The role of objects in the 21st-century museum seems to be a hot topic right about now, especially with many museums incorporating digital collections, 3-D models, and reconstructions into their understanding of what it means to interact with a museum object. When we think about …
Hello fellow museum bloggers! My name is Christina and I will be starting my second year as a master’s student in Museum Education at Tufts in the fall! You can find out more about me on the About the Blog page, but for now I …
Today we bring you an article by Christina Errico, currently a Tufts student in the Museum Education Master’s program. For the Tufts course Museums and Digital Media, students investigate and critique the real ways that museums are implementing a variety of digital media.
Recently, I visited the MFA for the first time and, realizing that I would most likely be overwhelmed by the vast amount of art in the museum, I decided to make use of their mobile guides while I was there. I didn’t mind paying the $6 because I had gotten into the museum for free with my Tufts ID, and I liked that the guide was free for those who really needed it. But if I had to pay the full $25 admission fee, it might have been a little harder for me to justify paying an extra $6 for the audio guide.
The actual device was simply an iPod touch fitted into a sturdy case that had a durable lanyard attached to it. The headphones were standard plastic headphones, nothing fancy, but what I liked about them was that the cord ran up the lanyard and came out where your collarbone would be so that the cord wouldn’t get tangled or caught on anything. As someone who owns an iPhone, I found the device’s interface very familiar and easy to use. The only issue I had with the device itself was that the case didn’t allow you to lock the iPod which meant that it was using its battery the entire time I had it. For someone like me who wanted to use the guide for multiple exhibitions, it became an issue because I eventually ran out of battery. Overall though, I really enjoyed the device itself because it was easy to use, comfortable, and well-designed.
I decided to start with the “Class Distinctions” tour and I have to say that it really enhanced my experience in that gallery. As someone who has an interest in Dutch painting but not a lot of knowledge about it, I really appreciated how they included the curator in almost every tour stop. The curator was very down to earth, engaging, and never condescending. She pointed out interesting things about the context of each painting rather than simply describing what was going on or the techniques used to paint it. Almost each stop had a “Going Deeper” section and what I loved about these were that they often focused on a different painting that was right next to the original one. These were then compared to show what the differences and similarities were and what themes were present in Dutch painting as a whole, making the entire guide seamless with the exhibit. I also liked that it usually gave directional cues on where to go next or where to look. Many of the stops had videos which were very interesting, and I appreciated how the guide would tell me exactly when to look at the screen for a video and when to look back at the art so that I never had to worry if I was missing something.
While the audio guide as a genre is not the newest idea in the museum world, I think the way the MFA handled it still made it fresh and new. By including a “Going Deeper” option, they allowed the visitor to have some choice on how much they wanted to explore rather than locking them into a specific time frame. I also liked that they brought in different voices like the curator and a poet, for instance. I additionally appreciated that, by including secondary artworks in the “Going Deeper” tracks, the audio guide actually covered most of the paintings in the gallery. For me, I felt that the “Class Distinctions” audio guide really met its learning goals of helping the visitor to slow down and learn a lot about the paintings in the greater context of Dutch art, culture, and history.
Overall, the benefits of the MFA’s mobile guide greatly outweighed the few drawbacks. I thought that it was absolutely an appropriate and almost essential use of digital media given the size of the museum and huge amounts of art. The small, personal size of the device did not take away from the art or the museum experience and the headphones didn’t bleed sound into the galleries. The MFA’s mobile guide was well-designed and well-executed and I would definitely go back and use it again.
Today we bring you an article by Christina Errico, currently a Tufts student in the Museum Education Master’s program. Here, Christina analyzes a tour at the MFA for the Tufts course Teaching and Learning in the Museum. In November, I took a docent-led tour of the Art of Europe wing …
Today we bring you an article by Christina Errico, currently a Tufts student in the Museum Education Master’s program. For the Tufts course Museums and Digital Media, students investigate and critique the real ways that museums are implementing a variety of digital media. As I made my way …
Today we bring you an article by Christina Errico, currently a Tufts student in the Museum Education Master’s program. For Museums Today: Mission and Function, the foundation course required for all Museum Studies students, students research and report on a recent topic regarding museums in the news.
In December of 2010, the London Science Museum opened its new Atmosphere gallery that focused on climate science of the past, present, and future. Yet when Shell, a major petro-chemical company and one of the largest multi-national corporations in the world, became a principal sponsor of the Atmosphere gallery, company executives began suggesting changes to the gallery’s content which caused many outsiders to call into question the museum’s ethical integrity. While museums should be avoiding even the appearance of a conflict of interest, it seems that the London Science Museum disregarded this ethical code in order to preserve its partnership with Shell.
According to the 315 pages of emails between Shell and the London Science Museum released in 2014, Shell politely requested to be described as an “energy company” rather than a “petro-chemical company,” and, if possible, they’d “prefer the wording [in the gallery] not to focus on pollution and environmental damage.” The contents of these emails do not necessarily prove that the museum agreed to censor information in the gallery, but the issue with these emails is that there was no public transparency and no accountability for the emails by the museum after they had been released. The museum’s director, Ian Blatchford, stated in a blog post that “not a single change to the curatorial program resulted from these email exchanges.” Yet the evidence from the emails and from visitor reviews suggests that there is a very real possibility this is not true.
On Atmosphere’s “About Our Funders” webpage, Shell states that they are “working hard to build a new energy system while supporting a deeper understanding of climate science.” Yet if Shell was committed to a deeper understanding of climate science, why would they ask the museum to censor the connection between energy use and pollution, one that has been recognized by scientists, the public, and even the government? As a matter of fact, Shell told the museum in an email that a drilling company working for Shell “pleaded guilty to eight felony charges tied to pollution, propulsion, and record keeping problems with the two drilling rigs that bored Arctic oil wells for Shell.” Even after learning about this incident the museum continued its partnership with Shell, seemingly without a second thought.
While the central argument against Shell and the London Science Museum focuses largely on the appearance of a conflict of interest, the relevance of this issue for the greater museum community is that even the appearance of a conflict of interest can cause the museum to lose its public’s trust. And, sadly, this is not the first time a corporate sponsorship of a museum exhibit has caused a public trust issue. To provide two additional examples, Genoways and Ireland question the ethical soundness of a tobacco company funding a tour of the U.S. Constitution and ask whether “funding from pest exterminator Orkin compromised the intellectual integrity of a major Smithsonian exhibition on insects.” Substitute Shell for Orkin and the London Science Museum for the Smithsonian and one could ask the very same question regarding the Atmosphere gallery. If issues like this continue to occur, the risk is that the entire museum field may begin to lose the trust of not just their local communities, but the greater public as well.
Ron Chew, former director for the struggling Wing Luke Asian Museum, points out that “museums, as respected educational institutions, have the power to shape public opinion.” That kind of power can be wonderfully inspiring and used to great good, but it can only be attained if the museum is seen as a respected institution by the public. Museums like the London Science Museum can therefore serve as a warning and a lesson for other museums: if they are to have the formidable power to shape public thought, they must maintain, or gain back, their public trust and respectability.