14.6.06
Museum critique...
A good deal of critique (influenced largely by postmodernism) has emerged regarding the ways in which museum displays have often abetted the colonial enterprise .. by removing artifacts from context, casting a lens (and thereby distinguishing and alienating) the ‘other’ and speaking in a disembodied authoritarian voice (i.e. privilege masking itself as science). Today, in an attempt to re-contextualize historic objects, many exhibit designers draw on the pastiche and over-stimulation of Disney displays. Too often these latter over-simplify histories. The disneyficiation of exhibit design underlines how cultures and hidden histories are coopted, neutered and marketed under late global capitalism (I hate to say "post-industrial" as that term only hides the extraordinary labor and resources currently exploited ... although "late" gives in to a certain millenarian sentiment).
Exhibition as a form of anthropology: assumption that from shards, stories, architecture, ceremonies, one can create a coherent — if contradictory — cosmology. Inherent acceptance of idea that humans create systems of meaning and these systems are reflected in the most commonplace practices and objects of utility (do I mean tools?) and that they then seek to explain their acts/choices within those systems, or conversely re-interpret systems to explain acts/choices.
Culture with a capital "K": one must be wary of the idea of describing a specific ethnic group as a discrete entity that can be identified by distinguishing markers (let alone representing said group in a ‘natural history’ .. i.e. one step away from the animals .. museum). In this, it is important to consider the emergence of the concept of volk within late 19th century German and its spread — through a kind of intellectual proselytizing — throughout the Balkans and beyond. Further the role of ethnic difference within empire (particularly the Ottomons, who preceded the British in equating ethnic identities with economic niches, as a means of colonial administration). Too, it is critical to consider the syncretic nature of culture versus the homogenizing principles of nation.
Agency: This issue also warrants some reflection. I think of E.H. Carr's idea — bastardized here — of social thinkers being divided into two camps (like the two faces of Janus): the historians look backwards and are overwhelmed by feelings of determinism and the futility of action; the engineers and/or Utopianists look solely to the future, believing fully in man's ability to solve all problems through the application of reason or (good)will. Raymond Williams (in Marxism and Literature) tries to resolve a certain hegemonic conundrum, arguing that, while anti-hegemonies cannot help but reflect (and thus be determined) by dominant hegemonies, there are spaces that open up through what he terms "structures of feelings". De Certeau in Everyday Practices points to the pedestrian re-writing the premeditated script of urban planners. In this way perhaps, design may — gleefully even — both participate in and usurp/redefine the limits of our contextuallly determined perceptions.
Exhibition as a form of anthropology: assumption that from shards, stories, architecture, ceremonies, one can create a coherent — if contradictory — cosmology. Inherent acceptance of idea that humans create systems of meaning and these systems are reflected in the most commonplace practices and objects of utility (do I mean tools?) and that they then seek to explain their acts/choices within those systems, or conversely re-interpret systems to explain acts/choices.
Culture with a capital "K": one must be wary of the idea of describing a specific ethnic group as a discrete entity that can be identified by distinguishing markers (let alone representing said group in a ‘natural history’ .. i.e. one step away from the animals .. museum). In this, it is important to consider the emergence of the concept of volk within late 19th century German and its spread — through a kind of intellectual proselytizing — throughout the Balkans and beyond. Further the role of ethnic difference within empire (particularly the Ottomons, who preceded the British in equating ethnic identities with economic niches, as a means of colonial administration). Too, it is critical to consider the syncretic nature of culture versus the homogenizing principles of nation.
Agency: This issue also warrants some reflection. I think of E.H. Carr's idea — bastardized here — of social thinkers being divided into two camps (like the two faces of Janus): the historians look backwards and are overwhelmed by feelings of determinism and the futility of action; the engineers and/or Utopianists look solely to the future, believing fully in man's ability to solve all problems through the application of reason or (good)will. Raymond Williams (in Marxism and Literature) tries to resolve a certain hegemonic conundrum, arguing that, while anti-hegemonies cannot help but reflect (and thus be determined) by dominant hegemonies, there are spaces that open up through what he terms "structures of feelings". De Certeau in Everyday Practices points to the pedestrian re-writing the premeditated script of urban planners. In this way perhaps, design may — gleefully even — both participate in and usurp/redefine the limits of our contextuallly determined perceptions.
