Aaron, I won't say that the medium IS the message -- that's already
been said, I think -- but it obviously makes a huge difference;
otherwise, it would make no sense ever to do an exhibit, since we
already have books, films, plays, etc.  There may or may not be such a
thing as "underlying issues" but EVERY medium re-contextualizes them or,
more properly, provides a different or new context for them.  Even a
context-free environment, like cyberspace, whatever that is, is a kind of
context -- a de-context maybe.  People look for cues as to how to
interpret what they are experiencing; in some media -- film, print,
theater -- a long critical tradition has familiarized them with how to
read the environment and position themselves in it, but there is lots
of evidence that for most people that process is missing in their
museum experience.  You might be interested in the Spring 1994
Exhibitionist (Vol. 13, No. 1), dealing with exhibition criticism.
 
On Fri, 19 Aug 1994 07:23:55 -0400, Aaron Goldblatt wrote:
 
>Hello Douglas Worts
>    Your note from 8/16 was challenging. I've been thinking about it a bit
>since then and have a couple of thoughts.
>    Whenever a discussion of substance seems to turn on a particular
>technology, my instinct is to try to drop that technology from the discourse
>and see if things still make sense. What you addressed in your letter (that was
>of most interest to me) was the "authoritarian paradigm" under which museums
>(not unlike most other educational institutions) assume their role. How this
>hierarchy expresses itself is far from limited to high tech devices. Assuming
>control over the meaning of objects is the same whether they are digitized or
>in real time. I find the current discussion under the title of "Mummies and
>Micro-climates" to be telling in this regard. Who controls the process of
>constructing meaning?
>    It was, for me, something of a religious experience to read Barthes' "The
>Death of the Author" a few years ago. My guess is that "author" is a rather
>broad term, and we can easily substitute museum in there. If we can allow
>visitors/users the space to create their own meaning from the experience
>without the "appropriate" or "correct" interpretation breathing down their
>necks, we might be moving in the right direction. Of course the risks are
>there. Perpetuating stereotypes, misinformation, etc.,etc.,etc.  Who said it
>would be easy?
>    I don't see that the medium makes that much difference in dealing with the
>underlying issues. Clearly I'm deciding what the underlying issues are, don't
>we all?
>
>Aaron Goldblatt
>Please Touch Museum
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