction and participation
in the visit to a particular site, and – based on
this understanding – developing ideas for
technological augmentation. The project’s
initial timeframe of twenty months allowed for
a substantial amount of empirical fieldwork at
Bunratty Folk Park, an Irish open-air museum
displaying historical buildings, and for a
number of design workshops. Subsequently, a
LUIGINA CIOLFI AND MARC MCLOUGHLIN
16
follow-up project grant made it possible to
develop and deploy an interactive installation
on-site for the purposes of user evaluation.
In the follow-up grant, we conducted a series
of design workshops inspired by our fieldwork
in the Folk Park, followed building incremental
prototypes leading to the final interactive
installation, that we titled “Reminisce”.
“Reminisce” experimented with integrating
multiple interactive components (including
mobile phones, audio displays and tangible user
interfaces) into a visiting trail through the Park.
In the following sections, we will present the
research grounding for our work, followed by
an overview of results of empirical work
conducted on site to show how themes of
participation are crucial when understanding
the visitor experience at Bunratty Folk Park and
at open-air museums in general. We will
subsequently describe the design work carried
out for the site, highlighting the novel
interactional qualities that our final installation,
“Reminisce”, offered to visitors, and conclude
the paper with some discussion of the results
emerging from testing “Reminisce” with the
public.
TECHNOLOGY FOR OPEN-AIR MUSEUMS:
OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES
Open-air museums are a very popular visitor
attraction worldwide1. They are interesting
settings for technological augmentation, as
they retain many of the qualities of
“traditional” museums (organised in roomsized exhibits), but also present different
challenges, such as their out-of-doors nature,
the different physical path and time frame of
the visit, the importance of location and of
movement between different buildings and
corners of the landscape. Place making and
dwelling are also important aspects of the visit
to an open-air museum, as these sites exhibit
buildings and man-made landscapes that can
be inhabited by the visitors, who can also relate
to the original inhabitants and their way of life
in that environment. Moreover, the individual
objects are displayed in a richer context
(compared to the “standard” exhibit case in a
gallery, which is by its own nature displaced
from its original and/or appropriate context)
making the connection between lived place
experience and artefacts on display more
evident than what can be achieved in selfcontained exhibits.
Both the HCI/Interaction Design and
museum communities have produced extensive
literature documenting case studies of the
introduction of interactive technologies in
museums and exhibition sites (see for example
Grinter et al., 2002; Sparacino et al., 2000; Hsi
and Fait, 2005, etc. to mention but very few
well-known examples). However there is a need
to extend current theoretical and practical
approaches to guide such design interventions
when considering sites that are spatially
distributed and that are structured in ways
different from the traditional one-room, oneexhibit approach typical of traditional
museums.
Whereas the majority of research on the use
of portable devices (mobile guides, in this case)
refers to indoor exhibition sites (see for
example Aoki et al. 2001), and recently about
the use of visitors’ own mobile phones in these
settings (Samis, 2007), some work has been
conducted with respect of outdoor visitor
experiences, such as field trails in cities or at
other sites, rather than open-air museums
proper.
Recent endeavours have focused on the use
of smart phones in support of outdoor visitor
CHALLENGES
FOR THE
TECHNOLOGICAL AUGMENTATION
trails. Paterson et al. (2010) developed a Viking
Ghost Hunt game trail for the City of Dublin,
based on GPS technology, offering players the
overlay of a playful theme for their visit to the
city centre. Another example is the Culloden
Battlefield visiting aid (Pfeifer et al., 2009),
which was developed with the goal of making
GPS guide tools a commercial success, offering
little in the way of reflection over user needs
and design process.
The “visit as game” scenario is not the only
one to have been explored. Another significant
area to have been researched is that of the social
dimension of the visit, and of the sharing of
individual experiences to some extent. In their
paper describing mobile shared visitor
experiences at London Zoo, O’Hara et al.
(2007) discuss aspects of bookmarking and
socially sharing relevant “milestones” during
the visit, arguing how incorporating the social
aspect in the design of a personal device helps
foster engagement and social interaction.
Collaboration was also inscribed in the design
of city games (for example Brown et al., 2005)
which had the goal of not guiding participants,
but rather to extend their experience of a city
with an added layer of social interaction and
engagement.
The visitors’ own active role and
contribution to outdoor trails has also recently
been discussed. Giaccardi and Palen (2008)
reflect on the role of cross-media interaction in
the experience of a community project that
allowed participants to overlay their physical
journeys in an area with sound “snapshots” for
reflection and sharing. Similarly, Walker (2007)
discusses social sharing of the visit in “MyArt
Space”, where tagged objects that participants
selected in their visit to several museums
become a personalised “history” of the visit.
The majority of these examples have
OF
OPEN-AIR MUSEUMS
employed mainly mobile solutions for use in
visitor trails, often incorporating elements of
collaboration and sharing. Others have looked
at alternative technologies. Pletinckx et al.
(2000) and Schnädelbach et al. (2002), for
example, suggest Augmented Reality and
Mixed Reality as appropriate technologies to
support visitor interpretation of outdoor sites,
where visitors could operate a VR “scope” to
view reconstructions of buildings in the
surroundings of the viewing station. Of course,
these technological aids are limited with respect
to their position on the site, not really providing
support throughout an extended visit.
Most of the settings featuring in the
examples above are not curated. The only two
examples of installations documented in the
HCI community that were specifically aimed
at open-air museums were the photo-tagging
system developed for the Valle Crucis Abbey in
Wales (Baber et al, 2008), which involved
visitors taking pictures of the site during the
visit, but which supported all interaction postvisit through social tagging; and Kylä, a roomsized exhibition on the theme of historic
photographs and folk music for the village of
Viena Carelia in Finland (Ilmonen, 2007),
where visitors can trigger the display of visual
and auditory content by approaching
“sensitive” corners of the space by candlelight.
Kylä does not allow for any collaborative
interaction and works on a standard
information-delivery mode, although the input
device is quite novel.
Overall, there is a need for a more focused
view on open-air museums, which are a
common attraction in many countries, and
could hugely benefit from recent developments
in location-based services, geotagging and
powerful personal devices as described in the
brief review we have presented above.
17
LUIGINA CIOLFI AND MARC MCLOUGHLIN
18
Fig. 1. Some images of Bunratty Folk Park.
Also, there is a need to consider solutions
alternative to mobile devices only, as certain
limitations of mobile technology have been
highlighted – isolation, detachment from the
setting – and could be overcome. Mobile
devices alone might cause people to detach
themselves from the exhibits, and often the
mobile content provided is disconnected from
the place. Open-air museums offer an
interesting environment for the consideration
of how mobile personal devices could be used
in synergy with standalone interactive
installations and information points to provide
a more seamless visitor experience: to not have
visitors concentrate only on the mobile device,
but to keep the focus on the site.
The features of open-air museums already
include elements of active engagement, which
could be extended and augmented through
design: for example the role of human
animators showcasing activities and engaging
visitors in conversation and discussion are a
common feature, important to “draw the
spectator in”. Open-air museums are ideal sites
to experiment with user participation, building
on the interaction with animators, the
experience of “inhabiting” the exhibit and the
multi-sensory aspect of the visit that sometimes
lack in other settings.
Our research differs from other work both
on the explicit focus on understanding the
situated visitor experience at an open-air
CHALLENGES
FOR THE
TECHNOLOGICAL AUGMENTATION
museum for the purpose of design, and on the
attention towards participatory elements that
engage visitors.
In the following section, we describe the
empirical work we conducted at Bunratty Folk
Park and discuss some main findings that
informed our design.
EMPIRICAL WORK AT BUNRATTY FOLK PARK
Bunratty Folk Park recreates aspects of Irish life
of the past 2 centuries through a collection of
32 original historic dwellings. At Bunratty, the
landscape, the buildings, their contents and the
activities taking place in them thanks to human
animators, are all elements of a complex display
that visitors encounter in their wanderings
around the Folk Park (Fig. 1).
Here we provide an outline of the main
findings of the extensive field studies at the
site. This is important to show what aspects of
the visitor experience at Bunratty Folk Park
represent design opportunities, and to provide
a description of the context in which our
design was deployed and evaluated.
The overall qualities of the visit are different
from enclosed museums and resemble more
closely outdoor experiences such as city visits
At the same time, however, the “content” of the
site is of a museological nature and so it should
be approached when thinking of design
interventions: dwell time, distance between the
exhibits, switch in proportions between sites
and between indoors and outdoors (e.g.
visiting a building entails both observing its
architecture as a whole, but also exploring its
contents, the décor, the objects, etc.) are all
crucial aspects to be considered when thinking
of additional layers of digital content and
services. We have also noted interesting
challenges in the curatorial and interpretation
OF
OPEN-AIR MUSEUMS
practices of such a large, diverse and multifaceted site.
METHODOLOGY
In our work, we adopt a theoretical and
methodological approach focusing on situated
experience. This presents some common points
with the tradition of ethnomethodological
studies of social interaction and collaboration
around exhibits, that highlight the social nature
of visits, and articulate the unfolding of visitor
activities surrounding exhibits, with an eye to
inform or evaluate design (Brown, 2005; Vom
Lehn et al., 2001; Galani and Chalmers, 2002).
This approach contrasts with more traditional
visitor studies, where an exhibit is “measured”
in terms of its ability to attract visitors to stop
in front of it and the length of time it is able to
hold them there – the “dwell time”. However,
these examples of work do not display a
grounding in the physical nature of exhibitions,
leaving out contextual and situational factors
that have an impact on how a site is
approached: the material qualities of a site, its
sensory characteristics and its cultural identity.
In our work, we look at visitor experiences as
they are grounded in the experience of place:
the lived experience of the physical world at
personal, social, cultural and physical levels
(Ciolfi and Bannon, 2005). We feel that in the
case of this particular project, it was important
to approach the study of Bunratty Folk Park
with a view to understanding situated
experience. Our approach is also inspired by
the Falk and Dierking model of interactive
museum experience (Falk and Dierking, 1992),
in the sense that each layer of place experience
(which can be compared to the “contexts”
outlined by Falk and Dierking) is “continuously
constructed” by the visitors: “Whatever the
19
LUIGINA CIOLFI AND MARC MCLOUGHLIN
20
visitor does attend to is filtered through the
personal context, mediated by the social
context, and embedded within the physical
context” (Falk and Dierking, 1992, p. 4). The
museum experience is at the intersection
between these dimensions, and all of them play
an equal role, and good design should be
mindful of them all.
We applied such frameworks to our work in
Bunratty Folk Park, where the importance of
including the aspects of the physical context in
the visitor experience is paramount, including
movement through the site, dwell time and the
possibility of physically entering the objects on
display (the buildings).
In order to collect data, we employed
qualitative methodologies. We conducted
observation sessions, both documenting visitor
behaviour at particular sites that are attracting
notable hubs of activity (such as, for example,
the Golden Vale Farmhouse, where baking
demonstrations take place regularly), and
accounting for the entire trail around the Park.
This was accomplished by shadowing several
groups of visitors as well as engaging them in
informal conversations. We also involved the
Fig. 2. Different types of spatial environments and different levels of crowdedness at Bunratty Folk Park.
CHALLENGES
FOR THE
TECHNOLOGICAL AUGMENTATION
Folk Park staff in our study, by interviewing
some of the animators and observing them in
their activities.
SOME EMERGING THEMES
Overall, the visitors’ responses to the site are
very positive: people enjoy the atmosphere and
the exhibits, with many visitors return to the
Folk Park for further visits. The open and
informal nature of the site encourages social
interaction among visitors and groups,
particularly when facilitated by the animators.
Discussions among visitors regarding the
buildings and objects on display are
commonplace, thus showing the engaging
nature of the site. When developing a design
strategy for the introduction of interactive
technology, a number of particular issues need
to be considered for the appropriateness of
technological interventions at the site. The
main findings of our fieldwork (which have
been described more in detail in Ciolfi,
McLoughlin and Bannon, 2008) can be
articulated around the following themes:
- Spatial distribution and paths: there are
several critical issues regarding the physical
journey around the Folk Park, which is long
and may be exhausting, especially for people
with reduced mobility. Many visitors converge
on the village main street where the shops and
bar are located, whereas some other sites are less
visited than others. In open-air museums this is
a key factor in how visitors will plan their
explorations, particularly if the weather is
inclement. There is a social element to this as
well, if a group of visitors include children or
elderly people, who tire more easily and might
not be comfortable with exploring the entirety
of the site. Integrating technology mindfully
into the ongoing activities of people as they
OF
OPEN-AIR MUSEUMS
move through the site means being aware of the
physical demands of the site. Visitors could
potentially be encouraged to explore further, or
could receive a glimpse of what they have
decided not to physically visit.
- Availability of Information (Fig. 3): fieldwork
revealed that the information available to
visitors on the different sites of the Folk Park is
quite insufficient. Beside a map/guide leaflet,
which is distributed to all visitors on their
arrival, there is only a minimal amount of
information presented at the different sites to
inform visitors what these sites represent. From
the observation of visitors, it has been noticed
that there is often little understanding of
what the sites represent, and sometimes
misunderstandings arise in relation to the
specific function of certain artefacts. A dearth
of information was observed about the distinct
aspects of each of the Bunratty Folk Park
buildings (for example, the fact that these
buildings were originally from different
regions): to a visitor who is not familiar with
history and heritage, many sites seemed similar,
the differences between the sites that make
them unique from each other (in building
style, furnishings and decoration) were not
made clear. Considering the nature of the
open-air museum, also many of the signs and
information items that do exist are positioned
in problematic locations where they go
unnoticed by many visitors. Overall, the
availability and use of existing information
around the sites needs to be considered further,
particularly regarding the scale and layout of
buildings, and how people approach them; and
it is an issue that may require a targeted redesign intervention.
- Demographics of visitor groups (Fig. 4):
Bunratty Folk Park attracts many different
groups of visitors, varying in age, nationality
21
LUIGINA CIOLFI AND MARC MCLOUGHLIN
22
Fig. 3. Poor-quality signage at the farmhouses.
and group size. People’s experience of the visit,
therefore, varies greatly. For example, senior
visitors and those old enough to remember
certain artefacts and environs from their youth
relate to the exhibits in a different way
compared to younger visitors: their personal
memories of being in houses such as those on
display at the Folk Park, or using farm tools,
brings the exhibition to life in a way that
cannot be replicated for younger visitors
(particularly non-nationals). This indicates that
a way for visitors to share their thoughts and
comments around the exhibits would be
important in the engagement of all visitors and
will help increase the understanding of the
relevance of what is to be seen.
- Human help (Fig. 5): A central feature of
Bunratty Folk Park is the presence of a number
of staff members, who provide animation at
different locations around the site. The Bean
An Ti’s (“woman of the house”) are the
most significant group of characters in this
respect (a minimum of five is always present on
site). The presence of “characters” animating
buildings is a very important element shaping
visitors experience of the Folk Park. The staff
Fig. 4. Older visitors discussing their experiences using
traditional farming equipment.
CHALLENGES
FOR THE
TECHNOLOGICAL AUGMENTATION
OF
OPEN-AIR MUSEUMS
23
Fig. 5. Some of the animators from the Park.
members are very skilled in engaging
visitors in conversations and discussions, as
well as presenting interesting information
regarding the buildings and artefacts.
“Hands-on” activities are also attractive to
visitors. The work of the characters must
remain crucial in bringing the environments
and artefacts to life for the visitors: the tangible
experience of the building and objects, the
possibility of socially discussing them and of
expressing one’s own opinions and ideas about
them is at the core of visitor experience.
- Maintaining the character (Fig. 1): The
concept of Bunratty Folk Park is to recreate
scenes from national history through the
reconstruction and presentation of buildings
and sites representing the way in which people
lived in previous centuries. The developers of
the Park have gone to great lengths (in many
cases relocating entire buildings and
refurbishing them with authentic artefacts) to
recreate each scene so that they are faithful to
their original historical context. The role of
human animation of certain sites, such as for
example the Bean An Ti described earlier, is
that of further conveying the character of the
building and of its original setting. The design
and deployment of technology needs to be
mindful of this quality of the place, and to
consider strategies to achieve a good integration
between the site and the technology,
particularly regarding the latter’s physical
design.
These themes provided a basis to begin the
development of design concepts. In subsequent
design sessions, they were used as points of
discussion on the nature of the visitors’
experiences of the Folk Park.
In the following section, we describe how
these salient issues characterizing the visitor
experience were used as a basis for conducting
design sessions for the creation of the
installation.
DESIGN SESSIONS
Firmly grounded in the fieldwork conducted
on site, two brainstorming workshops were
carried out focusing on the development of
concepts and the generation of scenarios for
LUIGINA CIOLFI AND MARC MCLOUGHLIN
24
novel interactive installations that would
encourage visitor participation and sense
making of certain aspects of Bunratty Folk
Park. Colleagues from our group and other
researchers with experience in interaction
design practice and an interest in cultural
heritage, but not involved directly in our
project, were invited to participate. All the
participants had been to Bunratty Folk Park at
least once and were familiar with it as visitors.
The space for the brainstorming sessions was
prepared with excerpts of the data collected
from field studies displayed around the space,
this data included: aerial images of the Park and
images of the sites, artefacts, animals and
human activities; excerpts from interviews with
the visitors and snippets of video footage the
Fig. 6. Discussion and
Concept Board.
taken from a walk around the Park; key words
related to the major findings from empirical
work.
We started with a discussion of the fieldwork
and the salient issues that arose from the data
fieldwork data. Then the sessions moved on to
brainstorming activities, where the participants
were asked to generate key words and concepts
relating to the site. These were then pooled
together and arranged on a board (see figure 6)
in the space so participants could discuss the
concepts and to develop links between them.
From an early stage in the brainstorming, it
could be seen that the concepts put forward
could relate to different levels of support for the
visitor experience:
● Concepts that provide a foundation for
CHALLENGES
FOR THE
TECHNOLOGICAL AUGMENTATION
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25
Concept Theme
Description
Interactivity
and variety
Using a mobile device and based on the visitors’ interests, a variety of different information could be presented to the visitors as they move around the park. The information
would be in the form of short pieces of textual, graphical and audio data. At the beginning of their tour around the Park, visitors could set preferences on the subjects they
could get information on (farming, transport, etc).
Memory / stories
Presenting or recalling to the visitors’ memories and stories regarding the sites and artefacts in the Park. Two types of memories or stories were considered: the visitors’ own
personal memories that they could leave in the space, and historical archival records
represented through photos, film, audio recording and written documents.
Collecting things
This scenario involved the visitor building a representation of a particular character or aspect of the Park through collecting items that form individual parts of the representation.
This could be a historical image or postcard that is divided into puzzle pieces that the visitors could collect at different points around the Park. In order to collect a piece, the visitors would have to do certain things like talking to the animators, touching
objects, etc.
activities: collect things, game, recall memory,
geocached, guidance, follow a path, the day
of a fisherman/farmer, etc.
● Different types of information spaces: visitor
generated content, event location (Is
something on? Where? When?), a personal
codex, timelines, everyday life, objects that
tell a story, object (what am I, where am I
from), tell its story / history, etc.
● Types of relevant technological artefacts:
camera, audio recorder, RFID, mobile phone,
etc.
● Interaction techniques: touch it, interact with
animators, etc. (Fig. 6).
At the end, three potential design concepts
emerged:
The design team evaluated these concepts
based on the level of engagement that could be
offered to visitors, particularly on the potential
to involve them in active participation and
appreciation of the material qualities of the site.
One of the common observations to emerge
from the discussion was the limitations of both
standalone installations (such as kiosks in
certain parts of the Folk Park) and of mobile
aids (such as visitor mobile guides), if thought
of in isolation. Standalone installations would
look disconnected and slightly out of place; a
mobile aid alone would support the idea of
“trail”, but might lead to a disconnection from
the place and its qualities.
As museum technologies are heading toward
a new type of convergence, whereby “clouds” of
devices, information and access points provide
a digital layer of content and services that
overlays exhibits, the design concepts started to
revolve around the idea of a multi-device
installation, which would feature both
standalone elements and the use of visitors’
personal devices, such as smart phones, and the
integration of social/shared media functionalities
to connect visitors to the site also before and
after their visit.
The team agreed that a multi-device
LUIGINA CIOLFI AND MARC MCLOUGHLIN
26
installation could be an effective solution for an
open-air site such as Bunratty Folk Park, where
there is a need to provide insights into the
individual “objects” on display as much as to
create a coherent narrative bridging different
buildings, locations and layers of content.
The final scenario involves visitors collecting
memories about particular activities (butter
making, turf cutting, etc) from 19th century
characters who would have lived in the sites in
the Folk Park, “Farmers of the Land” and
“Women of the Houses”. These memories are
“placed” at different sites in the Park, and, as
visitors progress and collect them, they are
given clues about where they can find more
memories. Visitors have the opportunity to
leave their own memories or comments about
the sites or activities and to listen to memories
or comments that other visitors have left.
Visitors could buy-in and out of the activity as
they wished, and they did not have to follow a
strict path. They could be guided by the clues
that were available at some sites, or they could
serendipitously engage in the activity if they
entered a site that was annotated with
memories. In this way visitors could be
immersed in the historical context of the site
without the system disturbing the flow of their
visit. Creating a relationship between the
visitors and the places where people would have
lived was the objective of the installation:
through listening to characters reminiscing
about their lives at the site, visitors could be
given an insight into their lives in the context
of the historic houses. The houses would not
simply be buildings, but rather scenes of
experiences of times past.
The primary audience for the installation
was Irish visitors and visitors of Irish descent,
statistically the most significant group to visit
Bunratty Folk Park. Other visitors who could
speak English could also appreciate the
installation.
In terms of added value, we developed ideas
for allowing real-time contributions to the
experience. This is an important innovation on
other trail-based museum installations and it
fits into a major trend in current museum
research (Simon, 2010; Meisner et al., 2007),
and an approach to visitor support that we have
pursued in our previous research (Ciolfi,
Bannon and Fernström, 2007).
In the following section we will describe the
final design of the installation, presenting in
more detail its components, navigational
structure and mechanisms for participation.
“REMINISCE” IN THE MAKING
The final installation, “Reminisce”, was
deployed in Bunratty Folk Park in August 2010
over three full days. Due to its exploratory
nature, visitors could try the installation free of
charge and we provided all the accompanying
materials. The installation consisted of an array
of interactive technologies each supporting
specific parts of the activity.
● When visitors entered the Park they were
directed to a central “portal”, here they could
create a unique profile where all the content
they collected and recorded during their visit
would be stored. They could also select which
character they wished to hear memories
from, and receive an initial clue about where
to find the first memory from this character.
The portal was also where they collected the
mobile device that they used to gather the
memories. At the end of their trail, visitors
would come back to the portal, where they
would be presented with a map of their visit
annotated with the memories they collected
and recorded. Finally, the portal allowed
CHALLENGES
FOR THE
TECHNOLOGICAL AUGMENTATION
Fig. 7. The central portal.
them to share this content with family or
friends through email or social networking
sites (Fig. 7).
● At the portal visitors were given a mobile
OF
OPEN-AIR MUSEUMS
phone, as they travelled around the site they
could use a specially developed application to
collect memories at specific sites and record
their own memories.2 At the different sites,
the memories were represented by QR
markers, which could be scanned using the
camera on the phone. The codes would
trigger an audio recording of the character’s
memory at that site to be played on the
handset. Then, if they wished, visitors could
record and save in real time their own
memories or comment using the handset’s
microphone (Fig. 8).
● The portal provided visitors with the first
clue about where to find the memories from
their specific characters. Subsequently, at
each of the memory sites, visitors could
collect specially designed packs of tangible
Fig. 8. Visitors using the mobile device to listen to a memory after having scanned a QR marker
(on the wall on the left of the image).
27
LUIGINA CIOLFI AND MARC MCLOUGHLIN
28
tokens, containing a souvenir that they could
bring home with them and that were
connected with each site (bread recipes,
pieces of turf, small hanks of wool…) and a
clue about the next site where they could find
memories. The purpose of theses packs was
threefold: to provide the visitors with a
memento of their visit, to guide them to the
next memories available to them, and to
allow them access the memories that other
people left at the site. The clues were printed
on cards with RFID tags embedded in them,
when they reached the schoolhouse, the last
site on the “Reminisce” trail, they could use
the tangible tokens as input for the
interactive desk in the schoolhouse (Fig. 9).
● In the schoolhouse, the last site on the trail,
an interactive school desk allowed people to
listen to recordings that other visitors had left
at the sites in the Park. Placed on the desk
were books with embedded RFID tags, each
of them related to one of the characters that
visitors could collect memories from. A book
holder and a basket with embedded RFID
readers were also placed on the desk. When
Fig. 9. The tangible token packs.
Fig. 10. (Press 22/Don Moloney) The interactive desk in
the schoolhouse.
one of the books was placed on the holder
and one of the tangible tokens was placed
inside the basket the recordings left by other
visitors were played back. These recordings
were of the site that the tangible token was
collected in (Fig. 10).
● A web resource allowed visitors to share their
experience of the site after the visit. It
provided visitors with a map of their visit
annotated with the memories they collected
from the character they were following and
the memories or comments they would have
recorded (Fig. 11).
“Reminisce” was available to visitors for trials
for three full days during the Bunratty Folk
Park regular opening times. During this time,
approximately one hundred people used the
system at different degrees (e.g. from taking a
full tour, to a partial one, to using some of the
individual components at the different sites).
We collected data regarding their experiences
through observations, shadowing and informal
interviews. At least three people from our team
were always present on site to facilitate the
participants and monitor the equipment.
“Reminisce” provided the visitors to
CHALLENGES
FOR THE
TECHNOLOGICAL AUGMENTATION
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29
Fig. 11. The web resource.
Bunratty Folk Park with a unique experience:
differently from other systems designed for
outdoor sites, it mixed a variety of components
to maintain a link to both the physical,
perceptual qualities of what is on display and to
the wealth of digital information that enriched
the visit. Related work has shown how the
combined presence of tangible artefacts and of
a digital layer of information overlaid on to
physical artefacts is effective in sustaining
visitor engagement at exhibition sites (Fraser et
al., 2003; Koleva et al., 2009). This was
maintained in our design, but the innovative
elements include the connection to the
material qualities of the site (the identity of
each of the houses and the artefacts that are
identified with it), the attention to the physical
design of the installation so that it could retain
at least partially the character of the site, and
the ample opportunities for participation that
the array of components of “Reminisce”
afforded to participants (Fig. 12).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
At Bunratty, the core to the added value of
“Reminisce” was in the design focus on the
lived nature of place: all the elements of
“Reminisce” presented material, cultural and
social connections with the environment, from
LUIGINA CIOLFI AND MARC MCLOUGHLIN
30
Fig. 12. A group of visitors on the “Reminisce” trail collecting a memory at the Forge.
the content they provided, to the shape and
material quality they took, to the ability to
encourage social interaction and sharing on the
nature of the Folk Park. This is a completely
new approach to design compared to previous
research explorations.
The character’s memories provide visitors
with human perspectives on the “lived” aspects
of the sites to complement the material
qualities of the spaces, something that other
trail-based systems also offer. However the
installation also allowed for a high degree of
personalisation in each component. The
mobile phone enabled participants to create
their own content at the same time as accessing
their character’s memories, and the two activities
were coupled to suggest to visitors that their
contribution was as important (Fig. 13).
The tangible tokens were given to visitors as
personal souvenirs that all participants happily
took home and used often during the trail as a
tangible “trigger” to conversations and
discussion even when not directly used to
operate one of the “Reminisce” components.
They provided a tangible connection to the
“lived in” aspects of the spaces with a direct
reference to their “feel” and character:
something that many visitors find one of the
most engaging feature of Bunratty Folk Park
The interactive desk introduced a further
CHALLENGES
FOR THE
TECHNOLOGICAL AUGMENTATION
shared element into the visit by linking the
individual tokens with other participants’
contributions. This allowed visitors to gather
different perspectives from other visitors about
what they experienced during their journey
around the Park. Finally, the portal and web
resource provided visitors with a way of
reviewing their unique trail in the Folk Park,
providing them with an overview of their
journey as well as with the entire set of
memories generated in their visit, making their
experience at Bunratty something that they
could share to some extent, and re-visit
afterwards.
“Reminisce” is a novel example of advanced
interactive installation (e.g. moving away from
simple delivery of content through a device)
explicitly designed for an open-air museum.
We aimed at bringing an interaction design
approach mindful of the visitor-situated
experience to the setting of a rich exhibition
site that includes a variety of dwellings,
artefacts and activities and is organised into a
complex physical trail.
Fig.13. Visitor recording content.
OF
OPEN-AIR MUSEUMS
The lessons learned in the process, and that
can be useful insights for other designers
and/or museum practitioners working in a
similar setting, include the importance of
understanding in depth the material qualities
of the artefacts on display, in order to create
interactional possibilities that resonate with the
lived experience of visitors in the context of an
open-air museum – which makes the possibility
of inhabiting the site their most attractive
quality. Several examples of installations have
been deployed at open-air visitor attractions,
but often maintaining a detached status from
the physical layer of the place. Although
“Reminisce” is not a permanent installation yet
and could only be tested for a limited time, the
response we received showed that it had a
significant impact on the visitor experience.
Participants actively engaged with all the
components, and their interactions with and
around the system attracted interest from other
visitors and members of staff.
These results show how important it is to
follow a design process that is centred on
situated activities in order to achieve a successful
and engaging installation. The design features
that worked in a particularly effective way
include:
- Matching digital qualities with material
qualities: introducing elements that link the
layer of digital interaction introduced into the
site with its “authentic” characteristics. The use
of low-tech components can work very well in
this situation, giving visitors the opportunity to
engage with simple and accessible artefacts and
not overload them with high-tech gadgets.
- Maintaining variety and surprises:
“Reminisce” assembled a number of
components and modes of interaction. It
provided for small surprises to be found at each
site (things would always be slightly different at
31
LUIGINA CIOLFI AND MARC MCLOUGHLIN
32
each of the houses), although anchored to one
overall narrative guiding visitors. The school
house was the backdrop for a dedicated piece
inspired by the setting itself: the interactive
desk where people could browse through social
memories. Overall “Reminisce” allowed for
variety of interactions and of content provided,
keeping visitors interested and entertained.
- Facilitating participation: the participatory
component of “Reminisce” was one of the
strongest reasons for its success. The ability that
visitors had to contribute in real time with a
personal layer of information to their character’s
story was greatly appreciated by all who tested
the system. Numerous recordings were made
and re-played for the benefit of companions.
The interactive desk also provided a “live”
display of other visitors’ stories, and the
opportunity of “stepping out” of the characters’
storylines and into those of the participants.
We are planning to further develop the
functionality of sharing the visit through social
media in order to monitor more fully the life of
the visitors’ trails post-visit, including the
comments that would be received, other forms
of sharing such as re-posts, and the references
to Bunratty Folk Park encouraging new visitors
to explore the site.
With “Reminisce”, Bunratty Folk Park
became the setting for unique visitor
experiences, thanks to the possibility of
recording personal content, as well as increased
social interactions due to the theme of the
installation. People compared their memories
and discussed their knowledge of the past while
exploring the houses, and appreciated the
additional dimension of the personal character
stories that were overlaid on the physical
structure of the buildings. As an experimental
case, it provided the research team with the
opportunity of testing a design approach as
well as a technical demonstration, and of
learning a useful lesson on design for public
engagement in an open-air museum.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research is funded by Faílte Ireland and by
the University of Limerick Seed Funding
initiative. The authors gratefully acknowledge
the support of Shannon Heritage, the
management and staff at Bunratty Folk Park,
and all the visitors who tested “Reminisce”.
Many thanks also to all the IDC colleagues
who participated in the design sessions and in
other project activities throughout. Special
thanks go to Eamonn Finn for his support on
the ground during the public trial of
“Reminisce”.
NOTES
1. A comprehensive directory of open-air museums
in Europe does not exist. However, ICOM, the
International Council of Museums, has recently
endorsed AEOM (http://aeom.org), the Association of European Open-Air Museums, and EXARC (http://www.exarc.net/), the international
organisation of Archaeological Open Air Museums and Experimental Archaeology, which brings
together open-air museums of an archaeological
theme. Another related group is ALHFAM
(http://www.alhfam.org/), the Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums,
with members predominantly from the USA.
2. If visitors phones supported it, this application
could also be download and installed their phones but this was not achievable in the time frame
of the project
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FOR THE
TECHNOLOGICAL AUGMENTATION
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Luigina Ciolfi*
Address: Interaction Design Centre, ER1005,
Dept. of Computer Science and Information
Systems, University of Limerick (Ireland).
Email: [email protected]
Marc McLoughlin*
Address: Interaction Design Centre, ER1005,
Dept. of Computer Science and Information
Systems, University of Limerick (Ireland).
Email: [email protected]
NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2011 1, S. 35-44
●
The Media Mixer:
User Creativity through Production, Deconstruction and
Reconstruction of Digital Media Content
CHRISTIAN HVIID MORTENSEN* AND VITUS VESTERGAARD*
Abstract: We explore how remixing and content sharing can be used as a means
for user participation in a digital museum age. Remix culture is seen as a culture
that allows and encourages the production of derivative works; works that are
based on already existing works. This cultural practice thrives throughout the
Internet, most notably on web 2.0 sites like YouTube. The Media Museum has
embraced the remix paradigm with the development of an interactive media
experience centre called the Media Mixer. Here the museum users can produce,
deconstruct, reconstruct and finally publish and share digital media content. The
media content is created by the user in the museum’s physical environment, but it
can be mixed with material from web archives. It is the intention that the users
learn about media through participatory and creative processes with media where
the borders between producing, playing and learning are blurred.
Key words: User participation, digital media, remixing, web 2.0, video, audio,
RW culture.
The Media Mixer is a new media experience
centre in the Media Museum located in
Odense, Denmark. We were both directly
involved in developing the Media Mixer:
CHM was the overall project manager, and VV
designed and implemented one of the exhibits.
The Media Mixer opened on August 20th
2010 after a long and challenging development
process that this paper will elaborate upon. The
main focus of the new media centre is the
utilization of digital media to promote user
participation and the creative production of
media content through multimedia editing and
“mashups” or “remixes”. The Media Mixer
features several interactive exhibits revolving
around media, such as a Chroma Key Studio,
an interactive interview exhibit and a foley
sound booth. All user-created content from
exhibits is stored digitally and can be edited,
shared and published by the users at will.
In our opinion, there is a largely unused
potential in making mashups of digital content
in museums, and we will discuss how and why
it was done in the Media Mixer project. Digital
mashups are understood as derivative works,
and almost any museum could provide users
CHRISTIAN HVIID MORTENSEN AND VITUS VESTERGAARD
36
The Mixer Station is the hub of the MediaMixer. The orange cube on the left is the Sound Box and on the right is
the Chroma Key Studio. ©Peter Nielsen 2011.
with content, tools as well as incentives to
engage in a process where user-generated
content and curated content lead to new
expressions and understandings.
To include remixing in a museum’s practice
is simply to reflect what is already happening in
society, most prominently on web 2.0 sites such
as YouTube. 24 hours of audiovisual content is
uploaded to YouTube (YouTube n.d.) every
single minute. Of course, not all of this content
is mashups, but a great deal of the popular
content is. Consider for example the remixing
of Internet memes such as “The Star Wars Kid”
or Bruno Ganz’ portrayal of Hitler in the 2004
German film Der Untergang. These mashups
range from subtitling a video clip to completely
reinventing the material with advanced post-
production software, and they are extremely
popular. One subtitled parody of Der
Untergang was viewed on YouTube more than 4
million times before it was removed due to
copyright infringement claims (Rohrer 2010).
Copyright issues will be briefly touched upon
later. The important point here is that digital
remixing is a practice of this generation; a
democratic way of dialogue and meaning
making. In his book Remix (Lessig 2008),
Creative Commons founder and law professor
Lawrence Lessig discusses how the copyright
system and the economy need to change to
embrace this cultural practice. Lessig draws a
distinction between RO (Read-Only) culture
and RW (Read/Write) culture where RW
culture denotes the practice of remixing where
THE MEDIA MIXER
people “add to the culture they read by creating
and re-creating the culture around them”
(Lessig 2008: 28). This is, of course, not a new
cultural practice, but the tools by which we can
create and remix are indeed new. Consider
“writing” as an example. A novel could be
considered more or less Read-Only. However, a
scientific article is in some ways Read/Write,
because here it is common practice to explicitly
draw upon and build on top of other peoples’
writing. An Internet blog where users can
comment, discuss and link is perhaps an even
more obvious example of Read/Write
expression.
The same democratic forms of creativity and
meaning making take place in multimedia
forms of “writing”. But the multimedia tools
for expression are new, and society needs to
adapt to the new cultural practices that digital
technologies have fostered. Lessig sees an
optimistic future with “better RO culture, a
more vibrant RW culture, and a flourishing
world of hybrids,” but, as he puts it, this
requires “changes in law, and changes in us”
(Lessig 2008: 252). We suggest that museums
could also contribute to a culturally rich hybrid
future where digital remixing is a natural and
democratic mode of creative expression and
meaning making. But in order to do that,
museums, too, need to change. Not by
abandoning centuries of RO museum practice,
but by building on top of the existing museum
resources and by providing new resources like
we have tried with the Media Mixer.
THE GOAL OF THE MEDIA MIXER
The Media Mixer was developed to
accommodate small groups of users rather than
entire school classes, and we especially wanted
to reach and engage a new and younger
audience (in a 14–24 age bracket). A visit to the
Media Mixer should facilitate a more reflective
perspective on the information we get from our
media as well as inspiration to take a more
(inter)active part in the public sphere by
engaging in the RW culture of the web. There
are two categories of means to achieve this goal:
● Provide the user with resources they do not
have in front of their computer at home.
● Place the user in situations where they can
experience the inner workings of media.
Getting the users actively engaged in creating
media content of course aims at offering a
certain way of learning about media that other
parts of the museum do not facilitate. Since user
participation in modern media is a learning
In the Hot Seat the user is interviewed by a virtual TV
host such as the well known Danish news anchorman Jes
Dorph Pedersen. © Peter Nielsen 2011.
37
CHRISTIAN HVIID MORTENSEN AND VITUS VESTERGAARD
38
goal in itself, it was natural to make the Media
Mixer a place where users “learn by doing”. In
terms of didactics, we consider digital remixing
of media content a useful tool in museums and
exhibitions organized on either discovery
learning or constructivist lines (Hein 1998:
25). In the remixing process, users construct
meaning themselves. The user-constructed
meaning could be based on knowledge viewed
as independent of the learner (which is
discovery learning) or knowledge constructed
in the mind of the learner (which is
constructivist learning). The Media Mixer
contains elements of both discovery learning
and constructivist learning. In the interactive
exhibits, users are able to discover the nuts and
bolts of media. For example, being interviewed
themselves by a virtual interviewer gives users a
sense of the interview genre and techniques by
experiencing it with their own body. This kind
of situated learning is supposed to give the user
a more profound understanding of how
difficult it can be to answer coherently in an
interview situation. We view such
knowledge as independent of the learner.
Remixing the interview with other content
afterwards, on the other hand, does not lead to
a discovery of established external knowledge.
Instead we view it as an activity where new
knowledge is constructed in the mind of the
user. So the Media Mixer as a learning site does
not subscribe to a certain epistemology, but
simply aims at letting users construct meaning,
whether from internal or external knowledge.
Other museums would perhaps position
themselves in a more radical and fixed
epistemological position aiming at either
letting users discover established facts or letting
users construct their own knowledge. It is
important to stress that we don’t believe that
the different epistemological positions are
necessarily linked to the type of museum. An
art exhibition could be organized on the basis
of discovery learning just as well as a science
exhibition could be organized on constructivist
lines. We therefore also believe that the some of
the didactic design of the Media Mixer can be
utilized by a range of different museums.
A DETAILED VIEW OF THE MEDIA MIXER
The Media Mixer consists of three audiovisual
recording studios, a remix worktable, and a
small exhibition area. In addition, there is also
a small cinema and a digital media library
where the user can browse through a collection
of Danish TV and radio shows. The activities
in each of the three studios are dedicated to one
specific topic of the media: In The Hot Seat, the
Here the sound of a cardboard box rolling down a staircase is created in the Sound Box. © Peter Nielsen 2011.
THE MEDIA MIXER
A user editing his chroma key production. It is possible
to adjust the chroma key sensitivity and change the
background to another location. © Peter Nielsen 2011.
user can engage in an interview with a virtual
host portrayed by famous Danish television
reporters. In the Chroma Key Studio, the user
can report “live” from different locations and
eras. The user can choose between a positive,
negative and neutral speak to be shown on the
teleprompter, thus emphasising the significance
of narrative framing in television reporting. In
the Sound Box, users take on the role of foley
artists, creating sound effects for film clips by
analogue means such as shoes, cardboard boxes,
etc. – enhancing awareness of the role and
inner workings of sound in audiovisual media.
The central hub of the exhibition is the
Mixer station, where users are able to edit their
productions, remixing them with content from
the Internet or private sources and finally share
their remixes with friends online, as well as
with other users in the museum. Because of
security issues, it was decided that users could
not have direct access to the Internet from the
Mixer. Instead, they have to find the material
on two dedicated internet computers and store
it on a USB key that they can then plug into
the Mixer.
For more direct inter-user communication
and meaning making, the small exhibition area
called The Word is Yours presents a hot topic
from the current Danish media debate. Users
are then able to express their own opinions
through simple or novel media ranging from
Post-it notes, a blackboard, a telephone to a
typewriter linked to a digital billboard. The
area also features a computer logged on to the
Media Mixer weblog, serving as a direct link
from the physical museum space with the
Media Mixer’s online domain. This activity is
inspired by the Hot Spot methodology with a
focus on awareness-making on contemporary
issues in museums (Mupira 2004). The first
issue on display was whether some erotic
manga-style comics and hentai films could be
considered child pornography and therefore
banned, like in some other countries. This
topic generated major interest from the news
media as well as numerous comments from the
users, which was, of course, the most important
success criterion.
The concepts for all the exhibits were
initially chosen by museum staff focusing on
the points about the workings of our media
that we wanted to illustrate to the users. The
concepts were then presented to groups of
young test users who rated them and also gave
39
CHRISTIAN HVIID MORTENSEN AND VITUS VESTERGAARD
40
concrete feedback on the content (e.g. which
TV host they wanted to be interviewed by in
The Hot Seat).
CONTENT AND COPYRIGHT
When museum users are encouraged to create,
build upon and remix digital content,
copyright is of course an issue. This is especially
the case when user-created content can be
published directly on the Internet, as in the
Media Mixer. The copyright laws vary from
one country to another, so we advise attention
regarding local legislation on this area.
Danish law does not include a notion of “fair
use”, so in the Media Mixer project the users
are not provided with bits and pieces of
commercial content, although that would have
been a relevant resource. Except for one video
clip of the Hindenburg disaster, entirely new
content was produced to serve as video
backgrounds for the Chroma Key Studio and
video and sound sequences for the Sound Box.
That way the museum became the sole
copyright holder and was therefore able to
allow users to publish derivative works. On the
positive side, this arrangement allowed for the
production of very specialized content, but on
the negative side such content lacks the
authenticity and cultural significance of actual
historical clips.
In the end, the most important content is
the clips produced by the users themselves and
this content is, of course, theirs to do with what
they want. Users must actively click on a file to
share it in the museum and online, and this
sharing can be undone at any time.
There is obviously no way to make sure that
users do not bring copyrighted (or offending)
material, but should this happen, the museum
staff will remove it when it is discovered. And
this has not yet happened during more than
half a year of use.
Being part of a museum of media history, the
Media Mixer features a curated selection of
national historical video and sound clips in the
so-called Mediatheque. Originally, it was hoped
this would be a resource that could also be used
in digital user remixes. But this is impossible
due to the copyright of the clips. To be even
allowed to show these historical clips in the
Media Mixer, the museum pays a monthly
copyright fee just like a private company would
do, and if the content was to be used, remixed
and published, the fee would be huge, and
impossible for the museum to pay. We feel that
museums being important learning sites with
specific responsibilities in the areas of art and
culture are in some degree hindered by the
current copyright practices, and we suggest that
policy makers acknowledge the needs for a
more fertile practice in the current digital
museum age.
CHALLENGES
An unconventional exhibition project such as
the Media Mixer faced many other challenges
of an financial, technical and organizational
nature. The main financial challenge was that
an IT infrastructure with a content management
system (CMS) for handling user profiles with
affiliated multimedia content is expensive but
does not look like much in an exhibition space.
The biggest expenditures are almost invisible in
the end result.
Regarding technical challenges, what were
initially viewed as simple ideas often turned out
to be demanding from a developer viewpoint.
The fact that the museum IT staff consisted of
just one system administrator made the
museum dependent on the main IT
THE MEDIA MIXER
subcontractor to estimate technical challenges
and come up with solutions that were realistic
technically, financially and time-wise. In the
Media Mixer project, this didn’t work out very
well, andsome core functionalities were still not
implemented when the exhibition opened.
Most of the technical problems were related to
the handling of user multimedia files – a core
feature in the Media Mixer. After the
exhibition opening, the quality of files was low,
audio/video synchronization was inaccurate,
some audio was missing, some videos would
appear upside down, files privileges would fail
so that one user’s video suddenly appeared in
another user’s files, etc. These problems were
addressed during the next months, and many
were corrected. But after more than half a year,
there are still technical problems, so the
technical challenge should not be
underestimated in this type of project.
The organizational challenges were both
external and internal. Externally, the museum
had to draw upon several subcontractors with
various specialties to realize this project,
including an exhibition architect, programmer,
graphic designer, electrician and computer
scientist. It was new to the museum to have to
coordinate the actions and different perspectives
of so many specialists, and the subcontractors
were given considerable influence on the
outcome.
Internally, a digital project like the Media
Mixer had to face entrenched notions of what
an exhibition should be and what relation the
museum should have with its users. There was
a consensus among the curatorial staff at the
Media Museum that change and rethinking
was needed on these issues, as also noted by
several museologists (e.g. Hooper-Greenhill
2007: 1). But there were different opinions on
how radical the change should be. The
traditionalists among the staff feared that by
letting the users (as co-producers) have
considerable influence on what would be
shown in the museum space, the museum
would lose its professional authority and
degenerate into a digital playground. The
radicalists had no such fears, arguing that the
users should have influence on the content, just
as they are used to from the Internet and
modern RW culture. The solution here was to
build the Media Mixer in a separate room with
no direct contact with the museum’s more
traditional exhibitions.
SCAFFOLDING PARTICIPATION IN THE MEDIA
MIXER
The Media Mixer project aims at encouraging
users to participate, be creative and reflect upon
themselves as both media producers and
consumers. This is a big challenge, and the
Media Mixer therefore uses different methods
for scaffolding the creative processes. We use
the term scaffolding to describe all tutoring
mechanisms that are aimed at engaging,
helping and keeping the users at task (Wood,
Bruner & Ross 1976).
In order to make users explore the different
interactive exhibits, there is virtually no text in
the Media Mixer room. Every interface should
speak for itself when users log in with their
electronic ticket. When logged in, the users get
a short range of choices – in scaffolding terms a
reduction in the degrees of freedom. In each of
the main exhibits, users can choose from four
to six different predefined tasks. When chosen,
there is strong direction maintenance in the
fact that each task is a narrative (e.g. an
interview) taking from around 1 minute to 6
minutes to complete. There are also freestyle
modes where users for a short amount of time
41
CHRISTIAN HVIID MORTENSEN AND VITUS VESTERGAARD
encouraging users to try a certain exhibit, as
well as in frustration control when exhibits
break down. However, one of the most
interesting scaffolding devices comes from the
users themselves. Users demonstrate different
ways of handling the tasks when publishing
productions online and onsite,. Ideally, the
boundaries between these will be crossed and
exhibits will be used in creative ways that the
museum did not foresee.
42
At The Word is Yours the user can contribute to the
exhibition with comments or opinions on the old
typewriter, the telephone, the weblog or by putting a
Post-it note on the wall. © Frederik Jørgensen 2010.
are able to produce video or audio free of
constraints on content. But tasks that include
some predefined video, audio or text material
are seen as a necessary means of scaffolding
most productions until users are familiar with
the production process and inspired to break
the boundaries of the basic tasks built into
exhibits.
Throughout the exhibits, controls are kept as
simple as possible in order to focus on the
mechanics of media content rather than the
mechanics of media production tools. Editing
software has been custom made using the same
interface style as the exhibits. The museum
considered using professional media editing
software but chose to highlight the critical
features of multimedia editing by providing
only simple controls such as cutting and
moving blocks of content on just two video
tracks and two audio tracks.
The museum hosts are also very active in
scaffolding the creative processes, and our
observation studies have shown that they are
involved with almost all users. The museum
hosts are especially active in recruiting, i.e.
RECEPTION
At the time of writing, the Media Mixer has
been open to the public for about seven
months. The reception by both the press and
the users has been positive, but the real impact
of the Media Mixer experience is somewhat
obscured by the fact that there have been
technical problems throughout the whole
period. We have conducted user tests,
participant observation and surveys shortly
before and after the opening – not surprisingly
showing that users were enjoying themselves
but were frustrated when the software or
hardware broke down. Reports of errors or
crashes were very consistent among the
respondents, and when asked what could be
improved in the Media Mixer, the most
common answer was “technical stuff”. To our
surprise, the same respondents generally want
to revisit, and report that they have really
enjoyed themselves. However, we cannot rule
out the possibility that this is simply a forgiving
attitude by users who know that they are
experiencing a system that is new and therefore
not stable yet.
There are, however, some consistent findings
that are independent of the technical issues.
One example is the desire for more content in
each exhibit. Users, for example, want more
THE MEDIA MIXER
background videos for the Chroma Key Studio
and more video clips in The Sound Box. The
reason is not that the users have tried
everything – instead users simply want a large
range of choices and are quick to select the one
that seems most appealing. Initially, we
believed that a limited range of choices would
serve as a helpful reduction in the degrees of
freedom, but the users actually do not want a
reduction here. One could speculate that this is
simply because the users are used to browsing
through large quantities of data on the
Internet, in their personal music collections
and so on. The desire for more content is
encouraging for museums wanting to offer
access to digital collections, and in projects like
the Media Mixer there is a potential for offering
media content from the museum’s own
collections as a production resource for
remixing.
In the Media Mixer, however, actual
remixing is very rare. Our studies have shown
that while most users are recording video and
sound in the exhibits, very few use the editing
tools or the options for sharing. There seem to
be several reasons for this. First of all, there is a
lack of archival video and audio material
readily available for mixing purposes. Secondly,
the editing tools have turned out to be a bit
clumsy and frustrating to use. And thirdly, the
platform for sharing, rating and commenting is
virtually non-existent, so there is no actual
community around the user productions.
Recent interviews with young users indicate
that there is nevertheless an understanding of
the Media Mixer as a place for expression,
dialogue and collaboration. Users contrast the
Media Mixer with traditional museums, which
they often find “boring”, and they like the fact
that they are able to do and create something
together in the Media Mixer. This strengthens
our view that RW museum practices can be a
fruitful supplement to traditional RO practices.
CONCLUSION
The process of evolving a museum based on
analogue print media to an interactive and
participatory site has been challenging in a lot
of ways. Most notably there have been a lot of
technical challenges in implementing a system
for user multimedia production, remixing and
publishing. What the museum initially
thought were simple ideas and the developers’
problems have become the problems for the
museum and the users.
We suggest, however, that the practice of
remixing can be a potent means to achieve
meaningful user participation in the digital
museum age. And despite technical issues,
initial user testing and feedback show that users
are engaged, joyful and willing to produce and
sometimes also share their creative productions.
When working with external developers, the
key is good communication, realistic project
planning with sufficient time allocated for
testing and early technical prototyping. We
recommend insisting on an iterative process
where critical system components are
prototyped in the early iterations and
demonstrated with placeholder content.
Although important, the interfaces and end
content should be independent of critical
system components, and museums should
insist on flexibility in the iterative process
where changes in interfaces can be gradually
adopted in iterations.
Being a small museum, the Media Museum
curators developing content were also the ones
highly involved in the technical issues. We
suggest that any museum wishing to involve
users in a custom-made digital exhibition
43
CHRISTIAN HVIID MORTENSEN AND VITUS VESTERGAARD
44
consider the division of assignments, so that
curators are not too involved in dealing with
purely technical problems. The curators’ focus
should be the tasks, the content and – most
importantly – the users and their creative
participation. In the Media Mixer, the systems
are now beginning to work and the
development process that began with the users
soon will therefore be all about the users again.
All exhibits are developed so that content and
tasks can be added and modified. There seems
to be a need for more curated content as a
remixing resource as well as a clearer indication
of what can be done at the different exhibits.
Future user research will show how the
complete Media Mixer experience hopefully
promotes creativity and reflection works, and
how the different tasks should be adjusted to
optimize these processes.
REFERENCES
Hein, G.E.: Learning in the museum. Routledge:
London 1998.
Hooper-Greenhill, E.: Museums and Education.
Routledge: London 2007.
Lessig, L.: Remix: Making art and commerce thrive in
the hybrid economy. Penguin: New York 2008.
Mupira, P: (ed.): Hot spot: Awareness making on
contemporary issues in museums. SAMP: Stockholm 2002.
Rohrer, F.: “The rise, rise and rise of the Downfall
Hitler parody”. BBC News Magazine. Retrieved
from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8617454.stm 27 September 2010.
Wood, D.J., Bruner, J.S. & Ross, G.: “The role of
tutoring in problem solving”. Journal of Child
Psychiatry and Psychology. 17, 1976: pp 89–100.
YouTube: YouTube fact sheet. Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/t/fact_sheet 27
September 2010
*Christian Hviid Mortensen, PhD fellow,
Curator
Address: The Media Museum
Brandts Torv 1,
5000 Odense C,
Denmark
Email: [email protected]
*Vitus Vestergaard, PhD fellow, DREAM
Address: University of Southern Denmark
Campusvej 55,
5230 Odense M,
Denmark
Email: [email protected]
NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2011 1, S. 45-59
●
The interactive museum and its
non-human actants
JONATHAN WESTIN*
Abstract: This explorative study highlights the different strands of interactive
learning technologies available to museums and educational institutions, and
analyzes their function as non-human actants from a perspective of power and
discipline. Through a generalized symmetry I describe a specific technology – the
interactive display – as an actant exercising the same autonomy as the other
actants. This raises the non-human actant to the same level as the human actants
and emphasizes how it controls an equal part of the communication. In this way
I try to map out how an exchange is manifested through a network of actants
where the technologies conserve the inquiring actant’s knowledge space rather than
broaden it. Despite being offered as a technology to make the visitor heard, the
result is as curated as the classic exhibition. I conclude that by themselves,
interactive displays do not challenge authority at museums but instead reinforce it.
Key words: Interactivity, non-human actant, technology, communikation.
Scene 1: The visitor contemplates the reconstruction in front of her. It is a digital
rendition of the Sanctuary of Hercules Victor. At
first glance it looks static, but then she notices that
it is slowly changing into an alternative
interpretation of the same space. And then another
one! This catches her eye. The visualization is
open; she can interchange various elements or
completely remove them. She can cycle between
different versions of the same scene and choose
from a library of available media presenting
different aspects of the sanctuary; sound clips,
animations and text. As she cycles between the
different elements of the visualization – removing
a wooden structure here and changing the colours
of a wall there – she notices that with every
variation comes a bibliography of publications
that support or discuss that very interpretation.
She scribbles down the name of an article that
seems interesting (Sanctuary of Hercules Victor).
Scene 2: A coloured trail winds through the
landscape. It pulsates and beckons. She starts
running, following it over rocks, crossing a brook
and in through the trees. Suddenly she sees her
goal; a stag! Motionless they stand observing each
other, looking for signs of imminent action. How
can she notify her pack about her prey? She pushes
the H-key and howls. Seconds later the land is
alive with responses. It was very effective. Exiting
the simulation she seeks more information about
this behaviour online (WolfQuest).
JONATHAN WESTIN
46
Interactivity, learn-through-play, participatory
elements, community building and augmented
reality; technologies all at the heart of the
future of exhibitions. Not to be perceived as
stale, many museums are slowly embracing the
post-modern notion that history – and society
– is a multitude of conflicting and unique
voices and that the museum should be a
meeting place where these can be made heard
(Westin 2009). In this tradition they nurture a
positive wish to position the exhibition as
a heterogeneous dialogue instead of a
homogeneous monologue – a communication
where the visitor’s voice is an important aspect
of the exhibition and should therefore be
engaged. Technology in the shape of the
interactive digital display is often seen as the
most fitting instrument to establish this
dialogue (Witcomb 2007; Santillo Frizell and
Westin 2009). In this new milieu, the visitor is
free to choose her own path, sort through
conflicting reasonings and shape her own
experience. Where a museum visit was once a
collective experience where a common
objective message, pace and order were set, the
interactive display allows for alternative
subjective narrations.
Susan Hazan argues that media applications
serve to “enhance and extend the museum
mandate in novel ways, and even open up new
possibilities for those who may have
conceptualized themselves outside of the
museum, to be able to find a way in” (Hazan
2007: 134),. This article shares this sentiment,
but my view differs when it comes to the media
applications’ function as interpreters of
information. Far from being neutral forces, I
argue that although these participatory
technologies are aimed at improving
communication and education, they are above
all else a disciplinary force – an impoverished
realization of a two-way communication
brought on by an unchecked technologydeterministic way of thinking. The technology
in these ‘spaces of interaction’ – described as
two distinct scenes above—constitutes a nonhuman actant that forces certain questions and
subdues others, turning an infinite number of
possibilities into a pre-programmed few. The
focus this creates is an effective tool in
education since it establishes a controlled
milieu which allows for exploration within set
limitations leading to the exact series of
conclusions that are being taught. Without
question, technology allows for new ways of
reaching and teaching an audience (as
exemplified in Kahr-Højland 2007; Hazan
2007; Kenderdine 2007; Awouters et al 2009;
Anzai 2009; Cooper et al 2009), but it prevents
new solutions from being expressed.
The aim of this exploratory study is to
highlight two different strands of interactive
teaching/learning technologies and analyze
their function as non-human actant from a
perspective of power and discipline, as
described by Michael Foucault (Foucault 1978.
Discussed in Westin 2009). By putting focus
on power exercised by both sentient and nonsentient actants, I try to map out how an idea
is manifested through a network where the
technologies – to the same extent as the
humans – uphold a knowledge space and
enforce it (see Latour 1992; Ivarsson 2010).
Furthermore, this study attempts to explain the
practical ramifications of moving the
communication to an interactive milieu where
action has to be represented. While the
technology in the network seemingly allows
action, it is its capacity to forbid action – to
limit – that makes it an interesting actant we
can follow. These limitations shape our
interaction with what is presented through the
THE
representation in the virtual space of the
display, and decide what can and what cannot
be expressed. A representation is a rethought
substitution for an event – not the event itself
– where a layer of interpretation and focus has
been added. Hence, the complexity of an event
is displaced by a manageable representation
that can be communicated, but is in this act
translated to something new.
I argue that you can never directly act in the
interactive space, only choose between a series
of predefined re-actions, which translates that
the interactivity subject to this study is not
about releasing power, but about forcing
certain answers. This is a problem when an
exhibition wishes to use interactivity as a
technology to entice an audience to enter a
dialogue, since – as this paper proposes – digital
interactivity does not in its current form
support that kind of communication. As a
growing number of museums and educational
institutions move their communicative
ambitions into a digital space, a lack of
understanding about the non-human actants
that reside in most communicative technology
could result in a dialogue that is conservative
rather than progressive. It is therefore
important when designing interactive displays
that the limitations of interactivity are
recognized, since they constitute a disciplining
of the subject not always intended. To
discipline the communication between two
subjects is in itself not wrong, and it can be
argued that it is often the preferred model, but
digital interactivity should be revised or
combined with other venues of communication
in situations where it is important that the
opinion – or knowledge – of a visitor can be
expressed.
In terms of structure, I approach this issue by
dividing the article into two main parts. In the
INTERACTIVE MUSEUM AND ITS NON-HUMAN ACTANTS
first I try to define what technology is in a
museum context, while I in the second describe
and analyze two empirical studies of interactive
communication in an attempt to argue my
thesis. The interactive spaces studied have been
chosen for their diversity as well as the amount
of material they have afforded. Though they are
not presently deployed at any museum, they
represent two typical examples of interactivity
aimed at communicating research to an
informed third party. They have their technical
counterparts in numerous museums around
the world and will be a common sight in future
exhibitions. The first of the two spaces, the
Sanctuary of Hercules Victor, has been codeveloped by the author as part of an
interdisciplinary research project on heritage
management and communication – giving
access to both the reasoning behind it and its
technical specifications – while the second
interactive space, WolfQuest, has been
thoroughly studied from its inception to its
present state. The interactive display of the
Sanctuary of Hercules Victor was presented at a
press event in Rome 2009 at the Swedish
Institute of Classical Studies on the occasion of
a state visit by the King and Queen of Sweden.
Present were the Swedish Minister of
Education, the Soprintendenza Archeologica di
Roma e del Lazio and representatives from
several of the foreign scientific institutes in
Rome. Since then, the display has been
presented at various institutes internationally as
an example of the possibilities of interactive
displays and how they could be used in a
museum setting. It demonstrated how a
representation shapes our perception of an
occurrence, and how the visual language could
be used to encourage the audience to
understand that there exist many possible
interpretations. WolfQuest is a freely available
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JONATHAN WESTIN
48
precursor to the immersive digital
representations of historic settings thought to
become a common sight at many museums in
the future as collections give way for context.
By visualizing this context through displays and
virtual reality settings, it becomes ”mobile,
immutable, and reproducible” (Hermon 2008:
37; Latour 1986). WolfQuest has been
awarded prizes by several institutions,
including a 2009 MUSE award from the
American Association of Museums and an
official selection by the National Science
Foundation in the US to make a presentation
at the 2009 Senate Education Technology
Showcase in Washington D.C. (www.wolfquest.org/about_overview.php).
METHODOLOGY
As a method, I lean heavily on Actor-Network
Theory (ANT) and the work of Michel Callon
and Bruno Latour (see Callon 1986; Latour
1992; Latour 1993; Latour 2005). I describe
the exchange between the two communicating
parties and the technology through which they
communicate as they were all actants capable of
action. Through this generalized symmetry a
structure consisting of three subjects becomes
apparent, a structure which is then analyzed in
its capacity of allowing or limiting action. ANT
is a sociology of associations which map out
how material and semiotics are combined into
a whole that is constantly challenged and
confirmed through negotiations. Just as in the
power theories of Foucault, where power is not
something you can own, only exercise, the
actor-networks need to be active not to fall
apart. A network is therefore not a constant but
always new and dependent on all actants’
collaboration. An actant is a neutral term that
includes both actors capable of action and
systems that simply behave. An actant, like a
machine or technology, could consist of several
micro-actants important to the macro-actant
but possible to ignore until the macro-actant
fails in some way. Consider a computer. Until
it starts behaving erratically, flickering and
turning itself off, it is to the end user a single
actant akin to a black box (Latour and Callon
1981). However, if the user opens it up, trying
to fix it, it stops being a single actant and
becomes a network of actants – circuit boards,
power inverters and CPU fans – all vital to the
computer but until recently something that the
end user could ignore. Apart from the actants
that make up the technology of an interactive
display, I will for this article not dwell on all the
actants that make up a museum or visitor.
In the communication network between two
actants, A and C, through a third actant, B,
they all need to perform their duties in the
network for communication to work. If the
third actant – the technology through which A
and C interact – stopped functioning or if
actant C refused to acknowledge actant B, the
network would dissolve and communication
would be interrupted. For a new network to
establish itself and for the communication to
continue, all actants must re-negotiate their
positions in a way that makes them accept and
perform their duties. How can actant A and C
formulate themselves in a way that is both true
to the message and allowed by actant B to be
expressed? How can actant B mediate this
communication in a way that allows actant A
and B to understand each other?
Actant B, the technology, emerges here as a
mediating actant – an actant that transforms the
communication to make it mobile – and not a
neutral intermediary, since both actant A and
actant C need to adapt their message to a form
that actant B allows. This adaptation is in ANT
THE
terminology referred to as a translation where
the offspring is a hybrid, the result of a
negotiation between several actants. To make
this process visible, and to show how an open
communication is translated into an enforced
structure through supposedly neutral
technologies, I intend to map out the
negotiation process in the initially described
interactive spaces. This to problematize
interactive media as a mediating actant that
plays an increasingly larger role in museums’
communication with their visitors. Before that,
however, I wish to flesh out a definition of
technology in a museum context where
previous technologies have shaped the
institution and future technologies help
conserve or develop it.
MUSEUM TECHNOLOGY / CREATING THE
ARTEFACT
The museum – though often perceived as a
conservative space – has always relied on
technology all through the process of
preservation and exhibition, and as a
consequence it has been shaped as an institution
by that very technology. Likewise, the object,
and how we perceive it, has forever been
changed. It is turned into a museum artefact –
disconnected from its original context – as a
result of how it has been processed through all
the transformations that the technologies of a
museum make up. The technological process
that transforms an object into a museum
artefact – or museal fact, as Grahn puts it
(Grahn 2005) – includes a written description
that decides what aspects are important;
photography that decides how it should be
remembered; conservation efforts that decide
how it should be perceived; exhibition design
that decides how important it is; spotlights that
INTERACTIVE MUSEUM AND ITS NON-HUMAN ACTANTS
render it neutrality and displays that decide
how it should be understood (see Goodwin
1994 for an analysis of how an archaeological
site is organized through the use of
technology). This process does not end with
the physical artefact but extends into its digital
representation where visual, dimensional,
locational and environmental aspects are
translated into images and numbers (for an
account of this process see Arnold 2008).
Just as past technologies have shaped our
perception of the museum object, new
technologies often help conserve this
perception instead of bridging the gap between
object and visitor. So why talk about these
latest technologies in museums and education
as something different? Because they are
communicative technologies that encourage
action on behalf of the visitor. As an increasing
number of questions are raised concerning the
shaping of knowledge and what ideologies
govern an exhibition, an outspoken objectivity
is not enough (Stead 2004: 6). Technology – in
the shape of inclusive displays that encourage
the visitor to contribute – is thought to remedy
this by exposing the subjectivity of history.
However, an ever-present risk with interactivity
is that it disciplines the actant into a structure
of finite choices rather than creating a milieu
which allows alternative interpretations to be
expressed. Instead of communicating that there
are several different ways of interpreting an
occurrence, it can be understood as if the
presented choices are the only choices,
effectively solidifying their status. This is a byproduct of how interactivity imperfectly caters
to the body’s function as both receptor and
transmitter – while it stimulates reception, it
allows only reactions to transmit and not
actions (Westin 2009). In that perspective, that
which the museum believes to be a relaxing of
49
JONATHAN WESTIN
50
the old subject–object power relations is really
just a repackaging which enforces the structure.
The non-human actant
By letting the visitor’s body become a part of
the exhibition, you engage her analogue senses
and create a connection. In the physical
interactivity of the classical science museum,
the body fills the function of powers – it creates
movements and connects elements. This differs
from the digital interactivity present in
humanistic arts where interactivity does not
always trace back to the activity, or reactivity, of
the visitor’s body in other ways than through
choices. However, the goal is the same; activate
the visitor in a way that makes her involved in
the exhibition and makes her feel more like a
contributor than a visitor and more like a
creator than a user, thus promoting a creative
reasoning that trains her inductive problem
solving skills (for a discussion of the positive
effects, see Greenfield 2009; Lee 2009).
Neither a user nor a visitor can be a target
group since these are descriptions of
occurrences tied to a body for a finite period of
time. It is therefore not practical to address
them as a social/psychological group or
demographic (Barry 2001: 135). Of course, a
body can be compelled to use, or visit,
something on a regular basis creating a user
situation or an active visitor.
An active visitor is created by presenting a –
for the recipient – attractive end result as highly
accessible, which makes the actions to reach a
certain goal tractable. In user interface design
this is traditionally measured in steps or
choices, where the optimal solution is the one
that requires the lowest amount of conscious
reactions to reach a certain goal. It should be
noted that the above sentence reveals the
complexity of the problem; the digital interface
can’t allow access to every part of an intricate
system from one point in an effort to reduce
steps since that would expose the user to too
many conscious choices to be meaningful.
Likewise, the interface cannot compartmentalize every choice since it would introduce
too many reactions in reaching the required
goal and therefore be perceived as less tractable.
To manage this conflict, the interface
anticipates what the user wishes to do and
guides her. Herein dwells the “Non-Human
Actant”; digital interactivity must by design be
a series of possibilities presented as choices in a
hierarchical structure and those choices are
non-negotiable (Westin 2009). By introducing
limitations in the form of choices, the user is
guided by the non-human actant residing in
the structure of interactivity, not by a person
she can communicate freely with.
In a simple interactive space, two alternatives
are being presented by the interface. Thus, the
visitor has three choices; Pick 1, pick 2 or leave
it as it was. However, she may choose, she has
defined herself as a re-active object in this
structure – she has relented to the will of the
interface, since those choices have been
prepared and therefore only reflect the
knowledge put into the interface by the
programmer, and not the knowledge of the
visitor. When you accept an option, you always
re-act, never act. Hence, the dialogue between
two subjects has been displaced by a formula
where the responding subject is limited to
expressing what the inquiring subject allows.
The technology in this network of actants
consists of a Non-Human Actant that promotes
and solidifies a reasoning; Communicating
Actant A (the Museum) that communicates
with Communicating Actant C (the Visitor)
through Mediating Actant B (the Technology)
that disciplines Actant A into certain questions
THE
and Actant C into certain responses. Actant A
can then remove itself from the conversation –
and does so quite often – and let Actant B
handle Actant C all by itself, creating a milieu
in which no new opinions can be voiced.
STRANDS OF INTERACTIVITY: LABYRINTH AND
SIMULACRA
Power relations expressed through
communication – both inside and outside the
museum – take many forms and may not
always be apparent. By identifying action and
reaction – along with consumption – as a
distillation of the processes that make up
interactivity in the digital space, we can analyze
different forms of communication to see how
they are disciplined. Below I give a short
description of two interactive models which I
argue represent two distinct types of teaching/
learning situations, where communication is
established through a digital interface set to
engage an audience in exploring layers of
information in a way that aids a deeper
understanding. The aim is not to give a
comprehensive account of all elements of these
interactive spaces but to identify and
communicate the role of the “Non-Human
Actant”. These descriptions will constitute the
empirical material of my analysis.
The main focus of this paper is the digital
form of interactivity, and I only briefly mention
the physical form of interactive displays.
Additionally, I am mostly concerned with the
communicative aspects of interactivity where
the technology is used to create a connection,
and I will therefore primarily address the
strands of interactivity aimed at communicating
research. Through this narrowing- down
process, I have identified two types of
interactivity. I will refer to the design of a
INTERACTIVE MUSEUM AND ITS NON-HUMAN ACTANTS
digital space the visitor is expected to navigate
at his or her own leisure as labyrinth
interactivity. This interactivity is not limited to
the navigation of digital representations of
physical rooms – the space that labyrinth
interactivity concerns itself with is a space of
stories, movies, interviews, texts and images
that can be consumed and presented in any
variation and constellation. Labyrinth
interactivity, as a pedagogical tool, is prevalent
in the humanistic arts. Museums are frequently
using labyrinth interactivity in their exhibitions
when they offer up a selection of information
in the form of text or audio clips, images and
movies. In historical museums, interactivity is
often presented as a freedom of paths or a
shuffling of cards. Information can here be
digested at the visitor’s own pace through
different media and augmented reality.
Through the interactive display, the visitor can
pick what she is interested in, go back and forth
in the hierarchy of options, or simply choose to
follow the default pre-programmed path.
Interactivity has a wider meaning than being a
simple narration device; in a museum context it
“promises to turn the unfocused visitorconsumer into the interested engaged and
informed technological citizen” (Barry 2001:
129). This description is applicable to labyrinth
interactivity since it can be used to foster an
understanding for alternative branches within a
given field.
The interactivity where the actant is
shouldering a role – with its own specific rules
– I call simulacra interactivity. This interactivity
differs from labyrinth interactivity by including
artificial restrictions based on the analogue
conditions and relations it sets out to mimic.
Simulacra interactivity differs from the
labyrinth interactivity by introducing the
simulation of a body. The reactions are filtered
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JONATHAN WESTIN
52
Fig: 1: The interactive visualization of the Sanctuary of Hercules Victor. © 2010 J. Westin.
through this body. The body does not have to
be a digital representation of an analogue body,
but does consist of a series of restrictions that
discipline the user into a modus operandi. These
restrictions constitute an imperfect mimesis
since they imitate the knowledge of the body –
not the body itself – and are changed through
their translation into figures in the digital
sphere. The actant entering the simulacra
interactivity accepts the restrictions as tropic
and works within them. The simulacra convey
the idea that the figure is seen, and treated, as a
perfect representation of reality. It is an
aspiration of simulating reality with something
that is perceived as a possible substitution for
reality. NASA, developing a massive multiplayer
game, sees the educational gaming platform as
a persistent, synthetic environment supporting
education as a laboratory (BBC 18.01.2008,
Wired 21.01.2008, Wired 22.01.2008).
“Virtual worlds with scientifically accurate
simulations could permit learners to tinker
with chemical reactions in living cells, practice
operating and repairing expensive equipment,
and experience microgravity[…] [It] will foster
career exploration opportunities in a much
deeper way than reading alone would permit
and at a fraction of the time and cost of an
internship program” (Laughlin 2007). The
simulacra interactivity, like the simulacra of
Baudrillard, produces an inter-link with the
real that is tropic, but cannot be treated
objectively as true or false (Baudrillard 1988:
166–170. See also Doel and Clarke 1999:
266).
Labyrinth interactivity and the Sanctuary of
Hercules Victor
The interactive visualization of the Sanctuary of
Hercules Victor consisted of a reconstruction – a
scene depicting the templum of the sanctuary
in Tivoli, Italy – that was mercurial in its
constellation; the image shifted between two
distinct versions of the same scene – one as a
serene garden area and the other as a lively
market. Most objects were removable, or could
be changed into alternative interpretations
which were supported by text that explained
the reasoning behind them (fig. 1). The goal
was to communicate an uncertainty rather than
trying to convince the user of a truth, and give
her the freedom to express her own
interpretation of the space (see Santillo Frizell
and Westin 2009 and Westin and Eriksson
THE
2010 for a comprehensive description of the
project).
To reach this goal there had to be
negotiations between a series of actants; the
instigator, the media and the recipient. In
the negotiations between the museum
(Communicating Actant A) and the interactive
display (Mediating Actant B), the initial ideas
of the museum had to be translated into a
structure that was supported by the tools at
hand. Technological possibilities, skill and time
affected this translation and shaped how the
interactive display mediated the idea to the
visitor (Communicating Actant C). Further,
not to break the communication, the visitor
demanded that the idea followed a certain
structure for it to be understood – as a recipient
she had to be familiar with the meaning of the
components of the interface to be able to
navigate the idea successfully – which further
translated the idea into a collaboration between
all three actants. Through this negotiation
process the project took a detour from the
initial plan – a plan which was interrupted by
the visitor’s perceived lack of interest – to a less
complicated one that was considered better
suited to the task of engaging the visitor. Only
symbols and modality markers that the visitor
would instinctively recognize were used.
Options were reduced and simplified so that
the visitor wouldn’t feel overwhelmed, and the
language was adapted to be comprehensible by
non-scholars. The interactive display was made
possible through a number of software
applications, which all shaped the product:
Strata 3D Studio CX 5, Adobe Photoshop CS3
and Adobe Flash CS3. A series of 3D models
were first created in Strata 3D Studio CX 5,
each reconstructing the scene differently. Key
components were selected from each scene,
rendered as high-resolution Photoshop
INTERACTIVE MUSEUM AND ITS NON-HUMAN ACTANTS
documents with alpha channels, and then
imported into Adobe Photoshop CS3, where
they were assembled as a multilayer document.
This allowed them to be combined in a variety
of ways. Each component of the assembled
Photoshop document was then exported as a
PNG image with the alpha channel intact and
imported into Adobe Flash CS3 as unique
movie clips that could be interchanged using
the ActionScript 3 language. The initial idea of
the museum has now – by being codified in
graphics, symbols, text and clear choices – been
translated into a hybrid that both the
interactive display and the visitor accepts. The
interactive display acknowledges this by
working and the visitor acknowledges this by
partaking in the communication.
In making the components of the
visualization interchangeable, the interactive
display allows the visitor to express her ideas
about the space by controlling the combination
of components. A wooden rail or a stone
balustrade? A coloured tent or a white canopy?
Red or white columns? Hence, a finite space
was created and offered up for exploration.
Simulacra interactivity and WolfQuest
WolfQuest, developed by Minnesota Zoo in
conjunction with EduWeb (www.eduweb.com),
is described in the press release as a wolf
simulator aimed at educating the player about
the wolf. Through the simulation of being
inside a wolf body and being confined to those
motions allowed by that body – lack of speech
and hands, but with great speed, hearing and
sense of smell – the visitor is expected to learn
about the ecology of the wolf. In the character
of a wolf, the visitor can freely move about a
vast digital landscape populated by prey and
other wolves with which she interacts (fig. 2).
Furthermore, she is encouraged to seek
53
JONATHAN WESTIN
54
Fig 2: WolfQuest © 2010 Minnesota Zoo and Eduweb.
alternative sources – one such source being the
wolf biologists available through the game’s
online presence – and contribute to the
community through art and stories. So how do
you create a digital wolf simulacra?
EduWeb (Communicating Actant A) had an
assignment from Minnesota Zoo to create an
interest in the ecology of the wolf through
interactive media. The aim of this interactive
media (Mediating Actant B) was to give the
visitor (Communicating Actant C) a deeper
understanding of the various aspects of a wolf’s
life. For there to be uninterrupted
communication between EduWeb and the
visitor, WolfQuest had to attract the attention
of the visitor. This was achieved through
presenting WolfQuest as a fun experience that
let the visitor quickly learn through play. A
translation on a grand scale was necessary;
information was adapted and codified so the
visitor could navigate it from a wolf’s point of
view. By putting her in the simulated body of a
wolf and then let her experience and react to
different situations that highlighted the ecology
of a real wolf, she was both enticed to stay in –
or keep returning to – the interactive teaching/
learning space and gain an understanding for
aspects of the wolf that are hard to obtain solely
through literature. The developers choose
Unity as a 3D game engine and brought in
external expertise on both 3D modelling and
game engine optimization to adapt their vision
for the integrated authoring tool. Furthermore,
they established an advisory committee to
provide the project with additional expertise to
inform both the design and dissemination of
the project.
WolfQuest, as a teaching/learning space, had
to be a product of EduWeb’s collected
knowledge about wolf ecology – obtained from
Minnesota Zoo and a group of consultants –
where certain key characteristics were identified
that could easily be communicated and learnt
through experiences, or translated into stylized,
turn-based social interactions. These
characteristics were then turned into figures
and, as a method to even out the learning
curve, translated into a language of symbols
that could both be processed and visualized by
WolfQuest and which the visitor could relate
to. A coloured trail represented lingering scent
and a compass communicated the wolf’s ability
to “read” the land. The complex emotions
involved in a howl were mapped to a single key
stroke. EduWeb’s and Minnesota Zoo’s
knowledge of the wolf has successfully, just as
THE
in the case of the Sanctuary of Hercules Victor,
been translated into a hybrid that is both
allowed by the interactive space and accepted
by the visitor. Once again the interactive
display acknowledges this by working and the
visitor acknowledges this by partaking in the
communication, an act measured by the
reported 400,000 downloads and the over one
million forum posts (www.wolfquest.org/
about_overview.php).
ANALYSIS
The two strands of interactivity briefly
described – the result of a series of detours and
negotiations made necessary by earlier failures
– are teaching/learning environments that
work in seemingly very different ways, but the
communication is disciplined through the
same non-human actant. The simplest form –
labyrinth interactivity – functions as a
visualized presentation of ideas. These ideas are
available through a series of choices presented
by the interface. The interface – the nonhuman actant – allows the visitor to navigate
information made available, but does not
afford her any active way of communicating
her interpretation of the space back to the
museum, since her expressions are limited by
the pre-programmed alternatives handed down
to the interactive display from the museum.
Hence the non-human actant allows the visitor
to react to what is presented, but does not allow
her to act. Labyrinth interactivity is therefore
the freedom of choosing from available versions
of stories, consequently navigating conflicting
themes, and choosing from a variety of media
representing aspects of these stories. As the
description implies, these stories can be
navigated as a labyrinth where the visitor may
choose different paths on the way through the
INTERACTIVE MUSEUM AND ITS NON-HUMAN ACTANTS
information space controlling order, selection
and pace. This interactive setting is a closed
space where the visitor is only free to transmit
within its borders.
Simulacra interactivity gives you a role to
play. By playing this role, you learn about its
relations in the surrounding world. The
simulacra interactivity functions as a visualized
presentation of these relations, setting up rules
for how certain reactions foster subsequent
reactions. However, these relations are figures
based on pre-programmed conclusions that are
enforced by the non-human actantt. In your
role you try to solve a problem – how to find
food – but the tools at hand only let you
proceed in ways the non-human actant deems
right. By utilizing knowledge gained outside
the role, the player evolves the simulacra
interactivity, making the experience richer by
applying a layer of insights to the motions of
the role. This creates what Baudrillard calls the
hyperreal; something more than what is
imitated, augmented into a perfected reality
through the ambition of mimicking reality.
This is analogue to the physical interactivity
present at natural science museums, where the
reality of the effect is the starting point and a
state is conjured where the interaction of the
user produces that effect through movements
that are tropic to the actual relations.
Though both of the described strands of
interactivity allow movements, what sets them
apart is the way the non-human actant
disciplines the movements of the user; the
forced movement within the created borders of
the labyrinth interactivity or the forced
movements within the created digital body of
the Simulacra interactivity. The first presents a
finite material for the body to arrange in a finite
number of possible ways while the second puts
you in a digital body that operates in a world
55
JONATHAN WESTIN
56
with clear and unbreakable rules. Even though
they seem disparate, what unifies these spaces is
how they displace action with reaction and thus
– through the non-human actant – limits the
communication to choices within the
established knowledge space. The museum
shoulders the role as a guiding subject who,
gracefully, reaches out to another subject, the
visitor, and asks her to voice her meaning
through the interactive space. By putting the
answering subject into a milieu built by the
enquiring subject, the latter controls the
possible expressions of the former. Thus all
choice given in the interactive sphere is by
consequence a disciplining of the respondent
into a knowledge space controlled by the
instigator (Westin 2009). However, even
Actant A, the instigator, has been disciplined
into certain expressions by the non-human
actant.
When Actant A wishes to communicate with
Actant C, Actant B forces Actant A to express
this communication through specific questions
and responses. In the interactive visualization
of the Sanctuary of Hercules Victor, this is
expressed by Actant A through the indirect
question “how do you think it might have
looked?”, a question that must be answered by
Actant C through the series of possible
responses presented by Actant B in the
interface. There is no way for the visitor to
point out a fourth or fifth option based on her
own expertise and truly partake in the dialogue
on her own terms. The museum’s knowledge
space remains intact, and unchallenged, since
no other voice can make itself heard.
In WolfQuest, the power relation is
established by Actant A through the indirect
question “how do you wish to notify your
pack?”, a question that must be answered by
Actant C through the series of possible
Fig 3: Both the museum’s and the visitor’s knowledge
spaces are mediated, and thus translated, by the narrow
interactive space. © 2011 J. Westin.
responses presented by Actant B in the
interface. If Actant A has decided that a wolf
can only contact other wolfs through a certain
behaviour, then that behaviour is by code the
only one that is accepted by Actant B. The
visitor must play along even if she has other
additional ideas about how to solve the problem.
The question changes from “what can I as a
wolf do?” to “what would EduWeb and their
enrolled experts think a wolf would do and
how have they translated that behaviour to
WolfQuest?”. Thus, action is in all instances
displaced by reaction, confined to a few
permitted responses, and a vast knowledge
space is narrowed down to fit within the
interface of the interactive space (fig. 3).
When designing an interactive interface the
museum essentially locks it down; it brings its
building blocks to the table, blocks that the
visitor could arrange in a number of ways, but
the museum will not allow them to be replaced.
However, this analogy is intentionally flawed –
at an actual table the visitor, if unhappy with
the present selection of building blocks, could
clear some of them away and empty her bag
right there, exposing to the museum and other
visitors her selection, and build a structure true
to her message. It might not look as
professional as those built by the museum’s
THE
blocks, but it would be a more honest answer
to the museum’s wish that the visitor’s voice be
heard. There is no non-human actant there at
the table to discipline her response and stop her
from partaking in the dialogue on her own
terms, even though, admittedly, all the nonhuman actants that make up a museum
environment could have enough of an
intimidating effect to make her not to.
Back in the interactive space, all movements
are disciplined by the available options in the
interface – a digitized selection of the museum’s
knowledge put there at the birth of the nonhuman actant and since then enforced by the
interface – and there is no channel that allows
the visitor to express herself outside the
building blocks the museum hands her. There
is no digital equivalent of clearing the table and
emptying your own bag of experiences and
ideas. So why do the museums then keep
asking the visitor to make her voice heard when
all she can do is choose between answers given
to her?
CONCLUSION
The technologies at the heart of the future of
museums are all communicative technologies,
and in all communication there are at least
three actants; two communicating actants
and the medium through which they
communicate, be it voice, signs or technology.
In this study I have described, through a
generalized symmetry, a specific technology –
the interactive display – as an actant exercising
the same autonomy as the other actants. This
raises the non-human actant to the same level
as the human actants and emphasizes how it
controls an equal part of the communication in
an exhibition. The non-human actant is
initially programmed by the instigating actant
INTERACTIVE MUSEUM AND ITS NON-HUMAN ACTANTS
57
Fig 4: An alternative channel outside the interactive
space, which permits a less constrained communication.
© 2011 J. Westin.
to engage the visitor and make her a part of the
exhibition, but, as I have shown, functions as
an autonomous actant in the communicative
exchange, which limits the dialogue to the
museum’s knowledge space rather than
including the visitor’s.
I have described two interactive situations,
each representing a typical example from a
distinguishable form of interactivity. In both
examples there has been a network consisting
of three macro-actants; Communicating Actant
A, Mediating Actant B and Communicating
Actant C. When Actant A and Actant C wish to
communicate they have to go through Actant
B, the non-human actant. What lacks in both
models is an element of feedback from Actant
C that alters the fundamentals of the
interactivity, and transforms it beyond the
intentions of the initial action by breaking the
fishbowl all interactivity resides in. The
simulacra interactivity described, however, had
established a communication channel outside
the interactive space in the form of the available
“wolf biologists” and a dedicated forum. The
user, if enterprising, could turn to these
channels and establish a dialogue about the
subject where she can express herself in a way
not permitted within the interactive space.
This holds true in a museum context; when
JONATHAN WESTIN
58
employing interactive displays aimed at
creating a communication with the visitor – a
communication where the visitor’s input is
taken seriously – you also have to provide a
channel outside the interactive space where the
visitor can express her thoughts about the
experience (fig. 4). As stated in the introduction;
interactivity is a great pedagogic tool since the
visitor is free to navigate a large amount of
information at her own pace. However, most
interactive models can never be a source of
information beyond the scoop of their creator
– they can never in themselves be a dialogue
between museum and visitor. By itself, an
interactive display does not challenge authority
but instead reinforces it through discipline.
It is a challenge to find a pedagogic approach
that opens up a technology to action instead of
reaction, by-passing the inherent subject–
object relation of the museum. A visitor could
very well be better informed about a certain
subject than the museum, but interactive
displays in their current form, I argue, do not
offer an opportunity for these visitors to express
themselves and share their knowledge, as a
consequence of the non-human actants. By
acknowledging the non-human actant’s role in
disciplining any communicative exchange,
museums and developers can take steps to
minimize its effect and deploy several layers of
interaction to allow both the museum and the
visitor as much freedom in their expressions as
possible.
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*Jonathan Westin, M.A, PhD-student
Address: Department of Conservation,
University of Gothenburg, Box 130,
SE-405 30 Göteborg,
Sweden
E-mail: [email protected]
59
NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2011 1, S. 60-80
●
Digital levendegørelse
- 1700-tals faktionsleg på Facebook
METTE BORITZ*, MIA RAMSING JENSEN*,
CHARLOTTE S.H. JENSEN* OG IDA LUND-ANDERSEN*
Title: Digital living history – playing with eighteenth-century “faction” on
Facebook.
Abstract: Living history is becoming increasingly popular within the museum
world, and is found in many different forms. In this article, we wish to introduce
the term ”digital living history” and consider what happens when a decision is
made to generate living history in digital form in conjunction with cultural history
and museum collections, and what kinds of potential and which challenges are
involved in such a process. At the same time, the article will consider to what
extent ”digital living history” can be used to engage in a dialogue with target
groups not often encountered in museum contexts. The article is based on a project
about a fictive young girl named Ida Charlotte, who posted an account of her
thoughts and experiences on Facebook, as these unfolded day by day over a sixmonth period in 1772. This project, which was targeted at young women and
girls, was run by the National Museum of Denmark in 2010, and was followed
by a series of surveys that are examined in this article.
Key words: Digital living history,”faction” games, eighteenth century, user
involvement, Facebook.
IDA CHARLOTTE
PÅ
FACEBOOK
Den 1. april 2010 gik Nationalmuseet på Facebook med den fiktive 19-årige borgerskabspige Ida Charlotte Finnelstrup. Den unge Ida
Charlotte var netop rejst fra Ålborg til København, hvor hun skulle opholde sig et halvt år
hos sin onkel og tante. Herefter var målet, at
hun skulle rejse til De Vestindiske Øer, hvor
hendes forlovede Jørgen – og et liv som frue –
ventede. I det halve år, hun var i København,
skrev Ida Charlotte på sin Facebookside, og det
var gennem disse daglige skrivelser, at 1700-tallet langsomt blev vakt til live. Det var her, at
hun berettede om både store og små hændelser
og om livet i almindelighed, som det formede
sig i Kongens København i året 1772. Det var
også her, hun delte både sorger og glæder med
sine Facebook-venner og kunne spørge dem til
råds, når tvivlen nagede hende.
DIGITAL LEVENDEGØRELSE
Med støtte fra Kulturarvsstyrelsen satte Nationalmuseet sig for at afprøve, om det er muligt at anvende netop Facebook som redskab
til at levendegøre kulturhistorien. Overordnet
handler levendegørelse om at simulere liv i en
anden tid (Anderson 1991). Det er en metode, som kan anvendes til at præsentere en historisk periode ved hjælp af aktører, som i
handling portrætterer og udlever forholdene i
en given tid og på et givent sted (Hunt 2004).
I disse år bliver der netop eksperimenteret
med mange former for levendegørelse, og brugen udvikler sig hele tiden (Drost Aakjær
2008). I denne artikel vil en ny form føje sig
til, nemlig den Digitale levendegørelse. Den vil
med udgangspunkt i projektet om den fiktive
borgerskabspige Ida Charlotte og hendes
skriblerier på Facebook søge at analysere, hvad
der sker og hvilke potentialer og udfordringer,
det rummer for museerne, når de søger at levendegøre kulturhistorien og museernes samlinger digitalt. Samtidig vil den forholde sig
til, hvorvidt digital levendegørelse kan bruges
til at komme i dialog med en målgruppe, som
ikke, eller kun i ringe grad, bruger museerne –
i dette tilfælde unge kvinder i alderen 15-30
år. Ifølge den Nationale Brugerundersøgelse
udgør de 14-29 årige kun 13 % af museernes
samlede besøgstal, og ser man på hvor mange,
der kommer uden for skoletiden er det sikkert
endnu mindre (KUAS 2009). I stedet for i
første omgang at få de unge kvinder til at gå
på museum, var intentionen at bringe museets
samlinger og viden i spil der, hvor de unge
kvinder selv befinder sig. Det var derfor oplagt at anvende Facebook som platform, idet
brugen af Facebook er særdeles udbredt
blandt unge kvinder i Danmark. Beregner
man løseligt ud fra Facebooks egne annonceoplysninger, tæller gruppen af kvindelige brugere til og med de 35 år over 750.000.1
LEVENDEGØRELSE
OG RE-ENTACTMENT
Det at undersøge levendegørelsen af historien vinder stadig større tilslutning inden for
museumsverdenen, og særligt på Frilandsmuseer er det en formidlingsform som har vundet
indpas. Levendegørelse er en iscenesat konstruktion, som i praksis kan antage mange former og praktiseres i form af rollespil, teater,
demonstration af håndværk, brug af avancerede AV-midler, ved inddragelse af publikum
osv. (Jørgensen 2003). At gøre historien levende kan med andre ord gøres på et utal af måder, og overordnet omfatter begrebet levendegørelse flere forskellige tilgange. Der tales fx.
både om levendegørelse og om re-entactment,
som repræsenterer forskellige tilgange til det at
levendegøre historien. Levendegørelse er en
meget bred term, som anvendes til at beskrive
historisk autentiske aktiviteter udført i en
konkret kontekst, fx. på et Frilandsmuseum.
Aktørerne, som deltager i levendegørelsen,
kan, for nogens vedkommende, være i rolle,
mens andre ”blot” er klædt ud. Re-enactment
betegner i reglen genskabelsen af en enkelt
historisk episode eller hændelse (fx. et historisk slag), hvor mange aktører ofte er involveret, og hvor handlingen, kostumerne og selve
slaget er vigtigere end det talte ord.2 Hvor reentactment nærmer sig en forestilling, der har
udøvere og tilskuere, så ligger levendegørelse i
sin form nærmere “aktivitet” end “forestilling”. Med levendegørelse kan gæster, brugere
etc. vælge at være tilskuere, men de kan også
interagere aktivt med de aktører, som skaber
en historisk illusion. Og hvor re-entactment
primært handler om at rekonstruere historiske
begivenheder, som f.eks. historiske slag, så
korrekt som muligt, så fokuserer man med levendegørelse i højere grad på hverdagslivet,
som det formede sig på et givent sted i en gi-
61
METTE BORITZ, MIA RAMSING JENSEN, CHARLOTTE S.H. JENSEN
62
ven tid. Begge metoder til at søge at levendegøre historien i den analoge verden har også
vundet indpas i den digitale verden. Der er
bl.a. flere eksempler på re-enactment-genren,
hvor én eller flere personer genskaber et historisk hændelsesforløb så præcist og historisk
korrekt som muligt. Kendte eksempler er
“Harry’s blog”, som offentliggjorde soldaten
Harry Lamins breve fra første verdenskrigs
skyttegrave i simuleret realtid. De blev blogget
præcis 90 år efter, at de var skrevet - et projekt
der fik masser af læsere og opmærksomhed fra
medierne.
Mikrobloggingtjenesten Twitter er også flere gange blevet brugt til at genskabe – twitenacte – fx historiske begivenheder som Slaget
ved Gettysburg og JFK’s valgkamp. Storbritanniens rigsarkiv bringer med ukwarcabinet
historien om anden verdenskrig – baseret på
originale kilder, og Masschusetts Historical
Society twitter John Quincy Adams’ liv. Et andet eksempel kan også være initiativer, som
bruger originale personlige kilder – fx @genny_spencer, der twitter en ung piges dagbogsnotater fra 1930’erne eller @samuelpepys, der
tager udgangspunkt i den flittige engelske
dagbogsskriver Samuel Pepy’s mange bind.
Det kan diskuteres, om “digital re-enactment”
er et rimeligt begreb at anvende i sammenhænge, hvor der kun er én udøvende “re-enacter”, der fx blogger og twitter, men i situationer, hvor flere personer interagerer, er ligheden med fysisk re-enactment slående. Her er
det nødvendigt at kende det virkelige hændelsesforløb og de agerendes indbyrdes forhold,
timing etc., præcis som hvis et slag eller lignende genopføres.
Projektet om Ida Charlotte er mere et udtryk for digital levendegørelse, end digital reenactment. Levendegørelse baserer sig ofte på
andre kreative og symbolske former – specielt
OG IDA
LUND-ANDERSEN
drama, ritualer eller leg. Det er ofte teateragtigt med brug af kostumer, og kan også opfattes som en slags rollespil, hvor man har mulighed for at identificere sig med historiske karakterer. Det var netop denne aktive ageren og
denne identifikation, som projektet om Ida
Charlotte gerne måtte ramme. En forskel
mellem digital og analog levendegørelse, som
også skulle afprøves, er den simulerede realtid,
som i den digitale form kan opretholdes over
et meget længere tidsrum, end det er muligt
analogt. I projektet Ida Charlotte var levendegørelsen således planlagt til at løbe over ½ år,
hvilket næppe havde været praktisk muligt i
den analoge verden.
Brugen af levendegørelse i museumsverdenen er langt fra et nyt fænomen, men at det i
dag har fået så stor en udbredelse skyldes, ifølge den amerikanske historieprofessor Jay Anderson, at mange i dag virkelig interesserer sig
for, hvordan hverdagslivet er blevet levet i tidligere tider (Anderson 1986). Denne interesse
for hverdagslivet i fortiden opstod allerede i
Europa i sidste halvdel af 1800-tallet, hvor
man fra museernes side begyndte at indsamle
genstande, som bl.a. tog udgangspunkt i bøndernes hverdagsliv, der i takt med industrialiseringen ændrede sig markant. Det gjaldt dermed om at indsamle denne kulturarv inden
den forsvandt, men også om at bruge den aktivt og fremadrettet til bl.a. national- og identitetsskabende formål (Stoklund, Floris &
Vasström). Men det handlede også om at få
folket til at identificere sig med historien. I
1878 udstillede den svenske museumsmand
Arthur Hazelius på Verdensudstillingen i Paris
et bondestueinteriør, hvor dukker klædt i originale dragter stod sørgende omkring ”Lillans
sidsta bädd”. Konceptet med at dramatisere
hverdagsliv i et museumsinteriør overførte
Hazelius til museumsverdenen med ønsket
DIGITAL LEVENDEGØRELSE
om, at et museumsbesøg godt måtte være med
til at vække følelser hos publikum.
I Nordamerika blev levendegørelse med levende og udklædte aktører, der agerede eller
dramatiserede over historie, populært allerede
i midten af det 20. århundrede. Der skulle
imidlertid gå noget længere tid, inden levendegørelse for alvor kom til at indgå som en
formidlingsstrategi på de europæiske museer,
hvor det at levendegøre længe begrænsede sig
til demonstration af håndværk eller folkedans,
når bølgerne gik højt. Men i de seneste årtier
er levendegørelse blevet en strategi eller metode, som bruges i stadig stigende grad. Gennem levendegørelse søger museerne at hjælpe
de besøgende til at forstå kulturen i en bestemt periode, eller hvordan livet blev levet på
et bestemt sted (Reinheim 1991:170). Ifølge
Anderson kan der være flere grunde til at anvende levendegørelse som formidlingsgreb
(Anderson 1991). For det første kan det være
et greb til at simulere livet i en anden tidsalder
og få folk til at leve sig ind i denne samt hverdagslivets gøremål dengang. Levendegørelse
kan også være en metode til at fortolke museernes genstande på nye måder og sætte genstande i spil, som ellers står passive hen. I den
henseende kan levendegørelse fungere som et
forskningsværktøj for det, Anderson kalder
eksperimentel arkæologi. Endelig kan levendegørelse tjene som en underholdende fritidsaktivitet for folk, som elsker historie og er
interesseret i at finde ud af mere om, hvordan
livet i fortiden virkelig var. Med levendegørelse er det imidlertid ikke en fortid der vises,
men en fortid der skabes. Og det er lige præcis
dét, levendegørelse kritiseres for.
”Kan man stoppe tiden – fryse et øjeblik –
vække historien til live? Kan man få os, som
lever i dag, til at forstå hvordan, det var at leve
dengang?” Sådan spurgte museumsformidler
Ingrid Zakrisson i MID’s nyhedsbrev i 2003.
At søge at levendegøre fortiden er langt fra
uproblematisk, og spørgsmålet er om, eller i
hvilket omfang, det overhovedet lader sig
gøre. Svaret på Zakrissons spørgsmål må derfor være dobbelttydigt. For vi vil aldrig præcis
kunne gengive fortiden og de tanker som fortidens mennesker gjorde sig. Ifølge etnologen
Hans Ole Hansen er det ikke muligt at levendegøre noget fortidigt – det være sig 1000 år
gammelt eller 10 dage gammelt, for som han
fremhæver, vil vi aldrig kende hele sandheden,
og derfor kan vi kun levendegøre dele af fortiden eller en valgt forestilling om fortiden
(Hansen 2003). Der er nemlig så meget ved
fortiden, vi simpelthen ikke ved, bl.a. om
sprog og kultur i tidligere epoker, og det rejser
selvfølgelig spørgsmålet om, hvorvidt levendegørelse i virkeligheden i højere grad er med til
at mislede folks opfattelse af fortiden, fordi
der er så meget, som ikke kan fortælles og som
ikke bliver fortalt (Hunt 2004: 389). Levendegørelse som medierende formidlingsform
kan derfor let lede til enten en stereotypisering
eller en idealisering af fortiden (Carstensen et.
al 2008). Omvendt kan levendegørelsen, hvad
enten den er 100 % korrekt eller ej, bidrage til
at gøre historien vedkommende og vække
interesse, hvilket i høj grad var intentionen
med projektet om Ida Charlotte.
FAKTIONSLEG
Hvordan får man unge kvinder, der måske
ikke engang er historieinteresserede, til at engagere sig i 1700-tallets kulturhistorie? Hvordan giver man dem bedst et indblik i en tid,
der med sine store kjoler, pudderparykker,
manglende underbukser, fornuftsægteskaber
og utallige visitter synes meget anderledes end
i dag, men hvor det alligevel ikke er alt, der er
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METTE BORITZ, MIA RAMSING JENSEN, CHARLOTTE S.H. JENSEN
64
så anderledes endda? Det umiddelbare bud
blev at skabe en person, som det var muligt for
de unge at identificere sig med eller spejle sig
selv i – en person, der kunne bruges som omdrejningspunkt for at diskutere en lang række
fænomener, som er interessante på tværs af
tid, som fx kærlighed, moral, ægteskab, fødsel,
død, tøj, hår og makeup. Ida Charlotte blev
skabt som faktion. Faktion er et begreb, som er
kendt fra bl.a. tv og betegner et produkt, som
bygger på både fakta og fiktion. Virkelighed
og historisk realitet blandes her med opdigtede figurer, hændelsesforløb og steder. Både
fakta og fiktion kan noget, men også noget
forskelligt, når det handler om at engagere
folk i forhold til kulturhistorien. En fiktiv person kan frit tillægges følelser, tanker, værdier
og handlinger. Men hvis man vil holde sig på
faglighedens dydige sti, kan tilsvarende være
svært at tillægge en person, som virkeligt har
levet uden hurtigt at havne i historieforvanskning. Kildebelægget og forskningen omkring borgerskabskvinder i slutningen af
1700-tallet er fragmentarisk, og det vil være
svært at komme helt tæt på en af tidens
kvinder uden at skulle digte en del (Boritz
2000). Med den fiktive Ida Charlotte kunne
der digtes og dramatiseres mere frit – en digtning som dog foregik på så plausibelt et
grundlag som muligt. Fx fik Ida Charlotte et
nøje konstrueret stamtræ, og der blev skabt et
persongalleri, hvor alle fik navne, som passede
til tiden og standen. Samtidig var det afgørende, at projektet også skulle bygge på den videnskabelige viden, vi i dag har om 1700-tallet. Brugerne skulle ikke kun underholdes
men også lære. Med Ida Charlotte blev der således skabt en faktionsleg, hvor den fiktive
personlige fortælling blev krydret med fakta
fra tiden som f.eks. henrettelsen af Kong
Christian VII’s livlæge Struensee, opskrifter
OG IDA
LUND-ANDERSEN
fra 1700-tals kogebøger, gode råd fra husmoderbøger og billeder af genstande fra Nationalmuseets samlinger. Dagbøger m.m. bidrog til,
at Ida Charlottes dage formede sig efter, hvad
der reelt skete i 1772. Da hun den 1. maj tog
til maskebal med sin onkel, var det fordi, der i
1772 faktisk blev afholdt et maskebal i København på den dato, og på samme vis så hun
de stykker, som reelt blev vist på teatre i København. Andre typer af fakta fulgte ikke den
konkrete dato, men blev alligevel brugt som
forlæg. Det gælder antallet af visitter, regler
for sorg og begravelsesskik, synet på og behandlingen af sygdomme, overtro, holdningen til forbrydere, behandlingen af tjenestefolk,
praktiske daglige gøremål og endda mængden
af pudder som skulle indkøbes.3
Ida Charlottes historie på Facebook er med
andre ord ikke egentlig historieskrivning, og
lader sig samtidig heller ikke passe ind i de
mere traditionelle litterære genrer. Det er frem
for alt ikke som en roman eller en novelle, der
skrives af en forfatter fra ende til anden.
Hovedformålet var da heller ikke at fortælle en
historie, men i stedet at skabe eller opleve en
historie, sammen med en gruppe af interesserede. I et sådant setup bliver historien til,
mens den foregår – dvs. i realtid. Fra Nationalmuseets side var der naturligvis lagt visse
rammer og bestemt en række nedslagspunkter.
Der var udvalgt nogle væsentlige pointer, som
gerne skulle være en del af oplevelsen, og udformet en skitse til et storyboard. Men oven
på dette skelet af historiske realia skabte brugere og arrangører i fællesskab det “kød på historien”, som gav figuren og fortællingen liv.
Realtid er formidlingens svar på slow-food. I
en film rulles begivenheder frem i hastigt tempo, og et helt liv kan fortælles på 90 minutter.
I en bog kan læseren smugkigge på handlingen ved at bladre nogle sider frem – eller endda
DIGITAL LEVENDEGØRELSE
springe helt hen til slutningen og finde ud af,
hvem morderen er, uden at have fulgt hele historien. Men i realtid foregår alt, også rejser,
brevvekslinger m.m., ideelt set i samme tempo
som det ville være blevet levet i 1772. I en sådan proces er der ingen genveje eller smuthuller til at finde ud af, hvad der sker. Vi har derfor valgt at give Ida Charlottes historie på Facebook betegnelsen “faktionsleg”. Ved at forbinde faktionsbegrebet med “leg” indikeres en
uformel aktivitet men samtidig også et fokus
på aktivitet. En invitation til leg er en opfordring til et samvær, der bygger på gensidighed
og udfordrer til kreativitet. Hele intentionen
med projektet var at de, der fulgte Ida Charlottes liv og færden, ikke skulle være passive
beskuere men have mulighed for også aktivt at
deltage. Ønsket var at de, som brugere, skulle
være med til at skabe historien – med deres
spørgsmål, kommentarer, interesser og valg.
Projektet har med andre ord haft aktiv brugerinddragelse og deltagelse som målsætning.
DET
DELTAGENDE MUSEUM
Museerne står i dag over for store udfordringer. Antallet af besøgende falder på mange museer, og rundt om i verden ses et behov for, at
museerne genopfinder sig selv og deres samfundsmæssige rolle, hvis de ikke skal stå tilbage som støvede templer, der ikke er i brug.
Rundt om på museerne bliver der derfor
tænkt mange tanker om, hvilken rolle og
funktion de skal spille i samfundet (Gurian
2007). Fra politisk side er der samtidig et stigende krav om, at museerne ikke kun skal tilgodese dem, som vanligt kommer på museerne, men også søge at tiltrække nye brugergrupper. I dag arbejder mange museer derfor
aktivt med at komme ud til et bredere publikum, samt med at søge at give den brede be-
folkning et større ejerskab til samlingerne
(Message 2006). Det stiller krav til museerne
om også at skulle arbejde på nye måder. Nina
Simon peger i sin bog: ”The Participatory
Museum” (Simon 2010) på, at hvis museer vil
i kontakt med brugerne, og hvis museerne vil
demonstrere deres relevans og værdi, så gælder
det om aktivt at engagere folk og om at gøre
dem til deltagere i stedet for blot at være passive beskuere. Hun fremhæver at folk i dag forventer at få en mulighed for at respondere og
for at blive taget alvorligt. Nutidens museumsgængere vil have lov til at diskutere, dele
og forholde sig til det de oplever. Derfor skal
museerne i højere grad bestræbe sig på at fungere som ”deltagende kulturelle institutioner”,
forstået som steder, hvor de besøgende kan
skabe, dele og komme i dialog med hinanden
omkring et indhold eller emne.
Ida Charlottes side på Facebook fungerede
som et mini-community inden for det store
community, Facebooks, rammer. På både Facebook og andre netværkssites findes mange
mindre, brugerskabte communities, hvor kulturarv fungerer både som socialt objekt og
som informelt læringsobjekt. At skabe nye
netværk, selv for en kortere tid, er ikke nogen
enkelt opgave. Et community skal skabe værdi
for de deltagende, men brugeraktivitet kommer ikke, blot fordi en platform er skabt, stillet til rådighed og forsynet med et grundlæggende indhold. Samtidig er det vigtigt ikke at
lade aktiviteten være for åben. I indlægget
“Participation Inequality: Encouraging More
Users to Contribute” lister usabilityeksperten
Jakob Nielsen på useit.com en række faktorer,
som han tilbage i 2006 fandt, kunne få betydning for interesse i at deltage:
• Gør det lettere at deltage
• Gør deltagelse til en sidegevinst
65
METTE BORITZ, MIA RAMSING JENSEN, CHARLOTTE S.H. JENSEN
66
• Rediger, skab ikke fra bunden
• Beløn deltagelse – men overdriv ikke
• Forfrem kvalitets-bidragsydere
Ved at anvende Facebook som platform blev
en række af disse faktorer tilgodeset. Det er fx
nemt at deltage i et digitalt rum, hvor teknologi m.m. allerede er kendt. Et andet væsentligt aspekt er, at det basale niveau for deltagelse, at “like” eller “synes godt om” er meget
enkelt. Brugeren behøver ikke engang at deltage med selvformuleret tekst, men kan nøjes
med et museklik. En vigtig præmis for brug af
sociale medier er, at antallet af brugere, som
vil bidrage med indhold, formentlig vil være
langt mindre end antallet af deltagere. Hvis
målet derfor er at opnå en høj deltagelsesprocent, er det værd at overveje en form for incitamentstruktur og – i hvert fald i den indledende fase – at arbejde aktivt for at drive aktiviteten fremad, i stedet for blot at skabe rammen, og derefter overlade det til brugerne selv
at deltage og skabe relationer. Det er derfor
vigtigt at have en manager, for at få et netværks-community til at fungere. Manageren
har en vigtig rolle som både facilitator og deltager. Vigtigt er det frem for alt at lytte til de
udsagn og aktiviteter, som foregår og undgå
“sælgeragtig” adfærd, samt at skabe relationer,
autenticitet og nærvær. Navnlig i begyndelsen
af et communitys liv er dette i høj grad afhængigt af grundlæggerens aktivitet. Først i en
senere fase kan fællesskabets medlemmer skabe tværgående relationer, og lidt efter lidt frigøre sig fra såvel grundlæggerens som de første
eksperters eller med-facilitatorers autoritet. Simon peger på, at hvis man bruger det at deltage som et værktøj, så er det nødvendigt at definere nogle klare roller for brugerne om, hvad
de må og hvad der forventes af dem (Simon
2010). Samtidig må institutionerne være gea-
OG IDA
LUND-ANDERSEN
ret til, at når folk vælger at deltage og bidrage
til en institution, forventer de også at deres
indsats bliver integreret og taget alvorligt (Simon 2010). Institutionerne må lære at stole
på brugernes evner til at være både medskabende, bidragende, distribuerende osv. Det
fordrer samtidig en villighed til, fra museernes
side, at indtage en ny rolle. Fra at være autoritære eksperter, der øser af deres viden, bliver
den rolle museerne skal indtage i højere grad
rollen som vidensfacilitator museet og brugerne imellem (Gurian 2007).
HVORDAN
SKABTES GRUNDLAG FOR
DELTAGELSE?
Intentionen med projektet var at brugerne,
deres interesser, behov og ønsker skulle være
med til at drive historien om Ida Charlotte
frem. Spørgsmålet var blot hvilke ønsker, de
havde. Hvad skal der til for at få unge kvinder
til at engagere sig i 1700-tallet? For at komme
dette lidt nærmere, blev der etableret en fokusgruppe bestående af 7 kvinder i alderen
14-30 år. Pigerne var ikke specielt interesserede i historie, for nogle af dem var det næsten
tværtom. Det var heller ikke alle i fokusgruppen, som gik på museum – en enkelt havde fx
aldrig været på Nationalmuseet før. Ideen med
at invitere en fokusgruppe var desuden at søge
at få gruppens medlemmer til at komme med
nogle gode pejlemærker til, hvilke emner og
historier, det kunne være interessant at inddrage i projektet, samt hvilke andre elementer
som musik, film, quizzer, blogs eller hvilken
type af fotos som kunne være gode at bruge.
Det var imidlertid ikke alle de gode forslag fokusgruppen kom med, som det var muligt at
imødekomme. Fokusgruppen anbefalede fx
helt entydigt, at Ida Charlotte selvfølgelig
skulle være oprettet som en person på Facebook,
DIGITAL LEVENDEGØRELSE
så det var muligt at blive ven med hende personligt. Dette viste sig imidlertid ikke muligt,
da det ikke er tilladt at oprette profiler i andres
navn på Facebook, hvilket Nationalmuseet
valgte at tolke sådan, at det også gælder fiktive
personer. Ida Charlotte fik derfor sin egen side
i stedet for. Den helt personlige veninderelation med Ida Charlotte blev dermed ikke muligt, hvilket nogle af de yngste brugere beklagede undervejs, mens de lidt ældre ikke rigtigt
havde bidt mærke i, om det var en ”person” eller en ”side”.
Ved at bruge Facebook som formidlingsplatform, var der via mediets design lagt op til
at brugerne skulle inddrages og interagere
med den unge pige. Som udgangspunkt er Facebook et socialt medie skabt til netop kommunikation og for så vidt også til interaktion.
Det er dog ikke en forudsætning, at man skal
deltage. Facebooks design lægger op til, at
brugerne kan interagere på flere forskellige
måder. De kan kommentere på updates, billeder, links m.m. men også blot nøjes med at
trykke ”synes godt om” og dermed ikke indgå
i direkte dialog.
Meget af den umiddelbare interaktion med
brugerne foregik ved, at de kommenterede på
Ida Charlottes daglige stausopdateringer. Det
stod dog hurtigt klart, at opdateringer i sig
selv ikke altid er nok, til at få folk til at interagere. Opdateringen: ”Er ryggen på kjolen ikke
fantastisk?” sammen med et billede af Ida
Charlotte set bagfra i en af sine fine kjoler4 gav
ikke færre end 12 kommentarer med alt fra:
”Hvor har De fået den lavet?” til: ” Det ligner,
du har en kæmpe bagdel ; b”. Til gengæld gav
opdateringen: ”Rosenduft, frisk luft, the i haven, latter, solskin, natur – eeeelsker at ligge
på landet”, som blev skrevet den 21. juni kun
to kommentarer. Det kan selvfølgelig skyldes,
at den blev sendt på en dejlig sommerdag,
men det kan også skyldes, at en updatering
som denne er svær for brugerne at kommentere på. Generelt var der større respons, når der
blev formuleret et klart spørgsmål, som folk
kunne svare på eller tage stilling til.
Via Facebook kan man få adgang til forskellige funktioner, der kunne hjælpe os med at
skabe andre muligheder for interaktion. Applikationen ”PollDaddy” gjorde det muligt at
lægge afstemninger ud, hvor brugerne både
kunne stemme anonymt men også kommentere åbenlyst. Det var med denne funktion,
det blev besluttet, at Ida Charlottes lille nye
moppe skulle hedde Melampe, og at hun bestemt måtte købe en tobaksdåse til spillelæreren som tak for, at han reddede hende fra den
frække, nærgående og yderst upassende ungersvend Ditlev, en ven til Ida Charlottes fætter. Det var også Facebook-vennerne, der
hjalp hende med at træffe sit livs beslutning:
Skulle hun følge sin fornuft og gifte sig med
handelsmanden Jørgen, som var et godt parti,
eller skulle hun følge sit hjerte og løbe væk
med den ubemidlede spillelærer? Mange deltog i afstemningerne, og en del valgte ligeledes at begrunde deres valg med en kommentar. Og da valget stod mellem kærlighed og
fornuft var vennerne på Facebook ikke i tvivl:
Ida Charlotte skulle selvfølgelig følge sit hjerte. Det ville nok ikke være sket i 1700-tallet,
hvor fornuften rådede. Men vil man lade brugerne være med til at skabe historien, må man
også være åben over for deres valg. På trods af
udfaldet, lykkedes det alligevel at få diskuteret forskellen mellem fornufts- og kærlighedsægteskab, samt at bevæggrunden for valg af
ægtefælle i høj grad er præget af den tid, man
lever i og de muligheder, den enkelte person
har.
Efter et stykke tid begyndte Ida Charlottes
venner selv at spørge om ting, og langsomt
67
METTE BORITZ, MIA RAMSING JENSEN, CHARLOTTE S.H. JENSEN
68
ændredes dialogen fra primært at være mellem
brugerne og Ida Charlotte til, at brugerne også
begyndt at kommunikere med hinanden. De
mest aktive kendte hinanden og hinandens
standpunkter. De vidste hvem, der talte spillelærerens sag og hvem, der stædigt holdt på, at
Ida Charlotte selvfølgelig skulle følge sine faders befaling og gifte sig med Jørgen. Men
brugerne kunne også hjælpe hinanden og begyndte ofte at svare på hinandens spørgsmål,
inden Ida Charlotte overhovedet kunne nå at
komme til tasterne. Den 26. maj skrev Ida
Charlotte fx på sin side: ”Er i dag blevet åreladt – for sundhedens skyld altså. Det er nu
smart, altså åreladning – man åbner en blodåre, så kroppen renses. Jeg er desværre så hysterisk inden, selvom det egentlig ikke gør så
ondt. Men jeg kan ikke gøre for det – kender i
det?” Til denne statusupdatering kom 7 meget
lange kommentarer, heriblandt: ”Der er nu
ikke noget som en halvårlig åreladning.”, men
også én der stillede spørgsmålet: ”Anvender
man kopsætning hertil for at trække blodet
frem?” Før spørgsmålet blev besvaret, var der
en anden, der spurgte: ”Hvad er en kopsætning?”, og det blev en tredje person som besvarede spørgsmålet med en længere udredning om, hvad en kopsætning bestod i. Brugerne begyndte også at komme med gode ideer, forslag og links til hinanden om materiale
til videre læsning, musik fra tiden samt om
andre museumsudstillinger eller events om
1700-tallet. Undervejs i projektet opstod der
også en slags interessegrupper, og det var muligt at følge, hvilke personer, der interesserede
sig for hvad. Fx var der flere mænd, der deltog
og kommenterede, da opdateringerne handlede om henrettelsen af Struensee. De var til
gengæld ikke rigtigt på banen, da Ida Charlotte bad sine venner om hjælp til, hvad hendes
lille hund skulle hedde, eller da hunden løb
OG IDA
LUND-ANDERSEN
væk. Her var det i stedet de helt unge piger,
som kom på banen.
Da Ida Charlotte skrev sin allersidste updatering på Facebook, var hendes fans ikke klar
til at give slip. De fortsatte deres indbyrdes dialog og begyndte sågar at digte videre på historien, så da siden endelig blev lukket ned i
midten af november, var der ikke alene skabt
interesse for 1700-tallet hos brugerne. Med
Ida Charlotte var der også langsomt vokset et
fællesskab frem hos en gruppe mennesker med
samme interesse for historie og 1700-tal – en
interesse der førte til, at brugerne, efter at Ida
Charlotte-siden helt blev lukket ned, åbnede
deres egen side på Facebook under titlen
”Theklubben fra 1772”.
MELLEM
DEN ANALOGE OG DIGITALE VERDEN
Som et forsøg skulle det afprøves, om det ville
fungere at flytte Ida Charlotte fra den virtuelle
verden til den virkelige, og se om det ville forstyrre eller styrke historien at se hende i levende live? Projektet var godt nok ikke skabt med
henblik på at lokke flere til fysisk at gå på museum. Det var heller ikke tænkt som en skjult
reklame for udvalgte udstillinger, men skabt
til nettet og skulle fungere på nettet. Omvendt ville det være sjovt at se, om den megen
dialog omkring 1700-tallet skærpede brugernes nysgerrighed for at se eller prøve ting, som
har med 1700-tallet at gøre – og for at møde
hinanden i virkeligheden. Den digitale formidling skulle gøres analog. Fokusgruppen
havde tilkendegivet, at de godt selv kunne
finde på at deltage i særlige arrangementer på
Nationalmuseet, som fx at prøve tøj eller
dans, og de understregede, at de ville deltage
eller prøve noget og at det ikke bare skulle
være foredrag. I slutningen af september blev
der afholdt en afskedsfest hvor Ida Charlottes
69
Ida Charlotte ved spejlet i interiørerne i Prinsens Palæ, Nationalmuseet. Foto: Nationalmuseet.
METTE BORITZ, MIA RAMSING JENSEN, CHARLOTTE S.H. JENSEN
OG IDA
LUND-ANDERSEN
syneladende glade for blot at forblive i den
virtuelle faktionsleg, ligesom nogle var forhindret i at komme til disse fysiske arrangementer, fordi de boede for langt væk – en problematik den virtuelle formidling ikke mødte.
Men de, der mødte op var yderst begejstrede
og nød at prøve kjoler, sminke sig, og ikke
mindst ”lege” at de den 25. september 2010
var til 1700-tals bal. Nogle så meget at de ikke
på et eneste tidspunkt trådte ud af deres ”roller” som 1700-tals mennesker. Med andre ord
vakte det begejstring også at kunne få lov at
bruge andre sanser end dem man tog i brug i
det virtuelle. Ligeledes oplevede vi også at arrangementerne, og særligt det sidste (ballet),
netop af brugerne blev set som en mulighed
for at møde hinanden.
70
NÅEDE
Fig. 2: Under ”skabelsen” af Ida Charlotte. Ligesom i
1700-tallet tog det flere timer inden sminken var lagt og
håret sat. Foto: Nationalmuseet.
fans kunne danse 1700-tals dans, smage mad
lavet som i 1700-tallet, høre opera fra tiden og
møde den unge pige. Ballet var det sidste i en
række af gratis arrangementer på Nationalmuseet, formidlet gennem Ida Charlotte-siden.
Brugerne havde således også haft mulighed for
i løbet af det halve år forinden at komme ind
og lære at sminke sig og danse, som man gjorde i 1700-tallet samt prøve et par kopier af
kjoler og korsetter fra tiden. Vi oplevede,
hvordan særligt de unge fans var begejstrede
for den fysiske formidling, selvom tilslutningen ikke var overvældende i forhold til Ida
Charlottes samlede antal fans. Mange var til-
PROJEKTET SIN MÅLGRUPPE?
Da Ida Charlotte skrev sin sidste opdatering 1.
oktober var der 854 brugere på hendes side.
Ikke umiddelbart noget stort tal. Projektets
styrke skal da nok heller ikke findes i antallet
af brugere, men snarere i hvem brugerne var,
og hvordan de interagerede. I projektets næstsidste uge, dvs. før afstemningen om den unge
piges skæbne, havde siden 1.226 besøg og 633
månedlige brugere. Til sammenligning havde
Nationalmuseets primære Facebook-side 875
besøg og 402 månedlige brugere – uagtet at
fangruppen her omfattede næsten 2.400 personer på det angivne tidspunkt. Opslagskvaliteten på Ida Charlotte-siden var således betydeligt højere end på museets sædvanlige Facebook-side. Med opslagskvaliteten har man
mulighed for at måle hvilken respons, der
kommer på siden og dermed få et indblik i
hvor meget, brugerne engagerer sig og hvordan, man fanger deres interesse. Med Ida
Charlotte deltog ca. 800 mennesker gennem
DIGITAL LEVENDEGØRELSE
71
Fig. 3: Fotos af originale genstande fra Nationalmuseets samlinger blev flittigt brugt til at underbygge Ida Charlottes
historie. Foto: Nationalmuseet.
mange måneder i en kulturhistorisk aktivitet –
for nogles vedkommende flere gange om ugen
– for andre faktisk dagligt. I modsætning til
museernes udstillinger hvor der typisk kommer langt flere mennesker, og hvor besøget jo
også varer langt kortere tid. Det vidner om en
helt anden form for deltagelse end ved fx museumsbesøg men også om, at forskellige medier kan bidrage til at museerne opbygger meget
forskellige relationer til brugerne.
Vil man analysere, hvad der ellers kom ud
af projektet, er Facebook et meget taknemmeligt medie at arbejde med. Sidens administratorer kan nøje følge med i brugernes gøren og
laden på siden via Facebooks egen statistik.
Hver uge kommer der fx opsummeringer om
antallet af kommentarer, antallet af brugere
som ”synes om” samt hvor mange, der har været inde på siden i løbet af den forgangne uge,
ligesom man kan se køns- og aldersfordelingen på dem, der har ”tilmeldt” sig siden. Statistikken giver imidlertid ikke et indblik i, hvorfor folk har valgt at bruge siden og hvad, de
har fået ud af at følge Ida Charlottes gøren og
laden. Da Ida Charlotte havde lavet sin sidste
opdatering, blev der lagt et elektronisk spørgeskema på siden, som brugerne kunne besvare.5 Ud af de 854 brugere valgte 211, altså ca.
en fjerdedel, at besvare de 10 spørgsmål, og
mange skrev desuden egne kommentarer i
spørgeskemaet. Med stor sandsynlighed har
det nok været de mest interesserede og positi-
METTE BORITZ, MIA RAMSING JENSEN, CHARLOTTE S.H. JENSEN
OG IDA
LUND-ANDERSEN
72
Fig. 4: Unge piger i gang med at sminke sig som Ida Charlotte, ved et af arrangementerne i forbindelse med
projektet. Foto: Nationalmuseet.
ve, der ofrede tid på at besvare et spørgeskema. Alligevel giver besvarelserne et billede af
projektets udfald. Ud over de 211 besvarelser
blev der desuden lavet 5 kvalitative interviews
via telefon – både med nogle af de brugere,
som havde deltaget meget aktivt på siden, og
DIGITAL LEVENDEGØRELSE
med et par af dem, som nok havde fulgt projektet, men som ikke selv havde deltaget aktivt. Samlet giver alle disse data et godt indblik
i ikke bare hvem, der havde valgt at følge projektet men også i hvad, de fx havde fået ud af
at deltage.
Ifølge Facebooks registrering var 46 % af de
kvinder som havde tilmeldt sig Ida Charlottes
side i aldersgruppen 13-34 år, skarpt efterfulgt
af den lidt ældre aldersgruppe fra 35 til 54 år,
som udgjorde 18 %. I spørgeskemaundersøgelsen blev der desuden spurgt til, om Ida
Charlottes Facebook-venner i forvejen så sig
selv som brugere af Nationalmuseet eller ej.
Svarene viste, at 31 % af Facebook-vennerne
ofte kom på Nationalmuseet i forvejen, men
nok så væsentligt at hele 41 % af Facebookvennerne ikke opfattede sig selv som brugere
af Nationalmuseet (nogle af dem havde dog
været der engang med skolen). De 41 % havde måske næppe opdaget og deltaget i et projekt som Ida Charlotte, hvis det fysisk havde
været placeret på Nationalmuseet. Det vidner
om, at de sociale medier, herunder Facebook,
godt kan fungere som et sted, hvor museerne
kan komme i dialog med brugere – og måske
særligt nogle af de unge brugere, som normalt
ikke benytter sig af museernes tilbud. Det fortæller samtidig, at det også kan være en vej til
at give de faste brugere af museet nye og andre
oplevelser med museet end dem, de normalt
benytter sig af.
Af dem der havde besvaret spørgeskemaet
var 43 % blevet opmærksomme på projektet
om Ida Charlotte via en Facebook-ven, 28 %
havde fået kendskab til projektet via Nationalmuseet6 og 20 % har anført ”andet”, hvilket
bl.a. kan have været omtale i radioens P1 eller
snak med venner og bekendte. Det var således
især det sociale netværks egen mekanisme,
som skabte kredsen af interesserede ud fra alle-
rede deltagendes eksisterende relationer og
venskabsforhold. Direkte eller indirekte anbefaling fra venner kan virke meget stærkt, og
som et vigtigt incitament til deltagelse. Men
det er væsentligt også at være opmærksom på
at en brugerskare, der opstår på denne måde,
kan have mange træk til fælles, fordi vore venner ikke sjældent ligner os selv. Kun 5 % havde fået kendskab til Ida Charlotte-projektet
via de markedsføringsinitiativer, som Nationalmuseet selv havde iværksat i form af annoncer og et gratis postkort, som stod fremme
på S-togsstationerne – en markedsføring der, i
denne henseende, ikke synes at have den store
effekt. Hvad der til gengæld gav en vis effekt i
form af nye brugere i den ønskede målgruppe
var, da ungdomsbladet ”Vi unge” i maj måned
bragte en omtale af Ida Charlotte og hendes
Facebook-side på deres hjemmeside. Overskriften på omtalen lød: ”Hvordan scorede
man for 300 år siden”, og de unge kunne bl.a.
læse, at den unge Ida Charlotte gik uden
underbukser, fik sat sit hår med dyrefedt og i
øvrigt tændte på mænd med pæne ben. I forbindelse med omtalen var der mulighed for, at
de unge kunne skrive kommentarer på websiden. Nogle reagerede positivt på opslaget og
Ida Charlotte-projektet og syntes, at det var
en sjov idé. Andre reagerede mest på oplysningerne i omtalen, hvilket affødte en diskussion blandt de unge om, hvad man så gjorde
når man havde menstruation. Og så var der
også de kommentarer, der vidnede om, at
nogle af de helt unge syntes, at ideen var lidt
for ”wierdo”, ”nederen” eller ”keeeedeliiiiiiiiiig”.7 Måske var det bare for mærkeligt for
nogle af de helt unge brugere, og måske bruger de Facebook og andre sociale medier på en
anden måde og til andre formål. Fx indikerer
Charlotte Malene Larsens ph.d.-afhandling
“Unge og online sociale netværk” fra 2010
73
METTE BORITZ, MIA RAMSING JENSEN, CHARLOTTE S.H. JENSEN
74
bl.a. en høj grad af sammenhæng mellem de
meget unges fysiske venner og mellem det liv,
der leves i den virkelige verden og online.
Kommentarer m.m. kan være meget korte, og
mange skriver med et meget inderligt ordvalg
om deres indbyrdes forhold – fx til bedsteveninde og andre meget nære venner. At oprette
fangrupper for hinanden, anføre sig som
“gift”, “forlovet med” eller “søskende til” særlige veninder er ligeledes forekommende. Alt
sammen måder at anvende en social platform
på, som kun vanskeligt kunne være blevet en
del af Ida Charlotte-projektet.
Det blev meget tydeligt undervejs i projektet, hvor meget brugernes interaktion med siden og brug af siden varierede. En almindelig
tommelfingerregel for online-communities er
90-9-1 reglen. Dvs. at 90 % af brugerne er
“læsere”, der kigger med, 9 % deltager og
kommenterer en gang imellem og den sidste 1
% er superbrugere, som står for hovedparten
af kommentarerne og ofte har en høj tilstedeværelsestid, der gør det muligt for dem at reagere meget hurtigt på hændelser i fællesskabet.
En tommelfingerregel, som meget godt lod sig
afspejle blandt brugerne af Ida Charlottes
side. Væsentligt for udviklingen af en digital
aktivitetsprofil er derfor også en forståelse for
den måde, som brugere ønsker at anvende digitale medier på. Som ved andre aktiviteter, fx
et foredragsarrangement eller lignende, er det
langt fra alle, der ønsker at dele deres erfaringer eller stille spørgsmål til oplægsholderen. I
communities er det heller ikke ualmindeligt,
at en stor del af det aktive engagement bæres
af enkelte deltagere. Det var da også langt fra
alle Ida Charlottes venner, der kommenterede
og skrev med på hendes historie. ”Jeg har vist
aldrig selv kommenteret, men det betyder
ikke, at jeg ikke har fulgt med”, skrev en af
brugerne i spørgeskemaet. En 34-årig kvinde,
OG IDA
LUND-ANDERSEN
Fig. 5: Ida Charlotte med sin frisør Leonard.
Foto: Nationalmuseet.
som efterfølgende blev interviewet om projektet, havde heller ikke selv deltaget aktivt. Hun
sagde, at hun ikke helt følte, at hun havde noget at skrive, og når hun læste de andres kommentarer, følte hun, at de var mere inde i sagerne, end hun selv var. De meget aktive brugere kan med andre ord godt have afskrækket
nogle fra at skrive, ikke mindst fordi nogle af
dem levede sig så meget ind i det, at de endda
skrev med et tillempet 1700-tals sprog og stavemåde. Omvendt peger Nina Simon også på,
at det netop ikke er alle, som har lyst til at del-
DIGITAL LEVENDEGØRELSE
tage, og at det derfor er vigtigt at skabe mulighed for fleksibilitet, idet man ikke kan regne
med, at alle deltager på den samme måde og
med samme niveau (Simon 2010). I den henseende fungerede Facebook som medie godt i
forbindelse med at tilgodese forskellige digitale livsstile.8 Samtidig formåede projektet at få
skabt rum, både til dem som havde lyst til meget aktivt at lege med, og til dem, som helst
blot ville læse med.
HVAD
KAN DEN DIGITALE LEVENDEGØRELSE?
Med projektet om Ida Charlotte er det lykkedes at engagere og komme i dialog med en
målgruppe og nogle mennesker, der ikke normalt eller kun sjældent kommer på museet.
Det kan være svært at komme med en entydig
forklaring på hvorfor dette lykkedes, og det afsluttende spørgeskema samt de efterfølgende
interviews peger da også på, at projektet har
ramt flere af brugernes meget forskellige behov og ønsker. Det at flytte formidlingen fra
det fysiske rum til den virtuelle verden gav i
sig selv nogle geografiske men også nogle tidsmæssige fordele. En af de omtalte interviewpersoner udtrykte netop begejstring for at
hun, fordi projektet foregik på Facebook, ikke
skulle tage hensyn til åbningstider, og at hun
kunne gå til og fra, når det passede hende:
”Når barnet er lagt i seng, kan jeg gå på museum.” Ligeledes lagde selve udformningen af
projektet op til at man kunne ”deltage passivt”
– man kunne følge med uden direkte at interagere. Hele 35 % af dem der deltog i spørgeskemaundersøgelsen svarede, at det de bedst
kunne lide ved projektet var at læse, hvad andre havde skrevet, eller at det bare var sjovt og
hyggeligt at være med. Denne besvarelse sender et signal til museumsverdenen om, at det
sociale element i læring for mange er af stor
betydning. Undersøgelser af bl.a. skolebørns
præferencer omkring museumsbesøg viser
også, at for at et museumsbesøg skal være vellykket, skal det også være en god social begivenhed, hvor man kan lære med og af sine
venner (Groundwater-Smith & Kelly 2003).
Det handler ikke blot om at lære af autoriteterne, men også om at lære med og af andre
ligesindede. Det interessante er, at denne mere
sociale side af museumsoplevelsen og den læring, som finder sted, også kan skabes i den
virtuelle verden, hvilket projektet om Ida
Charlotte har været et godt eksempel på. Det
peger også på, at museerne med fordel kan
bruge medier som Facebook til at facilitere viden samt til at bringe vidt forskellige folk sammen om et emne.
4 % af de adspurgte svarede, at det, at lære
noget om 1700-tallet, havde været det bedste
ved at deltage, mens 6 % bedst kunne lide at
følge med i Ida Charlottes kærlighedshistorie.
Begge svar peger i det små på, at der jo selvfølgelig kan være mange forskellige årsager til at
deltage. Nogle søger måske en øget indsigt i
en periode, mens andre gerne vil have en ”god
historie”. Særligt interessant i relation til projektets formål var desuden at hele 30 % svarede at det bedste ved projektet var at leve sig ind
i 1700-tallet. Sidstnævnte vidner netop om at
levendegørelsen i den grad var til stede hos
brugerne til trods for at den var digital og ikke
fysisk. Det vidner også om, at den digitale levendegørelse også kan noget i forhold til at få
unge (og andre) til et interessere sig for og engagere sig i fortiden. At flytte levendegørelsen
fra den analoge til den digitale verden gør
samtidig at museet har langt bedre muligheder til rådighed, når man ikke er hæmmet af
fysiske eller materielle begrænsninger. Man
skal ikke tage hensyn til, at en aktør ikke kan
klare sig uden briller, at man ikke må tænde
75
METTE BORITZ, MIA RAMSING JENSEN, CHARLOTTE S.H. JENSEN
76
ild osv. Med den digitale levendegørelse kan
man let og ubesværet bevæge sig fra baggård
til de bonede gulve og fra det pulserende byliv
til skønne landlige omgivelser. Men når man
anvender digital levendegørelse, står man samtidig over for en stor udfordring. Netop fordi
oplevelsen ikke er sanselig eller taktil, som den
er, når man fysisk befinder sig på et museum,
bliver ”den gode historie” afgørende for deltagelse og interesse. Tal og kommentarer vidner
dog om, at projektet kunne imødekomme
både sociale, emotionelle og kognitive behov
hos brugerne. Da projektet om Ida Charlotte
sluttede, skrev en af de helt unge brugere: ”Jeg
synes, at det er et rigtig godt projekt i har haft
kørende, og selvom jeg kun er 13 år, synes jeg,
at det har fanget mig rigtig godt!”. En anden
skrev: ”Det gode var også at det blev bragt ned
på dagligdagen. Det var ikke kedelige montrer
med lange tekster – det blev bragt ned på
hverdagsplan og blev gjort håndgribeligt”.
Flere brugere kommenterede at det, at lære
noget på en underholdende måde, var en vigtig bevæggrund for at deltage i projektet. Nogle ville endda gerne have haft flere fakta og
mere baggrundsmateriale. Som én skrev i
spørgeskemaundersøgelsen: ”Først vil jeg sige:
Hvor var det fantastisk, at I brød muren mellem faglig historieformidling og Facebook ned
med så god en historie! Jeg synes, at det er et
rigtig godt eksempel på formidling, der tør
overskride grænsen mellem fiktion og faglig
historieformidling og dermed at gøre historien levende, vel og mærke på hendes egne præmisser”. En anden skrev: ”Jeg synes at det har
været rigtigt underholdende og lærerigt tiltag,
det har givet en ny vinkel på historieformidling” og en: ”Det er en moderne historieformidling, som åbner for mange andre muligheder. Jeg kan kalde måden Den Oplevende Historieformidling – og den gik rent ind hos mig.”
OG IDA
LUND-ANDERSEN
I undersøgelserne blev der imidlertid også
plads til lidt konstruktiv kritik. Nogle klagede
over, at Ida Charlotte havde været for flittig på
tasterne og kom med for mange opdateringer
om dagen. En af de interviewede personer
kunne godt have tænkt sig, at der var mere
sex, drama, kærlighed og snusk fx kysserier
ved ballerne osv. Det ville ikke have gjort noget for hendes fornemmelse af den historiske
korrekthed. En anden skrev: ”Man kan godt
blive lidt irriteret på den tåbelige småborgerlige pigeskikkelse, tænk bare at livet kunne være
så ensidigt og indskrænket i oplysningstiden”.
At drive et projekt som Ida Charlotte er dog
mere krævende end som så. Spørgsmål og
kommentarer ”æder” hurtigt hinanden og gør
at overvågningen af siden er meget tidskrævende. Åbner man op for at brugerne skal høres og inddrages, skal deres bidrag også tages
alvorligt. I dette tilfælde betød det, at siden, i
det halve år, den var i brug, skulle tjekkes flere
gange dagligt for at kunne kommentere på eller tilgodese brugernes ønsker. Beslutningen,
om at projektet skulle forløbe i realtid, betød
samtidig, at det indimellem var nødvendigt at
kommentere og lave opdateringer både tidligt
om morgenen og sent om aftenen. En anden
tidskrævende faktor var, at en sådan faktionsleg stiller krav til en meget bred faglig viden
for at kunne holde legen kørende og følge
brugernes ønsker og spørgsmål. De aktive
brugere og deres mange spørgsmål gav en del
researcharbejde, og der skulle handles hurtigt,
inden spørgsmålet blev opslugt af nye spørgsmål, kommentarer og opdateringer. Det krævede mange udregninger og opslag en sen aften at finde ud af, hvad et godt stykke linned
koster ”nu til dags”. Ligesom det var vigtigt at
sikre, at brugernes kommentarer ikke påvirkede fagligheden i forkert retning. Fx foreslog en
bruger en duel for at forsvare Ida Charlottes
DIGITAL LEVENDEGØRELSE
ære. Her måtte der reageres hurtigt, fordi dueller ikke var almindelige i 1772. Samtidig
blev der efterhånden skabt en forventning
blandt brugerne om, at de også kunne få lov at
se fotos af de ting som Ida Charlotte omgav
sig med eller skrev om. Da det langt fra er alt
fra 1700-tallet, det lige er muligt at finde et
passende foto af, måtte der indimellem arbejdes lidt kreativt, og programmer som PhotoShop blev mere end én gang redningen, da Ida
Charlottes kjole pludselig skulle være sort, når
hun bar sorg - og ikke den vanlige lyserøde.
Men en vigtig lære er, at så snart man åbner op
for brugerne, skal man også være rede til at
tage imod dem. Brugernes konkrete bidrag var
jo samtidig afgørende for, at projektet kunne
fungere. Selve interaktionen og kommentarerne var samtidig med til at skabe yderligere debat og interaktion. Det forudsatte samtidig, at
brugerne havde lyst til at lege med og ikke
blot skrev kommentarer som ”nederen” eller
”nasty” som det skete i ”Vi unge”-omtalen kommentarer, det ville være svært at følge op
på. Flere kommenterede faktisk i spørgeskemaundersøgelsen, at de var glade for, men
samtidig også overraskede over, at ingen
undervejs havde forsøgt at ødelægge ”legen”
med upassende kommentarer eller en useriøs
dialog. Projektet kom samtidig til at fungere
så godt, fordi der netop var en passende dialog. Mængden af kommentarer gjorde det
muligt gennem 6 måneder at opretholde en
direkte dialog med alle de aktive brugere. Var
antallet af kommentarer eksploderet, ville det
ikke have været muligt at interagere på samme niveau, og nogle brugere havde måske følt
sig overset. Rigtig mange kommentarer ville
måske også virke overvældende at skulle sætte sig ind i og forholde sig til for de brugere,
som befandt sig bedst som ”passive deltagere”.
KONKLUSION
Generelt kan man sige, at projektet har vakt
stor interesse, og mange brugere har, bl.a. på
Nationalmuseets almindelige Facebookside,
udtrykt ønske om, at Nationalmuseet vil gentage succesen med lignende projekter – f.eks.
en anden person fra en anden tidsperiode. Relevant er det selvfølgelig at stille spørgsmålene:
Fik vi fat i de unge brugere? Fik vi engageret
dem? Og hvilken fremtid peger projektet i retning af – både for Nationalmuseet selv, men
også for andre museer?
Som tidligere nævnt havde Ida Charlotte
854 fans, da siden lukkede ned. I det halve år,
siden eksisterede, brugte vi 255.000 kroner og
var 4 medarbejdere, der brugte omkring 1100
timer. Nogle vil mene, at det er mange penge
og mange timer i forhold til de 854 fans og
spørgsmålet, om det var det værd, er i denne
sammenhæng uundgåeligt. Vi synes, det har
været alle pengene og anstrengelserne værd og
det af flere årsager. Vi har engageret et relativt
stort antal mennesker over en længere periode,
modsat den tid en besøgende på et museum er
engageret i en bestemt udstilling eller arrangement på museet. Ligeledes har vi også engageret mennesker, der geografisk befandt sig langt
væk fra Nationalmuseet. Yderligere viser tallene, at en stor procentdel af sidens tilmeldte
netop kom fra målgruppen de 15-30 årige
kvinder, og mange af dem, der efterfølgende
besvarede det spørgeskema, ikke anså sig selv
som brugere af Nationalmuseet. Disse resultater skal selvfølgelig ikke ses som et udtryk for
at projektet var ufejlbart eller udelukkende
succesfuldt. Vi kunne måske have nået endnu
flere fra målgruppen og aktivt engageret dem,
hvis vi fx havde markedsført Ida Charlotte anderledes. Men skal vi vurdere hvad resultatet
af projektet har været, er den viden om digital
77
METTE BORITZ, MIA RAMSING JENSEN, CHARLOTTE S.H. JENSEN
78
og interaktiv museumsformidling, vi har fået,
næsten uvurderlig. Med fingrene i et konkret
projekt er det netop muligt at opleve og erfare
hvilke udfordringer samt fordele og ulemper,
der ligger i at søsætte et digitaliseret projekt
som Ida Charlotte – lige fra brugerinddragelse
til ressourcer. Den digitale levendegørelse har
bestemt ulemper i form af ikke at være sanselig eller taktil på samme måde som levendegørelse i den analoge verden. Til gengæld rækker
den, i sin digitale form, langt ud over museets
grænser og åbningstider og puster nyt liv i
mulighederne for at arbejde i realtid, hvor den
gode historie kan være med til at fange og engagere brugerne. Den digitale levendegørelse
har netop, i sin form af en faktionsleg, gjort
det muligt at skabe en identificerbar formidlingsform, hvor unge piger oplevede og skabte
historien sammen med en anden ung pige.
Den ene del er ren fiktion, mens den anden er
som faktuel historie gjort vedkommende.
Hvad projektet særligt har vist er, at mange
helt tydeligt har noget at sige og bidrage med i
forhold til museernes formidling, og at de i
den grad kan lære noget af hinanden. Dette
peger igen i retning af hvor vigtigt, det er, at
museerne tilskynder denne proces ved at fungere som facilitator og samtidig autoritet.
Mange undersøgelser viser, at det, at gå på
museum, ofte er en social begivenhed. Med
Facebook som platform har det vist sig, at det
sociale absolut ikke behøver at falde bort, blot
fordi man ikke fysisk er sammen. Tværtimod
tyder Ida Charlotte projektet på, at behovet
for at være social og for at opleve samme sagtens kan imødekommes i det virtuelle. Endda
tyder meget på, at det sociale aspekt blev udvidet yderligere, eftersom brugerne gerne ville
både interagere med ”fremmede”, lære dem at
kende og høre, hvad de havde at sige. Til trods
for projektets mange spændende resultater,
OG IDA
LUND-ANDERSEN
skal de dog ikke forstås som udtryk for en
holdning, der advokerer, at digital levendegørelse og formidling helt skal eller overhovedet
kan erstatte den mere traditionelle museumsformidling eller udstillinger. De skal dog ses
som et interessant indblik i, hvad fremtiden
bringer af spændende supplementer og videreudvikling af den velkendte museumsformidling.
NOTER
1. Ifølge Facebooks egen annoncegenerator vil man,
hvis man laver en målrettet annonce den 24. januar 2011, kunne nå 754.020 personer, der ifølge de oprettede statusprofiler, opfylder følgende
3 kriterier: De bor i Danmark, de er præcis 35 år
eller yngre, og de er kvinder.
2. Definitionerne er her hentet fra International
Museum Theatre Alliance’s (IMTA) hjemmeside
http://www.imtal-europe.com/resources.php
3. Anette Hoff: Karen Rosenkrantz de Lichtenbergs
dagbøger og regnskaber. Hverdagsliv 1771-1796 på
herregården Bidstrup og i Horsens. Horsens Museum og Lanbohistorisk Selskab 2009.Karen køber tre år i træk (1792 - 1794) 58 pund (29 kg)
pudder. NB: I København er det på det tidspunkt gået af mode med så meget pudder, men
Karen bor jo langt fra Staden og er blevet ældre.
To andre vigtige dagbogskrivere var søofficeren
Peter Schiønning og apoteketerfruen Anne Sofie
Becker.
4. Updated den 5. juli 2010.
5. Spørgeskemaet blev lavet med PollDaddy
applikationen.
6. 14 % af dem som besvarede spørgeskemaet var
enten selv tilknyttet Nationalmuseet eller havde
venner eller familie på museet; 9% så det via Nationalmuseets Facebook- side og 5% fra Nationalmuseets website.
DIGITAL LEVENDEGØRELSE
7. http://www.viunge.dk/Teenager/Guides_Tips/
Hvordan_scorede_unge_for_300_aar_siden.aspx
8. En undersøgelse af digitale livsstile, som tns Gallup publicerede i efteråret 2010, viste bl.a, at
internetpenetrationen i Danmark ligger på
86,10%. Dette angiver den procentdel af den
danske befolkning, som har adgang til internettet. Undersøgelsen viste også, at hovedparten af
danskere kan karakteriseres som funktionelle
(32%), der primært anvender nettet til at finde
faktuelle oplysninger o.lign. eller netværkere
(22%) der anvender digitale medier til sociale aktiviteter. En anden gruppe udgøres af “Influencers”, der som regel er yngre og storforbrugere af
digitale ytringsmuligheder.
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Message, K (2006): New Museums and the Making of
Culture. Berg, Oxford.
Nielsen, J: (2006) Participation Inequality: Encouraging More users to Contribute www.usite.com
Simon, N (2010): The Participatory Museum. Museumz, California.
Stoklund, B (1993): “International Exhibitions and
the New Museum Concepts in the latter Half of
the Nineteenth Century”. In Ethnologia Scandinavica 23 pp 87 -113.
Stoklund, B (1994): “The Role of the International
Exhbitions in the Construction of National Cul-
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METTE BORITZ, MIA RAMSING JENSEN, CHARLOTTE S.H. JENSEN
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LUND-ANDERSEN
tures in the 19th Century”. In: Ethnologia Europaea nr 24 pp 35-44.
Ronsheim, R (1991): “Is the past dead?” In: Anderson, J (Ed) (1991): A Living History Reader – Volume 1. Museums. The American Association for
State and Local History, Nashville Tennessee
Zakrisson, I (2003): “Stoppa Tiden! Levendegørelse
på Hallwylska Museet”. In: Museumsformidlere i
Danmark, MID, Nyhedsbrev nr. 8. februar 2003
pp 11-13.
Aakjær, M (2008): “Levendegørelse – en anden måde
at lave god formidling på?”. In: NORDNYTT nr.
105/2008 pp 27 - 37.
*Charlotte S.H. Jensen, mag. art. Webredaktør
Nationalmuseet, Forsknings- og Formidlingsafdelingen, CSA.
*Mette Boritz, ph.d-stipendiat/museumsinspektør Nationalmuseet.
Adresse: Nationalmuseet,
Frederiksholms Kanal 12,
1220 København K
Adresse: Nationalmuseet,
Forsknings- og Formidlingsafdelingen, CFF.
Frederiksholms Kanal 12,
1220 København K
E-mail: [email protected]
*Mia Ramsing Jensen, stud mag. Europæisk
Etnologi, Københavns Universitet samt studentermedhjælp Nationalmuseet.
Adresse: Nationalmuseet,
Frederiksholms Kanal 12,
1220 København K
E-mail: [email protected]
Adresse: Nationalmuseet,
Frederiksholms Kanal 12,
1220 København K
E-mail: [email protected]
*Ida Lund-Andersen, cand.mag.
Museumsinspektør, Nationalmuseet,
Forsknings- og Formidlingsafdelingen, CFF.
E-mail: [email protected]
NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2011 1, S. 81-97
●
Den vanskelige dialogen
Om universitetsmuseenes praktiske utfordringer i møtet med
web 2.0-samfunnet
GURO JØRGENSEN*
Title: The difficult dialogue – about the practical challenges involved when a
university museum meets the world of web 2.0
Abstract: The NTNU Museum of Natural History and Archaeology in
Trondheim, Norway, has recently started exploring web 2.0 technologies as a new
means of communicating with museum visitors. Through social media and the
launching of public databases for museum collections, the wider public is invited
to participate in dialogues with the museum on scientific subjects. Drawing on the
experience from two different museum projects, namely a science blog and a science
wiki, I will review how the structures and practices from traditional science
disciplines are challenged when meeting with the fluid nature of social media.
This has implications for the practice of imparting scientific knowledge, and shows
that the museum is situated in a hybrid space of public discourse (Nowotny 1993).
Key words: Dialogue, digital, democracy, web 2.0, mode 1, mode 2, hybrid
space of public discourse, blog, wiki.
Digitalisering, dialog og demokratisering er
tre velkjente begreper innenfor dagens museumsdebatt. På lik linje med andre museumsinstitusjoner har NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet1 nylig startet en satsning på bruken av
web 2.0-teknologi i sin formidlingsvirksomhet. Gjennom Internett og sosiale medier som
Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, blogger og wikier, inviteres museenes publikum til dialog. Det
foregår dessuten en nitid registrering av museumssamlinger i nasjonale databasesystemer
til offentlig bruk. Tilgjengeliggjøring av felles
kultur- og naturarv er tidens mantra, og museene kjemper om besøkernes fritid og oppmerksomhet ved å synliggjøre seg selv og invitere til interaktive opplevelser. Museenes legitimitet begrunnes i verdien av allmenndannelse som redskap for at alle skal kunne være
aktive deltagere i utviklingen av et demokratisk samfunn.
Det er imidlertid legitimt å spørre om i
hvilken grad museenes deltagelse i sosiale medier egentlig leder til en dialog med ikke-spesialistene ute i samfunnet, og hvorvidt digita-
GURO JØRGENSEN
82
liseringen av millioner av museumsobjekter
og lett tilgjengelige samlingsdatabaser på
Internett i seg selv bidrar til en økning av
kunnskapene og refleksiviteten blant folk
flest. Med bakgrunn i erfaringer fra to pilotprosjekter NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet nylig
har gjennomført, vil jeg her reflektere rundt
disse spørsmålene. De to prosjektene ble kalt
henholdsvis Sommerlarm og Vitenwiki, og var
interaktive tilbud som tok i bruk digitale
kommunikasjonsplattformer som verktøy.
Sommerlarm var en sommerskole for barn i alderen 10-14 år, der deltagerne blant annet
blogget om sine forskeropplevelser hver dag.
Vitenwiki var et verksted for å lage en populærformidlende ressursside på Internett, med
pålitelig kunnskap om natur- og kultur. Deltakerne var elever fra videregående skole, i alderen 16-17 år. De skulle skrive om en natureller kulturhistorisk gjenstand fra museets utstillinger ved hjelp av informasjon de fant på
Internett, og ble stilt overfor vurderinger om
hva som var gode eller mindre gode digitale
kunnskapskilder. En nærmere beskrivelse av
prosjektene kommer seinere i artikkelen.
Min rolle i pilotprosjektene var som deltaker i prosjektgruppene, som bestod av ansatte
ved NTNU Vitenskapsmuseets Seksjon for
formidling, blant annet pedagoger tilknyttet
seksjonens skoletjeneste. Under gjennomføringen av begge prosjektene var jeg også med
som voksenperson, eller leder. I kraft av å være
utdannet arkeolog hadde jeg dessuten en rolle
som fagspesialist når deltagerne skulle gå i
interaksjon med arkeologisk kunnskap på ulike måter. Jeg vil understreke at pilotprosjektenes fokus først og fremst lå på et praktisk plan,
der museet ønsket å høste erfaringer med nye
kommunikasjonsmåter. Det som presenteres
her er derfor ikke basert på systematisk innhentet og bearbeidet empiri. Evalueringsskje-
ma som ble fylt ut av deltakerne i etterkant av
prosjektene var hovedsakelig knyttet til spørsmål om den praktiske gjennomføringen, og
ikke til den betydningen museets invitasjon til
interaksjon, dialog og kunnskapsproduksjon
hadde for hver enkelt deltaker.
UNIVERSITETSMUSEENE,
KOMMUNIKASJONS-
SAMFUNNET OG KUNNSKAPSSAMFUNNET
NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet er et av seks universitetsmuseer i Norge. Universitetsmuseene
skiller seg fra de fleste andre museer ved at de
er både forsknings-, forvaltnings- og formidlingsinstitusjoner. De har tradisjonelt hatt
forskningssatsning innenfor arkeologi, etnografi, biologi og geologi, og forvalter samlinger av arkeologisk, etnografisk, biologisk og
geologisk materiale. De formidler sine samlinger og forskningsresultater gjennom utstillinger og aktiviteter, og skal også være utstillingsvindu for universitetenes øvrige fagdisipliner. De norske universitetsmuseene nyter
stor troverdighet som formidlere av vitenskap,
og de er offentlige institusjoner som skal tjene
samfunnets beste. Når samfunnets syn på
kunnskap endrer seg, må museenes kunnskapsformidling endre seg, og når informasjonssamfunnet utvikler nye strategier for
kommunikasjon og merkevarebygging, må
også museene gå nye veier for å nå fram med
sitt budskap.
Allerede for 16 år siden utga Mark Poster
boka The Second Media Age (1995). Poster påpeker her at mens teknologien bak den første
mediealderen ble definert av få produsenter og
spredning av samme budskap til mange konsumenter, blir den andre mediealderen definert av mange produsenter, distributører og
konsumenter, der Internett står fram som et
åpenbart eksempel. Han bruker begrepet
DEN
”kommunikasjonens supermotorvei” som et
bilde på den hastigheten som moderne informasjonsteknologi tilbyr, der tekst-, lyd- og bildefiler kan overføres mellom alle mulige
punkter i nettverket i ”real time”. Poster hevder videre at kommunikasjonsmulighetene på
Internett reiser fundamentale spørsmål vedrørende institusjoner, lovverk, vaner og identiteter som utviklet seg under moderniteten (Poster 1995: 24-29). Etter at Poster lanserte
hypotesen om medienes andre tidsalder har
sosiale medier kommet på banen for fullt,
med et mangfold av arenaer for kringkasting.
Den massive utbredelsen og bruken av kommunikasjons- og samhandlingsmuligheter som
er blitt tilgjengelige gjennom Internett og mobiltelefoni, gjør at vi snakker om utvikling
fra informasjonssamfunn til kommunikasjonssamfunn (Levold and Spilker 2007: 18).
De digitale mediene har revolusjonert tilgangen på både kunnskap og underholdning,
og Web 2.0-samfunnet, der sosiale medier,
informasjonsdeling og dialog spiller en hovedrolle, gir nye utfordringer for universitetsmuseene.
Samtidig som samfunnet har gjennomgått
en elektronisk medierevolusjon, har det de siste par tiårene versert en diskurs om endringer
av den vitenskapelige kunnskapens produksjonsvilkår. Ulike forskere peker på ulike endringer og årsaker, og de har alle både tilhengere og kritikere (Hessels and van Lente 2008:
240). Blant forklaringsmodellene som har fått
størst gjennomslag er tesen som Michael Gibbons, Helga Nowotny og Peter Scott, med flere, lanserte med bøkene The New Production
of Knowledge (1994) og Re-Thinking Science.
Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty (2001). Her beskrives endringene som
en overgang fra det de kaller kunnskapsproduksjonens Mode 1 til Mode 2. Forfatterne re-
VANSKELIGE DIALOGEN
degjør for sentrale samfunnsområder der
grunnleggende endringer griper inn i vilkårene for kunnskapsproduksjon. De viser til en
utbredt usikkerhet i samfunnet vedrørende vitenskapens sanne natur; til en dreining mot
mer refleksivitet og selvforståelse i forskermiljøene; til markedskrefter og brukerevaluering
som stadig mer tungtveiende evalueringskriterier for forskningens kvalitet og relevans, og til
den revolusjonen i informasjons- og kommunikasjonsteknologier som radikalt har endret
samfunnets forhold til tid og sted (Gibbons et
al. 1994; Nowotny et al. 2001, 2003).
Kunnskapsproduksjonens Mode 1 overensstemmer i stor grad med et tradisjonelt syn på
vitenskapelig kunnskap. Det vil si at kunnskapsproduksjonen oppfattes som en praksis
utført innenfor avgrensede vitenskapsdisipliner og opprettholdt av spesialister og intern
selvjustis. Kvaliteten på kunnskapen bedømmes gjennom fagfellevurdering, etter disiplinenes egne krav til faglighet. Et slikt kunnskapssystem har ikke tilgang for ikke-spesialister. Kunnskapsproduksjonens Mode 2 er derimot basert på en oppfatning om at kunnskap
i økende grad produseres blant tverrfaglige
samarbeidspartnere, snarere enn innenfor avgrensede, akademiske disipliner. Bedømmelsen av kvaliteten på Mode 2-kunnskapen
skjer ikke så mye gjennom fagfellevurdering,
men heller gjennom samfunnets anvendelse
av produktet. Det innebærer nye parametere
for vurdering, for eksempel økonomi, miljøvennlighet, eller etiske og moralske verdier. På
denne måten blir vitenskap kontekstualisert
for et bredere publikum, som kan påvirke videre kunnskapsproduksjon gjennom sine tilbakemeldinger. Det åpnes opp for at ”society
now speaks back to science” (Nowotny et al.
2001: 50). Produksjonsvilkårene for Mode 2kunnskap gir rom for det Gibbons og kollege-
83
GURO JØRGENSEN
84
ne kaller ”socially robust knowledge”, som har
et annet epistemologisk utgangspunkt enn
Mode 1-kunnskap. Endringen innebærer at
kunnskap ikke blir vurdert som viktig og riktig i kraft av å være framstilt av spesialister,
men fordi den har betydning og anvendelsesmulighet utenfor forskningsmiljøet – den er
relasjonell, tåler offentlig debatt og er stadig
under reforhandling (Gibbons 1999; Nowotny et al. 2001: 117, 167).
De norske universitetsmuseene er forskningsinstitusjoner der anvendt vitenskap spiller en særlig stor rolle. På utstilling blir vitenskapelig kunnskap framstilt på mange måter
og anvendt i ulike kontekster, og publikums
interesse kan ses som en umiddelbar test på
kunnskapens sosiale robusthet. I vestlige land
får museene i økende grad pålegg om å bli mer
tilgjengelige, inkluderende og demokratiske.
Det stilles spørsmål ved eksisterende profesjonell praksis, ved tolkning av samlingenes betydninger og meningspotensial, de narrativene
som fortelles og ved den måten institusjonene
drives på. Kravene er ikke små. Det kraftigste
dyttet går i retning av en reforhandling av museenes forhold til sitt publikum, og tema som
kommunikasjon, dialog, kulturmangfold,
identitet og læring har kommet i søkelyset
(Hooper-Greenhill 2002: 209; NOU 1996/7;
NOU 2006/8).
Interaksjon som kommunikasjonsstrategi i
museumsformidlingen har kommet i fokus
det siste tiåret. Gjennom lekende aktiviteter
kan publikum avsløre vitenskapelige prinsipper ved bruk av ulike sanser. Ofte er det
teknologiske løsninger som gir vilkårene for
interaksjonen, for eksempel apparater som reagerer på stimuli og synliggjør fysiske lover på
vitensentre. Arkeologisk utgraving for barn,
håndverkskurs, dissekering av fisk og telling
av ender i vannkanten er imidlertid også akti-
viteter som synliggjør, eller gir erfaring om, vitenskapelig teori og metode. På natur- og kulturhistoriske museer vil dette være mer relevante, interaktive publikumstilbud. Andrew
Barry har pekt på flere sider ved interaksjon på
vitensentre og museer, både politisk og teoretisk. Interaksjonen har i følge ham en politisk
virkning ved at publikum ansvarliggjøres
overfor sin egen deltagelse, som et ledd i en
demokratisk prosess, og fordi den kan være en
egnet brobygger mellom populærkultur og
vanskelig tilgjengelig vitenskap (Barry 1998:
98, 102). Fokuset på interaksjon på museum
har dermed overføringsverdi til en samfunnsutvikling som bærer preg av en overgang mellom Mode 1 og Mode 2 for produksjon og anvendelse av kunnskap. Publikum går i dialog
med museumsutstillingen og dens vitenskapelige budskap. Men interaktivitet på universitetsmuseene bør ikke oppfattes som ensbetydende med å gi publikum mulighet til ”å
snakke tilbake” til vitenskapsmiljøene.
Dagens universitetsmuseer befinner seg i en
overgangsfase, der spesialistenes enveisformidling av ”riktig” kunnskap i økende grad ønskes erstattet av åpenhet, aktiviteter og publikumsdeltagelse. Publikum ses ikke lenger som
blanke ark som skal fylles med kunnskap og
dannelse, men som aktive meningsskapere og
potensielle opponenter. Museumspedagogene
har skiftet fokus fra ”å huske” til ”å forstå”
kunnskap (Frøyland 2003: 51). I utredningen
”Kunnskap for fellesskapet” fra 2006, sies for
eksempel følgende:
Formidlingen bør invitere til dialog med publikum,
skape nysgjerrighet, gi rom for undring og invitere til
debatt, og det kan være viktigere å stille gode spørsmål
enn å presentere ferdige svar (NOU 2006/8: 15).
Denne oppfordringen reflekterer et syn på
DEN
kunnskapsformidling som i stor grad overensstemmer med sentrale trekk i beskrivelsen av
kunnskapsproduksjonens Mode 2 og museenes satsning på interaktiv publikumsdeltagelse. Mye ligger til rette for at museene kan
være gode arenaer for å skape dialog om sosialt
robust kunnskap og bidra til aktive og deltagende demokratiske samfunnsborgere, men
det er ikke helt uproblematisk å få til en god
dialog når forskere skal snakke med (og ikke
til) allmennheten. Årsaken kan forklares med
et skjevt maktforhold, eller ulik diskursiv utsagnskraft, mellom det Michel Foucault beskriver som vitenskapelige domener og vitenskaplige territorier2 (Foucault 1972; Svestad
1995: 69-70). Innenfor domenene finnes seriøse, vitenskapelige utsagn, slik arkeologien
kan sies å ha monopol på seriøse utsagn om
forhistorie. Territoriet omfatter også andre uttrykk om forhistorie, som for eksempel historiske romaner, filmene om Indiana Jones, dinosaurer og tapte sivilisasjoner. Forskjellen
mellom domenet og territoriet ligger i de
prinsippene som strukturerer og organiserer
ordningen av kunnskapen:
Only propositions that obey certain laws of construction belong to a domain of scientificity; affirmations
that have the same meaning, that say the same thing,
that are as true as they are, but which do not belong to
the same systematicity, are excluded from this domain
(…) Archaeological territories may extend to “literary”
or “philosophical” texts, as well as scientific ones.
Knowledge is to be found not only in demonstrations,
it can also be found in fiction, reflection, narrative
accounts, institutional regulations, and political decisions (Foucault 1972: 183-184).
Foucaults beskrivelse av de moderne vitenskapenes vilkår, med et avgrenset skille mellom
territoriet og domenet, er i tråd med et Mode
VANSKELIGE DIALOGEN
1-perspektiv på kunnskapsproduksjon. Han
fokuserer på hvordan maktstrukturer og posisjoner skiller vitenskapelig kunnskap fra annen kunnskap. Det gjør at muligheten for en
feedbackprosess mellom lekmenn og spesialister, og sosialt robust kunnskap, er vanskelig å
tenke seg. Nowotny påpeker vanskelighetene
med å trekke opp en grense for hvor vitenskapeligheten begynner og hvor den ender, i forhold til samfunnet omkring. Hun velger i stedet å vektlegge den folkelige diskursen om vitenskapelig kunnskap som et hybridfelt, der
blant annet tradisjonelle kunnskapsformidlere
som skoler og museer kontekstualiseres. Utfordringene de akademiske disiplinene i økende grad møter når det gjelder krav om legitimering av sin virksomhet ”is the price to be
paid for the successful distribution of scientific expert knowledge into the wider society”(Nowotny 1993: 318). På hybridfeltet
kommer ulike målestokker for bedømming av
kunnskap til syne, både vitenskapelige og
ikke-vitenskapelige. Det er imidlertid viktig å
understreke at Nowotny og kollegene ikke
hevder at en overgang til Mode 2 har skjedd,
men beskriver samfunnsprosesser som indikerer at endringen er i ferd med å skje. Og
som jeg seinere vil vise, kom en demarkasjonslinje mellom vitenskap og ikke-vitenskap til overflaten under både Sommerlarm og
Vitenwiki.
WEB 2.0-SAMFUNNET
OG DEN
VITENSKAPELIGE KUNNSKAPEN
Kravet om dialog mellom vitenskapsspesialistene og samfunnet kommer til uttrykk i ulike
arbeidsoppgaver og satsningsområder ved universitetsmuseene. Interaktive museumstilbud
er blant dem. Det investeres også store summer hvert år for å få museenes samlinger digi-
85
GURO JØRGENSEN
86
talisert. Objektene fotograferes og registreres i
nasjonale databasesystemer, slik at de ideelt
sett blir lettere tilgjengelige for både forskere
og folk flest.3 Man kan for eksempel søke etter
arkeologiske funn i hjemkommunen sin, eller
på hjemgården hvis man ønsker det, og man
kan laste ned et foto på egen PC i stedet for å
kontakte museets magasinpersonale og arrangere et besøk for å se tingene. En annen dreining mot digitale løsninger kommer med bruken av sosiale medier. Universitetsmuseenes
hjemmesider oppdateres stadig, og det twitres
og blogges om aktiviteter og forskning. Institusjonens markedsverdi blir dessuten konstant
overvåket av ivrige kommunikasjonsrådgivere
som genererer statistikker over siste måneds
web-aktiviteter og forskernes suksess med å
skape overskrifter for nyhetssaker. Universitetenes forskere blir dessuten oppfordret til å
være synlige i samfunnsdebatten, både i aviser,
på TV og på Internett. NTNU Vitenskapsmuseets to pilotprosjekter, Sommerlarmbloggen og Vitenwiki, må ses som respons på denne samfunnsutviklingen, der web 2.0-teknologi tas i bruk til nye former for kommunikasjon og interaktivitet med publikum. Under
Vitenwiki fikk museet også testet brukervennligheten til de norske universitetsmuseenes offentlige samlingsdatabaser.
Web 2.0-teknologi er en beskrivelse av andregenerasjons Internett, som i større grad
enn tidligere åpner for brukerdeltagelse og
interaktivitet. Forenklet kan man beskrive førstegenerasjons Internett som et ”lesemodus”,
mens andregenerasjons Internett er et ”leseog skrivemodus”. Men dette er ikke helt korrekt, siden også tidlige utgaver av Internett
hadde brukerutviklede og interaktive applikasjoner. ARPANET fikk e-post allerede tidlig
på 1970-tallet, og USENET utviklet en applikasjon for diskusjonsgrupper som ble populær
utover på 1980-tallet. Omtrent samtidig
utviklet også undergrunnsnettverket BITNET
en mer uformell chat-applikasjon, og litteraturstudenter i Essex utviklet nettbaserte rollespill under betegnelsen MUDs4 (Spilker 2004:
16-19). Hovedsaken er at Web 2.0 byr på et
vell av brukerstyrte og kreative muligheter
med lavt brukergrensesnitt. Folk flest inviteres
til å skape objekter selv, og stadig utvikling av
nye applikasjoner fremmer brukernes muligheter til å delta kreativt i lansering av nye nettsteder. Teknologien tillater også brukerne å
gjenbruke allerede eksisterende databaser og
nettsider til å lage mashups, der informasjonen presenteres i nye kombinasjoner. Den friheten som delingsmulighetene gir har ført til
en ”ny økonomi”, og ulike bransjer, som medieindustrien og musikkindustrien, har valgt
ulike strategier i sitt møte med denne (Spilker
2004, 2007). Tradisjonelt har universitetene
og deres museer et klart eierforhold til kunnskapene de produserer og samlingene de forvalter. Men eiendomsretten til kunnskap forvitrer når den blir digitalt tilgjengelig. Foto av
objekter kan redigeres til det ugjenkjennelige,
eller utgis for å være noe annet på et annet
kunnskapsfelt. Objektene skifter kontekst og
et mangfoldig meningspotensial settes i spill.
Og vitenskapenes krav om etterrettelighet, referanser og kreditering settes samtidig på prøve (Bayne et al. 2009). Via internettbaserte
medier søker publikum informasjon uten at
eksperten er til stede. Hvem som deltar i kommunikasjonen blir mindre forutsigbart, og
forholdet mellom avsender og mottaker mer
diffust (Hetland and Borgen 2005: 12). For
universitetsmuseene som skal satse digitalt,
betyr dette at forholdet mellom spesialister og
publikum endres, og at vitenskapens tradisjonelle autoritet må legitimeres på andre måter
enn tidligere. Under pilotprosjektet Vitenwiki
DEN
gjorde NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet erfaringer
med hvordan delingskulturen nettopp er med
på å justere vilkårene for kontroll over vitenskapelig innhold. Elevene viste nemlig overraskende lite refleksjon i sin omgang med
kunnskap på Internett.
Sosiale media er en viktig bestanddel av
Web 2.0-samfunnet, og kan defineres som en
gruppe av Internettbaserte applikasjoner tilpasset for å dele brukergenerert innhold (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010). Facebook, Youtube,
Twitter, Myspace, blogger og wikier er typiske
applikasjoner for denne sjangeren. I motsetning til tradisjonelle medier som TV, radio og
aviser, er det ofte ingen redaktørfunksjon for
de sosiale mediene – brukeren er sin egen redaktør. Offentlige institusjoner som tar i bruk
sosiale medier i sin profilering må imidlertid
ha rutiner for godkjenning av blogginnlegg,
bilder og kommentarer for å hindre virus og
spredning av innhold som er i strid med norsk
lov, eller institusjonens profil. Innlegg og
kommentarer til NTNU Vitenskapsmuseets
blogger og Vitenwiki blir for eksempel godkjent av en ansvarlig redaktør før de legges ut
på nett. Dette synliggjør en kontrovers mellom museets ønske – og politiske pålegg – om
dialog på den ene siden, og institusjonens vitenskapelige ansvar for å opptre korrekt og
troverdig på den andre siden.
De to interaktive pilotprosjektene som
NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet gjennomførte i
2010 tok web 2.0-teknologi, i form av blogg
og wiki, i bruk for å gi publikum en mulighet
til å spille ut sine vitenskapelige erfaringer til
det digitale samfunnet, og åpne for dialog. En
blogg er en jevnlig oppdatert webside for uformell kommunikasjon mellom forfatteren og
et publikum. Det er mange måter å blogge på,
og kommunikasjonen kan rangeres fra veldig
personlig til temmelig institusjonell. Viten-
VANSKELIGE DIALOGEN
skapsblogger er blogger som har fokus på vitenskap, skrevet enten av forskere/spesialister
eller vitenskapsjournalister (Kouper 2010: 2).
Jeg vil utvide denne definisjonen til også å
gjelde blogger som ”eies” av vitenskapelige institusjoner. De som skriver er ikke nødvendigvis spesialister, men de skriver om erfaringer med vitenskap på en eller annen måte,
slik som i Sommerlarmbloggen. Det er foreløpig gjort lite forskning på dette området,
men Inna Kouper har nylig analysert et
utvalg av amerikanske vitenskapsblogger og
konkluderte med at de er for heterogene til å
kunne forstås som en egen sjanger for vitenskapskommunikasjon. For å kunne bli et reelt verktøy for ikke-spesialisters deltagelse,
må de stabilisere seg som sjanger (Kouper
2010: 8). Før man starter en blogg bør det
altså tydeliggjøres hva slags målgruppe man
sikter seg inn mot og hva slags type dialog
man ønsker.
En wiki er kort fortalt en leksikalsk ressursside som samler informasjon fra ulike kilder
og inneholder linker og referanser til disse.
Ordet ”wiki” betyr kjapp. Informasjonen i en
wiki er hypertekster som inneholder raske linker til andre digitale filer. Wikipedia er kanskje den best kjente wikien, men dette er langt
fra det eneste nettstedet som anvender wikiteknologi. Mens bloggens hovedfokus er dialog, med innlegg og kommentarer, er wikiens
hovedfokus informasjon og åpen deling av informasjon. Men det er stort rom for variasjon
innenfor begge sjangrene. Plattformen NTNU
Vitenskapsmuseet brukte i begge sine pilotprosjekter var verktøyet Wordpress.com, som
NTNU har valgt å satse på. Verktøyet gir
mange ulike designvalg, og med litt hjelp fra
IT-tjenesten var det enkelt å lage tilpasninger i
funksjonaliteten som ikke fantes som forhåndsinnstillinger.
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GURO JØRGENSEN
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OPPTAKT TIL EN PUBLIKUMSDIALOG
NTNU VITENSKAPSMUSEET:
TO PILOTPROSJEKTER
PÅ
Eksempel 1: Sommerlarmbloggen
Pilotprosjektet Sommerlarm 2010 5 var en
sommerskole for forskerspirer i alderen 10-14
år, som gikk av stabelen i løpet av de to første
ukene av sommerferien. Prosjektet tok utgangspunkt i multippel læringsteori og stor
grad av interaksjon. Barna skulle ”gjøre”
forskning. I tillegg skulle de blogge om sine
forskeropplevelser på slutten av hver dag, i en
slags vitenskapsblogg.6 Sommerlarm kom i
gang som et resultat av utlyste prosjektmidler
fra Norsk Forskningsråd og Pro Real, et profileringsprogram for realfag blant barn og unge.
Vår prosjektsøknad la derfor vekt på et samarbeid med realfags- og teknologimiljøer ved
NTNU. Både Medisinsk fakultet ved Instituttgruppen for anatomi, patologi og rettsmedisin og Senter for fornybar energi var villige
til å bidra. Dessverre fikk vi ikke støtte, men
prosjektet ble likevel gjennomført.
Målet med Sommerlarm var å gi barna en
positiv erfaring med å være på museum og
gjøre aktiviteter, ved siden av å være et tilbud
for familier som ikke startet sommerferien
samtidig med barna sine. Museet startet med å
annonsere tilbudet via NTNUs eget Intranett,
og sommerskolen ble fulltegnet i løpet av to
dager. To grupper med 20 barn deltok i hver
sin ferieuke, og deltagerne var hovedsakelig
barn eller barnebarn av ansatte ved NTNU.
Fra et Bourdieu-perspektiv kan man anta at de
hadde ganske lik bakgrunn og habitus – oppdratt innenfor en forståelse av at kunnskap og
utdannelse er viktig. I følge en ny dansk brukerundersøkelse for museer var deltakerne
dessuten barn av det segmentet av befolkningen som bruker museer oftest (Kulturarvssty-
relsen 2009). Tilholdsstedet på museet var det
såkalte Newtonrommet, som har fem computer-stasjoner i tillegg til et lite auditorium og
et laboratorium. Deltakerne ble inndelt i fem
grupper og fikk blant annet et digitalt kamera
og en notatbok for å dokumentere ”forskningen” sin.
Sommerskolen var inndelt i fem ulike aktivitetsdager. Første dag var temaet biologi ved
elven, og deltakerne telte fuglearter og tok
vannprøver som de etterpå analyserte i mikroskop på laben. Dagen etter var temaet anatomi, med besøk på anatomisk samling ved St.
Olavs Hospital. De fikk høre om patologi og
rettsmedisin og se preparerte kroppsdeler fra
mennesker. Etterpå dro de tilbake til museet
og dissekerte fisk, for å sammenligne organer.
Tredje dag var temaet arkeologi. Da hadde de
utgraving i jord fra middelaldergrunnen i
Trondheim sentrum.7 Funnene ble tatt med til
museet for rengjøring og systematisering.
Fjerde dag bygde de solcellebiler som ble
prøvd ut i et bilrace på museets gårdsplass, og
femte dag var det ”energikamp” på gressplenen foran museet, med utstyr vi fikk låne fra
Trondheim kommune.
Barna var teknisk kompetente og hadde
ingen større problemer med å bruke digitale
kamera eller Mac til å dokumentere aktivitetene. De lærte også raskt å lage innlegg og laste
opp bilder til bloggen. Fra museets side forventet vi at bloggen kunne bli både en positiv
reklameeffekt for institusjonen og en arena for
barnas familie og venner til å kommentere og
starte en dialog på Internett. Elleve mødre og
fedre blogget tilbake til oss med kommentarer
som: ”Jøss, det var litt av en fangst! Ser ut som
om dere har artige og interessante dager! Gleder meg til å lese fortsettelsen av bloggen deres”.8 Statistikk fra Google Analysis viser at
bloggen fram til april 2011 har hatt totalt
DEN
1068 besøk, foretatt fra 519 ulike datamaskiner, med en klar besøkstopp de to ukene prosjektet pågikk. I gjennomsnitt har besøkerne
sett på fire saker i bloggen og brukt 4:45 minutter, og det er lagt igjen totalt 20 kommentarer fra elleve enkeltpersoner, alle av foreldre
innenfor de to ukene sommerskolen varte.
Eksempel 2: Vitenwiki
Høsten 2010 lanserte NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet sitt andre pilotprosjekt med bruk av web
2.0-teknologi i kommunikasjonen med publikum. Denne gangen var det tre skoleklasser
ved første trinn på Thora Storm videregående
skole, i museets nabolag, som ble invitert for å
teste ut produksjonen av Vitenwiki,9 et ressursnettsted for gjenstander i museets utstillinger. Museet henvendte seg direkte til lærerne, og ønsket først og fremst å teste ut wikiproduksjon i praksis. Pilotprosjektet kan derfor karakteriseres som et verksted, og oppfølging i form av eventuelt for- og etterarbeid ble
overlatt til den enkelte lærer. Prosjektet ble initialisert av en utlysning fra Nettskap 2.0, i regi
av Fornyings-, administrasjons- og kirkedepartementet. Nettskap 2.0 støtter prosjekter
som fokuserer på hvordan offentlige data og
informasjonskilder kan benyttes innenfor ulike service- og informasjonssammenhenger.
Denne gangen fikk vi støtte som ga oss et
romslig budsjett og mulighet til å kjøpe nytt
teknisk utstyr. Også wikiproduksjonen foregikk hovedsakelig i museets Newtonrom, men
elevene kunne fritt ta med laptop og kamera
rundt i utstillingene.
Som pilotprosjekt ble Vitenwiki arrangert
som et verksted for 16-17-åringer, men i en
framtidig utvikling av prosjektet vil det også
være rom for å invitere andre grupper til wikiverkstedet. Elever fra videregående skole er en
aldersgruppe som er lite å se blant museets pu-
VANSKELIGE DIALOGEN
blikum – utenom obligatoriske skolebesøk.
Under evalueringen ble det ikke spurt etter familiebakgrunn, og sett i forhold til den nevnte danske brukerundersøkelsen har man ikke
holdepunkter for å si noe om hvilke segment
av befolkningen de hører til. Prosjektet ble
gjennomført i tre omganger med skoleklasser
på rundt 30 elever hver gang. Elevene ble delt
inn i fem grupper som fikk utdelt et utstyrssett hver. De skulle skape en kort ”leksikonartikkel” om en natur- eller kulturhistorisk gjenstand i en av museets utstillinger. Som kilder
skulle de bruke informasjon de fant på Internett – helst offentlige ressurssider. Museet
hadde på forhånd laget en liste over anbefalte
nettsteder, som blant annet inneholdt sider
som Universitetsmuseenes nasjonale arkeologidatabase og Artsdatabankens sider for biologisk mangfold, i tillegg til forskningsjournalistiske nettsteder som Forskning.no og nrk.no/skole. For å krydre artiklene var det også rom
for å legge til humoristiske referanser, som en
film fra Youtube eller lignende.
Det viktigste aspektet ved NTNU Vitenskapsmuseets Vitenwiki var ikke at elevene
skulle lære seg fakta om de ulike objektene i
museets utstillinger. I stedet ønsket museet å
fokusere på kildekritikk og øke oppmerksomheten rundt sikre og usikre kilder til informasjon om vitenskap på Internett, samt viktigheten av å referere til opphavskildene. Fokus på
kildekritikk er et generelt krav i læreplanen for
videregående skole. Det åpner for at skoleklasser kan delta som ledd i undervisningen for de
fleste skolefag. Deltakerne skulle altså kvalitetssikre den informasjonen de fant ved å vurdere avsenderens troverdighet; en offentlig institusjon, en fagperson eller en allment interessert person? Hvis museet lykkes i å rekruttere nye skoleklasser til å delta i en fortsettelse av
prosjektet, som nå inngår blant institusjonens
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GURO JØRGENSEN
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øvrige skoletilbud, kan wikien kanskje bli en
ressursside til bruk for museets publikum generelt – både hjemmefra og ved besøk. Per i
dag mangler museet nemlig lett tilgjengelig
digital informasjon om mange av sine gjenstander. Forhåpentligvis vil Vitenwiki også
kunne gi PR til noen av de offentlige databasene og informasjonskanalene som finnes på
Internett. Wikien er åpen for å legge inn kommentarer og endringer, og har potensial for å
fungere som et dialogverktøy mellom museet
og allmennheten.
Statistikk fra Google Analysis viser at Vitenwiki per april 2011 har hatt 1238 besøk fra til
sammen 1083 datamaskiner. Hver besøkende
har sett på i underkant av to saker på wikien
og brukt 1:45 minutter. Ved en feiltagelse
startet ikke målingene før etter at pilotprosjektet var ferdig, og besøkskurven har ingen
klare topper i løpet av tiden som er gått etterpå. Ingen andre enn museets ansatte har kommentert innleggene i wikien, og da i form av
opplysninger om endringer de har gjort i den
opprinnelige teksten.
Et statsdrevet universitetsmuseum har ansvar for å fremstå med troverdighet. Derfor er
det selvfølgelig viktig for NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet at informasjonen i Vitenwiki ikke er
feilaktig, og alle endringer må godkjennes av
nettstedets administratorer. I tillegg er det lagt
inn en forfatterpresentasjon, slik at man kan
se bakgrunnen til de som har skrevet artiklene.
Ideelt sett kan wikien bidra til at museet kommer nærmere et mål om å gjøre samlingene
sine mer tilgjengelige for folk flest, noe som i
en større sammenheng kan tjene til økt kunnskapsnivå og bidra til demokratisering. Men
for universitetsmuseene oppstår potensielle
dilemmaer i prosessen med å slippe publikum
til som aktører i vitenskapsformidlingens tjeneste.
DEN
VANSKELIGE DIALOGEN
Prosjektene Sommerlarm og Vitenwiki var direkte resultater av NTNU Vitenskapsmuseets
ønske om å komme menneskene i dagens
kommunikasjonssamfunn – og den andre mediealderen – i møte. De er samtidig muliggjort fordi vilkårene for vitenskapsproduksjon
er i endring, og takhøyden for å slippe andre
stemmer til er blitt høyere. De nye utfordringene i museenes kommunikasjonsstrategier åpner for en diskusjon av demarkasjonslinjen
mellom vitenskap og samfunn generelt. Erfaringene fra de to pilotprosjektene gir rom for å
reflektere over hvorvidt museet lyktes med å
skape en dialog rundt forskning og vitenskap
med deltagerne på prosjektene, og med å tilrettelegge for en demokratiserende praksis
gjennom høy grad av interaktivitet og bruk av
digitale kommunikasjonsplattformer.
Sommerlarm var et aktivitetstilbud der barna
først og fremst skulle lære mer om forskning
og vitenskap gjennom å prøve forskningsmetoder og aktiviteter selv. Interaksjonen var
ikke betinget av teknisk utstyr. I tråd med
Barrys argumentasjon var interaktiviteten
tenkt som en bro mellom vanskelig forskningsteori og barnas egne erfaringer, og målet
var å utløse et læringspotensial. Sommerlarmbloggen fungerte som en ”feltdagbok” for hver
dag, men var ikke et viktig digitalt produkt for
prosjektet. Snarere var det et biprodukt som
kunne gjøre museet synlig på Internett. Bloggen åpnet også for dialog med folk som ikke
var med på prosjektet, og museet håpet på god
respons blant deltagernes familie og venner.
Statistikken fra Google Analysis viser at bloggen ble besøkt, og at elleve foreldre la igjen
kommentar, noen av dem flere ganger. Det er
ikke nødvendig å karakterisere denne bloggen
som verken vellykket eller mislykket. I følge
DEN
tallene for antall besøk og kommentarer fungerte den nok ikke veldig godt som invitasjon
til en dialog om forskningsaktivitetene og barnas erfaringer, men bedre som en informasjonskanal. Kanskje gjorde museet den samme
feilen som mange andre vitenskapsbloggere,
nemlig at spillereglene for deltagelse ikke ble
tydelig presentert (Kouper 2010). I tillegg er
det selvsagt fullt mulig å besøke en blogg uten
å legge igjen en kommentar. Museet har så
langt liten erfaring med bruk av sosiale medier, og det var derfor vanskelig å ha eksakte forventninger i forkant. Det er heller ikke uproblematisk å ta stilling til gode vurderingskriterier i etterkant. På sikt vil statistisk empiri fra
enda flere museumsblogger kunne gi et godt
kvantitativt sammenligningsgrunnlag, men
det sier likevel lite om hva slags kvalitativt utbytte enkeltpersoner får ved et besøk på nettsiden. Den mest synlige dialogen under Sommerlarm var samtalen mellom museets ansatte
og barna som deltok på prosjektet, og den
som oppsto mellom deltakerne under aktivitetene.
Alle aktivitetene ble styrt i form av en introduksjon til emnet før barna fikk prøve selv, og
de fikk oppfølging underveis. Aktivitetene alene avslørte ikke nødvendigvis den vitenskapelige kunnskapen som lå bak, og mange så ingen sammenheng mellom de ulike aktivitetene
med mindre det ble påpekt for dem. Som Barry også innvender, er det ikke uvanlig at interaktive stasjoner på vitenssenter fungerer best
for de som har relevant forkunnskap fra før,
og at læringsutbyttet ikke nødvendigvis blir
det avsenderen hadde tiltenkt hvis slike forhåndskunnskaper mangler (Barry 1998: 105).
Under byggingen av solcellebiler var det for
eksempel få som skjønte sammenhengen mellom motoren, de elektriske ledningene og selve solcellepanelet. Da bilene ble tatt med ut i
VANSKELIGE DIALOGEN
sola myldret det imidlertid av kreative ideer
om hvordan de kunne endres slik at de kjørte
fortere. Den teoretiske koblingen var altså
vanskelig tilgjengelig for barna, mens de fleste
hadde masse praktisk erfaring som kom til
nytte i neste trinn. Det er fristende å trekke en
parallell til kunnskapsproduksjonens Mode 2,
der produkter får sin dom av brukerne, og der
brukerne i fellesskap foreslår andre løsninger
hvis produktet ikke fungerer optimalt. Men i
vårt tilfelle var ikke brukerne med på å endre
de vitenskapelige kriteriene – de var slett ikke
med på å produsere ny vitenskapelig kunnskap, eller et revolusjonerende nytt teknisk
produkt.
Det demokratiserende læringsutbyttet ved
Sommerlarm kan sies å være flertydig, i tråd
med en oppfatning av universitetsmuseene
som et hybrid kunnskapsfelt. For det første
ønsket museet at barna skulle lære noe om
forskning i ulike fag, og i så måte var sommerskolen et tradisjonelt dannelsesprosjekt. Men
det var også et interaktivt, deltagende og ansvarliggjørende prosjekt, der barna selv utførte
aktiviteter og ble stilt overfor valgsituasjoner.
Sommerlarm bygde en bro mellom vitenskap
og samfunn med museet som arena, men ledet
ikke til likeverdig samhandling mellom representanter fra samfunnet utenfor akademia og
spesialister innenfor. Spesialistene i dette prosjektet hadde i stor grad en tradisjonell rolle
som kunnskapsformidlere, noe som var helt
nødvendig, siden barna var for unge til å ha
innsikt i de prosessene de deltok i. Prosjektet
synliggjorde dermed, gjennom praksis, en
grense mellom et vitenskapelig domene og vitenskapens territorium. Barna opplevde nok
at de fikk tilgang til domenet, de fikk jo være
med på biologisk feltarbeid, på utgraving med
ekte funn og til patologenes disseksjonssal på
sykehuset med en død manns skrumplever
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GURO JØRGENSEN
92
som bevis. Men det hele kan også beskrives
som en velarrangert lek, der de gestaltet populærkulturens illusjon av forskeren på jakt etter
spennende vitenskapelige oppdagelser. Fra
museets side ble det invitert til interaksjon og
dialog mellom vitenskapen og deltakerne,
men uten at det ble åpnet opp for håndtering
av deltakernes feedback som seriøse utsagn
om vitenskap, eller forhandling av vitenskapens sosiale robusthet.
Jeg gjorde dessuten en erfaring med at det
ikke nødvendigvis er enkelt å overføre referanser fra arkeologidisiplinens territorium til domenet, eller omvendt, da jeg forsøkte å bruke
Indiana Jones i introduksjonstimen til arkeologidagen. For arkeologer er Indiana Jones populærkulturens fremste symbol på yrket, mens
barna ikke så ut til å skjønne denne referansen
når den ble hentet inn og brukt av en arkeolog
inne i den forhistoriske utstillingen på museet.
Til tross for at denne bok- og filmfiguren de
siste årene er relansert som både PC-spill og
legofigurer, fungerte den altså ikke som en referanse til den vitenskapelige arkeologidisiplinen for deltakerne på sommerskolen. Framtidig forskning på folk flest sine oppfatninger av
universitetsmuseenes og vitenskapenes samfunnsrolle kan forhåpentligvis utruste museologene med bedre forståelse for referanser som
kan være gode bindeledd mellom spesialistenes og ikke-spesialistenes ”verdensbilder”.
Som jeg har forsøkt å vise her, ga sommerens forskerskole på NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet erfaringer med overføring av museumspolitikkens gode hensikter til praksis blant et ungt
publikum. Gjennom et interaktivt læringsopplegg fikk vi testet mulighetene for dialog
mellom museet og samfunnet – både i hverdagslig og overført betydning. Dialogen var på
ingen måte likeverdig, og den skapte ikke ny
kunnskap innenfor de forskningsdisiplinene
som ble formidlet gjennom interaktivitet.
Men den skapte økt kunnskap hos de unge
deltakerne, som på sikt kan gjøre dem bedre
rustet til å møte kunnskapssamfunnets krav til
både allmenndannelse og demokratisk deltagelse. Vi testet også bruken av blogg som sosialt medium med potensial til å løfte dialogen
fra museet og ut på den digitale allmenningen.
Invitasjonen til dialog var imidlertid utydelig,
og samtalen uteble. Det digitale virkemiddelet
var ikke i seg selv nok til å skape en dialog
mellom universitetsmuseet og allmennheten.
Mens Sommerlarmbloggen var en sjanger for
personlige beskrivelser av interaksjon med
kunnskap og vitenskap, var Vitenwiki en mer
autoritær leksikonsjanger og et digitalt produkt i seg selv – hovedsakelig skapt i en prosess av interaksjon mellom deltagerne og vitenskapelig informasjon på Internett. Deltagerne foretok valg og formet tekstene sine ut
fra de kildene de ønsket å bruke. På en helt
annen måte enn Sommerlarm, som først og
fremst ble et oppdragende dannelsesprosjekt,
satte Vitenwiki grensene mellom vitenskapens
domene og territorium i spill. Museet fikk
dessuten testet ut hvordan det siste tiårets store satsning på digitalisering og tilgjengeliggjøring av universitetenes store objektsamlinger
fungerte i praksis for en gruppe av vanlige
samfunnsborgere utenfor akademia.
Vitenwikis interaktivitet var betinget av
teknisk utstyr, digital teknologi og tilgang til
Internett. Elevene møtte utfordringer i form
av kildevalg og utforming av brukbare søkebegreper, og de måtte bygge opp en logisk,
sammenhengende tekst med referanser til opphavskildene. Elevene var dermed selv hovedansvarlige for å bygge bro mellom egne erfaringer og forhåndskunnskap, og nye vitenskapelige innsikter. Wikien var som nevnt et digitalt sluttprodukt, men med muligheter for vi-
DEN
dere interaksjon, dialog og endring. Elevene
var innforstått med at det de skrev kunne bli
endret, hvis det ikke tilfredsstilte institusjonens kvalitetskrav. Kravene til tekstenes faglige tyngde var imidlertid ganske lave, og innholdet kan uten tvil karakteriseres som temmelig generelt og populært. Likevel fyller Vitenwiki et hull i museets formidlingstjeneste,
som et oppslagsverk for gjenstander i museets
samlinger. I tillegg er det et digitalt ressurssted
som er tilgjengelig også fra ”de tusen hjem”.
Wikiproduksjonen var på samme måte som
Sommerlarm et interaktivt kommunikasjonsprosjekt som krevde aktiv og ansvarlig deltagelse, og kan ses som et bidrag til utvikling av
det demokratiske samfunnet. I tillegg er selve
produktet demokratisk, i og med at innholdet
i Vitenwiki i prinsippet er tilgjengelig for alle
deltagerne på den digitale allmenningen. Museets krav til vitenskapelig etterrettelighet i
innholdet påvirket imidlertid elevenes mulighet til helt selvstendige og frie valg, og på den
måten la domenet – i kraft av å være både en
forsknings- og en formidlingsinstitusjon –
sterke føringer på resultatet.
Under wikiproduksjonen hadde hver gruppe en fagspesialist tilgjengelig. Formidlerne i
museets skoletjeneste er henholdsvis biolog og
arkeolog, og i tillegg stilte noen av museets stipendiater innenfor arkeologi og biologi seg til
disposisjon for prosjektet. På den måten oppsto en konkret dialog mellom fagspesialister
og elever om det produktet som skulle lages, i
tillegg til at deltakerne inngikk i en dialogisk
prosess med tilgjengelige kunnskapskilder på
Internett. Det skulle vise seg at det var lettere
for elevene å gå inn i en dialog om museets
biologiske objekter enn de arkeologiske.
Gruppene fra den første skoleklassen hadde
fritt valg fra en lang og blandet liste med objekter der det på forhånd var sjekket ut at det
VANSKELIGE DIALOGEN
faktisk fantes nettkilder. Alle valgte et utstoppet dyr. For å få testet museenes arkeologiske
gjenstandsdatabase måtte neste skoleklasse
velge blant kun arkeologiske/kulturhistoriske
gjenstander, mens den siste skoleklassen igjen
fikk velge fritt – og fire av fem grupper valgte
nok en gang et biologisk objekt. Jeg tror dette
forteller noe om de ulike vitenskapsdisiplinenes posisjon i samfunnet. Naturen er en mer
konkret erfaring for de fleste, og naturfag er et
obligatorisk fag helt fram til andre trinn på
videregående skole. I tillegg er naturfilmer på
TV en velkjent sjanger, og mangfoldet av pålitelige og offentlige kilder på Internett for naturfagene er stor. Arkeologisk kunnskap om
forhistoriske perioder blir hovedsakelig presentert i pensum på barneskolen, og er mindre
synlig i mediebildet. Det er dermed ikke overraskende at det føltes tryggere for elevene å
skrive om villsvinet enn om en lærsko fra eldre
jernalder. Også noen av de biologiske databasene, for eksempel muligheten for kartfesting
av botanisk samlingsmateriale, var vanskelig
for 16-17-åringene å få meningsfull kunnskap
ut av. Men inngangen til forståelse av de arkeologiske objektene var generelt sett langt mer
kronglete.
Museenes arkeologiske gjenstandsdatabase
inneholder et gjenstandsfoto med målestokk,
samt begrensede tekstopplysninger om hvert
objekt. Teksten er basert på museenes kataloger, som kun gir museumsnummer, gjenstandstype, strategiske mål og funnsted, men
ikke informasjon om den kulturelle konteksten gjenstanden har inngått i – som for spesialistene er innlysende. Beskrivelsesteksten kan
for eksempel se slik ut:
T19391. Tveegget sverd av jern, av vikingtidstypen
M, svært godt bevart, med tydelig glødeskall. Klingen
er på noen steder svakt bøyd, og viser hakk i eggen.
93
GURO JØRGENSEN
94
Samlet l. 90,0 cm, derav 78 cm på klingen, som har br.
ved hjaltet 5,5 cm. Underhjaltets l. 12,2 cm, br. 1,3 cm,
st. tykkelse 2,3 cm. Overhjaltets l. 8,1 cm, br. 1,3 cm,
st. tykkelse 2,1 cm. F. 1973 på Skottvollen beite av
Skottgården, gnr. 92-93, Brekken s., Røros p. og k.,
Sør-Trøndelag, (matr.nr. 1640000920000) (matr.nr.
1640000930000) på elvemælen (inntil 5 m fra kanten)
ca. 200-300 m ned og s.v. for Torsvollbrua, ved en
sving i elva. Gave fra finneren, grunneier Norvald Jamtvold. Innlevert 1974 v. O. Farbregd.10
Elevene måtte dermed bruke Internett for å
finne utdypende informasjon om den forhistoriske perioden og viktige trekk ved det samfunnet som brukte gjenstanden, og de trengte
mye hjelp til å forstå hvordan de kunne sette
gjenstanden inn i en større sammenheng. For
elevene virket arkeologi synonymt med å finne
ting, ikke å utlede kunnskaper fra tingen om
fortidens mennesker og deres meningsunivers.
For å vende tilbake til Foucaults begreper, synliggjorde arbeidet med wikien en større kløft
mellom domenet og territoriet for arkeologidisiplinens del, enn for biologidisiplinen. I
møtet med universitetsmuseenes arkeologiske
gjenstandsdatabase ble det svært tydelig at det
store arbeidet med å tilgjengeliggjøre samlingene på Internett i seg selv ikke er nok til å spre
kunnskap til samfunnet – det kreves visse forkunnskaper som er knyttet til fagdisiplinenes
organisering av vitenskapelig kunnskap, for å
dra nytte av denne offentlige databasen.
”Kommunikasjonens supermotorvei” gjør
informasjon lett tilgjengelig. Det å kunne skille mellom hva som er pålitelige og mindre pålitelige kilder blir derfor en vesentlig egenskap
for aktørene på den digitale allmenningen.
Elevene viste overraskende lite refleksjon omkring dette, uansett objektkategori. Verkstedet
startet med en introduksjon om kildekritikk
og viktigheten av å oppgi kildene sine innen-
for vitenskapene, under mottoet: ”Deling,
ikke stjeling på nett”. I tillegg fikk elevene utdelt en liste over pålitelige nettsteder som stort
sett var tilrettelagt for allmennheten av fagspesialister eller offentlige instanser. Straks elevene satte i gang på egenhånd, utviste de imidlertid stor kreativitet og mindre kritisk sans i
valg av kilder, og mange var så ivrige at de
glemte å kopiere linker til opphavskildene etter hvert som de konstruerte tekstene sine.
Det ble nødvendig å følge opp gruppene nøye
underveis, for å sikre at de ikke pådro seg en
masse ekstraarbeid til slutt. Universitetsmuseets mål om å formidle forskning og vitenskap
krevde en disiplinering av Vitenwiki-deltakerne til å tenke som vitenskapsfolk i sin omgang
med kilder. Dette viser tydelig at interaksjon
med vitenskapelig kunnskap på Internett ikke
nødvendigvis øker det vitenskapelige kunnskapsnivået for deltakerne på den digitale allmenningen. Samtidig tydeliggjør det den utfordringen universitetsmuseene står overfor,
som en hybrid institusjon som er nødt til å
forholde seg både til akademiske og ikke-akademiske praksiser, og til ulike målestokker for
hva som kan karakteriseres som pålitelig
kunnskap.
HYBRIDFELTETS
MUSEALE UTFORDRINGER
Digitalisering, dialog og demokrati er komplekse målsetninger å leve opp til for universitetsmuseene, og det finnes mangfoldige måter
å møte disse på gjennom formidlingspraksisen. NTNU Vitenskapsmuseets Sommerlarmblogg og Vitenwiki er kun to eksempler. I hvilken grad det å bidra til Vitenwiki, eller å blogge med museet er demokratiske og dialogiske
øvelser sett i forhold til et idealbegrep, er ikke
avklart her. Snarere har jeg reflektert rundt
hva slags aktiviteter museet har omsatt disse
DEN
begrepene til i praksis. En bedømmelse av
hvorvidt museenes ulike valg av aktiviteter og
kommunikasjonsstrategier er vellykket eller ei,
avhenger av hvilket utgangspunkt man tar, og
hvilke analysekriterier man bruker. Og kanskje vil det være nyttig med en nærmere
granskning også av meningsinnholdet i de store ordene ”digitalisering”, ”dialog” og ”demokrati” for ulike aktører innenfor museumssektoren.
Innledningsvis stilte jeg spørsmål ved hvorvidt digitaliseringen av millioner av museumsobjekter i seg selv bidrar til en økning av
kunnskapene til folk flest. Som jeg har vist
ovenfor, peker særlig våre erfaringer fra Vitenwiki mot at dette ikke er tilstrekkelig, fordi
databasene til dels var vanskelige å bruke uten
allmenne forkunnskaper om biologi, arkeologi og kulturhistorie. Om NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet i framtida inviterer andre grupper til å
delta i arbeidet med Vitenwiki, for eksempel
interesserte og motiverte voksne, vil dette bildet kanskje bli mer fasettert. Det ser heller
ikke ut til at universitetsmuseenes deltagelse i
sosiale medier nødvendigvis fører til en digital
dialog med publikum og ikke-spesialister.
Foreløpig er det kun museets egne spesialister
som har gjort endringer i Vitenwiki, og det er
ikke lagt til kommentarer fra publikum. Sommerlarmbloggen førte heller ikke til veldig mye
dialog. Jeg tror imidlertid ikke at det er utenkelig at museene lykkes bedre med sin inntreden i sosiale medier i fremtiden. For tiden er
det mange spennende digitale formidlingsprosjekter på gang, med stort potensial for
utveksling av erfaringer og museologisk teoriutvikling (Løssing et al. 2010).
Universitetsmuseenes tradisjonelt autoritære rolle som forvalter og formidler av sannheter om kultur og natur utfordres når ledetråden er dialog, og web 2.0-samfunnet maner til
VANSKELIGE DIALOGEN
refleksjon omkring en ny ordning av kunnskap. Forskningsformidlingens dilemma oppstår i møtet mellom gamle og nye tradisjoner,
og Nowotnys beskrivelse av hybride kunnskapsfelter er betegnende for universitetsmuseenes utfordringer. Det vil bli spennende å se
i hvilken grad sosiale medier og fildelingskulturen, i samspill med andre samfunnsendringer, bidrar til å endre tidligere strukturer og
praksiser knyttet til vitenskapsproduksjon og
vitenskapskommunikasjon. Enn så lenge eksisterer det fremdeles skiller mellom disipliner,
og tradisjonelle Mode 1-praksiser er helt vanlig i mange forskeres hverdag (Hessels and van
Lente 2008: 758). Uansett om endringene i
samfunnet og i vitenskapens produksjonsvilkår er av overflatisk eller grunnleggende ontologisk art, må imidlertid universitetsmuseene
finne praktiske løsninger på dagens hybridsituasjon for å være aktuelle dialogpartnere for
samfunnet.
NOTER
1. http://www.ntnu.no/vitenskapsmuseet
2. Foucault bruker begrepet arkeologiske domener
og territorier, der begrepet arkeologi refererer til
hans genealogiske undersøkelse av vitenskapenes
historie (Foucault:1972).
3. Se for eksempel Universitetsmuseenes arkeologidatabase: http://www.unimus.no/arkeologi/ og
de norske kulturhistoriske museenes samlingsdatabase: http://www.digitaltmuseum.no/
4. MUD står for ”MultiUser Domain” eller ”MultiUser Dungeon” (Spilker 2004:18).
5. Navnet Sommerlarm refererer til NTNU Vitenskapsmuseets jubileumsutstilling i forbindelse
med Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskabs 250-års jubileum og NTNUs 100-årsjubileum, kalt Kunnskapslarm 2010.
95
GURO JØRGENSEN
96
6. http://www.vm.ntnu.no/sommerlarm/
7. Denne jorda er fra de minst sentrale funnområdene ved arkeologiske utgravinger i Trondheim
by på 1980-tallet. Jorda er ikke blitt gjennomsøkt av arkeologer og kan ikke kasseres, men
NTNU Vitenskapsmuseets skoletjeneste bruker
den til å arrangere utgraving for skolebarn.
8. http://www.vm.ntnu.no/sommerlarm/: En kommentar til “Arkeologidag Gruppe4”, fra Sigrun,
30/06/2010 kl. 17:39.
9. http://www.vm.ntnu.no/vitenwiki/
10. http://www.unimus.no/arkeologi/#/details
View?search=T19391
LITTERATUR
Barry, Andrew: “On Interactivity: Consumers, Citizens and Culture”. In: Sharon Macdonald (ed.):
The Politics of Display: Museums, Science, Culture.
Routledge: London 1998: 98-117.
Bayne, Siân, Jen Ross and Zoe Williamson: “Objects,
Subjects, Bits and Bytes: Learning from the Digital Collections of the National Museums”. Museum and Society 7. No. 2, 2009: 110-24.
Foucault, Michel: The Archaeology of Knowledge and
the Discourse on Language. Pantheon Books: New
York 1972.
Frøyland, Merethe: “Multiple erfaringer i multiple
settinger – Memus: Et teoretisk rammeverk for
museumsformidling”. Nordisk museologi no. 2,
2003: 51-70.
Gibbons, Michael: “Science’s New Social Contract
with Society”. Nature. No. 402, December 1999:
81-84.
Gibbons, Michael, Camille Limoges, Helga Nowotny, Simon Schwartzman, Peter Scott and Martin
Trow: The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary
Societies. Sage: London 1994.
Hessels, Laurens K. and Harro van Lente: “Re-Thinking New Knowledge Production: A Literature
Review and a Research Agenda”. Research Policy
37. No. 4, 2008: 740-60.
Hetland, Per and Jorunn Spord Borgen: Evaluering
av universitetsmuseenes digitaliseringsarbeid. Arbeidsnotat 27/2005. NIFU STEP: Oslo 2005.
Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean: “Critical Pedagogy in the
Post-Museum”. In: A. Johansen, K. G. Losnedahl
and H.J. Ågotnes (eds.): Tingenes tale. Innspill til
museologi. Universitetet i Bergen: Bergen 2002:
209-30.
Kaplan, Andreas M. and Michael Haenlein: “Users
of the World, Unite! The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media”. Business Horizons 53.
No. 1, 2010: 59-68.
Kouper, Inna: “Science Blogs and Public Engagement with Science: Practices, Challenges, and
Opportunities”. Journal of Science Communication. No. 09(01), 2010: 1-10.
Kulturarvsstyrelsen: National brugerundersøgelse på de
statlige og stadsanderkendte museer i Danmark.
Kulturarvstyrelsen i Danmark: København 2009.
Levold, Nora and Hendrik Storstein Spilker (eds.):
Kommunikasjonssamfunnet: Moral, praksis og digital teknologi. Universitetsforlaget: Oslo 2007.
Løssing, Anne Sophie Warberg, Jacob Hansen and
Charlotte Hansen (eds.): Digital museumsformidling - i brugerperspektiv. Kulturarvstyrelsen: København 2010.
NOU 1996/7: Museum. Mangfald, minne, møtestad.
Norges offentlige utredninger. Kulturdepartementet: Oslo 1996.
NOU 2006/8: Kunnskap for fellesskapet. Universitetsmuseenes utfordringer. Kunnskapsdepartementet:
Oslo 2006.
Nowotny, Helga: “Socially distributed knowledge:
Five spaces for science to meet the public”. Public
Understanding of Science 2. No. 4, 1993: 307-19.
Nowotny, Helga, Peter Scott and Michael Gibbons:
“Introduction:`Mode 2’ Revisited: The New Production of Knowledge”. Minerva 41. No. 3,
2003: 179-94.
DEN
Nowotny, Helga, Peter Scott and Michael Gibbons:
Re-Thinking Science. Knowledge and the Public in
an Age of Uncertainty. Polity Press: Cambridge
2001.
Poster, Mark: The Second Media Age. Polity Press:
Cambridge 1995.
Spilker, Hendrik Storstein: Den store oppdragelsen:
Utviklingen av kommersielle internettjenester i
Norge, ca. 1997-2003. Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet: Trondheim 2004.
Spilker, Hendrik Storstein: ”Virtualitetens ironi: produksjonen av musikk og nyheter i “den nye økonomien””. In: Levold, Nora and Hendrik Storstein Spilker (eds.): Kommunikasjonssamfunnet.
Moral, praksis og digital teknologi. Universitetsforlaget: Oslo 2007: 199-223.
Svestad, Asgeir: Oldsakenes orden: Om tilkomsten av
arkeologi. Universitetsforlaget: Oslo 1995.
*Guro Jørgensen, stipendiat i museologi
Adresse: NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet,
Seksjon for formidling,
7491 Trondheim, Norge.
E-mail: [email protected]
VANSKELIGE DIALOGEN
97
NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2011 1, S. 98-105
●
Interaction and Performativity
in Digital Art Exhibitions
VUOKKO HARMA*
Abstract: There is a growing commitment within cultural institutions such as
museums and galleries to develop exhibitions that attract the public to engage with art.
Digital technological innovations play an important role in this regard, enabling
visitors to experience artworks in new ways. Contemporary museums and galleries have
become increasingly concerned with promoting public engagement through the
consumption of interactive installations, as opposed to the traditional approach of
housing static curiosities and authentic pieces. In this article, I will explore the visitors’
responses to the technologically mediated artworks and the new forms of interaction(s)
that arise in exhibition areas. The changed forms of interaction are twofold:
participation with artworks creates interaction with the exhibit as well as with fellow
visitors and members of staff. These new forms of interactions are linked to the
individuals’ performance and thereafter to their subjective experience of the art
exhibition. This article approaches the museum visit from a sociological perspective in
order to find out what exactly happens in interactive digital exhibitions. The analysis
addresses the ways in which these different forms of interactions affect the experience of
visiting a museum, as well as perceptions of the arts and culture.
Key words: Interaction, pervasive technology, cultural institutions, symbolic
interactionism.
The funding bodies from both public and
private sectors have been placing pressure on
cultural institutions to increase the public’s
engagement with arts and culture. This
development is partially driven by a desire to
increase the number of visitors from wider
backgrounds, but also to create opportunities
for participation and learning. In order to
attract children and young people, the
museums have installed so-called ‘hands on’
exhibits, which allow people to touch and play
around with artworks. More recently, the
benefits of interactive artworks as part of
‘informal learning’ have been extended to reach
museum visitors of all ages. In past few decades,
digital technologies have been placed in
museums and galleries to support the
informative side of the museum visit:
touchscreen information desks and personal
digital assistants are relatively common in
museums and galleries nowadays. Alongside
with this development, artists and designers
INTERACTION AND PERFORMATIVITY
have adopted the use of digital technologies as
part of their work. The digital interactive
element in artworks is aimed at creating
meaningful experiences for the visitors.
Interactive art is discussed in the literature as
‘computer art’, ‘new media art’, ‘digital art’ and
so on, and in other contexts interactive art is
understood as non-technological hands-on
artwork. In this paper, I have coined the term
Digital Interactive Art (DIA) to cover art
exhibits that are mediated to the public
through digitally interactive technology, and
which require active participation from the
visitor.
DIA exhibitions have significant emphasis
on participation that appears to attract a wider
public to become interested in visiting art
exhibitions. However, despite the increased
amount of DIA in cultural institutions,
surprisingly little research has been conducted
to discover how visitors actually perceive their
visiting experience and what happens during
the visit. Museums use resources on researching
their visitors with quantitative surveys and
evaluation and occasionally interviews and
focus groups. However, these methods do not
really reveal the patterns of interactions with
both artworks and fellow visitors, nor do they
intend to find an understanding of how visitors
respond to these new forms of exhibits. I
believe that the importance of social interaction
of the museum visit cannot be ignored if one
desires to understand the actual visiting
experience. In this paper, I intend to briefly
examine the forms of interactions that arise
within and around in DIA.
METHODOLOGY
The paper uses the data collected in
collaboration with Dr. Susie Scott and Dr.
IN
DIGITAL ART EXHIBITIONS
Tamsin Hinton-Smith, sociologists from the
University of Sussex, as part of the WINES3project1 called ‘Supporting Shy Users in
Pervasive Computing’. We examined two
contrasting case studies; Fabrica, a small local
contemporary art gallery in Brighton that
hosted Tina Gonsalves’ Chameleon, a
multimedia artwork exhibition which utilizes
facial recognition technology to provide
emotional feedback to interactants i.e. visitors;
and the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum), a
large traditional museum in London that
hosted an exhibition called DeCode, which
included a range of digital artworks by different
artists that incorporate varying types of
interactions from visitors. For the purpose of
this paper, I have selected three particular
exhibits from our data to illuminate the
changed patterns of interaction in DIA, these
examples will be discussed in depth later on this
paper.
Our methodological approach was
simulating methods used in ethnographic
tradition; this was the most suitable for our
theoretical framework. The methods included
qualitative observational field notes, visitor
tracking maps, self-completion visitor
questionnaires, emotion maps, and visitor
interviews conducted face-to-face, by email and
by telephone. We also conducted ‘walkaround
interviews’, a mobile methodology (Ross et al
2009) that involved the researcher
accompanying a participant as they moved
around the gallery and recording ‘live’ their
responses to exhibits. In addressing different
forms of interaction in the exhibition area,
including interaction with the exhibits and
among other people, it became evident that
intended aims such as informal learning,
perception and experiencing arts were distracted
by the performative dilemma of the visitor.
99
VUOKKO HARMA
100
THEORETICAL APPROACH
Sociologists’ interests with regard to art have
focused on the socially organized settings in
which art is produced (Becker 1982) and
exhibited (MacDonald 2002), as well as
experienced by visitors (Heath and vom Lehn
2004). Museums and galleries have traditionally
been seen as locations of ‘high’ culture
(Williams 1958) whose visual and textual
contents and spatial arrangements signify
sophistication. Bourdieu and Darbel’s classic
study of European museums (1969) notes that
the certain visitor groups may feel that they
lack the cultural capital (knowledge, skills and
experience) needed to perceive and experience
arts in ‘correct ways’. Bourdieu suggests that the
‘correct’ perception of artworks is a matter of
cultural competence, acquired through
socialization and education. Contemporary
museums are adopting ideas from the visitorcentred design (Falk and Dierking 1992),
participatory museums (Simon 2010) and
inclusive museums. These ideas are examples of
cultural institutions’ aims to increase accessibility
to sectors of the public who might otherwise be
excluded. Revisiting Bourdieu and Darbel in
the context of DIA, it can be said that the visit
to the DIA exhibition requires new levels of
technological competences, which were not
necessary in traditional one-dimensional art
exhibition. The visitor’s roles are also changing
in DIA exhibitions as they are resulting in the
visitors adopting the interchangeable roles as
experience creator as well as the experiencer.
The visit to the interactive exhibition is created
for the user who utilizes the technology but also
for the visitor whose interests are aimed to be
accommodated. However, museums’ and
galleries as public spaces are still strictly coded
with social rules and norms to which the
visitors’ self-presentation is tied. Sociological
analysis aims to understand how the
transformations of cultural institutions are
affectively changing the role of the visiting
public. To participate successfully, the visitor
should be equipped with relevant cultural and
social capital in order to feel competent to
interact (Bourdieu and Darbel 1969).
As discussed, the sociological approach offers
a new way of analyzing the visitors’ experiences
of the museum visit. I have adopted a social
theory of Symbolic Interactionism (SI) in order
to link the aforementioned social and cultural
competences to the social interaction taking
place in DIA exhibition areas. The theory of
Symbolic Interactionism is central to
conceptualizing the social interaction in
exhibition area as a social encounter whose
meaning is negotiated between the actors
(Denzin 1970, Silverman 1987). In particular,
Erwin Goffman’s (1959) idea of presentation of
self has been used to analyze the visitors’
emotional responses to the public engagement
with interactive art. Following SI analysis in
social emotions, it can be seen that they are
emergent products of interaction and relative
to the social context rather than a psychological
trait or individual pathology (Scott 2006).
Shyness and embarrassment can be defined as a
situational state of dramaturgical stress (Freund
1998; cf. Goffman 1959), which arises from an
actor’s perceived relative incompetence at
managing a social encounter and their
anticipation of embarrassment resulting from
the communication of an unwanted impression
of oneself to others (Scott 2007a; cf. Schlenker
& Leary 1982). This notion leads to the
Goffman’s (ibid) presentation of self in
everyday life, where he sees interactions as
forms of performances with audience, backstage and front stage regions. Following
INTERACTION AND PERFORMATIVITY
Goffman’s ( see also Scott 2004) approach the
feeling or fear of breaking the rule or norm and
appearing to others as an incompetent visitor is
actually a reflection to the competent other; the
actual or anticipated audience. The exhibition
design is failing to acknowledge the affects of
presence of other people in the exhibition area.
In traditional museum or gallery settings, the
visitors’ level of performativity is relatively low,
as they could just stroll around passively. In the
interactive exhibition, the increased
performativity can be seen as a trigger for the
feelings of relative incompetence.
DISCUSSION: INTERACTION IN AND WITHIN THE
EXHIBITION
The museum visit consists of different elements
which could be loosely included under the
concept of ‘interaction’. In other words, in
order to understand visitors’ position in the
DIA exhibition, we should define the different
forms of interactions and compare and contrast
them to the traditional museum visit. The DIA
exhibits and artworks are designed to
encourage participation amongst the visitors.
The art is therefore aimed to encourage
experience through interaction with the
artwork. DIA often relies on the relatively basic
computerised technologies where the
interaction takes place either with traditional
push buttons or via touchscreens. More
recently, pervasive technology has entered onto
the art scene. Pervasive technology, or fit-inthe-environment technology, is used in
exhibitions to offer complex and often passively
captured forms of interaction, such as through
sensors that monitor movements or other
embodied activities. From our research data, I
have selected three examples of DIA exhibits to
illustrate the forms of interaction with artwork.
IN
DIGITAL ART EXHIBITIONS
Vocal contribution, embodied movements and
emotional feedback are examples of different
forms of interactions that are captured in the
DIA exhibits. Vocal contribution refers to the
exhibit in DeCode (V&A London) which
relied on the voice tracking technology, where
the visitor’s voice was creating images on the
screen. These images2 were changing due to the
different tones, levels or frequencies of the
voice. The interaction with this exhibit
required vocal contribution from the visitors
(Image 1.1). Another exhibit from DeCode
was utilizing body movement trackers, where
the visitors’ embodied movements were
creating sprays of colours on the large display
screen (Image 1.2). The participation required
exaggerated movements in front of the large
white interactive wall. The third example
comes from Fabrica gallery which hosted Tina
Gonsalve’s exhibition Chameleon (Image 1.3).
The exhibition area had a number of screens
which displayed an image of a human face.
With the emotion tracker, the human face on
the screen responded to the visitor’s face (a sad
face made the screen face cry; smiling made the
screen face laugh). The interaction in this
exhibition simulated the real human-to-human
interaction with emotional feedback. The DIA
exhibition expects participation and engagement
from the visitors, and it has the potential to
create truly engendered experiences. These types
of exhibitions require a competence to take part
because they are so highly computerized and in
order to understand the function and the
mechanisms of the artwork, the visitor should
be equipped with some knowledge of
technology.
The museums and galleries are public spaces,
where the rules and norms of the social
interaction between people should be enact. It
has been estimated that approximately 75% of
101
VUOKKO HARMA
102
museum visitors come in accompanied by
others – friends, family, groups, and the like
(Butler and Sussman 1989; Heath and vom
Lehm 2008). And even when alone, the visitor
is likely to be surrounded by other people. As
vom Lehn (et al 2001) argues, the actions of
others have an important impact on people’s
perception and experience of the exhibition.
For example, the vocal contribution exhibit
(see Image 1.1) in DeCode was perceived as
‘uneasy, discomforting and scary’ by the
participants of our research. The visitors felt
self-conscious when having to use their voice to
Fig. 1: Vocal contribution (Universal Everything:
Everyone Forever (2006) in DeCode Victoria & Albert
Museum in London, March 2010. Photo. Vuokko
Harma.
Fig. 2: Embodied experience. (‘Body Paint’ (2009) by
Mehmet Akten in DeCode in Victoria & Albert
Museum, London. March 2010. Photo: Vuokko Harma.
activate the exhibit, particularly if there were
other people around. Using one’s own voice
was considered as ‘too intimate’ or some people
reported to ‘not really know what to say’ when
asked what made them feel uneasy. These
statements highlight the performativeness of
the interaction, where the visitor feels selfconscious and fears revealing something
unwanted about him/her. The interaction with
the artwork along with the presence and
interaction with others can be approached with
Goffman’s dramaturgical theory (1959), where
he describes social situation as a front stage
region and a personal space as a back stage
region. The front stage requires acts i.e.
performance which are enacted to an
‘audience’.
Just as in the previous example, we discovered
similar outcomes in the embodied movement
exhibit (Image 1.2). People approached the
exhibit with caution, and many reported
feelings of uncertainty and fear about
unexpected events, and therefore preferred to
look aside while ‘others’ were interacting.
Therefore, it can be seen that the ‘watching
INTERACTION AND PERFORMATIVITY
others’ was their back stage region, a comfort
zone, whereas interaction with artwork was
performative front stage. The third example of
the DIA exhibition is from the Fabrica case
study (Image 1.3). The exhibition required the
visitors to enact different emotions with their
face movements. Visitor’s negative experiences
were mainly related on the situations where the
screen face ‘misunderstood’ the intended
emotion, for example a participant felt
embarrassed when she smiled at the screen and
the screen face started to cry. Feelings of
confusion and embarrassment were reported in
such situations.
These examples illustrate both practical and
emotional implications, as they prevented the
visitors from interacting fully with the artworks
by creating additional demands upon their own
performance. The visitors also wanted to know
in advance what was going to happen in the
interaction, and they requested more
information from the staff members or by
carefully reading the information provided.
Some of the visitors stated that they wanted to
look at other people interacting before they
were willing to ‘give it a go’, to avoid
embarrassment of doing it ‘wrong’. This
scenario signifies people feeling incompetence
in comparison to other visitors. These examples
also relate back to Bourdieu and Darbel and
these notions signify that in public perception
there is still an idea of ‘correct way’ to
participate and interact with artwork.
Technological incompetence was also reported
as being one of the factors that made the
visitors feeling hindered to take part. Several
respondents reported feelings of embarrassment,
fear, shyness and anxiety, which can be labelled
as social emotions (see more: Hochschild 1983,
Bendelow and Williams 1998) or ‘selfconscious emotions’ (Tangney and Fischer
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DIGITAL ART EXHIBITIONS
103
Fig. 3: Emotional feedback. ‘Chameleon’ (09) by Tina
Gonsalves. Fabrica Gallery, Brighton. October 2009.
Photo: Philip Carr.
1995) that occur when people reflect upon
their own behaviour or status in social
interaction.
CONCLUSION
The changed forms of interaction are
particularly evident in DIA exhibitions. The
visitor’s response to the exhibits forms a part of
its communicative power and creates the
meaningful experiences for the visitor. The
artworks and installations on display in
exhibition areas are seen as incomplete without
the agency of the visitor, whose active
engagement brings the artwork ‘alive’. The
interactivity pressures the visitors to the new
performative actions as they engage with such
exhibits. Ironically, interactive artwork
objectifies the visitor by forcing each of them to
become part of the artwork, a spectacle to look
at and a possession of the artist. The visitors’
interaction becomes a performance that is
observed by other passing visitors and staff,
which may leave them feeling hindered or
evaluated. This could bring in the concerns
VUOKKO HARMA
104
about misunderstanding the intended
meanings of the artwork and feelings of lacking
the cultural competence. Digital technology
transforms the norms as the visitor is present in
the exhibition area through sensors and his or
her performance could be tracked or even
displayed with artworks. The positive museum
experience arises from successful interaction
with artwork and fellow visitors i.e. feelings of
competence. Drawing from social theory of
symbolic interactionism, I have noted that that
the situationally emerging emotions are
interconnected with increased performativity;
instead of experiencing or perceiving arts the
visitors are observing their own performances
and those of fellow visitors. The performative
turn in museum visits will change the way
visitors perceive and experiencing arts.
Museum and galleries want to attract more
visitors and wider visitor groups, but by doing
so they should also pay attention what the
existing visitors do and how they act upon the
exhibition area. The visitors may enjoy
interactive artworks, but in this regard more
support, knowledge and background
information is required in order to build a truly
exciting DIA exhibition.
NOTER
1. WINES3 (Wired and Wireless Intelligent Networked Systems 3) is a research project funded
by EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences
Research Council, UK). More information about
the project mentioned in this paper:
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/sociology/research/
researchprojects/pervasivecomputing
2. All the images are taken with the permission of
the museum.
REFERENCES
Bagnall, Gaynor 2007. “Performance and performativity at Heritage Sites”. In Smith, L (ed.) Cultural Heritage: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies, (pp. 365–86). London: Routledge.
Bannon, Liam, Steve Benford, Bowers, John, Christian Heath (2005). “Hybrid Design Creates
Innovative Museum Experience” in Communications of ACM vol. 4(3).
Becker, Howard. (1983). Art Worlds. University of
California Press: Berkeley.
Bendelow, Gillian and Simon Williams (1998).
Emotions in Social Life. London, Routledge.
Benjamin, Walter 1983. Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric
Poet in the Era of High Capitalism, trans. by H
Zohn, London: New Left Books (Verso).
Bourdieu, Pierre and Darbel, A. (1991). The Love of
Art – European Art Museums and their Public,
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1984). Distinction, London, Melbourne and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Butler, Barbara and Marvin Sussman (1989).
Museum Visits and Activities for Family Life
Enrichment. NYC, The Hayworth Press.
Denzin, Norman (1970). The Research Act in
Sociology. Chicago: Aldine.
Falk, John and Lynn, Dierking (1997). The Museum
Experience. Washington: Whalesback Books.
Goffman, Erwin (1959). The Presentation of Self in
Everyday Life. Harmondsworth, Penguin.
Harré, Rom (1990). “Embarrassment: a conceptual
analysis” in W. R. Crozier (ed) Shyness and
Embarrassment: Perspectives from Social Psychology.
Cambridge; Cambridge University Press.
Heath, Christopher and Dirk vom Lehn (2008).
“Configuring interactivity: enhancing engagement and new technologies in science centres
and museums”. Social Studies of Science 38/1:
pp. 63–91.
Heath, Christopher and Dirk vom Lehn (2004).
INTERACTION AND PERFORMATIVITY
“Configuring Reception” in Theory, Culture and
Society vol. 21 no. 6.
Hein, Hilde (2000). The Museum in Transition – A
Philosophical Perspective. Washington: Smithsonian Books.
Hochschild, Ariel (1983). The Managed Heart:
Commercialisation of Human Feelings. Berkeley.
University of California Press.
MacDonald, Sharon (2002). Behind the Scenes at the
Science Museum, NYC, Berg.
McLean, Kathleen (1993). Planning in People in
Museum Exhibitions, ASTC.
Ross, Nicola and Emma, Renoldand & Sally, Holland and Alexandra Hillman (2009). “Moving
stories: using mobile methods to explore the
everyday lives of young people in public care” in
Qualitative Research vol 9. No.5.
Scott, Susie (2004). “The shell, the stranger and the
Competent Other: Towards sociology of
shyness”. Sociology, 38/1: pp. 121–137.
Scott, Susie (2005). “The red shaking fool; dramaturgical dilemmas in shyness” in: Symbolic Interaction, 28/1: pp. 91–110.
Scott, Susie (2007). Shyness and Society: The illusion
of Competence. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Simon, Nina (2010). The Participatory Museum.
Museum 2.0 (http://www.participatorymuseum.org/)
Tangley, June P. and Kurt W. Fischer (eds.) (1995).
Self-Conscious Emotions. New York; Guilford
Press.
Thayer, Scott and Peter Steenkiste (2003). “An Architecture for the Integration of Physical and Informational Spaces” in Personal and Ubiquitous
Computing, 7 (2): pp. 82–90.
Williams, Raymond (1958). Culture and Society.
London: Chatto & Windus.
IN
DIGITAL ART EXHIBITIONS
*Vuokko Harma, PhD Candidate
Address: University of Sussex,
Department of Sociology, Friston Building,
Brighton, UK, BN1 9SN
Email: [email protected]
105
NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2011 1, S. 106-116
●
Tradition (re)visited: from place to
presence1
CHIEL VAN
DEN
AKKER*
Abstract: Three ways of encountering objects belonging to our cultural heritage can be
distinguished. We may encounter an object in its traditional environment, we may
encounter an object in an environment of preservation, and we may encounter an
object in an environment of representation. These three ways of encountering objects
provide a framework for addressing the question of how we relate to cultural heritage
by means of digital media. Digital reproductions of our cultural heritage belong to the
third way of encountering objects. In our present day, we first and foremost relate to
tradition by representing it, whereas before we first and foremost related to tradition by
remembering it. Places of memory are exchanged for the presence of representation in
a culture driven by information technology.
Key words: Digitization, authenticity, tradition, memory, representation, historical
consciousness.
Digital imaging, simulations, reconstructions,
search engines and visualization are but a few
examples of representing tradition with the
help of information technology.2 These
technologies not only change the practices of
cultural heritage institutions entrusted with the
task of preserving tradition; they also change
the way we relate ourselves to tradition.
Three ways of encountering objects
belonging to our cultural heritage will be
distinguished by using the concepts of
authenticity, consciousness, memory and
history. This way we will acquire a conceptual
framework that enables us to address the
question of how we relate to cultural heritage
by means of digital media. This framework will
also help us to surpass the binary oppositions in
terms of which this question is usually dealt
with – opposition such as the real versus the
virtual, the material versus the immaterial, and
the original versus the copy.3
I will argue that in our present day we first
and foremost relate to tradition by representing
it, whereas in former times we first and foremost
maintained a relation to tradition by
remembering it. Places of memory are
exchanged for the presence of representation in
a culture driven by information technology.
TRADITION (RE)VISITED:
1. TRADITION VISITED
There are three ways we may encounter an
object belonging to our cultural heritage. An
object can be part of tradition, it can remind us
of once being part of tradition, and the object
being part of tradition can be represented or
itself be representative of that tradition. I take
objects to be tangible heritage as well as the
intangible heritage associated with it.
Coming across an object in its original
environment means encountering that object
in the environment of its original use value.
Think, for example, of a farmer ploughing his
field, a Catholic visiting his church, a cave
painting depicting a successful hunt, or an
imperial statue causing a feeling of awe and
submissiveness. Here the plough, the church,
the painting, the statue and their associated
practices are part of the domain of tradition.
A second way we may encounter an object is
in an environment preserving that object, while
visiting an archaeological excavation or a
museum, for example. The farmer’s tools may
be exhibited in a museum. The church may at
some moment cease to function as a place of
worship and instead be turned into a
monument to be visited during opening hours.
The cave painting may lose its ability to
provide a successful hunt and turn out to be
pre-historic art. The imperial statue, apart from
being removed to protect it from weather and
greenhouse gases, may no longer give rise to a
feeling of awe and submissiveness in its visitor,
and instead be admired for its aesthetic
qualities, even if the statue reminds its visitor of
its original use value. Objects in an environment
of preservation are reminiscent of the tradition
that the objects once belonged to.
A third way we may encounter an object is
in its documented or representational
FROM PLACE TO PRESENCE
environment. Reading information concerning
the provenance of an object or a story about
farmers and Catholics is such a means of
encountering objects. Words are not the only
way to document an object. A photograph, if
not an artwork in its own right, is a means of
documenting an object, too. Similarly, a
reconstruction of a peasant village documents
that village. Visiting a reconstruction of a prehistoric cave or a Roman forum is visiting a
place documenting that cave or forum.
The domain of representation also
encompasses objects that are representative of
their own past. These objects are documents
themselves. If a plough is exhibited in a series of
farmer’s tools representing agricultural
tradition, the plough may lose its autonomy
and become a document in itself, representative
of the tradition it once belonged to. If a
museum exhibits an object in a reconstruction
or mimetic recreation of a traditional
environment, then the object is displayed in
situ. If an object is exhibited in such a way that
the object is representative of the tradition it
once belonged to, then the object is displayed
in context.4 In both these cases, the objects
represent tradition.
Digital objects are representations and
therefore belong to the third way of
encountering objects. The digital reproduction
of cultural heritage consists mostly of digital
imaging. Far from purporting to be surrogates
of original objects, these digital images
represent relevant features of the objects they
reproduce.5 Of course, even if they were
surrogates and would be hovering above our
terminals as holograms, they would still be
reproductions and therefore representations of
original objects. Many cultural heritage
institutions also provide online search engines
to search their database. These databases are
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documentations (representations) of collections.
Museums may also try to get users involved in
this documentation process by tempting them
to tag objects. Virtual reconstructions,
simulations, 3D modelling and Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) are also
representations of the objects and their original
environment, whether accessible online or as
part of a museum exhibition. All these activities
document tradition by representing it. The
virtual museum may for that reason be called a
documentation museum.
For a proper understanding of these three
ways of encountering objects belonging to our
cultural heritage, we must realize that the same
object at one moment is part of the first
domain, at another part of the second domain,
and at some moment will only be encountered
by means of its representation or as representative
of its tradition. The encounter determines what
the object is like.
We should also keep in mind that museum
practices have a history, too: they are part of a
tradition of collecting and exhibiting. This not
only explains why there are such things as
museums of museums – that is, museums
documenting museum practices – but also why
an object is preserved or turned into a document.
Not all objects once belonged to tradition.
This is true of such things as natural stones and
seashells, except of course those stones and
shells that were collected for their magical,
aesthetic or representative qualities. Stones in a
museum of natural history, for example, are
collected for being representative of some part
of the past and thus were once part of a
tradition of collecting natural history objects.
2. TRADITION, AUTHENTICITY AND THE VIRTUAL
The concept of authenticity may help us better
understand these three ways of encountering
objects. The authenticity of a thing is according
to Walter Benjamin “the essence of all that is
transmissible from its beginning, ranging from
its substantive duration to its testimony to the
history which it has experienced.”6 Authenticity
is thus something that an object acquires. To be
authentic, an object needs to accumulate a
history, establishing in retrospect the
authenticity of that object.
Following this definition of authenticity, we
may contend that in an environment of
preservation objects are preserved for having
collected a history.7 The concept of authenticity
in an environment of preservation thus refers to
the object’s former environment: the domain of
tradition in which the object collected its
history. We may say something similar
regarding the concept of authority: the
authority of an object in an environment of
preservation depends on its original use value.
For the reference to its original use value
provides the object with an aura of authority.
The authenticity of an object in the sense of
its accumulated history is not the only sense of
authenticity we have. For one can also argue
that the authenticity of objects depends on its
documentation. In that case, the authenticity
of an object in a preserved environment refers
to its documentation. Again, the same is true of
the concept of authority. It is because experts
make and control the records of objects that
their documentation is authoritative.
Documenting is not just a matter of the
administration, registration and preservation of
information. Documenting objects is in the
first place providing historical testimonies, and
with it a sense of authenticity and authority.
There are thus two senses of authenticity.
Authenticity in the sense of the object’s
accumulated history and authenticity in the
TRADITION (RE)VISITED:
sense of its documentation. Only unique
objects can accumulate such history, for only
unique objects have a singular existence in
time. Reproductions, on the other hand, are at
best part of the history of the unique item.
They do not collect a history by themselves, for
they have no singular existence in time, as
Benjamin emphasized.8 So reproductions can
only be related to the second sense of
authenticity. A reproduction documents the
object it is a reproduction of.
Once could oppose distinguishing between
these two senses of authenticity by arguing that
there is but one sense since the second sense is
simply a record of the first. Moreover, the
documentation of the object gives us the
accumulated history rather than the other way
around. The authenticity of an object is a social
construct, depending on dominant curatorial
and discursive practices, leaving no room for
authenticity in its first sense.9 This argument
need not convince us. For in case of the second
sense of authenticity, it is indifferent whether
the object is materially present or not, while the
reverse does not hold. Since there is a difference
between the presence and absence of material
objects, there is a difference between
authenticity as the accumulated history of the
object and authenticity as the documentation
or testimony of the object. This difference is
obviously important when discussing the
difference between objects and their digital
reproductions.
Museums and archaeological sites guard the
authenticity of objects by preserving them. In a
digital environment, we encounter virtual and
immaterial reproductions of those artefacts
instead. Since these reproductions lack a
singular existence in time, they have not
accumulated a history and therefore lack
authenticity. It follows that virtual museums
FROM PLACE TO PRESENCE
cannot function as guardians of the
authenticity of objects. Next, one could argue
that in a virtual environment the distinction
between reproduction and heritage disappears.
Since a digital file is identical to its copy, there
is no difference to be made between copies and
originals in a virtual environment. The
reproduction of our heritage, then, implies
losing the connection with heritage itself. This
is even more so if we realize that in a virtual
environment objects are everywhere at any
time as long as they are processed.
Both arguments are much rehearsed in
studies on the impact of new media, making
use of respectively the original–copy and the
material–immaterial opposition. But there is
more to it. If heritage is encountered apart
from any sense of place and time, we may
doubt whether there is still anything left of our
sense of cultural heritage. Along these lines, Jeff
Malpas has warned us that “that which is
culturally significant is not mere ‘information’
but is itself tied to particular places and things”.
This “sense of place” is “bound up intimately
with a sense of heritage, as well as with a sense
of culture. Thus, inasmuch as new media
threatens our sense of place, so it also threatens
our sense of cultural heritage”.10 The same
might be argued in terms of time. If new media
threaten our sense of time, they also threaten
our sense of cultural heritage. So digital
reproductions of our cultural heritage threaten
our sense of authenticity (and closely related
notions such as “authority”), for the authenticity
of an object is its collected history, and that
history is in danger of getting lost in a virtual
environment.
But, as we have argued, authenticity in the
sense of the object’s accumulated history is not
the only sense of authenticity we have. The
authenticity of an object can also be identified
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CHIEL VAN
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with its documentation. So even if the first
sense of authenticity is lost in a virtual
environment, the second sense might still be
there, taking the place of the first. If so,
the virtual museum might be called a
documentation museum.
Moreover, all representation – not just the
digital ones – must be linked to this second
sense of authenticity. All reconstructions, all
representative objects, are representations and
in that sense virtual, immaterial and nonunique, too. So if we argue that the virtual
museum is a documentation museum
representing our cultural heritage, we do not
return to using binary oppositions to formulate
the difference that digital media makes. For a
digital object in a virtual museum and a
material object encountered in an environment
of documentation are no different in that they
both represent our cultural heritage.11 A
painting exhibited in such a way that it is only
representative of the tradition it once belonged
to, is as such virtual and immaterial, too. If an
object is representative, the distinction between
that object and its documentation evaporates,
for the object is itself a document. Digital
objects are just one of the ways we encounter
objects in our present-day culture.
In a digital environment in which collections
are documents, the distinction between an
object and its documentation can also no
longer be maintained. Of course, there is still a
distinction to be made between the digital
image of some object and its written
documentation. But the distinction between
the digital image itself and the written
documentation is no longer a distinction
between an object and its documentation. This
is not so much because the boundaries between
texts and images are blurring in digital
environments (images are no longer primarily
illustrative of accompanying texts and texts
are no longer primarily comments on
accompanying images), but simply because
both the digital image and the written accounts
are data files documenting cultural heritage.
One could further argue that in a virtual
environment there is a need for documentation.
Since digital files are so easily multiplied and
distributed, they need to be anchored to the
object they document. If not, representations
will eventually only be identified as belonging
to a certain type instead of also being about a
particular object. Rigaud’s painting of Louis
XIV may then first turn into a Louis XIVpainting and subsequently into a king-painting
or even a man-with-wig-painting. Furthermore,
by anchoring the digital file to the object, the
file is linked to the place where the original
object is kept. That way the documentation
can still be verified.
Digital reproductions of our cultural
heritage belong to the third way of
encountering objects only. They document
tradition by representing it. Before I further
argue this, I will first elaborate on the three
ways of encountering objects.
3. TRADITION, MEMORY, AND HISTORY
The environment of an object’s original use
value is the domain of tradition. This is the
domain of habits, gestures and skills passed
down from generation to generation.12 These
habits, gestures and skills might be called
embodied memories: they are stored in the
body as practices. Memory may also be
characterized as imitative. Habits, gestures and
skills must be learned, and by repeating them
tradition is transmitted. Moreover, practices
constitute the tradition by carrying tradition
on from one generation to the other. Finally,
TRADITION (RE)VISITED:
memory may be called natural memory. In the
domain of tradition, memory is unmediated,
direct and something that is not being reflected
upon. If a farmer uses a tool, he may have
learned to use that tool from his ancestors, but
that is not something he reflects upon while
using that tool. A Catholic visiting his church
on Sunday will worship his God; he will not
reflect on his God being worshipped in a
certain way.
In the domain of tradition, there is no
difference to be made between tradition on the
one hand and being conscious of that tradition
on the other, for they are one. Habits, gestures
and skills, when used, are consciously
performed actions embodying tradition, but
they are not the object of conscious reflection
at the same time. In being part of tradition, the
object accumulates its history unnoticed. The
moment one starts reflecting on tradition and
thus becomes conscious of tradition as such is
the moment tradition is on the verge of
getting lost, only to be remembered or
represented. This brings me to the second
domain.
The environment of preservation is the
domain of what remains from the past, the
domain of materiality. Here the environment
becomes a site of memory, a lieux de mémoire,
as Pierre Nora has called it.13 This is the
moment in which the farmer’s plough is no
longer used for ploughing, the moment God is
no longer worshipped, the cave painting stops
assisting hunts, and the statue loses its imperial
power, even though they will all still be there to
be visited. Of essential importance is that
memory here refers to what has been lost. The
objects we encounter on a site of memory, once
part of tradition, now remind us of that
tradition. Archaeological excavations and
museums are such sites of memory. However, a
FROM PLACE TO PRESENCE
national holiday, a melody, a landscape may
also function as a site of memory.14 On a site of
memory, we seek “the decipherment of what
we are in the light of what we are no longer”,
according to Nora.15 How we may become
what we are no longer is not explained by Nora.
I propose the following explanation, based on
the methods of dialectics.
To explain how we become what we are no
longer, we must realize that in the realm of
preservation tradition and being consciousness
of tradition diverge. A plough may remind us
of a lost agricultural tradition, a church of a lost
tradition of devotion, a cave painting of a lost
world of magic, and an imperial statue may
remind us of a lost world of divine earthly rule.
On a site of memory, tradition is not handed
over, but one becomes aware of the break with
tradition, of a past being over.16 The object is
then no longer connected to its original
environment and use value. Instead, the
connection between the object and its origin
and history has become a reflective one.17
This separation of tradition and consciousness
is a first phase. The second phase starts the
moment in which what is unfamiliar becomes
familiar. Then what is no longer turns into
what we are no longer through a process of
identification. This moment of becoming what
one is no longer is a moment of becoming selfconscious. Now we can say that the object
reminds us of what we are no longer.
The opposition between tradition and being
conscious of the tradition is at the same time
preserved and overcome in making the
tradition part of a former self. What was at first
distant and unfamiliar has become part of
ourselves. We see ourselves in terms of what we
are no longer: that is what the object reminds
us of. What is no longer has become a memory
of our former selves, transcending the
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boundaries of our personal history into the
remote past.
In the domain of preservation, the object
becomes a means for reflection on what has
been and thus triggers what is known as
historical consciousness. The object’s
accumulated history, unnoticed in the realm of
tradition, has now surfaced. Tradition and
being conscious of tradition have separated, the
former having become the object of the latter.
Tradition, memory and history are closely
related notions.18 The moment traditions are
historicized is the moment historiography can
come into being. Here our heritage may have a
critical function and stimulate us to reflect on
our present day by questioning it. It does so if
it reminds us of what we are no longer. We not
only need to be critical towards the past, the
past must be equally critical towards the
present as well.
Not only material objects and its related
practices may remind us of what we are no
longer. An important addition to this must be
made. Historical narratives may show us what
tradition was like. As such they would be part
of the domain of representation. But historical
narratives may also express a sense of what we
are no longer. Inasmuch as we are able to
identify ourselves with what is being expressed,
the work may transform the immediate
environment of the reader into a site a memory,
thus functioning as a site of memory itself.
The third domain is the domain of
representation, of photographs, of description,
of metadata and of information on the
provenance of objects. This is the domain of
documentation. Here our heritage is
(re)constructed. Instead of memory being
imitative, as in the domain of tradition,
memory is mimetic and preserved by being
stored. Tradition no longer needs to be
remembered since it is already represented.
Memory in the domain of representation is
best described as mediated memory.
Being conscious of tradition now is mediated
by representation. Consciousness and tradition,
although seemingly opposed since the
representation stands for the represented, are
actually one, for the representation defines
what the represented tradition was like. This is
why the domain of representation is also the
domain of invented traditions, of
representations that suggest representing
traditions that in fact never existed.19 To be
sure, not all represented traditions are invented
traditions.
In this domain, heritage has no critical
function, although the representation itself can
be the result of a critical attitude towards the
heritage it represents. For tradition or cultural
heritage to have a critical function, it must
remind us of what we are no longer. And that
cannot be achieved by representing heritage as
if we were part of it. That only shows us what
it would have been like. An object reminding
us of what we are no longer does not function
on the level of representation, but on the level
of memory. Being an image, a photograph
shows us what the past was like, whereas its
materiality may remind us of what we are no
longer.20
The domain of representation is also the
domain of reproduction and reconstruction.
Some museums are sites of documentation
rather than sites of memory. This is the case
when their collection consists of reproductions
instead of original objects, for reproductions
have never been part of the domain of
tradition. A reproduction is a representation of
a thing belonging to tradition.21 Museums are
also sites of documentation when they
reconstruct or simulate the domain of
TRADITION (RE)VISITED:
tradition. Then the exhibition of objects
purports to show the past as contemporaries
then saw it, thus aiming at (an illusion of)
immediacy.22 A reconstruction of a peasant
village documents that village, just as the
reconstructed cave of Lascaux documents the
original cave and its paintings, turning the
reconstruction into a document itself. So-called
experience rooms, historic theme parks, reenactments and historical films all fall under
this rubric of reconstructions of tradition.
Preserving objects easily turns into
documenting them. This happens when the
object becomes valued for its representative
qualities instead of its particularity. If an
artwork is considered to be representative of
some period style, then the artwork will
document or represent that period style. So an
artwork may express a lost tradition of worship,
but once the painting is representative of late
medieval art, the painting loses its expressive
power. It follows that museums should be
careful when exhibiting their artworks in an art
historical context, that is, as long as they want
their artworks to work and embody their
historicity. When we start seeing museums as
centres of information rather than as
repositories of particular objects,23 we deprive
museums of their role as sites of memory and
allocate them the function of documentation
centres only.
4. TRADITION REVISITED
In our present day, we first and foremost relate
to tradition by representing it, while before that
we first and foremost related to tradition by
remembering it. Digital imaging, simulations,
search engines, 3D modelling and so forth are
the outcome of a process in which
documentation is taking the place of sites of
FROM PLACE TO PRESENCE
memories, just as from the nineteenth century
onwards sites of memory started taking the
place of natural memory. Nora prophesized
along these lines that: “A generalized critical
history would no doubt preserve some
museums, some medallions and monuments
(...) but it would empty them of what, to us,
would make them lieux de mémoire. In the end,
a society living wholly under the sign of history
could not, any more than could a traditional
society, conceive such sites for anchoring its
memory.”24 History, virtual or not, in the sense
of a representation or documentation of
tradition (and thus not expressing what one is
no longer) causes sites of memory to disappear.
In the age of documentation, we relate to
tradition by means of its representation.
Cultural heritage, then, is its documentation.
Remembering tradition is exchanged for
representing it. This shift does not limit itself to
virtual environments only, but applies to
physical museums as well. If curators no longer
experience the objects before compiling an
exhibition and only consult their database, that
is, their documentation, it is clear that a shift
from sites of memories to sites of
documentation has taken place inside the
museum itself. Evidently is the use of digital
media inside museums exemplary of this shift,
too.
Above we distinguished between two senses
of authenticity. The virtual museum is first and
foremost a documentation museum,
representing unique objects by documenting
them. As a consequence, authenticity in the
sense of documentation is becoming dominant
in our time, taking the place of authenticity in
the sense of the object’s collected history.
That in the age of documentation we no
longer relate to tradition other than by means
of its representation, would not be the entire
113
CHIEL VAN
114
DEN
AKKER
story, however. Two recent developments must
be mentioned here. First, museums also use the
web to collect information such as stories about
the local environment of its users. These stories
not only document the local environment, but
may also transform that local environment into
a site of memory. If you come to know that
your favourite park was a palatine in the past,
you may experience visiting that park
differently. This may explain the popularity of
local environment projects. A second
development to be mentioned here is the
technology known as augmented reality.
Think, for example, of the possibility of
walking down the street and watching on your
iPhone pictures of that street from centuries
ago. The pictures themselves document the
environment, but while walking down the
street they may also transform the environment
into a site of memory,25 reminding us of what
we are no longer, thereby questioning our
present day so we do not take it for granted. If
so, authenticity in the sense of the object’s
collected history, its historicity, might still be
part of our sense of cultural heritage.
Transforming environments into sites of
memory is not limited to local environment
projects and augmented reality applications. All
representation can make us see the world we
live in differently. The point is that when
tradition is represented, there is usually no need
to be reminded of the tradition our former
selves were once part of.
So there is this possibility that as some point
we only relate to tradition by representing it.
That would be the moment in which places of
memory are exchanged for the presence of
representations. I am not sure if or when that
moment arrives. Time will not tell, for only
places can.
NOTER
1. The research for this essay was funded by NWO
(the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research).
2. Examples and analysis of these impressive technologies can be found in Mark Greengrass and
Lorna Hughes eds. (2008) and Manos Baltsavias,
Armin Gruen, Luc van Goold, and Maria Pateraki eds. (2006).
3. For a critical analysis of these oppositions and
their shortcomings, see Fiona Cameron (2007).
4. On the distinction between displaying in situ
and displaying in context, see Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1998, pp. 19–23).
5. David Arnold (2008, p. 159).
6. Benjamin (1999, p. 215).
7. An object taken out of its original environment
does not cease to collect a history in the sense
that in a preserved environment, the history of
the object becomes part of the history of collecting and exhibiting practices of the institution
preserving that object.
8. Benjamin (1999, p. 214)
9. On authenticity as a social construct, see Cameron (2007, pp. 54–57). In Cameron’s analysis
there is no room for our first sense of authenticity. Cf. below n11.
10. Malpas (2008, p. 198).
11. Cameron argues against the non-materiality of
digital objects and concludes (p. 70): “Both
modalities, the analog and the digital, are material objects by definition, each acting as testimony
to its own history and origin, and hence authenticity and aura”. This we can agree with inasmuch as objects are representative of some part
of the past and authenticity is taken in its second
sense of documentation.
12. This characterization is Pierre Nora’s (1989, p.
13).
13. According to Nora (1989, p. 12): “Lieux de mé-
TRADITION (RE)VISITED:
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
moire originate with the sense that there is no
spontaneous memory, that we must deliberately
create archives, maintain anniversaries, organize
celebrations, pronounce eulogies, and notarize
bills because such activities no longer occur naturally.”
Monuments and memorials are sites of memory,
too, reminding us of what once was and is no
longer. A ritual of commemoration, on the other
hand, is, as a ritual, part of tradition. Most monuments and memorials have lost their ability to
remind us of what is no longer and have become
what below will be called documents of the past.
Nora (1989, p. 18). On the awareness of what
we are no longer, see also Frank Ankersmit’s analysis of Hegel on the conflict between Socrates
and the Athenian State (2005, pp. 330–334).
Since its inception, it was complained that museums destroy “the life of art and history by preserving it”. See Didier Maleuvre (1999, pp. 1–2).
This is of course a Hegelian theme. Maleuvre
summarizes as follows (1999, p. 27): “to Hegel,
the mediation of historical consciousness has the
opposite effect of the alienation commonly imputed to it: plucking the artwork out of its natural context does not sever it from its context but
presents this context as what it in fact always is, a
product of mind. Hegel would say that the relation of the Elgin marbles to antiquity (...) is
more reflective once this connection is actually
taken out of its immediate circumstance (...).
The relation of the statue to its cultural origin
stands out more clearly as a reflective connection,
rather than a natural one.”
After discussion several explanations for the rise
of memory in historical discourse from the end
of the nineteen eighties onwards, Kerwin Klee
Klein (2000, p. 145) concludes that we want memory to “re-enchant our relation with the world
and pour presence back into the past”. Our relationship with tradition by means of its historio-
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
FROM PLACE TO PRESENCE
graphic representation is according to Klein (and
others) in crises. Here Klein comes close to Nora
(1989, pp. 10–11), although not being aware of
that. Nora also points at the crises in historiography, that is, “the reflexive turning of history
upon itself ” and its failure to relate to tradition.
On the diverse relationships that history and memory are presumed to have, see Geoffrey Cubitt
(2007, pp. 26–65).
On invented traditions, see Eric Hobsbawm and
Terence Ranger eds. (1983).
Materiality and being an image might not be
that easily separated. But there is a difference
between triggering a memory of what has been
and representing what it has been like. Since objects easily turn into representations (see below),
the function of representation will presumably
take the upper hand in most cases. On the distinction between the photograph’s materiality
and the photograph being an image and the ambivalence the distinction gives rise to, see Michael Roth (2009).
A plough is a mass-produced object and in that
sense a reproduction. But a plough is not a representation of a plough once belonging to tradition. A plough can be representative of tradition
and represent it.
Allan Megill (2007, p. 214) warns us about this
sort of aesthesis (sensation) of history in our present day culture. In line with what we have said,
Megill argues that it withholds us from experiencing a break between “what we are now and what
other were then”.
In 1992, the then director of the Canadian Museum of Civilization George MacDonald argued
that museums should be seen as information
centres. See Cameron (2007, pp. 51–52).
Nora (1989, p. 9).
In the description of augmented reality by Nadia
Magnenat-Thalmann and George Papagiannakis
(2006, pp. 419–430), the augmented reality ap-
115
CHIEL VAN
116
DEN
AKKER
plication turns into a simulation and thus not
transforms the environment into a site of memory.
REFERENCES
Ankersmit, F. Sublime Historical Experience (Stanford
2005).
Arnold, D. “Digital Artefacts: Possibilities and Purpose” in: Greengrass, M. and L. Hughes eds. The
Virtual Representation of the Past (Farnhem 2008)
pp. 159–170.
Baltsavias, M., A. Gruen, L. Goold, and M. Pateraki
eds. Recording, Modeling and Visualization of Cultural Heritage (London 2006).
Benjamin, W. “The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” in: Illuminations ed. H.
Arendt (London 1999) pp. 211–244.
Cameron, F. “Beyond the Cult of the Replicant –
Museums and Historical Digital Objects: Traditional Concerns, New Discourses” in: F. Cameron and S. Kenderdine eds. Theorizing Digital
Cultural Heritage. A Critical Discourse (Cambridge and London 2007) pp. 49–75.
Cubitt, G. History and Memory (Manchester 2007).
Greengrass, M. and L. Hughes eds. The Virtual Representation of the Past (Farnhem 2008).
Hobsbawm, E. and T. Ranger eds. The Invention of
Tradition (Cambridge 1983).
Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, B. Destination Culture. Tourism, Museums, and Heritage (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 1998).
Klein, K. “On the Emergence of Memory in Historical Discourse” in: Representations 69 (2000) pp.
127–150.
Magnenat-Thalmann, N. and G. Papagiannakis.
“Virtual Worlds and Augmented Reality in Cultural Heritage Applications” in: Baltsavias, M.,
A. Gruen, L. Goold, and M. Pateraki eds. Recording, Modeling and Visualization of Cultural Heritage (London 2006) pp. 419–430.
Maleuvre, D. Museum Memories. History, Technology,
Art (Stanford 1999).
Malpas. “New Media, Cultural Heritage and the
Sense of Place: Mapping the Conceptual
Ground” in: International Journal of Heritage
Studies 14 (2008) pp. 197–209.
Megill, A. Historical Knowledge, Historical Error. A
contemporary guide to practice (Chicago and London 2007).
Nora. “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de
Mémoire” in: Representations 26 (1989) pp.
7–24.
Roth, M. “Photographic Ambivalence and Historical
Consciousness” in: History and Theory (2009) pp.
82–94.
*Dr. Chiel van den Akker, PhD in Philosophy
in 2009. Since then he is lecturer and researcher
Historical Theory at the history department of
the VU University Amsterdam. As a postdoctoral researcher he is involved in the CATCHAgora project (http://agora.cs.vu.nl). His research focuses on the interpretation and representation of objects in cultural heritage institutions by means of information and communication technology.
Address: Faculty of Arts, Department of
History, VU University Amsterdam
Boelelaan 1105,
1081 HV Amsterdam
Email: [email protected]
FORSKNINGSNETVÆRK NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2011 1, S. 117-124
●
●
Identity politics and uses of the past
with European national museums
PETER ARONSSON*
Abstract: The article presents a research project on identity politics in Europe.
European National Museums: Identity politics, the uses of the past and the
European citizen (EuNaMus, www.eunamus.eu) explores the creation and power
of the heritage created and presented by European national museums. National
museums are defined and explored as processes of institutionalized negotiations
where material collections and displays make claims and are recognized as
articulating and representing national values and realities. Questions asked in the
project are why, by whom, when, with what material, with what result and future
possibilities are these museums shaped.
Key words: National museum, identity politics, uses of the past, Europe,
comparative study.
The level of investments in national museums
is high in contemporary society. The motives
and hopes are often a mixture of a will to secure
a scientific and relevant understanding of the
national heritage, community integration,
stimulating creativity and cultural dialogue and
creating attractions for a bourgeoning experience
economy. The Netherlands is planning for a
new national museum for communicating a
stronger ethnic canon, a path also chosen in
Denmark. A great many other museums in
Canada and New Zealand and also in Sweden
hail a more multi-cultural approach,
downplaying the traditional national aspect of
narrative and inviting new citizens to a more
diverse idea of society. Ethnographic museums
open with a post-colonial invitation to dialogue
all over the world in tension with strong
demands for restituting objects ranging from
the human remains of Samis, to the Elgin
Marbles of Acropolis. It is a contested billiondollar cultural industry creating, negotiating
and reinforcing ideas of values, belonging and
ownership.
The European National Museums: Identity
politics, the uses of the past and the European
citizen (EuNaMus, www.eunamus.eu) research
project explores the creation and power of the
heritage created and presented by European
national museums to the world, Europe and its
states, as an unsurpassable institution in
contemporary society. National museums are
defined and explored as processes of
institutionalized negotiations where material
collections and displays make claims and are
recognized as articulating and representing
national values and realities. Questions asked in
the project are why, by whom, when, with what
PETER ARONSSON
118
material, with what result and future possibilities
are these museums shaped.
NEGOTIATING MUSEUMS
Many of the negotiations and conflicts behind
the scenes in museums have long-standing
trajectories, not by being mishaps but as part of
the value of the institutions in making them
into relevant cultural forces which have been at
play over the last two and a half centuries.
The ideas behind the creation of national
museums developed slowly out of the practice
of representing, ordering and exploring the
world by making collections and displaying
them. A higher appreciation of the materiality
of being and of values as a road to knowledge
and prosperity challenged earlier religious and
idealistic ideas of the futility of matter. The
shockwave of the French Revolution and the
Napoleonic contest moved valuables across the
continent. Though countries were later liberated
from occupation, the need to strengthen the will
of the subjects to defend their unity and
sovereignty escalated. Subscription of soldier,
higher taxation and national loyalty could
not be reached only by coercion. Pride,
identification and community building with a
national dimension needed stronger
representation in the imagery. The creation of
national museums was one of the prestigious
means of processing the urge for knowledge,
education and grandeur, not only through
representing an existing world, but by their
establishment presenting and creating new
ideals and communities for the future. Europe
has since then seen industrialism, colonialism,
two world wars, the Cold War, the fall of the
Soviet empire, migrations, globalization and
environmental threats, while at the same time
growing to tremendous affluence and
prosperity. Trying to understand and handle
tensions created by history and change is part
of the cultural infrastructure of contemporary
Europe and the world.
National museums are authoritative spaces
for the display and negotiation of community
and citizenship, and they have the scientific
advantage for comparative exploration of being
there over time and in all nation states,
although shaped differently in interesting ways.
Through collecting and creating repositories of
scientific, historic and aesthetic objects, choices
are made that protect and narrate ideas of
virtues, uniqueness and place in the wider
world.
The first negotiation made by any museum
is pointing to an object and arguing that it
represents a unique or typical value. From this
follows the authoritative and sometimes
contested decision what type of reality or value
the object represents: the natural world,
outstanding art, a craft tradition, an historic
event or a foreign culture. The struggles of
indigenous peoples to make the representation
of their cultures travel from a natural history
museum to other departments of the museum
as a model of the world are part of that
negotiation. This shows one of the dimensions
where knowledge and politics interact
explicitly. A political community in the making
is in need of scientific support for its
provenance, its coherence and qualities over
time. Through the museums, the quality and
unity of the culture is composed to an
orchestration of “unity in diversity”, involving
tuning down political controversies and
domesticating differences in favour of the
aesthetic pleasure of high art or the admiration
and presentation of class and regional
difference, in open-air museums like Skansen,
as part of the stability and beautiful variation
IDENTITY
POLITICS AND USES OF THE PAST WITH
harboured in the culture of an allegedly stable
and even naturalized national community.
The museum answers explicitly or quietly by
interplaying voice and silences in dealing with
old conflicts. The dissolution of the Swedish
empire in 1809 and 1905 was celebrated in the
early 21st century, but the victories of imperial
Sweden in 1658 were passed by quietly. The
role of the nation vis-à-vis its neighbours, as
part of Europe, a Western tradition and the
world community is communicated.
What part of the economy is ready to be the
next in line, after agriculture, for ending up at
a historical museum, and what parts point
towards the future? The question is not always
answered post facto but established as an
argument for where to place hopes and
investments for the future. Utilizing national
museums in competition between nations and
metropolises as investments in the experience
economy is a contemporary factor adding to
older objectives of securing heritage. Another
example of a will to change or adjust to
changing political balances concerns the
frequent conflicts about the restitution of
objects and human remains.
The narrative of these issues treats questions
of historical change in many ways. The EU is
troubled by disputes in many dimensions
about democratic deficit, migration, territorial
expansion, integration and weak performances.
A free market as well as ideas of universal
human rights are in fact localized, embedded
and negotiated in institutions like cultural
museums, too. A growing attention to cultural
policy as a necessary political dimension to
pursuing political goals is feeding into the
Seventh Framework Programme for research,
which asks for policy-relevant knowledge. Our
answer to the call is a project on mapping how
and with what consequences authoritative
EUROPEAN
NATIONAL MUSEUMS
institutions such as national museums create
long-standing values and identities in need of
attention regardless of political preferences.
A EUROPEAN PROJECT
In order to shape a cultural policy for an
expanding European Union, the understanding
of one of its most enduring institutions for
creating and contesting political identities is
necessary. The focus is on understanding the
conditions for using the past in negotiations
that recreate citizenship as well as the layers of
territorial belonging beyond the actual nationstate.
This project is one of the few humanities
projects supported by the Seventh Framework
Programme, run by the European Commission.
It has grown out of collaboration between
university partners connecting with a network
of young and senior cultural researchers
supported by the Marie Curie programme, and
will for three years (2010–2013) proceed by a
series of investigations beyond the stereotypical
ideas of museums as either a result of
outstanding heroic individuals, exponents of a
materialization of pure Enlightenment ideas or
outright ideological nationalistic constructs
disciplining citizens into obedience.1
The research is pursued through multidisciplinary collaboration between eight leading
institutions and a series of sub-projects (in EUspeak: work packages or WPs) studying
institutional path dependencies, the handling
of conflicts, modes of representation, cultural
policy and visitors’ experiences in national
museums. Understanding the cultural force of
national museums will provide citizens,
professionals and policy makers with reflexive
tools to better communicate and create an
understanding of diversity and community in
119
PETER ARONSSON
120
developing cultural underpinning for
democratic governance.
The first work to start within the project is
called “Mapping and framing institutions
1750–2010: national museums interacting
with nation-making”. This overview of the
most important museums established to fulfil
the function of a national museum in all
European countries (which, surprisingly, has
never been done before) will try to achieve
several objectives, all of them possible to attain
through the comparative method.
The first project gives us the general patterns
of what museums were initiated and realized,
by whom, with what agenda and with what
consequences. In the first step, it is the
interaction with political state-making that
is analyzed, covering all EU states. One
hypothesis is that the actual history of statemaking is of importance for the role played by
museums, since empires, old well-established
and unthreatened states did not have and still
do not have exactly the same needs as nations
more recently struggling to form a nation-state.
Finland and Norway show different patterns
than Sweden and Denmark; Greece, Italy and
Germany have partly different priorities than
France or the UK. The role of empires in
initiating colonial museums at home or abroad
is also considered.
In the second project, our research
penetrates deeper into explicit narratives of the
unity and destiny of the nation as well as the
opposite, the treatment of conflict and
“heritage wars” that exist in all nations. There is
tension between striving towards a hegemonic
representation of the cultural and political
history of a country and oppositional voices of
many kinds coming from other nations and
minorities as well as regional aspects, class and
gendered tensions that demand representation
in these prestigious arenas or a new narrative
assigning them a more prominent role. The
conflicts over heritage range from a targeted
destruction of heritage in war via international
battles for the ownership of artefacts to issues of
how to represent or integrate minorities.
All narratives are, however, not explicit. In
the third project, the implicit message of
architecture, city plans and the whole
assemblage of national museums will be
interpreted in a number of states. Art museums
are especially interesting since they claim to
stand for universal aesthetical values but at the
same time assess narratives in several
dimensions on the grandeur of the host carried
by the arrangement of collections and
exhibitions. Another aspect of the spatial
arrangement of national museums is the
relationship between representations centralized
to the capital and the existence of various
“distributed” performances of the national,
such as the Swedish SAMDOK. How is the
national constructed in collecting and
interacting with regional identities and
marginalized communities? The third
dimension, which is also a new form of
distribution, is to interpret the impact of
new assemblages of digital museums, like
the representation of communities that goes
beyond the individual museum.
National museums have from the start been
utopian visionary projects carried by
politicians, intellectuals, scholars and citizens in
the state and in civil society. The hopes of
cultural politicians to use museums as tools for
education, tourism and integration interplay
with the formulation of the national museum
professionals and directors themselves. In the
fourth project, this dynamic is explored for the
last two decades on both national and
European policy-making levels.
IDENTITY
POLITICS AND USES OF THE PAST WITH
Now that we have a good view of the set-up,
trajectories and importance of the institutional
framework, the explicit and implicit narratives
that negotiate meaning, conflicts and directions,
and the major actors’ hopes for the future, the
question remains: How does this matter to the
audience? The fifth study concerns audiences
in a set of European countries with a view to
mapping the experience of visiting by both
quantitative and qualitative methods.
In projects financed by the Seventh
Framework Programme, a great deal of weight
is put on communication. A communication
plan is required to develop the identification of
stakeholders and the means to communicate
with them. Websites, newsletters, policy briefs,
reference groups and material for exhibitions
are some of the means used. The final project
involves extracting the most relevant results
and inserting them in a global context by
exploring the working of national museums
beyond Europe. Conferences are part of the
running programme with the final one in
Budapest in December 2012 going to focus on
broad participation and on identifying the
multi-dimensional relevance of the results. The
major results will be available via Open Access,
but a series of books will also come out of the
efforts. The best way to keep up is to follow
www.eunamus.eu.
To provide a taste of the comparative scope
of the project, I will hint at some reflections
coming from the first study of how the
institutional frameworks have evolved
differently in the Nordic countries. An
expanding Nordic research will without doubt
feed into this European project.2
NORDIC NATIONAL MUSEUMS
The Nordic context is an exciting arena for
EUROPEAN
NATIONAL MUSEUMS
comparing several of these dimensions. The call
for national museums came early in a Denmark
threatened by bombardment and disaster in the
early 19th-century Napoleonic wars. Initiatives
were, of course, also called for in Sweden,
which, after the loss of Finland and the
establishment of a new dynasty on the throne,
had a need for negotiating its legitimacy as well
as meeting the demands of the constitutional
monarchy of 1809. The contract between
rulers and ruled everywhere needed new
cultural manifestations within the flexible
context of the nation. The transformation was
more rapid in Denmark, as the royal collections
within an absolute monarchy could rather
simply, even if somewhat paradoxically, be
transformed to a collective national asset by the
King. In Sweden, more elaborate and tedious
negotiating with the Parliament postponed the
inauguration of a national museum in its own
building until 1866.3
All the Scandinavian countries also held civic
and academic collections as part of the
Enlightenment movement, which could be
used as material and inspiration for new
national museums. These became more
important by being the exclusive repository in
Iceland, Norway and Finland, which, due to
their history as peripheral provinces only
eventually regaining independence from the
old conglomerate states, did not have direct
access to the assets in the old capitals.
Following on natural history collections in the
service of science, art associations took on the
task to educate painters and citizens alike and
to set up national representations in Finland
and Norway as well. In Denmark, the Museum
of Danish History, in direct response to
Germany’s conquest of southern Jutland in
1864, took on the format it still has as a cabinet
of historical paintings of battles and portraits of
121
PETER ARONSSON
122
national prominence. National representations
in museums developed before sovereign
statehood in all the new Nordic states, thus
demonstrating the utility of scientific, aesthetical
and cultural representation for political
purposes.
So far the institutional history is fairly
straightforward but there are, however, also
several issues brought up by this comparison
that are interesting to research in greater depth.
One is to assess the qualities and the impact
of the Nordic dimension, especially in 19thcentury museum establishments. In all
countries, the presupposition of the existence
of a Nordic culture was part both of the
naming and the narrative of the museums.
Even if this gradually gave way to a stronger
nation-state framing, it contributed to an
imaginary framing, which geared the policies
more towards supporting the neighbouring
states rather than resolving conflicts with
violence or demanding retribution or
vengeance for old injustices. This is in sharp
contrast to previous centuries’ use of the
Nordic ideology.
Another issue is the difference between the
Norwegian and the Finnish museum
structures. Why is it that Finland has a very
clear set of national museums in both art and
cultural history that narrate a long
comprehensive story of the nation, while
Norway does not? You have to visit several
museums in Oslo to obtain a comprehensive
image, and only at Maihaugen in Lillehammer
north of Oslo will the visitor encounter the
long story of the national history. Both modern
states were born out of a strong need to
emphasize their historical existence and unique
culture and both lacked royal – and to a large
extent aristocratic – sponsors. I suggest that it
has to do mainly with the understanding of a
national community as primarily born out of
rural communities in Norway, which would be
paradoxical to represent too strongly in the new
capital and former city of Danish rulers. In
addition to this, a strong sense of regional
differences is voiced from different parts of
Norway. In a European comparison, there are
other countries showing a similar lack of
explicit and coherent national representation in
their national museums. Italy, for partly the
same reasons (strong local, regional but urban
identities), differs greatly from the UK, Sweden
or Portugal and other old empires where the
alleged universalisms of their political and
enlightened endeavours had a stronger foothold.
In Denmark, on the other hand, the external
threat was so strongly felt that the country’s
imperial character gave way to the cultural
behaviour of a small and threatened state.
Another very interesting difference lies in the
choice of narrating the nation, most clearly
exemplified by Sweden and Denmark, but also
challenging European museums in general. In
Sweden, multicultural policy is very strong and
is also reflected in the museums. This is most
apparent in the Swedish National Historical
Museum, which purports to present a history
before Sweden and Swedes existed and thus
relativizes the nation with its critical view of
nationalism. It addresses the visitor as an
individual, with men and women, poor and
wealthy equally represented, and suggests no
evolution or progression as pre-history moves
from Stone Age to Iron Age. It offers a large
area for reflection on universal issues of death,
power and identity. However, since all material
comes from present-day Sweden, especially
from Skåne (which has only been Swedish for
350 years), the approach becomes deeply
anachronistic by reflecting present-day values
rather than challenging them.
IDENTITY
POLITICS AND USES OF THE PAST WITH
The opposite is the case in Denmark. The
pre-historical exhibition at the National
Museum of Denmark is new and has substituted
a surprising format for the preceding one,
which was more like the Swedish exhibition,
open-ended and with no clear chronological
path suggested. The new approach is crystal
clear: it starts with the Jelling stone and ends
with the Jelling stone. It is a national exhibition
and in the clear chronological timeline
progression the first skeleton found is a Danish
girl. The frame is set and never questioned,
even though the borders to the south on the
map are somewhat fluid.4
There are a great many questions for further
research here, as museums and policy makers
all over Europe are struggling to find a viable
way to combine security and community with
tolerance and creativity. They strike the balance
differently, but what is the role of museums in
this: are they just reflections of their policy
makers? Are they actively pushing policy
makers in any direction by the power of their
representation? Are they representing deeper
differences in collective cultural mentalities?
How are the exhibitions apprehended by
visitors with various backgrounds?
These questions can be raised now, through
comparative reflection, and will be possible to
answer with more rigour when the results of
the research have evolved. Only to break out of
the single institution of a single-nation
explanatory box is, however, rewarding for a
field such as cultural heritage or museums
where a lot of thinking has been framed by the
self-evident identification with the nation and
institution of the narrator.
EUROPEAN
NATIONAL MUSEUMS
NOTER
1. Among the publications are several conference
proceedings, also available on-line at LiU Epress, and a book linking to the new project.
Arne Bugge Amundsen & Andreas Nyblom,
(eds.), National museums in a global world [Elektronisk resurs]: NaMu III: Department of culture
studies and oriental languages, University of Oslo,
Norway, 19–21 November 2007, ed., Linköping
electronic conference proceedings (Online), 31 (Linköping: Linköping University Electronic Press,
2008); Peter Aronsson & Magdalena Hillström,
(eds.), NaMu, Making National Museums Program. Setting the frames, 26–28 February, Norrköping, Sweden [Elektronisk resurs], ed., Linköping
electronic conference proceedings (Online), 22 (Linköping: Linköping University Electronic Press,
2007); Peter Aronsson & Andreas Nyblom,
(eds.), Comparing: national museums, territories,
nation-building and change. NaMu IV, Linköping
University, Norrköping, Sweden 18–20 February
2008 : conference proceedings, ed., Linköping electronic conference proceedings (Online), 30 (Linköping: Linköping University Electronic Press,
2008); S.J. Knell, P. Aronsson, and A. et al (eds.)
Amundsen, National museums. New studies from
around the world, ed. (London: Routledge,
2011). The earlier project was presented in Peter
Aronsson, “Making National Museums (NaMu)
– ett internationellt program för jämförande studier rörande nationalmuseernas framväxt och
funktion,” Nordisk Museologi, no. 1 (2007); P.
Aronsson et al., “NaMu: EU Museum Project
connects and educates scholars from around the
world,” MUSE 26, no. 6 (2008) and is still available at www.namu.se.
2. See for example the new museum history in Finland, Susanna Pettersson & Pauliina Kinanen
(eds.), Suomen museohistoria, (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2010). In Norway
123
PETER ARONSSON
124
Anne Eriksen, Museum. En kulturhistorie (Oslo:
Pax, 2009) Arne Bugge Amundsen & Bjarne Rogan, Samling og museum. Kapitler av museenes historie, praksis og ideologi. (Oslo: Novus, 2011). Several relevant projects in Sweden include two at
Tema Q at Linköping and several in Stockholm
at Historiska Museet, Nordiska Museet and Etnografiska Museet. See:
http://hem.bredband.net/johahega/historisktmuseum/Valkommen.html; http://www.nordicspaces.eu/Nordic/Nordic_Spaces.html. Magdalena
Hillström, Ansvaret för kulturarvet. Studier i det
kulturhistoriska museiväsendets formering med
särskild inriktning på Nordiska museets etablering
1872-1919, ed., Linköping studies in arts and
science, 363 (Linköping: Dept. of Culture Studies
Linköpings univ., 2006); Eva Insulander, Tinget,
rummet, besökaren: om meningsskapande på museum, ed. (Stockholm: Institutionen för didaktik
och pedagogiskt arbete, Stockholms universitet,
2010); Fredrik Svanberg, Museer och samlande,
ed. (Stockholm: Statens historiska museum,
2009). Contributing to Eunamus on Norden are
Peter Aronsson, Henrik Zipsane, Per Widén,
Arne Bugge Amundsen, Susanna Pettersson, Eva
Silvén, Johan Hegardt, Richard Petersson and
Magdalena Hillström. The first set of reports will
be presented in Bologna at the end of March
2011.
3. Peter Aronsson, “Representing community: National museums negotiating differences and community in Nordic countries,” Scandinavian Museums and Cultural Diversity, Katherine J. Goodnow & Haci Akman, (eds.) (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008); Per Widén, Från kungligt
galleri till nationellt museum. Aktörer, praktik och
argument i svensk konstmuseal diskurs ca
1814–1845 (Hedemora: Gidlund, 2009).
4. Peter Aronsson, “Explaining National Museums.
Exploring comparative approaches to the study
of national museums,” National museums. New
studies from around the world, S.J. Knell, P.
Aronsson, and A. Amundsen, (eds.) (London:
Routledge, 2011).
* Peter Aronsson, professor, Culture Studies
(Tema Q), Department for Studies of Social
Change and Culture (ISAK), Linköping
University, Sweden
Address: Kungsgatan 38,
Campus Norrköping,
SE-601 74 Norrköping, Sweden
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: www.isak.liu.se/temaq; www.eunamu.eu;
www.aronsson.nl
FORSKNINGSPROJEKTER NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2011 1, S. 125-134
●
●
Digitization of cultural heritage
ViMuseo.fi project. Description of PhD project
MAGDALENA LAINE-ZAMOJSKA*
Abstract: In this text I will present my doctoral research on the digitization of
cultural heritage, which I am conducting at the Department of Art and Cultural
Studies, University of Jyväskylä (Finland). The supervisors are Professor of
Museology Janne Vilkuna (main supervisor) and Professor of Digital Culture
Raine Koskimaa (second supervisor) from the Department of Art and Culture
Studies, University of Jyväskylä. The research is scheduled to be conducted between
2008 and 2012.
The goals of the research are (1) to investigate the possibilities for new media in
presenting cultural heritage in small museums in Finland; (2) to analyze the
cooperation between the researcher, graphic designers and programmers; and (3)
to construct the tool to create multimedia presentations. The possible
implementation of the research results is also discussed.
Key words: Cultutal heritage, digital heritage, digitization, virtual museum,
Finnish local museums, small museums, CMS, museology, doctoral research,
Finland, University of Jyväskylä.
Digitization, as a process for making a digital
representation of an object (the object might be
a document, image, real object, idea or ritual,
etc.) is still a new and problematic issue in contemporary memory and cultural institutions.
Although it is a difficult process, the digitization
of cultural heritage is perceived as one of the
obligatory activities in these institutions. In spite of the incompatibility between computers
and museums, the technology has been present
in museums since the 1960s (Parry, 2007). The
digitization offers huge capabilities for mu-
seums to achieve their goals, because all kinds
of collection can be digitized. Capturing, preserving and communicating the information embodied in the objects provide new capabilities for
structuring and communicating knowledge.
Many institutions with sufficient resources
actively digitize their collections. Moreover,
they are willing to share their experience,
prepare tools and create communities of
professionals in order to develop new solutions.
As a result, there are many online available
resources on digitization and preservation,
MAGDALENA LAINE-ZAMOJSKA
126
which could serve smaller or less experienced
institutions. However, many of these resources
require sufficient understanding of new
technologies and new media from the museum
professionals. Most of the museums have no
resources to start the process of digitization.
Digitization as a process has different
outcomes. High-quality digitization follows
the high technological standards and
recommendations and is perceived as proper
digitization. However, in many projects and
publications mainly low-quality files (designed
to be seen on a screen) are used, because there
is no need to use large and heavy files. Lowresolution files or copies of master files are
much more useful. In some cases there are only
the low-quality files, created mainly for the
internal use of the museum. In some
community-oriented projects or Web 2.0
projects, this is the only kind of file in use.
Moreover, the audience may contribute to the
projects by producing and sharing this kind of
file. For some institutions, this practice might
be satisfactory at some point and can lead to
proper digitization in the future. The lowresolution files are not very useful for
conservation and documentation purposes,
and they are not very valuable for researchers
either. However, they can help small
institutions to launch online projects and take
their first steps in the direction of digitization.
ASSESSMENT OF THE NEED IN THE
FINNISH CONTEXT
It might be said that Finland has been actively
participating in developing the information
society since 1995, when the first strategic plan
regarding this issue was published (Valtiovarainministeriö, 1995). These efforts have also been
seen in the museum and cultural sectors.
Digitizing and providing access to cultural
content is strongly supported in these
professionally run institutions. State-supported
initiatives can be mainly observed in the biggest
institutions, with resources responding
adequately to the needs of the projects of
digitization. The biggest ongoing project is the
Public Interface project developed by the
National Digital Library. Its aim is to gives
access to the electronic information resources
and services of libraries, archives and museums,
and it is planned that it will open to the
audience this year (2011). The resources from
different Finnish memory institutions will then
be available in one service, making them more
accessible and findable. However, only
institutions with digitized resources can
participate in this project, which means that
only professionally run museums can follow all
the quality requirements. The project has been
launched by the Finnish Ministry of Education
and Culture in order to improve the availability
and usability of the electronic materials of
libraries, archives and museums as well as to
develop a long-term preservation solution for
the materials. The project also follows the
Government Objectives of the National
Information Society Policy 2007–2011 (http://
kdk2011.fi/en/information-on-the-project).
According to the National Board of
Antiquities, there are 157 professionally run
museums in Finland, which are responsible for
329 venues that are open to the public
(Kaukonen & Vihanto, 2010). There is no
official permission of any kind required in
order to establish a museum. As a result, in
addition to the157 professionally run museums,
there are around 1,100 small, voluntarily run
local museums, which are mainly open during
the summer. The Finnish Museum Association
has been trying to gather information about all
DIGITIZATION
OF CULTURAL HERITAGE
127
Fig. 1. Screenshot
presenting the Jyväskylä
University Museum
(Version A).
the Finnish museums in one service (http://
www.museot.fi). The list, which is incomplete,
includes around 900 museums. This long list
includes links to the museums’ own websites or
to the web pages belonging to municipalities’
own websites. In 2008 and 2009, I conducted
a preliminary study of these museums’
websites. The number of museums has been
constantly changing, but the results are
comparable. Most of the museums’ websites or
web pages are not professionally prepared and
offer only limited information about the type
of collection, opening hours, address, etc.
According to the definition of the museums’
sites proposed by Werner Schweibenz (2004),
the Finnish local museums’ sites mostly
represent the contents of the brochures of these
museums, with basic information about the
museum in question.
The preliminary study of these resources
showed that the online accessibility and
attractiveness of cultural heritage is very
MAGDALENA LAINE-ZAMOJSKA
128
Fig. 2. Screenshot
presenting OVE IB speech
synthesizer from the
Jyväskylä University
Museum’s collection
(Version A).
limited, especially in these smaller, local
institutions, although there are many initiatives
showing that museum staff are interested in
employing Internet solutions to present their
collections and to communicate with their
audience. The results, however, are quite often
unsatisfactory, not only in terms of accessibility
and usability. Moreover, there are many
museums without even a basic website. Only
the biggest institutions can afford to present
their resources in complementary and
interesting ways. Unequally distributed
resources in the Finnish museums may be seen
as a problem, and this results in an unequal
presentation of Finnish cultural heritage.
AIMS AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The research focuses on the small Finnish
museums and is carried out in cooperation
with the Jyväskylä University Museum (https://
www.jyu.fi/erillis/museo/en). The Jyväskylä
University Museum does not represent small
museums, but is open to innovation and, as a
DIGITIZATION
professionally run institution, it can provide all
the necessary materials and support. The main
objectives of the research are: (1) to investigate
the possibilities of new media in presenting
cultural heritage in small museums in Finland;
(2) to analyze the cooperation between the
researcher, graphic designers and programmers;
and (3) to construct a tool to create multimedia
presentations.
In many situations, museums want to start
the process of digitization or be more active on
the Internet, but there is little understanding of
possibilities of new media and how they could
improve their work. The small museums are
more community-oriented than researchoriented. Their efforts are all put into
supporting activities targeted at local audiences.
There are neither sufficient resources to put
their museums online, nor sufficient
understanding of the problemcomplexes
involved in digital heritage. What are the
appropriate tools that could be utilized in their
work? What solutions can help small Finnish
museums become more digitally aware and put
their museums online? What are the possible
new media solutions that can be used in the
local museums in order to present local
heritage? I argue that digitization is not the
only possible way of bringing museums into
the digital world – the low-quality resources
and social media can help them to become
more active online. This can be a first step in
the direction of a proper digitization process.
Another typical problem appearing in
museums willing to go digital seems to be the
lack of mutual understanding between the
museum professionals and programmers or IT
specialists. It is expected that the museum
professionals know a lot about the possibilities
and technical nuances of new media. This
situation is relatively much more difficult in the
OF CULTURAL HERITAGE
small institutions no t run by professional staff.
However, in most cases there is some basic
understanding of the Internet services,
browsers, email applications and search
engines, which are nowadays in use in every
institution. New media are perceived as a
continuation of the previous forms of media,
and there are thus some basic principles
involved. The process of planning and
preparing a product of new media can be
perceived in the same way as a process of
making a product using the previous media
forms. The analysis of the process is focused on
a clear distinction between the tasks of the
actors, their competences, skills and agencies. It
will allow for constructing a set of clear,
understandable principles for the whole
process, which can be further utilized in the
form of a practical tool. How should the digital
project be planned in order to respond
adequately to the skills of their participants?
What skills do they have? How do the museum
professionals perceive the Internet and how do
they use it in their work?
Planning and developing a tool to create
multimedia presentations is based on the
findings from theoretical research. The main
goals of the tool are: (1) to provide opportunities
for small museums to share their knowledge;
(2) to promote better accessibility to cultural
heritage; and (3) to make small Finnish
museums more accessible via the Internet.
The aim is to design a simple tool to create
multimedia presentations. Multimedia
presentation can work as a virtual exhibition,
project or collection. The questions were: how
to design this tool to adequately meet its users’
needs – in this case those of the local museums’
representatives and their communities? What
elements are required in order to make a virtual
presentation about a collection or exhibition
129
MAGDALENA LAINE-ZAMOJSKA
130
from a small museum? What other elements
are required in order to make it attractive to
audiences? What elements are necessary to
construct the tool that adequately meets the
needs of a small museum? What are the
minimum technological and visual requirements
for the tool? What elements must the tool
include in order to be fully functional in a small
memory institution?
METHODS
The study consists of two parts: a theoretical
study and a practical implementation
(empirical research). The theoretical research is
focused on new media; how these are used in
presenting cultural heritage on the web and
how the possibilities of new media respond to
the institutional needs and available resources.
The main focus is on small institutions without
huge resources or without digitized resources.
The Jyväskylä University Museum (The
Cultural History Section: https://www.jyu.fi/
erillis/museo/en/cultural) is being studied in
order to provide the necessary basis for the
planning and development of the tool to create
online presentations and exhibitions. Moreover,
cooperation with the programmers and graphic
designers is analyzed in this part (also as a
comparative study).
The theoretical research is focused on the
concept of a virtual museum and what are the
features of a virtual museum. The research is
not primarily aimed at developing a new digital
project, but rather at analyzing the most
efficient solutions, which could be potentially
implemented in the future. The research is
intensively grounded in the Finnish context
and the findings are discussed from this
perspective. The project has been discussed
with museum professionals from the Finnish
museums. In this way the technology can meet
the needs of these agents.
Using ethnographic methods, like interviews,
is very demanding and time-consuming.
However, this approach allows for developing
the solution that meets the needs of its users. It
may be said that ethnographic methods and
participatory design have much in common.
However, ethnographic methods can ground
the practice in a broader context that may have
an impact on the implementation. Developing
research versions will help to develop the
procedures and methods, which can be used
later if the working system is developed.
EMPIRICAL RESEARCH. VIMUSEO: VERSION A,
VERSION B AND PROTOTYPE
The approach chosen in this research is
providing promising data and results. The tool
has been developed in cooperation with
programmers and graphic designers. The
process of our cooperation is documented and
will be analyzed in a theoretical part of the
research.
The research is planned as a comparative
study; it was therefore necessary to develop the
system with two independent programming
teams. I used the same methodology with both
teams and used ethnographic methods to
document and analyze the process of our
cooperation (Silverman, 2006). The same
materials and objectives were presented to both
teams. We discussed potential solutions, and
after that the programmers were asked to
answer a few questions pertaining to the matter
discussed, what problems they faced, what were
the possible solutions and why they decided to
choose a particular solution. This method is
very time-consuming but brings promising
results. The cooperation with both teams
DIGITIZATION
differed a lot, asdid the general workflow and
final effect. It also resulted in different solutions.
ViMuseo (virtuaalimuseo means virtual
museum in Finnish) is a web content
management system designed for small
museums without digitized resources. It works
as an online tool to present a museum and to
create multimedia presentations that may work
as virtual collections, exhibitions and projects.
The priority of the system is its simplicity. It is
very user-friendly and does not require any
professional programming knowledge.
Museums can be registered and described by
using predefined categories (e.g. “About us”,
“About the museum”, “Visit”, “Collection”,
and so on). Other files may be added, such as
images and downloadable files (in the most
popular formats). Objects may also be added
which are constructed through textual
description, adding Google maps, images, flash
animations, movies, music files and
downloadable files. These objects can be used
to create the virtual collections, exhibitions and
projects. Users can also post comments and tag
the objects.
Both systems have similar functions, features,
structure and design. However, from the
technological point of view they are completely
different solutions. The systems only serve
research purposes and cannot be used in any
other way. They are accessible online: Version A
(http://www.virtuaalimuseo.fi/ 04) and Version
B (http://vimuseo.fi/08).
A third version of the system is being
developed and will serve only as a demo/
prototype. The results from both empirical and
theoretical research will be implemented in the
forthcoming version. The prototype is planned
to include elements researched both
theoretically and practically. It will present the
concept of the system and will offer additional
OF CULTURAL HERITAGE
comments demonstrating to the museum staff
the system’s functions. When both versions
were discussed with the museum professionals,
a lot of time was spent explaining the features.
The demo version can make future interviews
more focused and less abstract. This version
could also be developed as a final version
serving the museums, which will be discussed
in the next part of this paper.
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE VIMUSEO
This project is planned solely as doctoral
research. The theoretical part of the research is
tightly connected to the empirical research.
The empirical research has been partly
experimental, and the developed versions of the
system only serve the research purposes.
Version A and the Version B were developed in
order to test the hypothesis and bring a set of
useful methods and procedures. The
development has been documented and will be
analyzed in the doctoral dissertation. The
forthcoming prototype version will serve only
as a demo, with additional comments explaining
the concept and the system’s functionalities.
There is no intention to use the systems in any
other way.
The research is strongly grounded in the
Finnish context. It discusses the problems of
the small and voluntarily run Finnish local
museums and it proposes some solutions.
Despite the research being theoretical, the
solutions are to some extent also practical. At
this stage, the system is not intended to be used
by real museums, so the proposed technological
solutions do not support this kind of use.
However, the programmers did focus on
solutions that could possibly be developed in
the final product. In order to meet the
objectives of the research, the technology
131
MAGDALENA LAINE-ZAMOJSKA
132
used in the developed versions could be used
theoretically in the final version. The
conducting of the research and development
of the system were also planned in this way,
so that the outcomes could be used in the
final version. The research, the two system
versions and the forthcoming prototype
could be utilized in the implementation of
the system.
The philosophy of the research is to make
the system as open as possible, and we therefore
decided to prioritize the open source solutions.
This is widely recommended in Finland, for
example in public administration organizations
(Julkisen hallinnon suosituksia, 2009). Version
B is built with Symphony (http://symphonycms.com), which is an XSLT-powered open
source content management system. The open
source technology can be described as a
methodology and it has numerous advantages.
The methodology of the whole research and
the open source methodology support each
other. The source of the final product is
publicly available and it can result in further
development initiated by its users. Moreover, it
promotes the use of open standards, licenses
and application programming interfaces (APIs)
to share content. Opening cultural content to
the public could be supported in any form.
Open source is quite often contrasted to
commercial solutions, which can be
characterized by more centralized, commercially
oriented development. It seems that the
cultural sector, and especially museums, which
are defined as non-profit institutions (http://
archives.icom.museum/definition.html), could
take advantage of the open source methodology.
Moreover, it seems that this approach could
be very advantageous in the Finnish context
with the enormous number of small museums.
It would be very difficult to develop a project
that meets the needs of all these institutions
because the levels of expertise and experience in
these voluntarily run institutions differ a great
deal. I believe that offering them a simple and
open solution, which is based on research and
which may be developed by them, would be
the right choice. Opening the system to its
users can be very beneficial in a situation where
there is no possibility of knowing each
institution. It may result in innovations that are
really needed and wanted by its users.
Another benefit of this approach is that
there is a possibility to develop a shared
digital strategy and policy. The institution
initiating this project could try to create the
digital strategy and offer it to the museums.
Implementing the policy in a practical project
seems to be a very innovative but beneficial
decision.
This model has been proposed and
developed by the Smithsonian Institution. In
2009, the Smithsonian Institution completed a
Smithsonian Web and New Media Strategy
that updates their digital experience and
learning model, and balances the autonomy
and control within the institution. The goals
that emerged during the process of creating this
strategy are related to all the functional aspects
of the institution: mission, brand, learning,
audience, interpretation, technology, business
model and governance (the whole strategy is
available online: http://smithsonian-webstrategy.
wikispaces.com). These themes and goals are
unified by the concept of a Smithsonian
Commons (http://www.si.edu/commons/
prototype/), which is an extremely interesting
example of how a strategy is implemented
through a digital product. The Smithsonian
Commons is a digital platform that can be
described as a new type of digital presence
in the museum world. The Smithsonian
DIGITIZATION
Institution wants to open up access to
Smithsonian research, collections and
communities. Their resources may be freely
used, which can stimulate learning, creation
and innovation.
I argue that the same model could be used
in the Finnish context. The small museums
could be gathered together in one digital
space. If there is a common place where these
small museums meet, they can share their
experiences, good practices and follow the
given standards. In this way, it would be
possible to implement a digital strategy for all
these institutions.
At this moment in time, the system is
neither ready to offer this kind of digital
experience, nor is there a digital strategy.
However, the most important thing is that
the research has been planned and developed
to find solutions appropriate for small
Finnish museums and it has the potential to
be developed. It seems that there is too often
an attempt to solve problems with cultural
and digital heritage by focusing on
sophisticated, state-of-the-art technological
solutions. The appropriate solution not only
meets the technical requirements; it
presupposes an identification of the needs
and skills of potential users in a wider cultural
context. This project aims at identifying these
needs and at proposing potential solutions.
Further development could make use of these
findings.
CONCLUSIONS
The research is focused on practical and
theoretical issues that consider the wide and
quite new area of digital heritage studies. In the
theoretical part of this research, the relatively
small museums and their websites were
OF CULTURAL HERITAGE
studied, as well as the state-of-the-art media
technology used for presenting cultural
heritage online.
The practical part is designed to implement
the findings from the theoretical research and
to evaluate the cooperation between the agents
involved in the project. The ViMuseo.fi project
is a non-commercial project, planned only for
the purposes of this research, and is thus
proposing a very innovative approach to this
field. The goal is to design and construct a
simple, user-friendly tool to create multimedia
presentations, virtual exhibitions and projects.
Innovative solutions and a new approach to
this discipline let us reconsider many concepts
from the discipline of museology.
The findings are also discussed in the
Finnish context. The research aims at providing
results that could be implemented in the
voluntarily run local museums in Finland. The
approach used in this research is not solely
focused on technology, but also on real users
and their needs. More information about the
research, the system and its features are
available on the ViMuseo blog at http://
vimuseo.fi.
REFERENCES
ICOM Definition of a Museum. Consulted on 24
February 2010.
http://archives.icom.museum/definition.html
Julkisen hallinnon suosituksia / Public Administration Recommendations. (2009). JHS 169 Avoimen lähdekoodin ohjelmien käyttö julkisessa
hallinnossa. Updated 2010-06-20. Consulted on
24 January 2010. http://www.jhssuositukset.fi/suomi/jhs169
Jyväskylä University Museum. Consulted on 24 January 2011. https://www.jyu.fi/erillis/museo/en
133
MAGDALENA LAINE-ZAMOJSKA
134
Jyväskylä University Museum. The Cultural History
Section. Consulted on 24 February 2011.
https://www.jyu.fi/erillis/museo/en/cultural
Kaukonen, M. & Vihanto, T. (Eds.) (2010). Museotilasto 2009 / Finnish Museum Statistics 2009.
Museovirasto / National Board of Antiquities.
Vammalan Kirjapaino Oy. Consulted on 24 January 2011. http://www.museotilasto.fi/user_files/Museotilasto%202009/Museotilasto%202009korjvedos3.pdf
National Digital Library, The Public Interface. Consulted on 24 February 2011.
http://kdk2011.fi/en/information-on-the-project
Parry, R. (2007). Recording the Museum. Digital
Heritage and the Technologies of Change.
Routledge: London and New York.
Schweibenz, W. (2004): “Virtual Museums”. ICOM
News 3, 2004. Consulted on 10 January 2011.
http://icom.museum/pdf/E_news2004/p3_2004
-3.pdf
Silverman, D. (2006). Interpreting qualitative data:
methods for analysing talk, text and interaction.
Sage Publications: London.
Smithsonian Commons. Consulted on 24 February
2011. http://www.si.edu/commons/prototype/
Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Web & New
Media Strategy Version 1.0 (2009). Consulted
on 24 February 2011. http://smithsonian-webstrategy.wikispaces.com/
Suomen museoliitto / Finnish Museums Association.
2009. Consulted on 24 January 2011.
http://www.museot.fi/
Symphony. An open source CMS. Consulted on 24
February 2011. http://symphony-cms.com
Valtiovarainministeriö: Suomi tietoyhteiskunnaksi kansalliset linjaukset. Painatuskeskus: Helsinki
1995.
ViMuseo: blog about the project. Consulted on 24
February 2011. http://vimuseo.fi
ViMuseo, Version A. Consulted on 24 January 2011.
http://virtuaalimuseo.fi/04
ViMuseo, Version B. Consulted on 24 January 2011.
http://vimuseo.fi/08
*Magdalena Laine-Zamojska is currently a
doctoral student in Museology at the Department of Art and Culture Studies, University of
Jyväskylä (Finland). She has a master’s degree in
Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology from the
University of Adam Mickiewicz (Poland).
Address: Suvilahdenkatu 4 A 20,
00500 Helsinki, Finland.
Email: [email protected]
Web: http://vimuseo.fi
FORSKNINGSPROJEKTER NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2011 1, S. 135-146
●
●
Portable technologies at
the museum
CONNIE SVABO*
Abstract: A topic of interest in contemporary museum studies is how digital
technologies contribute to museum visitor experiences. Building on insights from
media and technology studies that new media should be understood for how they
overlap with old media, the article reports an ethnographic study of the
intersections between the exhibition at a modern museum of natural history and
three portable technologies – one of which is digital. Mobile phone cameras,
exercise pamphlets and dress-up costumes link visitors with an exhibition, but they
simultaneously shape this relation in their own specific directions. This is shown
by drawing on the concept of mediation as it is developed by philosopher Michel
Serres and philosopher of technology Bruno Latour. The article is based on the
Ph.D. thesis entitled “Portable Objects at the Museum”, defended at Roskilde
University on 22 September 2010.
Key words: Visitor experience, museum communication, information and
communication technology, media convergence, spaces of experience, mediation, natural history.
INTRODUCTION: OVERLOOKED
MATERIALITY
IN VISITOR EXPERIENCES
Throughout the past three decades,
international museum research has increasingly
emphasised museum visitor experiences.
Museums have a responsibility, not only in
relation to collection and documentation,
but also for communication with the public
(Bayne, Ross and Williamson 2009;
Macdonald 2005). Hooper-Greenhill argues
that a museum exhibition is a medium for mass
communication and therefore should be
explored for its abilities to communicate with
the public (1995; 2006). Hein points out that
there is a huge difference between didactic
intent and the learning which emerges in a
situation, and he links this insight to museum
exhibitions in particular. Situations which are
beneficial in terms of learning are often open
and ambiguous – it is possible for the learner to
exert influence on them and, due to this
openness, it is quite difficult to predict how a
situation develops and what meaning a person
will make out of it. According to Hein, a rich
and complex environment such as a museum
exhibition is a good site for learning, but it also
holds numerous possible forms of interaction,
and for this reason it is quite possible that the
learner will focus on something different from
CONNIE SVABO
136
what the educator had in mind (Hein 1995:
189; 1998). These are but two museum
scholars who point out that there is a need for
in-depth knowledge about the museum visit. A
primary work on this topic is Falk and
Dierking’s The Museum Visitor Experience
(1992), which points to the fundamentally
social character of the museum experience.
Visitors regard a museum visit as a social
outing, like going to a park or some other
leisure site. The museum visit is both affected
by social situation and by the personal history,
taste and preferences of the collective of
museum visitors. These issues are highlighted
by Falk and Dierking and have been used as
point of departure in later research, in a Danish
context by Grøn (2007), for example. Less
attention has been devoted to the more
material influences on museum visits;
particularly how mediating materials and
technologies contribute to constituting
museum visitors’ subjectivity and modes of
experiencing. A notable exception to this
tendency to focus on the social – rather than
the sociomaterial – is Hetherington’s study of
how Braille signs, easy access ramps, stairs,
audio guides and a tactile book mediate a
museum exhibition and in this process
constitute the embodiment of a visually
impaired person (Hetherington 2003:107).
HYBRID MUSEUM VISITORS
Information and communication technologies
are rapidly moving away from desk tops, and
instead permeating everyday spaces and
situations. The omnipresence of digital
technologies makes it difficult to ignore the
hybrid character of the human subject. For the
same reason, digital technologies are
increasingly receiving attention in the field of
museum studies as well. As such, this
orientation is helping to fill a void – the
previously-mentioned lack of attention towards
the hybrid, sociomaterial constitution of
museum visitors. Museum researchers attentive
to this new digital dimension of museum visits
advocate the promising potential of
“new”technologies in museum communication
(Kahr-Højland 2007; Hansen et al 2009;
Schroyen et al 2007; Tallon 2008; Gammon
and Burch 2008; Mensch 2005), but there
seems to be a lack of empirically based research
on how digital technologies contribute to
museum experiences – perhaps because of the
novelty of the topic. After a review of existing
research, Falk and Dierking report that there is
no clear picture of the relationship between
museum-based meaning making and digital
technologies (Falk and Dierking 2008). There
is thus a need for research which looks into this
topic – and it is worth noting that it is not
sufficient to explore digital technologies as
isolated phenomena. Researchers working with
media, information and communication
technologies point out that new technology
should be understood as forming part of media
convergences in which old and new media
overlap (Ito 2008; Falkheimer and Jansson
2006). This implies that a museum exhibition
may be understood as a site which is saturated
by various kinds of information and
communication technologies. Various forms of
communication converge in a museum
context, as the museum theme may be
communicated by exhibits, signs, posters,
pamphlets, brochures, guided tours, computerbased information kiosks, handheld digital
information providers and human guides.
Communication practices and technologies
coexist, overlap and intersect.
Summing up, there is a need for in-depth
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TECHNOLOGIES AT THE MUSEUM
137
Naturama’s exhibition is a circular room with three levels: Air, Land and Water. Multimedia is extensively used to
create an effect of dramatized nature. Changes in light and sound give the impression of the cycle of day and night.
Photographer: 1,2,3: Niels Nyholm / Photopop.dk.
CONNIE SVABO
138
qualitative studies which build comprehensive
descriptions of museum visitor experiences in
general. Furthermore, there is a particular need
for studies which pay attention to how various
communication technologies contribute to
museum visits.
The growing interest in mobile, digital
technologies potentially tags along with
sensitivity towards the hybridity of museum
visitors. The orientation towards mobile
technologies may be broadened to encompass
not only digital media, but also all sorts of
other devices that exert influence on museum
visits in various ways. This was a central point
in the Ph.D. study I carried out at the
Naturama museum of natural history in
Denmark. I found various forms of “hybrid
visitors”, some of which were hybrids between
mobile phone cameras and visitors. Others
were hybrids between exercise pamphlets and
visitors or animal costumes and visitors.
CASE STUDY: NATURAMA
Naturama is a modern museum of natural
history, which opened in 2005 as a rebuilt
version of the earlier Svendborg Zoologiske
Museum, founded in 1935 and located on the
island of Fyn, in Denmark. The museum is an
independent institution, which is stateapproved with the status of museum. It receives
a limited government grant, is state-subsidized
to carry out specific tasks, and is subject to
Danish museum legislation. This obliges the
museum to carry out activities of collection,
registration, research and communication, all
with the purpose of maintaining the natural
historical legacy and making this accessible to
the public. A central task of the museum is to
continuously develop its role as a knowledge
and experience centre and to contribute to
cultural and educational development in
society.
The museum is what in a Danish context
can be denoted a medium-sized museum: with
65,509 visits in 2009 and somewhere between
20 and 30 employees, depending on the time
of year. Children and young people under 18
account for half of the museum visits. The
museum has a 4-star rating from Danish
Tourist Attractions, and was nominated for the
Danish Museum Award in 2006 and for the
European Museum Award in 2007.
The name Naturama is a combination of
nature and drama, and was chosen to
symbolize the experience the museum hopes to
give its visitors – an experience of dramatized
nature. The permanent exhibition in the
museum is divided into three levels in
descending order: Air, Land and Water: Air on
the top floor, Land in the middle, and Water
on the ground floor. The floor divisions relate
to three categories of animals - those that live in
the air, on land, and in water. In the exhibition,
traditional dioramas are replaced by a
minimalist exposition of taxidermic mounts
garnished with an elaborate multimedia show.
An audiovisual show plays continuous 90minute loops that use light and sound to give
an impression of the twenty-four hours of day
and night coming and going. Light and sound
change from the energetic rhythm of sunrise to
calm, starry night and the accompanying
sounds range from the quiet scuffle of a badger
to a trickle of rain and roars of thunder. Signs
and posters are reduced to a minimum in the
streamlined design, and instead computerbased information kiosks are dotted throughout
the exhibition.
The museum is an interesting case, because
it is a modern museum that is saturated by a
range of different mediation technologies. The
PORTABLE
museum uses digital technologies in the form
of multimedia shows, video, interactive
exhibits, information kiosks, PDA-based audio
guides and the museum website. Furthermore,
the museum is an example of a museum reality
in which digital technologies are put to work
alongside other communication practices such
as guided tours, printed materials, special
events, workshops, concerts and enactment
activities. It is an example of a media reality in
which new and old media coexist.
METHOD: ETHNOGRAPHY OF PORTABLE
TECHNOLOGIES
Based on the need for in-depth qualitative
studies of museum visitor experiences, I carried
out an ethnographic case study of museum
visits. I used qualitative methods to produce
data about the encounters between visitors and
the museum exhibition. Field work was carried
out over a period of 14 months from April
2007 until June 2008, and several follow-up
visits have been conducted, the last one in the
spring of 2011. During the fieldwork, I used
the techniques of participant observation,
qualitative interviews, and audio and video
recording. I carried out 39 days of observation
at the museum, 21 of these days focused on
visitor interactions, and I carried out several
interviews, 19 of which were with visitors.
Interviews and observations were with visitors
of all ages, but gradually focused on visitors
who are the primary users of exercise
pamphlets, mobile phone cameras and animal
costumes – children up till the age of 13 and
the visitors accompanying them. The methods
and techniques employed are extensively
described in my Ph.D. thesis (Svabo 2010: 133).
During my ethnographic fieldwork at the
museum, I became aware that three portable
TECHNOLOGIES AT THE MUSEUM
technologies – mobile phone cameras, exercise
pamphlets and animal costumes – are central
when visitors engage with the museum; all of
these three technologies are frequently used by
visitors.
THREE POPULAR TECHNOLOGIES
Mobile phone cameras are now an integral part
of the day-to-day lives of children and young
people. A 2009 survey carried out by the
Danish Media Council for Children and Young
People showed that 81 per cent of the 9–10
year olds, 94 per cent of 9–16 year olds, and for
the age group 14–16, 99 per cent have mobile
telephones. Children take their mobile phones
with them wherever they go, even when they
visit a museum. At Naturama, children and
young people use their mobile phones as
cameras to take pictures of animals on display.
Exercise pamphlets are also very commonly
used at the museum. 8,737 pamphlets were in
circulation in 2009, with an annual total of
65,509 visitors – around half of these under age
18. This means that almost one third of the
children who visit Naturama have an exercise
pamphlet with them, and because it is
common that more than one visitor is engaged
with the same pamphlet – for example when
families collaborate – the actual proportion of
visitors, both children and adults, who are
influenced by a pamphlet is quite large.
By comparison, it is striking that visitor
practices at Naturama reveal that visitors
systematically ignore portable digital assistants
(PDAs) provided by the museum to be used as
audio guides. Only 73 PDAs were borrowed in
2009. In a competition for visitors’ attention,
exercise pamphlets and mobile phones thus
out–run the PDA by a long way; the PDA
hasn’t even gotten out of the starting block
139
140
With printed exercise pamphlets, mobile phone cameras
and dress-up animal costumes visitors engage with the
exhibition in a textual, a visual and a dramatized way.
Each portable technology creates a characteristic
museum experience.
Photographer: 1+2: Connie Svabo,
3: David Trood / Photopop.dk.
PORTABLE
when pamphlets and phones are racing
through the exhibition. And these technologies
on the move are occasionally accompanied by
another running technology: the animal
costume.
At Naturama, it is common to see children
dressed in one of the 15–20 animal costumes
that the museum places at the disposal of
visitors, and when children wear such costumes
they play around, attack and chase each other
through the exhibition. Although a costume is
not what we normally would consider a
technology, it can be perceived as such if it is
considered in terms of its communicative
intent and use. The museum uses these
costumes as a way of staging a particular kind
of museum experience, and in this sense it is a
communication technology. This broad
understanding of technology may be given
further perspective by the fact that a central
point in Latour’s technology studies is to draw
attention to mundane and overlooked
technologies (Latour 2005, Michael 2000).
KEY CONCEPT: MEDIATION AS CONNECTION AND
DISTORTION
Exploring how the three portable technologies
participate in museum visits – how they
establish connections between museum visitors
and the museum exhibition and what kind of
influence they have on museum experiences –
contributes to building an understanding of
the museum as a site of media saturation. The
three portable technologies provide a useful
starting point for unravelling media
convergences in the museum exhibition, where
various information and communication
technologies are in play at the same time – old
and new, digital and not. The exhibition holds
classic exhibits garnished with computers and
TECHNOLOGIES AT THE MUSEUM
interactive exhibits, and furthermore the three
types of devices previously mentioned – mobile
phones, exercise pamphlets and animal
costumes. These overlapping communication
technologies and the roles they play when
visitors relate to the museum exhibition can be
fruitfully explored by the term mediation. To
mediate is to associate, to communicate
between two parties, and – inspired by the
work of philosopher and cultural theorist
Michel Serres and philosopher of technology
Bruno Latour – the term mediation can be
expanded further. Mediation understood in a
Serres and Latour sense highlights the
simultaneous establishing of a connection and
the distortion which takes place in the
connection. Mediation establishes a relation as
well as creating a kind of twisted version of that
which is mediated, one might say that the
mediator both connects and objects. Mediation
is not a simple transportation of meaning,
unaltered, through a mute and passive
intermediary. It is invention, distortion and
even to a certain degree betrayal. Mediation –
the making of relations – has transformative
aspects; the mediator changes what it mediates.
With the connection also emerge
displacement, drift and invention (Latour
2005). Looking at technologies as mediators
implies considering what it is that they do; how
do they make relations, form them, shape them
and hold them in place and what happens to
the linked parties in this process; how are the
linked entities formed in and by the mediation?
In relation to the museum visit: how is the
visitor shaped as he or she is associated to the
exhibition, and what kinds of trans-formation
do the various mediating technologies bring?
And the same question can be asked about the
exhibition; what form does the exhibition
assume; how is it transformed in the mediation?
141
CONNIE SVABO
142
FINDINGS: PORTABLE TECHNOLOGIES EACH
MEDIATE A MODE OF VISITING
When visitors’ frequent engagements with
portable technologies are coupled with the
notion of mediation, we can see that the three
portable technologies act as mediators which
both relate and transform the visitor and the
exhibition, and thus drastically shape the visit.
The subject matter of natural history is enacted
in ways which closely connect to the portable
technology in use. Each portable object
mediates a characteristic mode of visiting; a
characteristic pattern of activity and interaction.
Visitors with exercise pamphlets conjure up
an exhibition which assumes the form of text;
information is stashed in computers and on
signs and visitors dig information out of these
compartments and move it to the blank lines
which exercise pamphlets ask them to fill out.
With exercise pamphlets emerges a scholarly
and factually oriented enactment in which the
exhibition is transformed into a site for finding
answers and the child is a note-taker who
moves information around.
Visitors with mobile phone cameras conjure
up an exhibition which assumes the form of
visual images. Children take pictures of animals
which they find impressive or beautiful. With
mobile phone cameras emerges a relentless
Exercise pamphlet
Mobile phone camera
Animal costume
Exhibition enacted as
Deposit of information
Fashion show
Nature reserve
Action
Visitor moves information, traverses exhibition. Walks at a high
pace, follows trail.
Purposeful search with
pen and paper in hand.
Stops once in a while
and writes. Or: is stationary at computer,
extracting information.
Visitor makes images.
Moves around at a slow
pace, occupied somnambulistic (present/
absent).
Stops once in a while,
holds arm up, takes
picture, looks at image,
moves on.
Visitor plays. Crawls,
attacks other visitors,
scratches, utters guttural
sounds. Wild, predatory
movement.
Visitor enacted as
Archaeologist, notetaker
Photographer
Animal
Interaction produces
Text, inscription
Images
Play, performance
Relates to
Lists of inventory,
multiple choice tests,
school, work
Photo album, leisure,
tourism, vacation
Costumes, masks,
carnival, drama
Form of
understanding
Facts-based,
instrumental
Aesthetic, visual
Bodily, imagined
PORTABLE
accumulation of pictures in which digital
images are collected and deposited in jeans
pockets. The exhibition presents itself as visual
images and the visitor is a photographer
chasing beauty.
Visitors with animal costumes conjure up an
exhibition which is the site for embodied,
imagined and dramatized encounters – visitors
snarl, growl and hunt while in the exhibition.
The exhibition turns into a nature reserve,
hunting ground and habitat roamed by animal
children on the move.
Relations between museum visitors and the
exhibition are established with the three
portable technologies, but the relation between
the visitor and the exhibition is simultaneously
manipulated in a characteristic direction by
each portable technology. Each mediator
creates its own version of the exhibition. The
exhibition is enacted in three related – but not
congruent – versions.
DISTORTION IS NOT PROBLEMATIC
When portable technologies are at play they
create distorted versions of the exhibition.
Portable technologies stitch together a version
of the exhibition which fits them. They fixate
and hold the exhibition, and they transform
and distort it. From an agenda of knowledge
transmission it may be considered problematic
that children who are engaged with mobile
phone cameras do not engage with animals in
terms of biological facts such as information
about names, species, habitat and food.
Reciprocally, from an aesthetic agenda it may
considered problematic that children who are
engaged in exercise pamphlets do not sense the
exhibition in terms of beauty, light or sound.
Viewing the occurring interactions as
problematic from one perspective or other ties
TECHNOLOGIES AT THE MUSEUM
in with having specific ideas for what kind of
interaction is desired. If the exhibition is seen as
a parade of a specific kind of knowledge and if
the didactic agenda of the museum is a closed
one which does not subscribe to the openness
of learning, as pointed to by Hein, the
mediation carried out by portable technologies
may be considered problematic. The portable
technologies may be seen as betrayers. They do
not faithfully convey the Word of Science. But
the mediation carried out by portable
technologies takes on a somewhat less
problematic air when the exhibition is pulled
down from an imaginary throne. The
exhibition is neither God nor Queen. The
exhibition itself is a mediator and in this sense,
also a broker and a betrayer. It is devised to
communicate science, to mediate between
natural history and the public. Both the
exhibition and the portable technologies are
messengers, designated to communicate.
Metaphorically speaking we might say that the
exhibition archangel is flanked by multiple
other angels; seraphs and cherubs. They bear
messages, mediate between worlds, and their
overlapping interactions are what Serres calls
“the intercommunication of message-bearing
systems” (1993/1995). The exhibition archangel
flanked by other messengers successfully
communicates the theme of nature to visitors.
DISCUSSION: DESIGN FOR CONVERGENCE
The study seeks to contribute to the growing
subarea of digital technology in museum
communication and experience. The study
flattens out the divide between digital and nondigital technologies and confirms the point
made in technology studies; that new and old
technologies must be understood in terms of
overlap and convergence. This is an important
143
CONNIE SVABO
144
point to remember in the development of new
communication devices; relations between the
exhibition and mobile digital technologies
must be explicitly contemplated. Mobile digital
devices should be designed in a way where they
explicitly draw attention to aspects of the
exhibition which the museum wants to
communicate. This may seem to be a banal
point, but reported experiments with
developing applications for digital handheld
devices for use in museums do not always
explicitly reflect on the relation between the
digital medium and the exhibition (for an
example of this, see Schroyen et al 2007).
Designing the relations between the
exhibition and other mediating technologies is
a central challenge which emerges at the
intersections between various communication
technologies. The interaction designer for
example may contemplate a computer interface
or the interface between a handheld digital
device and a user, but this is not sufficient. It is
necessary also to contemplate the relation to
the spatial design and other communication
practices. And here it is worth noting also that
designers of museum communication may
have to deal with several versions of the same
user: the same visitor may very well be engaged
in various kinds of mediation, and thus form
various hybrids. Within moments, children
shift from growling brown bears to task-solving
busy-bodies moving information around, and
then are clicked into photography. Museum
visitors shift and morph as they engage in
mediated encounters with the exhibition. This
implies that museum communication
designers have to not only be able to make
singular designs which work well, but also have
to be able to imagine user situations which
consist of multiple, overlapping and sometimes
even competing mediations. It is necessary for
both research and practice to be able to tackle
the multiplicity of mediations carried out by
exhibits, signs, posters, pamphlets, brochures,
tours and digital technologies. A museum visit
consists of multiple coexisting mediations and
the negotiations between them. For this reason
it is central to not have a myopic focus on one
communication technology, but to explore and
build an understanding of the intersections
between various communication technologies.
CONCLUSION: MUSEUM EXPERIENCES
MEDIATED BY DIGITAL AND MUNDANE
TECHNOLOGIES
In the past thirty years, the field of museum
studies has increasingly voiced an interest in
how the museum communicates with the
public and how the public experiences
museums. A contemporary topic of interest in
this relation is the role and potential of digital
technologies for creating interesting and
educational museum experiences. Standing on
an insight from technology studies that new
and old media should not be counterpoised,
but that new media rather should be
understood for how they overlap and intersect
with old media, the article reports a study of
the intersections between various media. The
relationships between visitors, a museum
exhibition and three portable technologies are
explored as they emerge in an ethnographic
fieldwork of a Danish museum of natural
history. The three technologies are mobile
phone cameras, exercise pamphlets and animal
costumes. They are studied because they are
commonly used by museum visitors and they
all contribute to establishing a characteristic
relation between the visitor and the exhibition.
Inspired by the work of philosopher and
cultural theorist Michel Serres and philosopher
PORTABLE
of technology Bruno Latour, the intersections
between the museum exhibition and three
portable technologies are explored as
relationships of mediation, which both is the
establishment of a relation and the simultaneous
distortion of this relation. The three portable
technologies establish connections between
visitors and the exhibition, and as such are
useful museum communication technologies,
but each of the three technologies also gives the
encounter between the visitor and the
exhibition a twist of its own. The multiple,
overlapping and intersecting mediations pose
both interesting possibilities for and challenges
to museum communication design.
LITERATURE
Bayne, S., Ross, J., Williamson, Z., 2009: “Objects,
subjects, bits and bytes: learning from the digital
collections of the National Museums”, in
Museum and Society, Jul 2009 7(2), pp. 110–124.
Falk, J.H., Dierking, L.D., 1992: The Museum
Experience, Washington D.C.: Whalesback
Books.
Falk, J.H., Dierking, L.D., 2008: “Enhancing Visitor
Interaction and Learning with Mobile Technologies”, in Tallon, L., Walker, K., 2008: Digital
technologies and the museum experience: handheld
guides and other media, pp. 19–34, Plymouth,
UK: AltaMira Press.
Falkheimer, J., Jansson, A., 2006: (Eds.). Geographies
of Communication: The Spatial Turn in Media
Studies. Nordicom: Goteborg.
Gammon, B., Burch, A., 2008: “Designing Mobile
Digital Experiences”, in Tallon, L., Walker, K.,
2008: Digital technologies and the museum experience: handheld guides and other media, pp. 35–62,
Plymouth, UK: AltaMira Press.
Grøn, K., 2007: “Undersøgere, hyggere, scannere og
kultiverede. En undersøgelse af gæsters oplevelser
TECHNOLOGIES AT THE MUSEUM
og oplevelsesstrategier på Trapholt”, in Nordisk
Museologi 2007, 2, pp. 46–61.
Hansen, D.W., Alapetite, A., Holdgaard, N., Simonsen, C., Vilsholm, R.L., 2009: “Location based
solutions in the experience centre”, in Nordisk
Museologi 2009, 1, pp. 44–52.
Hein, G. E., 1995: “Evaluating teaching and learning
in museums”, in Hooper-Greenhill (ed.):
Museum, Media, Message, pp. 189–203, NY:
Routledge.
Hein, G. E. 1998: Learning in the Museum, NY:
Routledge.
Hetherington, K., 2003: “Accountability and disposal: visual impairment and the museum”, in
Museum and Society, 1(2) pp. 104–115.
Hooper-Greenhill, E., 1995: “Museums and communication: an introductory essay”, in HooperGreenhill, E. (ed.): Museum, Media, Message, pp.
1–14, NY: Routledge.
Hooper-Greenhill, E., 2006: “Studying Visitors”, in
Macdonald, S., 2006: A companion to Museum
Studies, pp. 362–376, Malden, MA: Blackwell
Kahr-Højland, A., 2007: “Brave new world: Mobile
phones, museums and learning – how and why
to use Augmented Reality within museums”, in
Nordisk Museologi 2007, 1, pp. 3–18.
Latour, B., 2005: Reassembling the social: an introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, New York: Oxford
University Press.
Ito, M., 2008: “Mobilizing the Imagination in Everyday Play: The Case of Japanese Media Mixes”, in
Drotner, K., Livingstone, S., (eds.): The International Handbook of Children Media and Culture,
pp. 397–412, Los Angeles : SAGE.
Macdonald, S., 2005: “Accessing audiences: visiting
visitor books”, in Museum and Society, November
2005, 3 (3), pp. 119–136.
Mensch, P.v., 2005: “Annotating the environment.
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Michael, M., 2000: Reconnecting culture, technology
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and nature: from society to heterogeneity, London
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Schroyen J., Gabriëls, K., Teunkens, D., Robert, K.,
Luyten K., Coninx, K., and Manshoven, E.,
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Serres, M., 1993/1995: Angels: a modern myth, translated by Cowper, F., 1995, Paris: Flammarion.
Svabo, C., 2010: Portable Objects at the Museum,
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*Connie Svabo, Ph.D., Assistant Professor,
Roskilde University
Address: Research Group on Space, Place,
Mobility, and Urban Studies (MOSPUS)
Dept. for Environment, Society and Spatial
Change (ENSPAC)
Roskilde University
Universitetsvej 1, P.O. Box 260
DK-4000 Roskilde
Denmark
Email: [email protected]
ANMELDELSER
Bjørnar Olsen: In Defense of Things. Archaeology and the Ontology of Objects. Lanham, New York, Toronto, Plymouth, UK:
Altamira Press 2010. 203 sider. ISBN 978-07591-1930-7.
En rekke titler har de siste årene satt ting og
materialitet på den akademiske dagsorden.
Felles for flere av disse bidragene er en kritikk
av den språklige vendingen som har vært en
dominerende inngang til kulturstudier, spesielt på 1980- og -90-tallet. Ved å fokusere på
diskurs, tekst og tegn mener kritikerne at den
materielle siden av kulturen har vært oversett
på tross av at materiell kultur har vært et sentralt begrep i forskningen. (Damsholt, Simonsen og Mordhorst 2010:9-10; Dudley 2010:12; Olsen 2010)
Bjørnar Olsen er professor i arkeologi ved
Universitetet i Tromsø. Hans siste bok, In Defense of Things, føyer seg inn i rekken av bøker
som vektlegger at tingene eksisterer i relasjon
til, og på lik linje med mennesker, planter og
dyr. I motsetning til flere utgivelser som fokuserer på performativitet og gjøren av materialiteter konsentrerer Olsen seg om det han kaller
integriteten til tingene. (Olsen 2010:172) Boken vil i denne sammenhengen vekke begeistring hos lesere med interesse for tingteori.
Den kan samtidig fungere som en tekstbok for
de som ønsker en innføring i fenomenologi og
actor-network-theory. I artikkelen ”Momenter til et forsvar for tingene” (2004), publisert
i Nordisk Museologi, argumenterte Olsen for at
tingene ikke må ignoreres av vitenskapen.
Hans resonnement underbygges og videreutvikles i In Defense of Things.
I Marcel Prousts På sporet av den tapte tid
reflekterer hovedpersonen over hvordan tingene fremtrer for ham i overgangen mellom
søvn og våken tilstand. Proust skriver: ”Kanskje er tingenes ubevegelighet pålagt dem av
vår overbevisning om at det er dem vi ser og
ikke andre, kanskje er den et resultat av det
som egentlig er vår tankes ubevegelighet overfor tingene.” (Proust 1984: 10) Gjenklangen
fra Prousts litterære betraktning, over menneskets ubevegelighet overfor tingene, kan stå
som et bilde på den sentrale tematikken i In
Defense of Things. Det er først og fremst vitenskapenes fastlåste oppfatning av tingene per se
Olsen vil til livs. I den sammenhengen blir det
avgjørende å bryte ned den dikotomiske tankegangen som har kommet til å prege den
vestlige metafysikken der todelingen mellom
den menneskelig tenkning og den materielle
verden er grunnleggende. Olsen viser hvordan
samfunns- og humanvitenskapene gjennom
1900-tallet, på tross av gjentatte forsøk av
blant andre Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger
Walter Benjamin og Maurice Merlau-Ponty,
har fortrengt tingene, og tingenes tette og
komplekse relasjoner til menneskene. Han
skriver: ”Despite the grounding and inescapable materiality of the human condition, things
seem to have been subjected to a kind of collective amnesia in social and cultural studies,
leaving us with a paradoxically persistent image of societies operating without the mediation of objects.” (Olsen 2010:2) For Olsen er
det altså umulig å tenke kultur uten det materielle; kultur er også ting og landskap, praksiser og materialiteter.
Til tross for at tingenes tilstand i følge Olsen
har vært og er preget av et kollektiv hukommelsestap, forsvant det materielle aldri helt fra
den akademiske agenda. Olsen understreker i
denne sammenhengen hvordan arkeologien
hele tiden har fortsatt å engasjere seg i tingene,
og for ham er arkeologi ”(…) the foremost
discipline of things” (Olsen 2010: 22). Mens
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148
arkeologi tidlig på 1900-tallet delte sin interesse for tingene med en rekke andre kulturstudier viser Olsen til hvordan eksempelvis fag
som antropologi forlot tingene utover på
1900-tallet. (Olsen 2010: 23) Dette setter han
i forbindelse med en større moral-politisk arv
etter moderniteten hvor den tiltagende masseproduksjonen, massedistribusjonen og massekonsumpsjonen av gjenstander ble sett som et
uttrykk for at verden var bedragersk og misvisende. Tingene utgjorde en trussel mot menneskelige verdier, og materialisme ble etter
hvert synonymt med misbruk, et bilde på alt
negativt ved det moderne samfunnet. (Olsen
2010: 11-12) Det sosiale og menneskelige aspektet ved kulturen kom i stedet til å få størst
oppmerksomhet. Studier av samfunn og kulturelle kontekster har i denne forbindelsen
vært sentrale, og dialog og deltagende observasjon, gjerne i forbindelse med feltarbeid, har
dannet grunnlaget for forskningen. I forlengelsen av Olsens resonnement må det understrekes at fokuset på materialitet innenfor
blant annet sosialantropologien de siste tjue
årene har lagt grunnlaget for at vi i dag kan
snakke om en materiell vending. (Edwards og
Hart 2004:3)
Selv om det i Olsens argumentasjon er et
poeng å fremheve arkeologiens virkefelt og
vektlegge hverdagstingene, fordi han ser at
disses verdi har vært oversett til fordel for eksempelvis gjenstander som har fått betydning
som kunstverk, eller som har blitt til i en religiøs eller politisk sammenheng, mener jeg det
er nødvendig å påpeke at kunsthistorien, og
visuelle studier er et interessant felt for
tenkning omkring, og med ting. I artikkelen
”Visual studies and the Iconic turn” beskriver
Keith Moxey hvordan en ny fasinasjon for
tingene har bidratt til endrede perspektiver innenfor visuelle studier. Han skriver: ”Affirma-
tions that objects are endowed with a life of
their own – that they possess an existential status endowed with agency – have become commonplace. Without a doubt, objects (aesthetic/artistic or not) induce pangs of feeling and
carry emotional freight that cannot be dismissed.” (Moxey 2009:131) I artikkelen stiller
Moxey noen sentralt spørsmål: Kan en fenomenologisk interesse for bildet (tingen)
sammenholdes med forståelser som vektlegger
de politiske implikasjonene ved bildet (tingen)? Er det på en og samme tid mulig å forstå
bildet (tingen) som presentasjon og representasjon? (Moxey 2009:131) Disse spørsmålene
har i stor grad aktualitet også når det gjelder
ting som ikke oppfattes som estetiske, og jeg
mener derfor de kan bidra til å utvide den diskusjonen Olsen legger til rette for der en fenomenologisk inspirert interesse for tingene i ytterste konsekvens kan synes å utelukke en
interesse for tingens sosiale, kulturelle og politiske kontekster. Det som kan oppfattes som
et enten-eller-perspektiv må settes i sammenheng med at Olsen forsøker å løsrive tingene
fra det tekstlige grepet strukturalismen og
poststrukturalismen har vært med på å befeste, slik jeg innledningsvis påpekte. Han gjør i
sammenhengen rede for hvordan sosial og
kulturell virkelighet har blitt, og blir oppfattet
å eksistere forutgående for, eller løsrevet fra
ting. Forståelsen av at ting konstrueres som
idé gjennom sosiale og kulturelle relasjoner,
og dermed ikke har mening i seg selv, har slik
fått stor gjennomslagskraft. Satt på spissen
oppfattes tingene på denne måten som tabula
rasa, tomme tavler hvorpå den diskursive- eller symbolske meningsdannelsen projiseres.
Grunnlaget for en forståelse der den materielle verden kun kan frembringes og gis mening
gjennom menneskelig tenkning finner Olsen i
det kartesianske verdensbildet og i Kants dua-
ANMELDELSER
lisme. Ettersom Olsen forsøker å vende seg
bort fra denne menneskesentrerte ontologien,
gjennom å bidra til å skape en forståelse som
tar høyde for et symmetrisk forhold mellom
ting, landskap og mennesker kan prosjektet
nærmest synes som en etikk, spesielt i forhold
til landskaps- og naturforståelse.
Det er to teoretiske inspirasjoner som får
særlig betydning i Olsens arbeid med å overkomme dualismen mellom menneskelig
tekning og materiell verden; actor-networktheory, spesielt representert ved Bruno Latours tenkning, og fenomenologi, spesielt representert ved Martin Heideggers arbeid. For
Heidegger er menneskets væren i verden betinget av en direkte omgang med ting. Slik er
mennesket kastet inn i, og til stede i en verden
som allerede er meningsfull. For Heidegger er
det å skape koblet til å frigjøre, bringe frem eller respondere på det som allerede er i materialene, i materialenes form og i deres kapasiteter. Olsen mener dette er noe vitenskapen må
ta inn over seg. Tingene er ikke alltid tegn på
noe annet, mener han, men de har en verdi i
seg selv gjennom deres nærvær som ting. Olsen skriver: ”What strikes me after reading
many recent books on rock art is the never ending urge to intellectualize the past: a constant
search for a deeper meaning, something beyond what can be sensed. (…) may it not be
plausible that – sometimes at least – it was actually the depicted being that mattered?”
(Olsen 2010:86) Olsen kommer her i kontakt
med en argumentasjon ført frem av litteraturviteren Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht. I Production
of Presence kritiserer han den hermeneutiske
fortolkningslære for å fortrenge det som ikke
handler om mening. Nærvær, mener Gumbrecht, er en del av vår opplevelse av verden
som foregår uavhengig av, og hinsides meningsproduksjonen. (Gumbrecht 2004:79)
Han skriver: “Rather than having to think, always and endlessly, what else there could be,
we sometimes seem to connect with a layer in
our existence that simply wants the things of
the world close to our skin.” (Gumbrecht
2004:106)
Når det gjelder Bruno Latours ideer og actor-network-theory benytter Olsen dette som
et utgangspunkt for å overkomme en dualisme mellom natur og kultur, mellom det menneskelige og det ikke-menneskelige. For Latour er det grunnleggende at menneskets eksistens hviler på relasjonelle og overlappende
forhold mellom det menneskelige og det ikkemenneskelige. Hybrider som inneholder både
det menneskelige og det ikke-menneskelige
tar vare på, og medierer disse relasjonene.
Samfunnet er med hans forståelse basert på
tette relasjoner der kultur og natur samtidig
inngår. Det er derfor ikke mulig å skille kulturelementer fra naturelementer, eller omvendt. Dette videreutvikles i det som forstås
som actor-network theory, og samfunn forstås
i en slik sammenheng som nettverk der mennesker og ting, alle typer materialer og enheter, er koblet sammen gjennom heterogene relasjoner. Tingene kan slik forstås som quasiobjekter, hybrider som består av natur-kultur
produsert av og innenfor relasjonelle nettverk.
Olsen benytter denne beskrivelsen av ting for
å forklare tingenes fravær fra samfunnsvitenskapene. Han skriver: “(…) being a mixture of
culture and nature, a work of translation and
itself increasingly mediating such relations,
material culture, quite literally, became ‘matter out of place’ – in other words, part of the
‘excluded middle’.” (Olsen 2010:103)
Selv om Olsen benytter actor-network-theory til å si noe om tingenes relasjonelle kapasitet som aktører i netteverk holder Olsen hele
tiden fokus på tingene i seg selv. Hans under-
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søkelse av tinges forhold til temporalitet og
minne er i særlig grad spennende. Olsen fremholder her at materialitet og vane er sentralt
for minnet og viser til Henri Bergsons filosofi.
Olsen argumenterer videre for at fortiden ikke
er tilbakelagt, men griper inn i den kommende nåtiden. Arkeologi er en disiplin som i følge han har forutsetningen for å bidra til å kurere det han kaller ”the illness of historicism”.
Gjennom å vise hvordan tingene lar fortiden
kommer til syne i nåtiden kan arkeologien
forstyrre historisismens forsøk på å rense ut
det uordentlige ved å skape lineær tid og en
narrativ historie. (Olsen 2010:126)
In Defense of Things er velskrevet og tekstens
forsvar for tingene overbeviser. Den gir på en
tilgjengelig måte innsikt i sentrale teoretiske
retninger for nyere kulturstudier som fenomenologi og actor-network-theory. Forankret i
eksempler som ligger tett opp til Olsens arkeologiske forskning på eksempelvis samisk og
nordlig forhistorie og historie tilbyr boken leseren en tingens ontologi formet med bricolage som innstilling. Ettersom boken er skrevet
på engelsk har den også et bredt internasjonalt
nedslagsfelt. Til tross for at det ikke er bokens
siktemål savner jeg metodiske refleksjoner
over hvordan forskningen kan ta inn over seg
den ontologiske betraktningen til Olsen, og
slik komme nærmere tingenes væren i verden
uten at relasjonen mellom tingene og menneskene blir usynliggjort. En slik refleksjon ville
også synliggjøre på hvilken måte den videre
forskningen skal unngå å havne i de fellene
andre materialistiske tilnærminger har gjort,
slik Olsen hevder: ”Although serious and pertinent criticism has been voiced against the
textual and linguistic reductionism implied in
many former interpretive archaeologies, a dominant trope is still that material culture and
landscapes are sites of ‘inscription, metapho-
rical ‘stand-ins’ that always represent something else and more importantly: the ‘social’,
the ‘cultural’, the ‘political’, and so forth – all
implicitly conceived of as extramaterial entities.” (Olsen 2010: 3)
LITTERATURLISE:
Damsholt, Tine, Simonsen, Dorthe Gert og Mordhorst, Camilla (red.): Materialiseinger: Nye perspektiver på materialitet og kulturanalyse. Aarhus
2009.
Dudley, Sandra H (red.): Museum materialities: objects, engagements, interpretations. London 2010.
Edwards, Elizabeth og Hart, Janice: Photographs
Objects Histories: On the Materiality of Images.
London og New York 2004.
Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich: Production of Presence:
What meaning cannot convey. Stanford 2004.
Henning, Michelle: Museums, Media and Cultural
Theory. Berkshire of New York 2006.
Olsen, Bjørnar: In Defense of Things: Archaeology and
the Ontology of Objects. Lanham, New York, Toronto, Plymouth UK 2010.
Olsen, Bjørnar: “Momenter til et forsvar for
tingene”. Nordisk Museologi 2. 2004: 25-36.
*Hanne Hammer Stien, stipendiat
Adresse: Seksjon for kulturvitenskap
Tromsø Museum – Universitetsmuseet
9037 Tromsø
E-mail: [email protected]
ANMELDELSER
Eva Insulander: Tinget, rummet, besökaren.
Om meningsskapande på museum. Doktorsavhandling från institutionen för didaktikk
och pedagogisk arbete. Stockholms universitet 2010. 306 sider. ISBN 978-91-7447021-5.
Avhandlingen er en case-studie som bringer
sammen en analyse av to utstillinger med en
analyse av de besøkendes bruk av den, og som
ser på sammenhengen mellom utstilling og
bruk. Så vidt jeg vet, er dette den første studie
der begge sider av museet som læringsarena er
likestilt. Insulander forsvarte sin avhandling 7.
mai 2010.
Avhandlingens empiri er to nyere arkeologiske utstillinger ved Nasjonalmuseet i Stockholm, Forntid 1 og Forntid 2. Avhandlingen
inngår i prosjektet ”Museet, utställningen, besökaren. Meningsskapandet på en ny arena för
lärande och kommunikation”, 2007-2010. En
motivasjon for prosjektet er at ”det er mangel
på studier som tar hensyn til hvordan utformingen av utstillinger får betydning for besøkendes meningsskaping og læring” (s. 15).1
Studien har tre særegenheter som pedagogisk forskningsprosjekt: den legger like stor
vekt på utstillingen som på de besøkende, den
likestiller de besøkendes design av sitt besøk
med museets design av utstillingen, og den
har ingen normative ambisjoner om å utsi noe
om hvordan museet bør formidle eller de besøkende bør bruke utstillingen. Metodisk har
den det syn at læring ikke kan observeres empirisk uten gjennom den lærendes egen representasjon av læringen.
Avhandlingens syn på læring er at det
”handler om kreativt engasjement, snarere
enn om kunnskap det er redegjort for ut fra en
forhåndsdefinert ramme” (s. 14). Begrepet ”en-
gasjement” får, som vi skal se, betydning for
hvordan undersøkelsen av de besøkende er
lagt opp. En utstilling er et ”tilbud om mening for den besøkende som engasjerer seg i
den” (s. 14). Det som stilles ut og det som stiller ut betegnes med fellesbegrepet ”semiotiske
resssurser”, og det er den besøkendes bruk av
disse ressursene for å skape mening for seg selv
som er studiens sentrale forskningsobjekt.
Avhandlingens forskningsspørsmål er (s. 1617):
1. Hvordan kan utstillingers meningspotensial beskrives og sammenlignes, og hvordan
konstrueres meninger om fortiden?
2. Hvilke semiotiske ressurser anvendes av de
besøkende? Hvilken mening om utstillingene skaper de ulike besøkende på grunnlag
av disse ressurser?
3. Hvordan kan relasjonen mellom utstillingens design og de besøkendes tegnskaping
tolkes og forstås i termer av læring?
Forskningsteoretiske stikkord er sosiokulturell
(et museumsbesøk inngår i en sosial sammenheng som påvirker erfaringssituasjonen, altså
må det sosiale inngå i forskningsdesignet),
multimodal (kommunikasjon skjer i flere
tegnsystem samtidig, altså må både utstillingens tegnsystemer, de besøkendes bruk av dem
og deres egen tegnbruk inngå i forskningsdesignet), designorientert (utstillingen er designet
av museet, men besøkeren designer sitt eget
besøk, og begges design må med i forskningsdesignet), semiotiske ressurser (både det som
stilles ut og det som stiller ut er semiotiske ressurser som stilles til disposisjon for besøkeren,
og som besøkeren gjør bruk av etter eget valg
og på egne forutsetninger). Et hovedsyn er at
museet designer utstillinger, at besøkeren designer sitt besøk, og at det er i møtet mellom disse
to design at mening oppstår for publikum.
Utstillinger betraktes som en tekst i utvidet
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ANMELDELSER
152
forstand, og de analytiske nøkkelbegrepene er
hentet fra teorier om tekster. Avhandlingen er
beskrivende, analyserende og komparativ, og
ikke normativ. Utstillingen anses som en
tekst, som den besøkende navigerer seg gjennom – det vil si søker seg frem gjennom utstillingen som en kompleks semiotisk enhet, og
ut fra sine interesser velger ut det som skal fokuseres, designes og ordnes (s. 39).
Når vi ser på denne avhandlingens metode
og teori, må vi ha i mente at arkeologiske utstillinger i langt større grad enn både billedkunstutstillinger og kunstindustriutstillinger,
er designet. Det vil si at det som utstilles (som
regel i et ganske stort antall) er omgitt av en
tettere og mer variert scenografi og teksting,
og også tar i bruk andre tegnsystemer som
fotografi, reproduksjoner, iscenesettinger, film/
video og lyder. De besøkende har altså mange
flere og tettere sammensatte semiotiske ressurser å forholde seg til. Det har sammenheng
med at arkeologiske funn, i motsetning til billedkunst (men mer i likhet med kunsthåndverk og kunstindustri), sjelden primært er
kommunikative objekter slik som kunstverk
er som selv taler til og som er laget for å tale til
et publikum og som har et bredere semiotisk
register. Det er for eksempel lett å tenke seg
utstillinger med billedkunst med meget få
skrevne tekster, mens en arkeologisk utstilling
vanligvis vil være tekstet ganske tett. Det er
heller ikke vanlig, så vidt jeg vet, å beskrive og
analysere arkeologiske funn på måter som tilsvarer de kunsthistoriske metoder for billedanalyse. Slik sett ligner de mer på objekter innenfor design, kunsthåndverk og kunstindustri. I og med de arkeologiske funnenes ganske
’tause’ karakter er det mindre naturlig å kalle
dem for tekster, og derfor faller det heller ikke
så naturlig å bruke de litteraturteoetiske begrepene paratekst (som er alt det som stiller
ut) og kontekst (i betydningen forståelsesrammer) i beskrivelse og analyse av arkeologiske
eller andre kulturhistoriske utstillinger. I avhandlingen slås tekst og paratekst sammen, og
kalles med et felles ord semiotiske ressurser.
Det er heller ikke noe tydelig skille mellom
paratekst og kontekst, og paratekstene betegnes flere steder som utstillingens eller de arkeologiske funnenes kontekst. I mine kommentarer vil imidlertid paratekster bli brukt om det
som fysisk omgir de arkeologiske funn og som
peker mot dem (stiller dem ut), og begrepet
kontekst vil i kommentarene bli brukt i betydningen forståelsesrammer.2
Avhandlingen peker på at begrepssettet
tekst, paratekst og kontekst i liten grad er egnet til å inngå i analyser av hvordan publikum
designer sin bruk av utstillingen (s. 28). Det er
nok en korrekt observasjon. Begrepet kontekst
om forståelsesramme har som referanse den
forståelsesramme utstillingen lager for den besøkende, og er ikke (av Solhjell 2001) anvendt
om den forståelsesramme som den besøkende
selv skaper. Dette peker mot en problemstilling det er verdt å se nærmere på: Kan og bør
det etableres noen analytiske begreper som er
felles for beskrivelse og analyse både av utstillinger og av de besøkendes bruk av dem? Dette vil jeg komme tilbake til et annet sted.
Det er også andre forhold som kan forklare
det tette system av paratekster rundt arkeologiske funn. Det ene er at arkeologi som vitenskap er lite kjent for folk flest, som derfor må
gis en mer elementær innføring. Kunsthistorie
og kunst er i større grad en vitenskap og en
kunstgren hvis resultater og forutsetninger
mange flere har et forhold til enn de som har
et forhold til arkeologi. Et arkeologisk museum kan derfor ikke forutsette så mange ting
kjent på forhånd, som et kunstmuseum. Dette speiler trolig også at et arkeologisk museum
ANMELDELSER
i større grad tenker seg som et museum for
alle, det vil si for et bredt publikum, og derfor
må ta hensyn til besøkende med svake faglige
og kulturelle forutsetninger. De tar større hensyn til det didaktiske i sine utstillinger. Kunstmuseer og kunstindustrimuseer har tradisjoner for å henvende seg til et smalere publikum
med en allerede innlært forståelse for kunst og
kunsthistorie – en innlæring kunstmuseet er
særlig godt egnet til.
SAMMENFATNING AV
BESKRIVELSE OG
ANALYSE AV UTSTILLINGSBESØK
Beskrivelse av de besøkende
Et begrep som anvendes her er navigering. Navigering er de prinsipper som den besøkende
anvender for å orientere seg i og finne sin vei
gjennom utstillingen (s. 39). Navigering står i
motsetning til lesning, som innebærer at man
følger en vei som allerede er lagt ut.
Siden utstillingen kan anses som en iscenesettelse, brukes også begrepet om det at den besøkende iscenesetter seg som individ i utstillingen.
Analysen av det enkelte pars besøk er delt i
tre deler: 1) engasjement og meningsskaping,
2) kommunikasjon parene i mellom, og 3)
korrespondanse og differens mellom data.
I analysen av 1) engasjement skilles det mellom narrativt, ekspressivt og metareflekterende
engasjement (s. 260). Disse tre begrepene mener
jeg har en viss interesse også som betegnelser på
ulike typer utstillinger eller ulike egenskaper
ved dem. De betegnes også som forskjellige
strategier for engasjement i utstillingen.
Et skille i engasjement som også kommenteres er lesing av tekster, og det å se på arkeologiske funn. Dessuten poengteres hvilke typer tekster som leses (introduksjonstekster, veggtekster, montertekster og/eller gjenstandstekster).
Analysen av 2) kommunikasjon anvender
ikke noen spesielle begreper. Det som vektlegges er hvem som tar initiativ eller leder an, om
og hvordan de samtaler og hvem som snakker
mest, hvilken tone de bruker overfor hverandre, om kommunikasjonen er språklig eller
kroppslig, peker, leser høyt, ser på hverandre,
viser seg gjennom mimikk etc. Det noteres
også i hvilken grad de går sammen, eller hver
for seg.
I analysen av 3) korrespondanse og differens mellom data ser avhandlingen blant annet på om det er overensstemmelse mellom
engasjement, fotografering og tegnede kart.
Her studeres de besøkendes navigasjonsvei,
deres interessefokus slik de kommer til uttrykk i fotografier (hva som er fotografert og
hva som står sentralt og perifert), kart (om de
viser navigasjonsveien, objekter eller rommet)
og intervjuet (hva de metareflekterer over).
Når parene sammenlignes (fire og fire par
sammenlignes) anvendes de tre begrepene om
engasjementsform. Sammenligningen av kommunikasjon er fokusert på hvem som er mest
aktiv overfor den andre. Det kommenteres
også hvilken type semiotiske ressurser de bruker – for eksempel at noen bruker mye tid på
tekster, andre på utstillingsgjenstander. Vi får
også vite hvor lang tid hvert par brukte, fra 15
minutter til nesten en time.
Sammenfatning om de besøkende
Mens beskrivelsen av utstillingsbesøk skjer etter skjemaet engasjement og meningsskaping,
kommunikasjon, og korrespondens og differens mellom data, skjer sammenfatningen av
analysen av utstillingsbesøkene etter skjemaet
ideasjonell, interpersonell og tekstuell. Det
gjøres for de to utstillingene hver for seg, og
sammenligningene skjer i første omgang mellom parene, ikke mellom utstillingene. Denne
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ANMELDELSER
154
første sammenligningen er ganske beskrivende, uten noen spesielle analytiske begreper
utenom henvisning til type enagsjement.
Sammenligningen får frem ulikheter i bruken
av de semiotiske ressurser, noe som kan være
nyttig for de som har laget utstillingene – brukes de, hvor ofte, av hvem, hvordan og med
hvilken forståelse?
En konklusjon (s. 257) er at de besøkende
gjerne følger de ”innebygde” mulighetene til
lesning som finnes i utstillingene (selv om beskrivelsene viser at de ikke alltid gjør det). Fortid 1 legger opp til engasjement omkring spesifikke miljøer, gjenstander og ressurser. De
besøkende synes imidlertid å legge større vekt
på de utstilte objekter enn på refleksjoner over
seg selv og forholdet til samtiden (slik utstillingen også legger opp til). I Fortid 2 skapes
det engasjement både for de utstilte objekter
og for de eksistensielle problemstillinger.
En annen konklusjon er at forskjeller i utstillingenes ”innramming” (det vil si den overordnede problemstilling, introdusert ved begynnelsen av utstillingene) ikke ”hadde noen
avgjørende betydning for hvorvidt de besøkende kjente seg sikre i forholdet til teksten eller ikke” (s. 258) (med ”teksten” siktes vel her
til hele utstillingens forløp). Men de besøkende har i ulike grad oppfattet ”utstillingens logikk og tilbud om mening”.
En tredje konklusjon er at sentrum/periferi
konstruksjonen bidrar til å skape interesse hos
de besøkende, som da kunne navigere mer
fritt i rommet (i motsetningen til gitt/nytt
konstruksjonen).
OM
ENGASJEMENT, MENINGSSKAPING OG
LÆRING I UTSTILLINGENE
Hvilke strategier bruker de besøkende i sitt
engasjement og i sin skaping av tegn? Det skil-
les mellom tre strategier: narrativ, ekspressiv
og metarefleksjon. Det narrative engasjement
handler om at de besøkende kobler noe de ser
i utstillingen til personlige erfaringer. Det ekspressive engasjement viser seg gjennom spontane reaksjoner overfor noe de ser, fordi det er
vakkert, stygt, uvanlig eller på andre måter er
noe særskilt. Det metareflekterende engasjement
er dels koblet til utstillingens design, dels til
tolkningen av det historiske materiale.
I begrepet om det metareflekterende engasjement skiller avhandlingen, overraskende synes jeg, ikke mellom det som tradisjonelt kalles kunnskaper og forståelse på den ene siden,
og refleksjoner over utstillingen som sådan på
den andre. Et rendyrket ”kunnskapsengasjement” registreres altså ikke som et separat engasjement. Det tradisjonelle synet er jo at det
er engasjementet i de kunnskaper som museet
formidler som bør være det sentrale, og som
utstillingen legger til rette for. Dette kunnskapsperspektivet står imidlertid perifert i
undersøkelsen, der læring er mer knyttet til
prosessen under besøket enn til måling av et
resultat i form av reproduserbar kunnskap. Allikevel reflekterer flere steder avhandlingen
over at noen besøkende, med bestemte forhåndskunnskaper og interesser har vist andre
typer engasjement i utstillinger enn andre –
særlig når det gjelder det metareflekterende.
Det må jo også sies at den andre utstillingen i
særlig grad inviterer til metarefleksjon, og at
det særlig er her at det viser seg forskjeller mellom de besøkende i bruken av de forskjellige
typer semiotiske ressurser.
Det blir tydelig at engasjementsform eller
strategi dels avhenger av det enkelte besøkende pars sosiale bakgrunn og personlige forutsetninger, og dels av hva utstillingens design
inviterer til. Avhandlingene trekker ingen
konklusjoner her, fordi den bygger på et så lite
ANMELDELSER
materiale (s. 263). Den trekker heller frem at
de seksten personene i de åtte parene faktisk
har designet hver sin unike utstilling, om man
skal dømme etter deres fotografier og tegnede
karter over utstillingene, og over oversikten
over deres viktigste engasjementssteder. (Hvert
par har bare fått markert 20 engasjementssteder, men de samlede antall engasjementssteder
i hver utstilling var over 40 – altså en stor
spredning i hva som fanget oppmerksomheten
mest).
En hovedkonklusjon kan være at et og samme tegnsystem i en utstilling kan brukes og
forstås forskjellig av ulike besøkende. Det er
nok en innsikt som mange museer ikke tar
nok inn over seg.
ANALYTISK
VERKTØY ELLER TYPOLOGI?
Avhandlingen anvender ikke et analytisk verktøy for å beskrive utstillinger. For å analysere
utstillinger tar den i bruk tre begreper om ulike aspekter eller metafunksjoner ved utstillingen som tekst – ideasjonelt, interpersonelt
og tekstuelt. Den tar heller ikke i bruk slike
begreper fra litteraturteorien i analysen av utstillinger som ellers er ganske vanlig, fra semiotikk, retorikk, grammatikk, semantikk,
narrativitet e.l. Vi kan si at forskeren her selv
ikke trer inn som publikum og analyserer hva
utstillingen formidler – den begrenser seg til
begreper om hvordan utstillinger formidler
(de tre metafunksjonene). Den introduserer
ingen typologi for utstillinger, selv om den
kan kalle en utstilling for narrativ.
Derimot kan vi si at den innfører en typologi for design av eller strategi for utstillingsbesøk: narrativ, ekspressiv og metareflekterende.
De er ikke gjensidig utelukkende, men er også
aspekter ved utstillingsbesøk som den enkelte
besøkende kan velge i eller mellom. Når det
gjelder besøksstrategier viser den ikke til noen
tidligere utarbeidet typologi, og de tre strategiene gjør heller ikke krav på å representere
alle typiske strategier ved besøk på museer.
Avhandlingen resulterer altså ikke i noen
typologi av utstillinger. Det er rimelig nok, siden den bare gjelder to utstillinger. Den er
nok nærmere til å kunne definere noen bestemte typer utstillingsbesøk eller noen typiske besøkerroller, men avstår fra å gjøre det fordi materialet er for lite.
Den knytter heller ingen forbindelse mellom de to utstillingstypene narrativ og konseptuell og de tre besøksstrategiene narrativ,
ekspressiv og metareflekterende.
Et slående resultat avhandlingen bringer, er
hvor fritt de besøkende bruker utstillingens
semiotiske ressurser og hvor ulikt de gjør det.
Jeg får et inntrykk av at det er meget stor avstand mellom de ambisjoner museet har om å
formidle kunnskaper, og de bsøkendes interesse for kunnskapsaspektet ved utstillingen.
Mitt inntrykk er også at de besøkende bare i
liten grad følger opp de direkte henvendelser
som kommer fra utstillingens tekster om å
gjøre det ene eller det andre, eller å tenke over
det eller det.
Det er mitt inntrykk at de to studerte utstillingene henvender seg til publikum som om
det besto av en klasse med ungdomsskoleelever, og det var læreren som talte gjennom tekstene. Denne direkte interpersonelle funksjonen synes jeg er litt påtrengende, om den hadde vært gjennomført på et kunstmuseum.
REFLEKSJONER
Jeg stiller meg tre spørsmål etter å ha lest avhandlingen. Det ene gjelder sammenhengen
mellom utstillingstype og besøksstrategi. Det
andre gjelder forbindelsen mellom analytiske
155
ANMELDELSER
156
begreper for å beskrive og analysere utstillinger og å beskrive og analysere utstillingsbesøk.
Det tredje gjelder sammenheng mellom sosial
bakgrunn og besøksstrategi.
Utstillingstype og besøksstrategi
For meg er det et naturlig spørsmål å stille om
ulike utstillingstyper stimulerer til bestemte
typer besøksstrategi, for eksempel om en narrativ utstilling fører til at de besøkende vektlegger en narrativ besøksstrategi, eller om en
konseptuell utstilling fører til en preferanse
for metareflekterende besøksstrategi. Med
bare to utstillinger, og bare åtte besøkende par
er dette vanskelig å trekke noen konklusjoner
om. For fremtidig forskning mener jeg dette
er en interessant problemstilling, også for
kunstmuseer.
Analytiske begreper
Avhandlingen gir inspirasjon til å undersøke
om det går an å etablere et begrepsapparat
som er felles for beskrivelse og analyse av utstillinger, og beskrivelse og analyse av utstillingsbesøk.
Besøksstrategi og sosial bakgrunn
Med sosiologiske øyne er det helt naturlig å
spørre om ikke publikums sosiale bakgrunn
(for eksempel utdanning) og den sosiale
sammensetningen (for eksempel barn/voksen
eller to studenter) av det enkelte par har en
selvstendig innflytelse på besøksstrategi. Med
utgangspunkt for eksempel i Bourdieu og
Darbels studier av museumspublikum (se min
gjennomgang av Danielsen 2008) er det åpenbart at slike sammenhenger er meget sterke.
Dette er et spørsmål som Insulander bevisst og
begrunnet ser helt bort fra. Imidlertid får vi
vite såpass mye av besøksparenes bakgrunn at
vi aner en viss sammenheng.
Videre arbeid
Et fjerde spørsmål reiser seg også. Det er om
den videre utnyttelse av Insulanders arbeid.
Trolig bør det gjennomføres noen tilsvarende
studier, med samme forskningsdesign, ved andre museer og andre museumstyper. Formålet
kan for eksempel være å undersøke om det
fremtrer andre besøksstrategier enn de hun
har registrert, og om det også finnes andre typer utstillinger enn narrative og konseptuelle.
Forskningsdesignet er krevende, og kan trolig ikke reproduseres uten med store ressurser.
Insulanders forskningsdesign bør forenkles,
slik at det kan samles inn en mer omfattende
empiri. Det kan være hensiktsmessig om man
for eksempel vil se nærmere på forbindelsen
mellom utstillingstype, besøksstrategi og sosial bakgrunn.
Avsluttende kommentar
Avhandlingen røper en grundig arbeidende
forsker, som ikke er redd for å gå løs på de store spørsmål rundt læring i museer. Trolig vil
dette arbeidet få minst like stor betydning på
det museologiske området som på det pedagogiske. Det står stor respekt av den tillit hun viser det publikum som har bidratt i hennes
prosjekt. Mange museer har mye å lære der.
NOTER
1. Alle sitater fra avhandlingen er oversatt til norsk
av anmelderen.
2. Begrepssettet tekst, paratekst og kontekst er hentet fra litteraturteorien, og brukt i min teori om
kunstformidling, i Formidler og formidlet. En teori om kunstformidlingens praksis, Universitetsforlaget (2001), som Insulander viser til.
ANMELDELSER
Dag Solhjell, kunstsosiolog og dr. philos
Adresse: Syd-Fossum 55,
1359 Eiksmarka
Norge
E-mail: [email protected]
Amy K. Levin (red.): Gender, sexuality, and
museums. A Routledge reader. London &
New York, Routledge. 2010. 322 sider. ISBN
978-0415-55492-3.
Dette er en tankevækkende, men problematisk artikelsamling. Der er rigtigt gode indlæg
imellem, men bogen ville vinde ved en mere
målrettet redaktion. Antologien er redigeret af
Amy Levin fra Northern Illinois University,
hvis særinteresse er naturvidenskabelige museer, men de 25 indlæg dækker en bred vifte af
historiske, arkæologiske, naturvidenskabelige
og kunsthistoriske, lokale og nationale museer
– og det amerikanske kreationistmuseum!
Indlæggene er ordnet tematisk i fire dele: ”Women in museum work”, ”Theories”, ”Collections and exhibitions”, ”Case studies”. De
fleste indlæg er skrevet inden for de sidste ti år,
flere specifikt til denne antologi. Det geografiske fokus er uforklarligt snævert: 20 af de 25
kapitler fokuserer på Storbritannien og USA,
med yderligere et hver om museer i Canada,
Australien, og Israel, og ét om Marokko, Kuwait og Jordan. Det sidste kapitel er en biografisk oversigt, igen rent engelsksproget og angloamerikansk orienteret. Trods flere sidebemærkninger om tyske udstillinger og museer
undervejs, er der ingen indlæg om Tyskland,
og fraværet af den norske udstilling Imod naturen er nærmest uforklarligt (se fx Alaimo
2010: 51ff ).
Det regionale perspektiv begrænser antologiens anvendelighed. Det er tydeligt, at Storbritannien og USA ikke er forgangslande på
ligestillingsområdet. Især kapitlerne om seksualitet præges af forvirrende og forældede diskussioner af section 28, en britisk lov, der forhindrede offentlig finansiering af undervisning, udstillinger og andre tiltag, der kunne
157
ANMELDELSER
158
”fremme homoseksualitet”. Den blev vedtaget
i 1988, og afskaffet i 2003. Loven var almindeligt frygtet i den britiske museumsverden, men meget ujævnt håndhævet.
Antologien definerer sine emner snævert.
Redaktøren fremhæver, at ”gender” her alene
handler om kvinder. Der er ingen diskussioner af maskulinitet i antologien. Tilsvarende
er ”sexuality” næsten begrænset til homoseksualitet. Kun én artikel, af Erica Rand fra Bates College, diskuterer heteroseksualiteter som
vidensobjekt.
Hver del af bogen begynder med en meget
kort introduktion, hvor redaktøren blandt andet opsummerer museumshistorie på 2½ side,
feminisme i ét tekstafsnit, og queerteori på én
side. Jeg savner en mere udførlig diskussion,
også fordi de forskellige indlæg ikke er helt
kompatible med hinanden.
DE
SÆDVANLIGE , SURE OPSTØD
Indlæggene varierer meget i teoretisk og metodisk tilgang. En del viser en ”offerfeminisme”
eller ”kvotefeminisme”, der virker lidt forældet
i dag. Det gælder fx for den tidligere leder af
Chicagos børnemuseum, Marjorie Schwartzers
diskussion af amerikanske museers ledelse: der
er flere kvinder end mænd i lavtlønnede museumsstillinger, flere mænd end kvinder i ledelsen, og uerfarne mænd bliver ansat som ledere frem for erfarne kvinder. Formuleringen
antyder, at Schwartzer ville foretrække uerfarne
kvindelige chefer. Hun synes heller ikke, at opfatte museernes manglende evne til at rekruttere mænd, som et problem. Her handler ligestilling kun om, at give kvinder bedre vilkår.
Tilsvarende bemærker Ruth Adams fra King’s
College, London spydigt, at “men might be
unwilling to work their way up” i Storbritanniens museumsverden. Hun beskriver imidlertid
et system, hvor ledere (uanset køn) rekrutteres
udefra. Her synes hverken mænd eller kvinder
i stand til at arbejde sig op, uanset vilje.
Adams’ indlæg fokuserer på Elizabeth EsteveColl, direktør for The Victoria and Albert Museum fra 1987-1995. Adams mener, at EsteveColl var upopulær, fordi hun var en kvindelig
leder. Som leder var hun ansvarlig for store besparelser, og for en ændring af udstillingspolitikken, med det mål at gøre V&A mere attraktivt for et købedygtigt (yuppie) publikum.
Alligevel vælger Adams ikke at bedømme den
kvindelige leder på hendes bedrifter, men alene på køn. Det er en slags omvendt sexisme,
en sørgeligt klassisk offerteori.
Redaktørens Levins egen diskussion af tre
museer viser en nyere, men ligeså problematisk,
teoretisk tilgang. Både på den (siden ombyggede) naturvidenskabelige afdeling af Skotlands
Nationalmuseum, på Londons teknologimuseum og på kreationistmuseet i Cincinnati,
Ohio ser Levin samme problem: museerne naturaliserer heteroseksualitet og mandlig autoritet. Levin mener, at mandlige tegn (hvalpenis i
Edinburgh) er forkerte, stærke kvinder (Medusa i London, hindugudinder i Edinburgh) er
forkerte, og svage kvinder (Eva i Cincinnati) er
forkerte. Religion er forkert, videnskabelig autoritet er forkert, og lumre vittigheder, der
undergraver denne autoritet, er forkerte. Kritikken er rent negativ, og dermed ret uproduktiv. Levins kritik er nok berettiget, men den given ingen vejledning i, hvordan vi kan forbedre
museerne. Det er også bemærkelsesværdigt, at
Levin alene forholder sig til museet som formidling, og helt undgår diskussioner af udstillingernes videnskabelige værdi.
…
OG NOGET NYT
Der er heldigvis langt mere teoretisk kød på
ANMELDELSER
resten af bogen. Rebecca Manching fra Manchester Naturhistoriske Museum giver en strålende diskussion af udstoppede dyr dér. Også
hun er optaget af kvoter, men hun er overbevisende i sin argumentation for, hvorfor de er
vigtige. Manching ser museet som en præskriptiv tekst, der præsenterer en idealfortælling om det naturlige. Hun argumenterer
overbevisende for, hvorfor det er vigtigt, at
udstille hundyr, og hvorfor de ikke uden god
grund bør fremstilles som passive og svage.
Desuden giver hun fine eksempler på, hvordan man kan problematisere en udstilling
med enkle midler, også uden store budgetter,
nye præparater eller omfattende ombygninger.
Her er en klar, anvendelig opskrift på bedre
udstillinger og på, hvordan den enkelte kurator kan gøre en forskel.
Tamar Katriel fra Haifa universitet, Israel,
bidrager med et indlæg om israelske kibbutzmuseer, som også er solidt forankret i den
klassiske feminisme, men er lige så klart som
Manchings om, hvorfor kritikken er vigtig:
kibbutzerne byggede på en ideologi om ligestilling. I virkeligheden levede beboerne ikke
altid op til idealerne. Alligevel giver de museer, Katriel beskriver, publikum et rosenrødt
billede af kibbutzlivet samtidigt med, at de
fremstiller sexisme som en naturlig og acceptabel del af dette ideal. Hun dokumenterer
også, hvordan samme museumsrum kan udnyttes forskelligt: myten om de ligestillede
kibbutzer bliver både gengivet ukritisk, brugt
til at problematisere nutidens kønsroller i Israel (”Dengang gad pigerne arbejde for ligestilling”), og afsløret som en ideologisk konstruktion.
De to mest teoretiske sofistikerede genderindlæg er måske Hilda Heins (kvindestudier,
Brandeis University, USA) og Barbara Clark
Smiths (American Museum of Natural Histo-
ry, USA). Hein argumenterer, sammenhængende, men kontroversielt, for en feministisk
kritik af den vestlige epistemologi. Hun lægger vægt på, at ”’Wov!’ is as good as ”why?’”, og
på, at museer ikke kun skal give tør viden,
men også oplevelser. Det er en pointe, der harmonerer meget fint med flere indlæg om seksualitet. Smith påpeger, at vi ikke kan gå ud
fra, at vi allerede ved, hvad publikum vil have,
og at vi ikke kan gå ud fra, at markedsanalyser,
oprindeligt designet til reklameindustrien,
kan belyse dette. De kan måske fortælle os,
hvad publikum vil købe, men ikke altid, hvad
de kan lære. Hun plæderer overbevisende for,
at kønsperspektiver kan bruges overalt. Som
eksempel nævner hun flyvtekniske museer,
der ikke behøver at lede efter kvindelige piloter for at udvikle en mere feministisk tilgang
til udstillingerne: det er lige så interessant at
tydeliggøre, hvordan og hvorfor flyteknologien blev til i et næsten rent mandligt miljø.
USYNLIGHED
Andre indlæg fokuserer på usynlighed. Dette
er måske det eneste emne, der forbinder antologiens to temaer, køn og seksualitet. Især to
indlæg fortjener omtale: Laura Brandon fra
Canadas krigsmuseums skriver om museets
samling af malerier, oftest lavet af militærets
udsendte kunstnere. De fleste af disse viser
mandlige soldater i krig. Brandon fremhæver,
at også kvindernes liv på hjemmefronten ændredes af krigene. Hun giver nogle få eksempler på relevante kunstværker, ofte malet af
kvinder, men det er tydeligt, at museet reelt
mangler relevant materiale. Hendes indsats for
at inkludere kvinder i museet har derfor resulteret i en ny data- og materialeindsamling.
Den vigtigste og bedste tekst om usynlighed er imidlertid Anna Conlans (kurator ved
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160
James Galleries, University of New York) diskussion af et foto af Alice B. Toklas. Toklas
dannede par med Getrude Stein i Paris, indtil
Steins død. Derefter blev Picassos portræt af
Stein overdraget til The Metropolitan Museum
i New York. Det relevante foto viser den første
genforening af Toklas og portrættet. Conlans
tekst fokuserer på sorg og længsel, og museets
rolle som minde og monument. Det er en af
de få tekster i bogen, der for alvor diskuterer,
hvorfor museer er vigtige, og for hvem.
SEKSUALITET
Indlæggene om seksualitet er lige så ujævne i
tilgangen som indlæggene om køn. Robert
Mills’ (King’s College, London) ”Queer is
here” er en klassiker, og fortjener at blive læst
af flere. Kort opsummeret er hans pointe, at
en queer-udstilling altid må være ironisk og
problematisk. Den må altid undgå kanonisering. Mills skriver sig op imod en kronik af
den britiske aktivist Peter Thatchell, og det er
lidt overraskende, at denne ikke er genoptrykt
i antologien.
Paul Gabriels, der har arbejdet for forskellige universiteter i USA og Taiwan, skriver charmerende og selvironisk om sine egne oplevelser som kurator ved San Franciscos
GLBTHS (Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transsexual History Society), men hans idé om
”erotisk intelligens” synes søgt. Teksten fortjener, at blive læst for Gabriels erfaringer, og for
sin vægt på, at minoritetskulturer ikke kun
handler om sex. Den fortjener også kritik.
Erica Rands fra kvindestudier, Bates College, Maine, leverer med sin analyse af sex på Ellis Island en af de mest teoretisk sofistikerede
tekster i antologien, og den eneste, der virkeligt synliggør, at seksualiteter i flertal er relevante overalt. Rand skriver om prostitution,
ægteskab, udenomsaffærer, pornografi og en
række andre aspekter af seksualiteten, der er
helt centrale og helt usynlige i forståelsen af
den amerikanske immigrationshistorie.
Blandt de mere praktiske tekster er der en
markant kontrast mellem to indlæg: Michael
Petry (kunstner og kurator, London) giver en
skræmmende beskrivelse af sine oplevelser
som kurator for en kunstudstilling i England.
Han forsøgte, at samle kunstværker lavet af feterede mandlige kunstnere med reference til
deres mandlige elskere. De fleste af disse værker var allerede udstillet andetsteds. Det nye i
udstillingen var, at værkernes eksplicit blev sat
i forbindelse med kunstnernes seksualitet.
Dette førte til uunderbyggede rygter om, at
udstillingen bestod af (børne-) porno, og førte
til en panik hvor det lokale kommunalråd
censurerede udstillingen på en meget lidt professionel måde. Derimod beskriver Angela Vanegas (tidligere Croydon Museums, London)
en yderst succesfuld indsats for at gøre homoseksualitet mere synligt på et lokalmuseum i
Londonforstaden Croydon. Hun diskuterer
hvorfor, hvordan og hvilke problemer, der opstod, og viser overbevisende, at den færdige
udstilling ikke reproducerede stereotyper, men
tillod de interviewede selv at sætte grænser og
dagsordener. Det virker som et eksempel til
efterfølgelse.
GENNEMGÅENDE
TEMAER
Et af de gennemgående emner er som sagt
censur og inklusion: Vanegas argumenterer
for, at museer har en pligt til, at repræsentere
hele befolkningen, også minoriteter. Smith argumenterer for, at ingen udstilling er lige
interessant for alle besøgende. Petry og Vanegas beskriver begge nyere angreb på udstillinger, der søgte at inkludere seksuelle minoriteter,
ANMELDELSER
og Frost beskriver den historiske tradition for
at skjule dele af museets samling i ”hemmelige
museer”. Modsat viser Gavin Butt (Visual studies, Goldsmith’s college, London), hvordan
museer kan være aktive agenter i at blåstemple
kontroversielle kunstværker, og også Stuart
Frost (Victoria & Albert, London) spekulerer
over, hvordan det romerske Warrenbægers alder og association med British Museum gør
det mere acceptabelt end moderne fremstillinger af sammenlignelige pornografiske motiver. Gabriels beskriver interne debatter i
GLBTHS, hvor nogle udstillinger blev beskyldt for et for ensidigt fokus på mænd (for
meget G, og for lidt LBT), og hvor gruppen i
ét tilfælde valgte at fjerne et tidsskrift lavet af
homoseksuelle, racistiske skateboardere (”gay
nazis”). Et helt oplagt spørgsmål, som desværre kun behandles perifert, er spørgsmålet om,
hvem der har ret til censur, og på hvilket
grundlag. Vanegas plæderer for homoseksuelles (og andres) ret til selv at kontrollere, hvordan de fremstilles i udstillinger, og for alles ret
til repræsentation, mens Gabriels synes at
nægte racister samme ret til selvudtryk. Vanegas understreger, at offentlige museer har en
særlig pligt til at sikre, at alle er repræsenterede. Det er en debat, jeg gerne så udviklet
mere. Bør vi udøve selvcensur, og på hvilket
grundlag? Hvem har autoritet her?
Et andet spørgsmål gælder museernes selvopfattelse: er en museumsudstilling en blåstempling af det udstillede? Levin understreger flere gange, at museerne skal undgå stereotyper, og fx ikke kun fokusere på homoseksuelle som ofre (for AIDS, for vold, for Nazisternes udryddelseslejre). Modsat ser Conlan sorg
som helt centralt i sin diskussion af Alice B.
Toklas på museet. Indvandringsmuseet på Ellis Island fejrer indvandring som en god ting,
og er som beskrevet af Rand for ukritisk i sin
fortælling om USA’s åbenhed på området.
Kreationistmuseet i Cincinnati fejrer biblen
og kristendommen, og Gail Levins (kunsthistorie, Baruch college, New York) kritik af
Whitney-galleriets usynliggørelse af Jo Hopper går på, at de ikke fejrer hende på lige fod
med hendes mand. Er det alene museets rolle
at fejre det udstillede, som mesterværker, som
dokumentation af kulturel og naturlig diversitet, som levende kulturel tradition, eller rummer museet også plads til dokumentation af
konflikter, vrede og sorg (jf. Conlan)? Kan
museer udstille værker, kulturer eller begivenheder, uden at blåstemple disse? Er museet altid en reaktionær institution, der alene kan
fejre det samfund, vi har nu, eventuelt i kontrast til tidligere tiders diskrimination? Jeg
mistænker, at forskellige typer museum her
må acceptere forskellige ansvarsdefinitioner,
men jeg savner en diskussion.
Et tredje gennemgående tema er kontekstualisering. Vanegas giver et eksempel på en lesbisk kvinde, der fortalte om sine genvordigheder med at blive uddannet som elektriker i
1960erne, og som lånte museet en af sine
skruetrækkere til udstilling. Der er en logisk
sammenhæng mellem køn, seksualitet og problemerne med at blive accepteret som kvinde i
et traditionelt mandefag, men en lesbisk elektrikers skruetrækker er ikke genkendelig som
sådan uden baggrundsinformation. Brandon
fremhæver en kvinde, hvis historie blev del af
Canadas krigsarkiv, da hendes tidligere kærestes mor testamenterede sønnens mindeportræt og medaljer til hende, som den sidste der
kunne huske sønnen. Modsat fremhæver hun
også, at det var næsten umuligt at finde de få
krigsbilleder, der faktisk viser kvinder, fordi
registreringen ikke nævnte dette, og Petry
fremhæver, hvordan museer har skjult kunstneres (velkendte) seksualitet med tvetydige og
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162
misvisende forklaringer, og hvordan ærlighed
på dette punkt kan udløse censur udefra. Det
overordnede budskab synes, at være, at der er
brug for så megen ”tyk” beskrivelse som muligt. Hvis museumssamlinger skal have nogen
anvendelse for senere generationer af kuratorer, er det vigtigt, at alle tilgængelige informationer er registeret.
TO
BØGER I EN INDBINDING: ET FORNUFT-
SÆGTESKAB?
Der er en ret klar opdeling i antologien, hvor
nogle indlæg handler om kvinder (”gender”),
andre om (homo-)seksualitet. Der er påfaldende lidt kommunikation mellem de to dele.
Det er særligt slående, når fx Robert Ridinger
(University of Northern Illinois og the Leather Archives & Museum, USA) bemærker, at
græsrodsarkiver for homoseksuel kultur ofte
har fokuseret på politisk aktivisme. Modsvarende er der intet i ”gender”-indlæggene om
politik: hvis kvindesagen er dokumenteret, er
det ikke noget feministerne diskuterer. Denne
udeladelse overrasker mig: der findes faktisk
relevante museer, fx Kvindemuseet i Århus,
Danmark (se også Schofield & Anderton
2000: 237ff ).
Denne mangel på dialog kan rejse tvivl om,
om det overhovedet giver mening at kombinere køn og seksualitet i én antologi. Der er forskere og kritikere, der kombinerer begge tilgange (her tydeligst Rand), men der er også
mange homo- og queeraktivister, der er sørgeligt uvidende om feministisk teori, og mange
feminister, der er lige så uvidende om queerteori. Antologien viser, at disse forskellige grupper ganske ofte arbejder parallelt, og den kan
måske opfordre til større samarbejde. Alligevel
virker ”Gender, sexuality, and museums” som
to bøger i én indbinding.
En sidste bemærkning: layoutet er ikke brugervenligt. Forlaget har valgt en meget lille
skrifttype, og teksterne står tæt. Først på side
206 afsløres det, hvor forsidebilledet stammer
fra. Bogen ville vinde meget ved lidt mere introduktion, og ved mere diskussion om, hvordan indlæggene passer sammen eller støder
sammen. Forlaget fremhæver, at det er 15 år
siden, vi sidst så en gender-antologi, og at ingen har samlet museologiske LGB-indlæg før.
Dette er nok den bedste antologi, vi kommer
til at se på området længe. Desværre.
LITTERATUR
Alaimo, Stacy: “Escaping capture: the pleasure of
queer animals” i Mortimer-Sandilands, Catriona
& Erickson, Bruce (red.): Queer ecologies: sex,
nature, politic, desire, Indiana University Press:
Bloomington & Indianapolis. 2010.
Schofield, John & Anderton, Mike 2000: “The
queer archaeology of Green Gate: interpreting
contested space at Greenham Common Airbase”.
World Archaeology 32(2) 236-251.
Bo Jensen, Arkæolog, ph.d.
Adresse: Stenhuggervej 6, 4. Th
2400 København, Danmark
Email: [email protected]
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ANMELDELSER
Ole Strandgaard: Museumsbogen. Praktisk
museologi. Højbjerg: Hikuin 2010. 448 s.
ISBN 978 87 90814 58 8.
Vad betyder ett museum för människan? När
plundrare bryter sig in i Kairos museum
under revoltens mest kritiska dagar i slutet av
januari 2011 sluter ”de goda egyptierna” upp
(den egyptiske riksantikvariens ord) och bildar
skyddsvakt. Kulturarvsförstörelsen avbryts
och det som kunde ha resulterat i betydligt
värre stölder och skadegörelse hindras. Kärleken till museet som samhällets minnesgarant
(minnesbank) kan visa sig på många sätt. En
bygds omtanke om sitt lokalmuseum, en museitjänstemans ansträngning att dela med sig
av sin yrkeslivserfarenhet. Vi är många som
fortfarande tror på att museernas arbete är
viktigt, rentav livsviktigt. I tider av ekonomiska åtstramningar är det viktigt att hålla fanan
högt och visa på vidden av museernas arbete.
Ole Strandgaard har med Museumsbogen.
Praktisk museologi gjort en imponerande insats
för att beskriva museernas uppdrag och arbetsmetoder under 1900-talets senare del.
Han har som museitjänsteman i flera museer
och verksamhetsledare för Museumshøjskolen
i Danmark (sammanlagt under ca 40 år) skaffat sig en enastående god överblick över området. Boken ger många exempel från museipraktiken i större och mindre museer främst i
Danmark, men även i Sverige, Norge, Finland, England, Tyskland, Holland och USA.
Hans mål med den innehållsrika boken är att
den ska användas av många som intresserar sig
för museer, inte främst de professionella utan
snarare allmänheten, museiamatörer och studenter. Och vilken museihandbok detta vore
att sätta i händerna på ansvariga kulturpolitiker i museernas styrelser!
Strandgaard hoppas förmedla glädjen av att
ha varit en del av museiutvecklingen under
den expansiva perioden 1960-1980. Hans
eget yrkesliv började under den period när
museitjänstemannen skulle behärska alla områden, skulle utföra allt i museet, ”skulle selv
kunna det hele”. Han refererar då och då till
den fiktive museimannen Jensen på det lilla
hanterbara Fjordköpings museum som bland
de mångsidiga arbetsuppgifterna ges goda råd.
Han minns t.ex. när föremålen på hyllorna i
magasinen gav inspiration till utställningar.
Nu måste man istället leta i ännu så länge ofta
undermåliga databaser, vilket inte alls ger
samma känsla. Men det höjer säkerheten och
ökar tillgängligheten, i alla fall när systemen är
fullt utbyggda. Det är inte utan att man känner sig aningen avundsjuk på den tiden när arbetet innefattade hela den museala processen.
”Museer er eventyr!” konstaterar författaren
och boken är fylld av museihistoria samt erfarenheter i teori och praktik som han gärna delar med sig av. Här beskrivs allt ifrån hur man
märker museiföremål, sätter ljus och skriver
utställningstexter till resonemang om teoretiska metodindelningar för olika typer av utställningar (utställningsspråk). Boken tillägnas
den gode vännen och kollegan under samma
tid, den svenske museologen och museiförnyaren Per-Uno Ågren (1929-2008), som tillsammans med Ole Strandgaard och den norske museologen John-Aage Gjestrum (19532001) startade tidskriften Nordisk Museologi
1993, vars målsättning var att skapa ett nordiskt forum för artiklar om museers teori och
praktik.
Museumbogen är skriven på ett personligt
övertygande erfarenhetsbaserat sätt, ett slags
sammanfattning i 17 fullmatade kapitel av
vad 40 års museiarbete givit. Författaren betonar i förordet att boken är ett bidrag till mu-
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ANMELDELSER
164
seologin, men att den behandlar praktisk museologi och inte akademisk vetenskapsteori.
Förvisso finns många praktiska beskrivningar
inom områden som t.ex. insamling, registrering, katalogisering, föremålshantering, säkerhet, utställningsproduktion, förmedling och
kommunikation. Men här görs också ett antal
viktiga teoretiska framställningar, i synnerhet
beträffande museets roll och uppdrag i samhället samt museernas förmedling och utställningsarbete, som är värdefulla att ta del av för
alla som arbetar i museer. Man inser värdet av
empirin och den analys av metoder som använts i museerna de senaste decennierna. Av
utrymmesskäl kan boken inte fördjupa sig
ännu mer – det skulle behövas fler böcker till
det – men sammantaget ges en tydlig anvisning om att museiarbete är mångsidigt och
komplicerat. En hel vetenskap – såväl i praktiken som i teorin.
Med sin digra erfarenhet av arbete i museer
och med fortbildning av museianställda och
sitt inkännande förhållningssätt ger Ole
Strandgaard även incitament till museernas
fortsatta utveckling. Boken pekar med rika exempel på vikten av att följa utvecklingen på
andra håll i världen, inte bara simma lugnt i
den egna dammen. Det är definitivt så att
både museipersonal och styrelser har en hel
del att hämta här. Men förståelsen för att museer kräver resurser för att utvecklas måste definitivt finnas även hos dem som håller i pengapåsen. I Sverige, Danmark och säkert i fler
länder upplever museerna för närvarande en
kris som inte beror på att museerna saknar innehåll med betydelse och kompetens, utan
snarare en verklig garanti för sin drift och
utveckling.
Museernas publika uppdrag att vara tillgängliga och fyllda med upplevelser och kunskap kräver att de tilldelas betydande anslag.
Ole Strandgaard jämför museerna med filmoch TV-produktioner, där långa eftertexter
klargör vilka specialkompetenser och kreativa
team som behövs för varje enskild produktion. Det finns emellertid alltför liten förståelse från politikerhåll för att det på motsvarande sätt krävs mer resurser för att gå iland med
och producera högkvalitativa utställningsprojekt, där modern teknik givetvis är en viktig
del. Alltmer av museitjänstemännens arbetstid
går åt till att söka externa anslag och sponsring
för utvecklingsprojekt. Marknadstänkandet
som alltmer närmat sig museerna genom åren
påverkar den demokratiska folkbildande ideologi som 1970-talets museimän (för det var
oftast män) förespråkade. Museerna har svårt
att hävda sig gentemot annan kulturverksamhet. Kravet på betalande besökare och sponsring leder till underhållande upplevelsebaserade produktioner, som naturligtvis måste vara
värda sin inträdesbiljett. Samtidigt utesluts
människor med liten betalningsförmåga.
Marknaden stödjer inte direkt museet som
bildningsinstitution. Detta dilemma är en viktig kulturpolitisk fråga idag.
Bokens 17 kapitel är rikt illustrerade med
författarens egna fotografier från museer i
Norden och Europa. Här kan man lätt orientera sig och ta del av det som känns mest lockande och intressant för det område man arbetar inom. Och om Strandgaard själv tipsar
utställningsmakaren om att serietidningarnas
nedre högra hörn lockar läsaren att vända
blad, så är hans eget val av helsidesbild på vänstersidan av varje nytt kapitel mycket inbjudande till vidare läsning. Här följer kortfattat
vad kapitlen innehåller.
Kap 1: Vad är ett museum? Här finns definitioner och avgränsningar, det specifika med
autenticitet, upprinnelser till museibegreppet
och något om museibyggnaderna.
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Kap 2: De tre museityperna. Enligt den
danska museilagen finns kulturhistoriska,
konst- och naturhistoriska museer, vilket kan
uppfattas som att dessa har föga gemensamt. I
själva verket arbetar allt fler museer tvärvetenskapligt, vilket är den enda möjligheten i
framtiden. Peter Seeberg var tidigt ute (1993)
när han föreslog och såg ett framtidens museum som ”brett famnade mänsklighetens erfarenheter”.
Kap 3: Kulturarven. Begreppet kulturarv är
tämligen ungt och har blivit ett modeord, enligt författaren. Men det är ett problematiskt
begrepp som inbegriper musealisering och hur
museisamlingar skapas. Nationers kulturarvstvister är känslomässigt svåra att hantera och
kan leda till allvarliga konflikter. Kulturarv
kan vara materiellt eller immateriellt, nationellt och internationellt, samt av privat natur
som med tiden blir intressant för samhället.
Kap 4: Varför har vi museer? Här redovisas
några motiv för att grunda museer: en plats
för de vetenskapliga samlingarna, det pedagogiska uppdraget som gör museet likställt med
ett läromedel, det identitetsskapande uppdraget med exemplet Lifetimes i Croydon, det
privata nöjessamlandet som blir till ett museum eller museer med ett klart politiskt budskap.
Kap 5: Museerna i samhället. Här beskrivs
hur museet kan tjäna (och påverka) samhället,
dess mångsidiga uppdrag som mötesplats,
folkbildare, underhållare, del av offentlig planering, bevarandeproblematik samt ägarfrågor
och kulturpolitik.
Kap 6: Insamlingen – och forskningen.
Samlingarna är grunden i ett museum. Här
diskuteras vikten av insamlingspolitik,
forskning och samtidsdokumentation liksom
metoder och principer för att skapa en samling som speglar samhällets vara (och i för-
längningen förändring). Författaren nämner
den svenska Samdok-metoden som en ”väckelserörelse” som uppstod på 1970-talet och i
Sverige ledde till riksindelade ansvarsområden
(pooler) för dokumentation. I Danmark däremot finns intressanta invändningar mot en
sådan systematisk insamling.
Kap 7: Det antikvariska arbetet. Kulturmiljövården är en viktig del av de kulturhistoriska
museernas uppdrag. Författaren redogör för
flyttbart och fast kulturarv och de kulturbevarande förpliktelser som hör till det senare begreppet, som ofta blir illa utsatt i den moderna samhällsplaneringen. Den danska museilagen från 2001 handlar bl.a. om samarbetet
mellan museer och planläggande myndigheter.
Kap 8: Registrering och sakstyrning. Museiarbete kräver ordning. Samlingsarbetet behöver systematisering, registrering och uppordning med olika metoder. Utvecklingen
från protokoll (huvudliggare) och kartotek
med inventarienummer, ”sakstyrning med
sagsnavne” (svenskans ”sakord och specialbenämning”) till det numera omfattande arbetet
med inskrivning i databaser beskrivs i detalj.
Kap 9: En gång på museum alltid på museum. Samlingar kräver föremålsvård och rätt
förvaring för evig tid. Här argumenteras för
en genomtänkt bevarandemetodik genom att
förstörelsen via ”den mänskliga faktorn” vid
all hantering minimeras; att man ser till klimat, luftfuktighet, ljus, rengöring, konservering, arkivinredning, säkerhetsåtgärder mm.
Kap 10: Förmedlingen. Museet ska förmedla sitt vetande, det är en viktig del av uppdraget. Numera sker detta i dialog genom kommunikation på olika sätt med många olika
målgrupper. Författaren redogör för konstruktivismen, den pedagogiska teori som
hävdar att människor aktivt bygger upp sitt
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kunnande, blir brukare. Och det förmedlande
museet ska kunna möta upp, vara tillgängligt
för att kunna brukas av så många som möjligt.
Detta har under 2000-talet blivit lite av ett
mantra i den svenska museilandskapet.
Kap 11: Museiutställningen. Detta är till
synes författarens hjärtefråga. Hur gör då museerna för att förmedla sin kunskap? Utställningarna är museets signum och de kan göras
på många sätt. Här finns 70 sidor med så
många aspekter på att ”lave udstillninger” att
det blivit inte mindre än tre underrubriker
med samma namn. Här refereras till många
olika exempel och diskuteras således formgivning, rumslighet, tillgänglighet, kronologi,
rumsindelning, rekonstruktioner, modeller,
fotoförstoringar, dockor, färg och ljussättning,
ljud- och lukteffekter samt AV-teknik (inbegripet datorer och it-teknik).
Kap 12: Klassifikationer. Här ges en översiktlig genomgång av olika utställningstyper
som diskuterats sedan 1980-talets början. I
den svenska boken Utställningsspråk av Göran
Carlsson och Per-Uno Ågren (1982) presenterades fem typer: massutställning, etikettutställning, temautställning, berättande utställning och totalutställning. Ågren vidareutvecklade detta under en konferens på Museumshøjskolen 1992 till den systematiska, den analytiska, den berättande, den kontextuella, den
isolerande och den metarealistiska utställningen, samtidigt som han betonade att de flesta
utställningar är kombinationer av flera typer.
Själv förtecknar Strandgaard utifrån alla
dessa sina egna fem grundläggande typer: den
tillfälliga utställningen, presentationsutställningen, den lexikala, den narrativa och den associativa utställningen och placerar därefter
samtliga typer i en matris där axlarna består av
lexikalitet och narrativitet. Den idealiska utställningen har där en god berättelse, mycket
information som totalutställning, men är kanske inte den mest spännande tankeväckande
utställningen? Den reflexiva utställningen, ett
begrepp som Line Hjorth myntade 2000 –
och som står för att tingen iscensätts så att de
väcker förundran och manar till eftertanke –
är intressant för dagens museibesökare som
inte vill bli skrivna på näsan hela tiden. Intressant att ta del av är amerikanen Jay Rounds
beskrivningar av utställningar som ”klock-typer”. Han hävdar också att människor inte
kommer enbart för att lära utan också för att
finna mening med sitt liv.
Kap 13: Skriften på väggen. Här övertygas
läsaren om vikten av att lägga ner mycket arbete på utställningstexter. Olika typer av texter presenteras där vikten av läsbarhet och läsrytm tydligt framgår.
Kap 14: ”Museet på tryk – och allt det andra. Museipedagogernas arbetsfält är viktigt
och här ges en historik sedan 1970-talet över
utvecklingen i de danska museerna. Frågan är
om inte detta borde ha hört samman med kapitlet om förmedlingen. Metoderna är många
och i Sverige är numera drama, rollspel och
berättande ofta i bruk. Här redogörs även för
trycksaker, museipedagogik genom webb och
andra moderna tekniker, kaféer och museibutiker samt vikten av marknadsföring.
Kap 15: Etik. Museet har ett etiskt ansvar
med tillhörande förpliktelser. Allt passar definitivt inte att göra och ICOMs etiska regler
gäller i de offentliga museerna. Den viktiga
frågan om repatriering tas upp.
Kap 16: Museet som arbetsplats. Museets
olika yrkesgrupper presenteras, deras olika arbetsuppgifter liksom rekrytering och museiutbildningar.
Kap 17: Museernas organisation. Här återkommer författaren till de olika typerna av
museer men beskriver även kortfattat frilufts-
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ANMELDELSER
museer, ekomuseer samt skillnaden mellan
statliga, kommunala och självägande museer.
Kapitlet går igenom den danska museilagen
och hur muserna styrs. Sist redovisas de danska museiföreningarnas uppgifter.
En diger litteraturlista finns givetvis med i
slutet samt en notförteckning med kommentarer. Tyvärr saknas ett ordregister, något en
lärobok/handbok kunde behöva.
Aktuella handböcker i museikunskap finns
det inte många av idag. Delar av boken skulle
gott kunna utgöra kurslitteratur i museologiutbildningar i Norden och även som fortbildning för yrkesverksamma. I Sverige finns inte
något liknande bokverk som så väl redogör för
ett museums hela verksamhetsfält inklusive
den viktiga frågan om varför vi har museer.
Boken rekommenderas således varmt till erfaren som till oerfaren. Innehållet speglar naturligtvis mycket de danska museiförhållandena
(särskilt rörande museilagen, registrering och
databasarbete) men mångt och mycket är
ändå gemensamt för museer i Norden. Det
som saknas för svenska förhållanden är väl i så
fall museiarbetet beträffande begrepp som varit i ropet under 2000-talet, som mångfald,
delaktighet, jämställdhet, tillgänglighet. En
svårighet (i alla fall i Sverige) är troligtvis ovanan och otåligheten hos alltför många människor att läsa danska.1 Det man kan önska är
ett förlag som översätter och anpassar ”det
hele” till svenska museiförhållanden. Till sist:
läs boken, för museer är viktiga: ”For museer
er eventyr!”
NOTER:
1. Om svenska politikers oförmåga att förstå andra
nordiska språk kan berättas en händelse från
1990-talet. Ett museum i norra Sverige rekryterade en ny chef och en sökande som kom från
grannlandet kallades till intervju. Den sökande
var mycket kvalificerad för chefsjobbet, men eftersom museistyrelsens representanter inte kunde
förstå aspirantens ivriga resonemang om ”gjenstand” blev det ingen anställning… Lite skamligt
kan man tycka!
Britta M. Lundgren, utställningschef,
1:e antikvarie
Adress: Västerbottens museum
Box 3183, SE-903 04 Umeå
E-mail: [email protected]
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FORFATTERVEJLEDNING
168
PROFIL
Nordisk Museologi skaber et vigtigt forum for
aktuel og kritisk videnskabelig debat inden
for det nordiske museums- og kulturarvsområde og beskæftiger sig med mangfoldige emner og temaer inden for museologi, kunst, natur- og kulturarv.
REFEREE-TIDSSKRIFT
Fra 2006 nr. 1 benytter Nordisk Museologi
sig af en ekstern referee-ordning i vurderingen
af tidsskriftets hovedartikler. Referee-udtalelsen er anonym, det vil sige at referees identitet ikke er artiklens forfatter bekendt, og at
referee-udtalelsen udelukkende er en sag mellem referee og tidsskriftets redaktion. Det er
redaktionen, der forestår al korrespondance
med forfatteren af artiklen.
SPROG
Tidsskriftets sprog er dansk, norsk og svensk.
Islandske og finske forfattere må gerne indsende artikler på engelsk eller på et af de
nævnte skandinaviske sprog.
MANUSKRIPT. OMFANG, ABSTRACT
OG KEYWORDS
Artikler må max. fylde 9.000 ord og indsendes med dobbelt linjeafstand. Teksten leveres
som attachement via e-post eller som diskette/CD. I forbindelse med artikler medsendes
et resumé/abstract på max. 150 ord sammen
med 5-10 nøgleord/keywords som placeres
forrest i artiklen. For at undgå merarbejde
med redigeringsdelen bør den digitale tekst
være opsat efter følgende regler:
1. Der bør ikke foretages orddeling.
2. Kursivering (ikke understregning) anvendes for betoning af et ord eller en mening.
3. Andre typer af grafiske effekter markeres
på den tilsendte udskrift.
4. Indrykning udføres med tabulator.
5. Der anvendes tal til noter, og tallene efterfølges af et punktum og et tabulatorskift.
Noterne samles på en særskilt side efter artiklen.
6. Artikel, noter, litteraturliste og forfatterdata placeres i nævnte rækkefølge.
7. Afsnit i teksten markeres med overskrifter.
LITTERATUR
Reference i selve teksten angives med forfatteren/erne og trykår, fx (Hudson 1975: 213).
Referencen henviser dermed til den alfabetisk ordnet litteraturliste efter artiklen. Bidragsydere bedes være omhyggelig med
sammenhæng mellem referencer og litteraturlisten og bedes undgå at medtage litteratur,
som der ikke refereres til eller benyttes i selve
artiklen.
Litteraturliste kan opstilles på følgende vis:
Hudson, Kenneth: A Social History of Museums. Macmillan: London 1975. Hvis det er
en artikel, opstilles den på denne måde: Mads
Daugbjerg: De gode gamle dage genoplivet.
Nordisk Museologi. Nr 1, 2005: 3-14.
KORREKTUR
Forslag til abstract bliver sprogligt efterset af
tidsskriftets tilknyttede oversætterbureau
inden publicering, mens korrektur af selve artiklen er forfatterens eget ansvar.