December 2007

I’m thinking about one of the points that Joel Garreau brought up in an article titled “Is There a Future for Old-Fashioned Museums?” in The Washington Post two months ago (7 Oct).

Referring to Wiliam J. Mitchell’s (director of the MIT Design Laboratory) writings about the digitalization of urban environments, Garreau points out that “the vast choices available on the Web punish places that try to be all things to all people”, and favor instead small specialized “places for the cognoscenti”.

This tendency may be valid for museums too, he suggests:

The lesson for museums is that nimble upstarts can win big. Large, long-existing players complacent in their old formulas can die.

An encouraging prospect for small mammals like Medical Museion (and Jim’s place in Oxford) who are competing with Science Museum dinosaurs!

What attracts the cognoscente/connoisseur is of course the exquisite artefacts. So, in a world of big digitalizing-frantic omnibus museums, the specialized thing-centered museum will perhaps thrive. Maybe (so believes Garreau) because it speaks to the squirrel collector inside us.

Ever noticed that the URI for this blog is www.corporeality.net/museion? In fact, this is a badly chosen URI. Corporeality means (OED) “the quality or state of being corporeal; bodily form or nature; materiality”.

Blogs (and other kinds of websites) are good for writing about and visualising concepts, ideas and things. But they cannot really convey the ‘thingness’ of material things.

So, how can material things (e.g., from our collections) be rendered in digital media that operate on the premise of textuality and visuality only? Maybe through some kind of haptic-internet browser? Like the device on this demo on the International Society for Haptic‘s website.

Any specialist out there who can help us further?

Last month, the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford opened a new exhibition called “Small Worlds: the art of the invisible”. Made in collaboration with artist Heather Barnett and poet Will Holloway, the museum uses its collection of Victorian and Edwardian microscopical specimens to stage a display of images, animation and poetry. “Where else”, the Director, Jim Bennett, asks, “can you admire bespoke wallpaper and curtains while listening to poems derived on audio-handsets?”, and adds: “If you find yourself within reach, it’s worth a look, and a listen (we think)”.

The website pictures are alluring. The exhibition will continue till 6 April 2008. Regular opening hours are: Tuesday to Friday 12-5, Saturday 10-5, Sunday 2-5 (closed between Christmas and New Year). Until you have a chance to see it, you can send e-card greetings with specimen-pics to your friends.

Yet another event that shows that the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford is one of the most innovative STM-museums in the world.