A Way of Seeing

Svetlana Alpers wrote about museums as a way of seeing. In describing her first visit to a museum as a child, she writes while looking at an encased giant crab, how she marveled at its size, and how previous to her museum visit, “had therefore not imagined that it was possible” (pg 25). She explains that the museum had “transformed the crab—had heightened, by isolating, these aspects, had encouraged one to look at it in this way”. (pg25) Meaning, that the museum had opened her up to a new way of looking at crabs, had made what could have been considered a relatively normally object, and transformed it. By merely being present within a building that called itself a museum, an object is transformed into something else. It could have been the most ordinary of things, but simply by occupying museum space it was granted power, and meaning. In class we talked about this, how an object is given power, whether or not this power is deserved is beside the point. One classmate remembered hearing about an incident where a man moved signs from exhibits within an art museum to random, everyday objects within the museum. He moved the exhibit signs from the artwork to objects like a drinking fountain, a bench, a child’s discarded jacket, or the gum infested underside of a table. And this man would stand in astonished amusement as he watched people ooh and ah over these completely ordinary objects that had exhibit signs in front of them, sometimes completely ignoring the real artifact itself; “museums turn cultural materials into art objects” (pg 31). If those people had been in any other building, with any other social connotation attached to it, they wouldn’t have given those objects the time of day. They wouldn’t have given such items much though, or even a passing glance, let alone stand in front of them for an hour discussing the perceived intention of the artist with this or that piece. The social construct attached to the word, idea; of museum is one that changes a person’s perceptions and thoughts about an experience, item, or artifact. For example, I will discuss our class’s visit to the Conner Museum on Thursday. In any other place I would have regarded the skinning and stuffing and posing of dead animals in disgust. I would have cringed away and avoided looking at what I would have perceived as the mutilated remains of what were once live animals. It would not have been a pleasant experience, and I would have regarded the individual who collected such things as a cruel, sadistic, and certainly odd, person. But we were in a museum, and as such my thoughts and perceptions on the exhibit were completely different because of it. Before most of the class arrived I walked around, looking at the animals posed in life like positions, reading the information plaques, partaking in the learning of knowledge. Because of the implication of a museum, that if an item is within it, then it must something of importance, it must have been considered a positive by the museum to cultivate learning. We are taught to consider things within a glass case, or isolated from other things or within a museum as objects of importance and power. We give them power, and so they have the ability to sway and move us, where otherwise they might not have the ability to do so.

Oh crap, I've crossed over into the Dark Side of blogging and Star Trek

So I just spent the last hour or so looking at random blogs on the "most looked" at blogs section or whatever it is called; I've come to the conclusion that blogs are pretty much online diary's that you let people read if they so choose. How wierd is that? We go from hiding our diary's under our mattresses, and throwing a fit when younger siblings read it and mock us in that oh so irritating voice that only younger siblings can manage, to putting our thoughts and daily activities on the internet for random strangers to read and comment about. That is just bizzare. Who ever told us to share should be pushed down some stairs, this 'sharing your feelings' thing has gotten way out of control! So I might as well join in on the madness, especially since a blog is needed for one of my classes. Wierd.
Recently I crossed a line that I swore never to cross; I became a trekkie. Or trekker. Whatever. The point is I have offically gone over to the Dark Side. I purchased the entire original series and it is arriving today, and I plan on spending several hours with my roommates watching the awesomeness that is Shatner and Star Trek. Yes, I know, it is very sad. And yes, I do recognize how ridiculous and cheesy this show is, it is from the 60's and all that jazz. And yet, I find the cheesyness part of the original series Star Trek charm. The cheesyness only makes me like it more, and yes, I understand that that is also very wierd. My lameness only seems to increase as time goes on, and yet I care less and less. I was always a bookworm, a gamer (hey, I actually do have a life outside books, video games, and other nerd like things. I have played soccer and basketball for years, I have many friends which I love to hang out with, I go to university. See, I'm not totally lame! or maybe I am just trying to convince myself...) but when my cousin moved into my apartment when he got into school only a month or two before the semester actually began, and thus had no time to find housing of his own, he's lucky he's my favorite relative, he re-introduced me to Star Trek. By re-introduce I mean I had seen the 4th movie, you know the one with the whales (ha! seriously it always makes me laugh to say/write this), many times since it is the one they play on TV most often. And since my parents grew up in the 60's and 70's when Star Trek: TOS was still new, they would often watch it when it was on TV, making it so I had seen some of it when I was a kid. So anyways, my cousin was the catalyst, and now I love Star Trek. Le sigh. Fortunatly I've dragged by BFF down with me. Misery loves company!

Does Spirl Jetty make the Great Salt Lake a museum?

In class we established that museums were a way to demonstrate knowledge through objects; to display what we know or believe is true about the world, so museums are places of learning. Of course, objects have no inherent meaning; they are given meaning, and value, by people. Since objects are given value and meaning by people, it creates the potential for any odd collection of items to be considered a ‘museum’. But with museums, selection is the key factor in deciding what is, and what is not, considered a museum, people have to select, choose, carefully the items to be displayed in a museum. The value of the museum objects must be high, both in intrinsic value and capital. Just a high value is not enough, the object must go along with the concept the curator is trying to convey, and to have been carefully selected to be a part of the collection. Which is why national parks, though made up of objects that we consider valuable and wish to preserve, and they can also convey a meaning or concept, and the site itself was chosen, the objects within the park were not carefully selected by people for the individual value and knowledge they convey. The value of national parks is more ‘greater than the sum of its parts’ then the value of its individual parts being the ideal. So I’d say no, Spiral Jetty does not make the Great Salt Lake a museum, because it is not an object selected by someone, given value, and put into a collection to convey knowledge or an idea. Museums are also there to preserve objects of significance, and by preserving Spiral Jetty, it might go against the knowledge that the artist was trying to convey with his work. So like a national park, Spiral Jetty should not be considered a museum, because it was not selected, and preservation sort of goes against the artwork’s convey of knowledge.