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Graeme, Thanks for opening up this debate and for your provoking comments - while I find myself nodding my head in agreement with you with nearly all of your comments, I am wondering where and how computer mediated access can be anything else rather than the typical text/image metaphor of the electronic catalog and agree with Roland that the key to all this is about 'collaboration' not just 'delivery'. As a pro-active author of a number of interactive and collaborative museum projects (electronic, material and hybrid) I believe that it is up to museum (new) media producers to explore electronic architectures that engage visitors either in the gallery or online in new ways and in ways that are simply not possible in the analog world. Graeme said … ‘The problem with the technology is that it is an expensive way of delivering things that can be delivered in other ways. Certainly, text and pictures are better in books than on a screen, which relies on expensive machinery and a power supply’. * From the readers' perspective, electronic texts on the screen are experienced in exactly the same way as printed texts - after all reading is reading - while electronic texts do have the advantages of potential storage, duplication and redistribution and are free - (I am not getting into a copyright issues here). In a recent visit to the Science Museum, Wellcome Wing, the beautifully designed catalog cost me 5 pounds, which was in addition to the museum ticket (this is not a free experience) - this particular text in print is also available at www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/wellcome-wing at least the 2D versions is that is... the 3D version gives me a little more for my money. Graeme argues ‘With computers, it doesn't matter how many links there are within a given piece of text or graphic, they constitute an index. You still follow a text-based linear path no matter how convoluted. And it is a path limited by the choices made available to you. In cyber space the world is still flat and although you cannot fall off the edge, there is an edge’. * This was one of the comments that Josie Appleton made in her Museums 'for the people'? article in Spiked-online. http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/00000002D2BA.htm In the Institute of Ideas booklet version of her article, (Conversations in Print), Appleton comments that 'The simple object allows for an open encounter with no predetermined outcome - the visitor can make of it what he likes. Interactive technology only allows for closed outcomes because the encounter is all programmed in advance by the museum'. * This seems to me to be rather a naive approach to museum experience, which is as much about ideas, social interaction and personal narratives as it is about the original object. The interaction with the original object while important and presumably central to the museum experience, is not the only museum message and comparing interactive technology (about ideas) with the original object (which is about the original object) is confusing and misleading. Graeme reminds us that 'there is an 'edge' to the world in cyberspace, which he perceives as flat, but while the museum experience is about many different kinds of experiences', * so cyberspace is about many different levels of human communication. Inter-textuality or hyper-textuality are obviously both text based and intrinsically flat as Graeme points out, but many other electronic architectures are about different forms of communications, real time text-based communication, video conferencing, collaborative online treasure hunts, web-based games, emersive vrml environments, etc. Graeme commented - 'The experience, especially for children, is a computer experience - content, as studies have shown, is largely irrelevant' * but the fact that children do spent considerable time in front of their computers either at school or at home is undeniable. While I am sure that we probably would all agree that a lot of the commercially available computer games are irrelevant, they do engage children for many hours at a time and museums can harness this relationship for their institutional goals while providing engaging and meaningful experiences, drawn from the years of experiences engaging with visitors in the gallery while interpreting the culturally robust, original object. Back to Graeme, ‘Computers in galleries are the most absurd extension of this. Why waste money and space on a piece of technology when you could display a few more artefacts or devise simple ways of non-mediated access to the artefacts that are already on display. Computers in galleries are like worksheets, they draw the focus away from what is unique about museums and away from the experience of the museum. They close down any chance of open enquiry which does not necessarily require a specific, fact-based answer or feedback, but which requires, instead, that the querent has the skills to question in ways relevant to their own situation and the confidence to accept that their own answers and responses are valid’. * I would like to return to my comments about the Appleton criticism of mediated access - firstly, gallery kiosks do not replace the historical artefact or contemporary art work rather they serve to animate what might be otherwise an uninspiring and passive experience. Sadly, not all visitors are able to or desire to engage in exhibitions in an active way. I have worked in a museum for over 20 years and it sometimes is painful to watch our visitors walk through a gallery, barely glancing at objects or art works as they go. In my experience, when they have listened to a gallery talk, guided tour or have spent time learning about the exhibition through wall panel (which almost nobody reads) or catalogs (which visitors tend to buy after the visit) it is the informed visitor who will engage in the exhibition in an active way. This is what a gallery interactive technology is replacing, not the original artefact! Graeme commented... 'The vast majority of people on the planet don't have access to computer technology - they are too busy doing all the things that computer technology cannot do for them. But it also excludes those who do have or do not want access. These are people (especially children in Western society) who are fast becoming classed as stupid and as losers. It also excludes those for whom computers are an irrelevance to their way of thinking. And all these are people who are usually socially excluded from museums. Social inclusion was supposed to be the big goal of museums. That will not and cannot be achieved with computers'. * There is more than one form of social exclusion from museums. While the first would clearly be the physical exclusion by the majority of the population clearly illustrated though a glance at any random demographic research from any city in the western world, the issue of intellectual access to the collections is just as important (see Bourdieu). If computers in the gallery can do anything to activate the passive collections for the visitor and serve to present the artefacts in a coherent way for them, then the museum has gone some way to interpret the collections for the visitor and has facilitated a meaningful museum experience. Back to Graeme... 'But wouldn't it be good for there to be somewhere in society where you can get away from computers and communicate without any mediation with the material culture bequeathed us by our ancestors?' *I don’t think that anyone is about to chuck away the Elgin Marbles or Stephenson's 'Rocket' - that is obviously the kind of (object driven) experience that visitors come to the museum for in the first place, but unless the electronic experience is about surrogate archeology of the missing artefact, communicating ideas about the collections, or is digitally born art work, clearly the mediated interactive takes second place to the original. Graeme said ... ‘ Many have studied it closely and come to the decision that is simply has nothing to offer that cannot be done better in other ways - especially ones that involve unmediated access and face-to-face meetings with people. Many other museums know that they cannot afford it’. * of course they cant - they can barely afford to keep their collections in pristine condition for the public and museum interpretation, as all public education, is hard work and often an unappreciated occupation (certainly if museum salaries are anything to judge by). Often the electronic substitute for human interaction is as welcome by the visitor as it is by the museum educator... none of us are living in an idyllic world. Graeme commented… ‘An exchange of views via the Internet is all well and good, but where does it take us? It is a talking shop restricted to those who have access. How many museums have such a facility open to the general public? How often do the staff of those museums engage in conversation with the public? What are the topics? Have changes resulted from them in the museums involved or to their websites? These are things I would be interested to know’. * Graeme points to several issues here... I sense that some of the agency experienced by surfers online is spilling into real-life experience and as with consumers who are now demanding more commodity determination (and receiving it) in the market place, so museums are beginning to respond to the questions raised by their publics. This month, the Institute of Ideas http://www.instituteofideas.com/pieties/bm.htm is hosting a month of discussion and debate on the arts, and sponsored the debate at the British Museum last week. These are all public forums and hopefully engage the museum and the public in an open and meaningful debate. Last years Oxford one-day colloquium, (for museum professionals) Beyond the Museum http://www.hcu.ox.ac.uk/beyond/museum/programme.html opened up provocative discussion and debating two questions... This House believes that museums are in danger of losing the initiative in the digital revolution. For: 43 Against: 60 This House believes that new technologies are contributing to the dumbing-down of museums. For: 8 Against: 43 Such public debates are easily facilitated online by museums and I would agree with Graeme and would like to see museums engaging with their publics through their websites or other online digital activities. Susan Hazan (not-so-wealthy, brown, middle-aged, female) Jerusalem/Israel =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- "There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?" (Dick Cavett) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Susan Hazan - Curator of New Media Education Unit Head of Internet Office - The Israel Museum, Jerusalem http://www.imj.org.il Tel: 972 2 6708066 Fax: 972 2 6708077 Tel (direct): 972 2 5618224 http://www.imj.org.il/shazan =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-