Museum Plagues

A repost from my friend Ignora Muse.  She lost her password shortly after and probably may make an appearance here sometime in the future.

Ignora Muse
Sunday, 2 October 2011, 5:30 AM
Los Angeles

Just a note -- I saw MICROBES: Invisible Invaders, Amazing Allies in Los Angeles in 1997. It was a private exhibition (I guess the museum couldn't pull from its own collection, even though every museum has one of those collections) by Evergreen Exhibits.

The very first cubical exhibit was "Dr. Medieval," a fabricated Parisian catacomb with aMedico Della Peste (plague doctor) wearing the beak mask/respirator (designed by Dr. Charles de Lorme in 1619) . The exhibit label copy quoted the infamous nursery rhyme:

"Ring around the Rosie, 

A pocket full of posies

Ashes, ashes

We all fall down."

Then describe the nursery rhyme's origin as a description of the plague. Unfortunately, it is probably not true. snopes.com gives an excellent explanation here. Since this exhibit is relatively recent (within the last 25 years), there is no excuse for such lazy scholarship. This sort of deception is common in museums, i.e. presenting a romanticized unified view of history while failing to account for matters of scientific or historiographical dispute (and not providing alternative arguments).

Museums & Interactivity

“But why?” said the curator. “They could have studied it in the museum! We’re very interactive these days!”

“Interactive?” said Vimes. “What do you mean?”

“Well, people can … look at the pictures as much as they want,” said Sir Reynold. He sounded a little annoyed. People shouldn’t ask that kind of question.

“And the pictures do what, exactly?”

“Er … hang there, Commander,” said Sir Reynold. “Of course.”

“So what you mean is, people can come and look at the pictures, and the pictures, for their part, are looked at?”

“Rather like that, yes,” said the curator. He thought for a moment, aware that this probably wasn’t sufficient, and added, “But dynamically.” (Pratchett, 2005)

If you are someone who is my colleague, friend, or acquaintance, you are aware of my hyper-critical, cynical nature. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed myself at this year’s MESC Annual Institute on Leadership. In most cases, I find myself holding myself back from participating in the Q & A session, for fear of being perceived as asking unfair or entrapping questions, or at worst, to be perceived as making myself look smarter than the speaker.

This was not true for the Keynote Address speaker Ben Cameron. I couldn’t respond immediately because of the inspirational high off his energy, ability to articulate leadership, and confront from the problems we all face as museum educators. Not to disappoint my fans, I could find a small criticism that I can’t help but comment on (although to be fair, I cannot help but compliment this excellent keynote).

Ben Cameron sets up the “sense of urgency” (those who heard Dr. Abraham-Silver speak later will know what I’m referring to) for us to develop a vision for the future of museums. In the keynote, he states that because of modern technology in social networking, self-produced art and content made possible by YouTube and the similar sites, and blogging, that the era of democracy is here, and it is up to us to be able to transfer from educators to engagers, directors to facilitators, and et cetera.

But then he attacks video games. It surprised me that video games beats out web, TV, and other entertainment. This is probably because the last game I seriously played was Ms. Pac Man (quite progressive, now that I think about it, considering the use of “Ms.”). Actually, I consider this one of my few talents; I am excellent at Ms. Pac Man. Yes, I have attempted to play games such as “Grand Theft Auto” – but for some odd reason, I cannot remember what all the buttons are for and I think if I stared at the nearly-real looking imagery too long I’d probably have a seizure.

Regardless, Mr. Cameron’s claims that video games today includes violent, unacceptable, and many things as arts and museum educators, we try to teach against. I have no additional commentary on this, as ignorant as I am of video games, I’m positive that the same imagery and content that drives other aspects of American culture drives the video game realm of entertainment.

But I disagree with the assumption that our role is to compete with this media. No, I’m not saying we should have museum video games. The phenomenon of the popularity of video games is what we should be looking at to help us to define a future pedagogy for Museum education; actually, it should drive the museum as a whole.

Let’s face it—the world is against us. For the last hundred years, serious deep content was lost to the University. To add salt to our wounds, we have seen our important work (e.g. being a sidekick to the mediocre education system and civilizing the unwashed masses) fall terribly to the technology revolution. Yes, face up to it: Wikipedia delivers content better than us museum educators.

(Ok, ok, I concede a little bit. Technology has not completely eradicated the impact of museums on the world, just that of exhibitions and most of museum education (we still have babysitting responsibilities!). In those institutions that support research, we need to face the fact that is overlooked greatly, that curators and research has the largest audience and impact on society. “Heresy,” I hear you say, “all our curators do is research, argue with each other, and make our lives miserable.” Yes, and they publish, argue, research, argue, publish, argue some more, and so on. And the knowledge that is produced by this research contributes to the worldwide body of knowledge that eventually is sifted into galleries, school textbooks, and Wikipedia. No, we no longer believe that the plague is caused by tarantulas and that demons are the cause of crazy behavior—we know better because somebody researched it). For better or worse, our curators are building the future’s reality, and as international communication increases their impact amplifies. Just don’t tell them that. In essence, the sum total of research constructs our perception of reality. But just try counting that on your next impact report!)

Back to video games, the key is interactivity. I hear you old timers saying, “we tried interactivity back in the late 1980s and early 1990s.” No, we didn’t. A great example of this failed buzzword is the Natural History Museum’s “interactive” portion of the Hall of Birds. A lot of static content, buttons to reinforce that static content, and lots of broken expensive equipment, but nothing really interactive.

Videogames are interactive. Compared to movies, which the ‘experiencer’ goes and passively receives the narrative from a director, a video game facilitates the constraints of the narrative, but the director is the ‘experiencer.’ In other words, if I could play Grand Theft Auto, I would be calling the shots (pun unintentional) and I chose how where I am going with the content. It is brilliant, powerful, and ultimately, popular. Imagine if we could harness that same level of interactivity at our museum?

Another criticism common of video games, television, etc. is that these media deprive users of social interaction (is the old couch potato now the mouse potato?). Not true. Actually, quite the opposite—so I’ve heard. Most games, including the dreaded Grand Theft Auto, have a way to play against international gamers and still within the constraints within the game creators, interact with each other. This has resulted in some sort of virtual subculture which has its own jargon, moires, values, etc. In fact, in 2006, hardcore “gamers” got their own non-profit, called the Electronic Consumers Association[1] that lobbies and advocates for their very niche interests.

Before the anti-obesity lobby blacklists me, I must reinforce: no, I’m not advocating for the museum video game. Like the fruitless competing with multinational corporate theme parks that will always squash our so-called “edutainment,” we don’t, and will never, have the resources—or skill—to compete in the video game market. Also, it would NOT be innovative. In fact, it would be embarrassing and tragic. And no, please don't put more buttons in your gallery reinforce the same dead content.

The idea that we need to turn our museums into places that respond to the needs of the publics that we serve is a decades old issue. One just needs to dust off their copies of museum studies or museum education books written in the last 20 years and you’ll find each address this conundrum.

Here is the question we must answer ultimately: how can we create a museum or museum program, but have the visitors drive or produce their own learning and experience within the constraints of our mission and museum narrative?

Quote from: Pratchett, T. (2005). Thud! New York, New York, USA: HarperCollins.

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[1] No kidding. Check it out: http://www.theeca.com/ and http://www.gamepolitics.com/

You might have noticed, especially if you live in or around Los Angeles, that illegal immigration has become a little bit of an issue in the national consciousness and by federal lawmakers. I must admit: I have this compulsion for solving problems permanently.

Since I live in Southern California, I reap the benefits of illegal immigration on a daily basis. Although I am by no means affluent, I can pretty much treat myself to a meal at any restaurant, purchase any exotic vegetable or fruit anytime of year, or get help around the house by picking up someone at my local Day Laborer site. How fortunate am I that this is possible? This is the American Dream, isn’t it?

When the controversy to give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses in the State of California during the last months of Gray Davis’s governorship, I was appalled by the mass stupidity of the American public. Of course, I should be used to it, but sometimes it wakes me up from my complacency. I remember arguing to my friends, “What a great idea!" Since the federal government is completely negligent in dealing with illegal immigration (neither keeping them out nor developing efficient means for them to get legal status in a reasonable timeframe), I figured California could deal with its burgeoning debts that result from a population that pays only sales tax. Immigrants with driver’s licenses could actually be tested to drive and be accountable for their driving record. Even better, they could get car insurance! If it all works out, immigrants could apply for decent housing, get health insurance, and live as a productive member of our society contributing to the American Dream.

I couldn’t find one reason to deny illegal immigrants driver’s licenses. Sure, some people came up with some dumb and reactionary reasons, such as raising “security concerns.” I really didn’t understand the arguments, since giving driver’s licenses documents the undocumented. Isn’t it much more dangerous to have terrorists who are undocumented than ones who are documented? How do you track the undocumented? Sounds like squandering resources to me. God help us if we solve the immigration problem; if that happened, could we stop wasting tax money on immigration enforcement? I think smaller government is a great idea, but just for things that don’t work: immigration and drug enforcement, etc.

What would happen if the government would halt illegal immigration and made it a felony to be illegal? Would we pay $10.00 for a strawberry? $15.00 for a head of lettuce? Would a cooked breakfast at a diner cost over $20.00? To me, enforcing immigration laws would bring about the collapse of our society as we know it. Well, only for the poor and working class. Just like gas, electricity, and water price hikes, the price of produce would only hurt the poor, working, and lower middle classes. This is humorously ironic considering that the working class is the prime population that opposes illegal immigration—and probably all immigration.

All of this got me thinking: why the hell does the federal government not deal with immigration? Republican and Democratic administrations have both pretended to care about enforcing immigration reforms, and would sign legislation, but the result has always been a few border crossers get shot and not much else. Enforcement pretty much doesn’t exist. The epiphany hit me: the federal government must not enforce these laws because they know the result of it: economic collapse of the American Dream. How stupid could I be! Or, how stupid could the working class be by putting pressure on their legislators to enforce immigration law? Are they that stupid?

However, I drew in a deep breath and dread overwhelmed my thoughts, “Is this how people felt about the abolition of slavery? That by making slavery illegal that the economy and society would crumble for decades?” I wondered what side of the fence I should be on: the fearers of change or the abolitionists? Am I willing to have a subclass of cheap labor in return for a better life for myself? Worst of all, would doing the right thing have me aligning my support with people who are stupid and racist?

These are the questions I am struggling with. I wonder if Senator Bill Frist (R-Tenn) is struggling with the same issues? I’m trying very hard to not laugh at that last statement, but seriously, is anybody having this discussion? In the end, I figure if they start enforcing immigration reform, republicans would lose power due to being to blame for the looming economic crisis. Unless, as always, this is just another show to uphold slavery.