I am forwarding the article below, with the permission of the author Dr.
George MacDonald, because I think the article is relevant to the current
discussion regarding the roles of museums, museum culture and the issue of
access. Enjoy!
Leslie Chan
Dept. of Anthropology
Scarborough College, University of Toronto
Scarborough, Ontario
Canada, M1C 1A4
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DYNAMICS OF CULTURE AND IDENTITY,
AND THE POTENTIAL OF INTERACTIVE TECHNOLOGIES
TO ENGAGE USERS OF CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS
George F. MacDonald
Executive Director, Canadian Museum of Civilization
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Paper prepared for a panel session of the Cultural Technologies
Convergence conference, Toronto, 27 May 1994.
* * * * * * * * * *
In thinking about the theme of this session, it seemed to me I
might approach it from the perspective of a dreamer ... or from
the perspective of a realist. I have ended up exploring both
avenues. As the CEO of one of Canada's largest museums, and one
which - as an institution with a national mandate - is
particularly concerned with finding effective ways to extend its
services across the country, it is required to be both a
visionary and an implementer. With the great challenges facing
museums today - in adding to their traditional roles of
collector, documentor, conservator, and exhibitor, the role of
provider of electronic information services - today's museum
directors must have their feet on the ground, but their heads in
the clouds!
* * * * * * * * * *
Anyone who has read a North American newspaper in the past year
has read of the $100 billion or so that telcos, cable providers,
software houses, and media conglomerates are scrambling to spend
to develop the electronic multimedia market and claim their share
of it. The payoff is worth trillions by the end of the decade.
However, the heritage sector - museums, archives, and libraries -
seems to be (for the most part) turning a deaf ear to this
scrabble. They think of themselves as repositories of record, as
commemorating culture, rather than as catalysts of cultural
change.
My own perception, by contrast, is one of museums as dynamos of
culture, with an active role - whether conscious or unconscious -
in shaping public understanding of individual and collective
identity. Certainly I don't believe museums can remain aloof
from the course of cultural development and hope to be considered
valued institutions in society of the new millenium.
Cultural institutions are already an important part of society's
memory. The area they must concentrate on developing now is that
of communication channels which will bring that memory into the
cultural consciousness of new generations.
True, few cultural institutions have the financial resources, or
the skill sets, to take on the demanding duties of electronic
information providers. Yet they are major holders of information
content, which is their bargaining chip for mutually beneficial
alliances with industry or private developers. The well-known
case of Bill Gates' Continuum Productions Corporation, pursuing
electronic reproduction rights to museum collections, such as the
National Gallery in Britain, the Art Institute of Chicago, and
the Seattle Art Museum illustrates both the importance of content
providers to the multimedia industry, and what will happen if
museums don't themselves seize some of the initiative. Mr. Gates
is said to devote half his own time to planning Microsoft's
business strategy for consumer multimedia. His objective is to
obtain control over as much of the world's visual arts content as
possible. In Canada, Michael Copeland is attempting something
slightly less ambitious for Corel Photo Art CDs.
A similar warning sign, in terms of a battle for control over
heritage interpretation, between for-profit and for-education
institutions, is seen in the concern over the intent to create a
heritage theme park - Disney's America - in Virginia, where it
will provide direct competition for past heritage shrines such as
the Smithsonian in Washington and Colonial Williamsburg.
No less important is for cultural institutions to collaborate
with each other, in the recognition that each is custodian of
only a small part of the memory of human heritage. The total
size of the world's cultural resource databanks must be
staggering; yet all but a tiny percentage remain in their "raw"
form - which is what, I suggest, all analogue materials will be
perceived as in the Digital Age.
Beginning with the massive collections of artifacts in some
50,000 museums worldwide, and the fact that a few of them at
least over over 100 million specimens in a single institution,
the total is staggering! I would also guesstimate that there are
perhaps 100 billion historical photos worldwide (with many
individual collections numbering in the tens of millions). Film
and video archives hold billions of other images. There are
surely several billion unique written works held by libraries.
Manuscript texts, sound archives, government records and so on
extend the number beyond our imagination!
The immediate challenge for cultural institutions is to digitize
a selection of their material - the selection process itself
being challenging enough! - to serve as the content for
multimedia products and online information services. Development
of sophisticated, powerful, yet user-friendly navigation tools
for the public to access massive digital databases is another
resource-consuming problem - and one which cultural institutions
perhaps must rely on industry and the universities to solve.
Later this morning you will have an opportunity to learn of one
impressive navigational tool from its inventor, Dr. Kim Veltman.
A small number of museums already have a minor presence on the
Internet: mostly descriptions of galleries, events, services; a
scattering of digital images; and a few searchable collections
catalogues. And a growing number of institutions have produced
one or more multimedia product - whether CD-ROM, videodisc, CD-i,
for retail, or information kiosks for gallery use only . But
there has been little by way of concerted effort to prepare the
groundwork for the "virtual museum" that the (not-far-distant)
Information Superhighway will make feasible. It will have no
"site" other than video server machines which may themselves be
highly portable.
* * * * * * * * * *
Turning now to the question of what would be the potential of
these interactive digital databanks, in terms of their relevance
to the formulation of cultural identity, I want to speak
principally as a social anthropologist. From that perspective, I
feel that the implications of these databanks lie in transforming
the structure of affiliation (or how people define themselves)
over the next decade or so. To play the devil's advocate, let me
characterize the past two centuries as ones of cultural
annihilation and fragmentation for many of the world's cultures.
Not only were the material objects defining the cultural heritage
of traditional peoples detached and scattered to museums
globally, but the peoples themselves were uprooted and
transported throughout the world.
Until recently, the survival of identity and ethnicity of groups
has depended on factors such as critical size of the community,
distance from relatives, their new language, environment, and so
on. It was assumed - notably in the case of the United States'
"melting pot" ideology - that cultural absorption could be
completed within three generations at most. This presumed
absorption has been counteracted somewhat by 20th century
communication technologies, which have allowed geographical
isolation - one of the major forces for acculturation - to be
overcome to a large degree. Both ethnic and language groups have
begun to redefine themselves as "distributed" rather than
"cohesive" identities. Cities globally have become
multicultural societies, as Toronto exemplifies.
Museums and archives have played a modest, yet not insignificant,
role in this networking phenomenon, for they themselves are
geographically dispersed repositories of information and material
evidence of traditional cultures; and they can serve as forums
for public dialogue. I might instance the two dozen Ukrainian
museums that together represent a collectivity of Ukrainian
identity in Canada, and provide a network of venues for touring
shows and other activities produced in the homeland.
The growth of European supra-national identity by the EEC appears
to be encouraging a reaction on the ethnic/language level, in
which cultural groups strive to reconsolidate their adherents in
a new "virtual culture", in which (for example) "Irish" identity
can be celebrated anywhere (as on March 14), and in which any
consideration of Irish identity as a whole must take the millions
of Boston and New York Irish into account. This trend towards
"curated ethnicity" could be fuelled anew by access to in-depth
cultural databanks containing information about an ethnic group.
(How these reconstituted virtual identities will position
themselves against in situ identities will be fascinating to
observe as they evolve.)
At the same time we are seeing a revival of the indigenous
cultures in North America, Australia, and elsewhere, which once
seemed on the brink of extinction. Scientists have now dated
back these cultures tens of thousands of years. The
environmental movement has fostered new recognition and respect
for indigenous peoples' intimate knowledge of human-environment
relationships. There is renewed impetus towards repatriation of
lands, resources, and cultural treasures in many post-colonial
areas of the world. The concept of terra nullius - that is, land
takeover by colonialists premised on the land being previously
unoccupied - has now been abandoned in Australia; while in
Canada (and in the U.S., in the case of Alaska) we are seeing new
Government commitment to settling the comprehensive land claims
of Native groups, based on recognition of their cultural rights
to survival.
Such settlements will involve large enough amounts of money to
make significant changes to the regional economies of those
countries, and they will fuel the indigenous cultural renaissance
now underway. Not least through the appearance of new cultural
centres - Native-created and Native-operated. There are already
networks and resources on the Internet created for, and targeted
specifically at, Native Americans. The National Museum of the
American Indian, presently in the planning stages in Washington,
is premised upon significant Indian say in design and
programming, and upon provision of electronic information
services to Native communities across the country. Since both
the architect and network designer of their new museum are the
same persons who designed the CMC, we can ensure a high degree of
networkability between the two national museums and the people
they serve.
Converting the information resources of cultural institutions
into a common, digital form, can pave the way for resynthesis and
reanimation of dormant or moribund cultures. Unlike the science
fiction of synthesizing living dinosaurs from their DNA, found in
fossil insects' digestive tracts, the fragments of culture code
are far more recent and accessible for synthesis. Very many of
those cultural fragments have found their way into diverse
museums around the world and simply await digital resynthesis as
virtual cultural paradigms.
The virtual reconstruction of an oral indigenous culture might
begin with language materials (lexicon and grammar, etc.). To
this could be added social features (genealogical programs),
audiovisual records, material culture history, music, oratory,
etc. The aim being to recovers every surviving fragment of that
culture, restructure the cultural jigsaw, digitally, then provide
for the inheritors of that cultural tradition to have
interactive experiences with the digital culture.
An example of a prototype of a virtual ethnographic culture is
the Naga (a tribe in north-east India) project. The Cambridge
University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology put a massive
archive - 35,000 historic photos, film clips, music, maps,
ethnographic notes, photos of artifacts and artworks - onto a
videodisc and developed a sophisticated computer program to allow
fast and easy access to this archive. The disc was used in a
museum exhibition and also for a symbolic cultural repatriation -
copies of the disc were handed over to the Naga people.
A pertinent phenomenon to the reconstruction of "virtual
cultures" is the spread of what I call the "genealogical virus".
The Mormon church currently has about a quarter of a billion
people (mostly deceased) in its genealogical database - about 1%
to 2% of the total of humankind. Using computer programs, like
that developed by the Mormons, retirees and others with leisure
time and disposable funds can pursue their ancestors with a
vengeance. In fact, the majority of users of archives world-
wide are non-academics seeking genealogical information.
Ethnic museums around the world are finding strong support for
the compilation of mega-genealogies.The Beth Hatefutsoth museum
in Tel Aviv has traced the history of many of Israel's citizens
as far back as the 12th century in Europe, and asks that every
Jewish visitor log into their master lineage. The Holocaust
Museum in Washington does the same thing. The National Museum of
Scotland (which is pursuing support from expatriate Scots in New
Zealand, Canada, Australia and elsewhere to fund the a new
cultural shrine in Edinburgh) is considering a similar
genealogical approach to identify their potential sponsors.
My own museum is involved in a cultural reconstitution project
with the Tsimshian Tribal Council, which involves genealogical
research to create a backbone for a database which will be
linked to a videodisc holding images of museum collections of
Tsimshian artifacts and a textual database of artifact catalogue
records.
There are several hundred language and cultural communities in
aboriginal North America that will launch similar virtual culture
models over the next decade.
In time, the webs of family and community relationships being
woven by institutions, groups, and individuals will begin to link
into each other. The Internet might be a good vehicle for this.
Its international scope permits a two-way search: for immigrants
to seek their homeland roots, and for those remaining in their
homelands to seek out branches of the family that earlier
migrated to new lands. Certainly the phenomenon of
reconstituting the "extended family" is not limited to the post-
colonial World.
Perhaps a global genealogical database - a kind of virtual Family
of Man - will one day be possible: a framework for people to
pursue their primal identity quests through easily navigated
genealogies. Imagine the effect if one could establish a
relationship (however distant) with everyone else in the world!
As a further enhancement, programs that have been developed for
plastic surgery, forensic medicine, genetic engineering, etc.
will undoubtedly merge at some point with genealogical databases
to create the possibility of portraying one's ancestors (with
varying degrees of reliability) back through time. One pointer
in this direction is the work undertaken by the Jorvik Viking
Centre, where a Viking-age skull was scanned by computer and a
plastic surgery program used to help reconstruct the face of the
10th century man, which was then carved by a digital robot into a
mannequin used in the exhibition. Future developments in
artificial intelligence programs could give these virtual
ancestors interactive capacities and even appropriate
personalities.
For members of the aristocracy, whose family histories are well-
documented in archives, portraits, and family mausoleums, it
would not be difficult to construct a virtual parade of
animated, interactive ancestors back to medieval times. For the
masses, their ancestors may be more stylized or archetypical.
Perhaps one might be able one day to have face-to-face encounters
with one's own virtual ancestors on electronic journeys into
virtual time.
The demands of this type of virtual culture reconstruction on
cultural institutions' repositories of historical data will be
enormous. Digitization of all forms of data is now recognized as
a must. Museums and libraries that handled thousands of
enquiries a year in pre-digital days will come to face tens of
millions. User fees will have to be implemented to cover the
costs of maintaining information utilities accessible online,
globally, 24-hours a day.
Although indigenous peoples, driven by their own cultural
redevelopment objectives, may be the first to have virtual
cultures produced by and for them, much the same principles can
be applied to literate cultural groups. They will simply require
much more disk space. And, in a more limited way historical
civilizations for which archaeological and other kinds of
evidence are extensive can be digitally reconstructed for re-
experiencing the past.
A case in point would be the Maya, who have been the subject of
extensive research on many fronts in recent years. As they are
unearthed, Mayan texts are being faxed for translation by some
500 epigraphers around the globe; at the same time the
linguistic and ethnohistoric studies of surviving Maya are
increasing. The recovery of Mayan cities proceeds, with some
reconstruction involved, and information-rich tombs come to light
periodically. This all adds up to startling new insights into
the world of the Maya.
As a result, we are already seeing electronic reconstructions of
elements of the civilization. Computer-assisted reconstruction
and animation of the Mayan cities of Copan and Tikal, and other
pre-Columbian cultural settings, have been produced for a TV
miniseries entitled "500 Nations." An interactive disk is in
the conceptual stage which will allow users to wander through
Mayan cities at will and witness ceremonies or daily life. The
CMC, National Film Board, and the Mexican Institute of
Cinematography are shooting both Imax and Omnimax film called
"Mysteries of the Maya" as I speak, which will add yet another
visual dimension to the "Maya experience".
As other prototypical examples of this type of approach, let me
mention the 3-D computer model of 18th-century Montreal, in
process of creation at the Canadian Centre for Architecture,
based on years of historical research into archival records of
property ownership and transfers, that will allow you to walk its
ancient streets.Another is the videodisc and CD-ROM on the theme
of the Vikings, produced by the York Archaeological Trust and
National Museum of Denmark, compiling information and images from
50 museums around the world.
I foresee armchair tourism taking on a new dimension as
intercultural experiences can be pursued into the virtual past
through electronic reconstructions.
* * * * * * * * * *
At this point you may well ask what CMC is doing to address this
vision. Let me say that in the real world the management of
change is a much more pedestrian process. Much effort must be
spent in adjusting staff to working in an electronic environment.
Retraining, to learn new equipment and software, absorbs an
increasing amount of staff time.
CMC's basic strategy is a building-blocks approach. The first
step was to ensure our new building was equipped with the
necessary infrastructure for the Information Age, in the form of
a fibre-optic network with a powerful digital switch at the hub.
This is still the largest fibre optics based wiring plant in any
single building in the world.
The next step was to seek strategic alliances with organizations
possessing the technological expertise lacking in the museum.
Our alliance with Digital Equipment of Canada provides us with
management of our LAN, the know-how to upgrade our technological
infrastructure, and multimedia development skills. A second
alliance, also made in 1993, is with Kodak Canada. Our aim here
is to use Kodak's Photo CD system to build an archive of
digitized images of the heritage objects in our collections - a
visual database to serve as the raw resource for future
multimedia services and products. To date over 200 master Photo
CDs have been produced, holding more than 20,000 images. Half a
million analogue images are about to be digitized.
We are now moving into more of an implementation phase, through
test projects and test products.
Together with Digital and Kodak, we have instituted a project
called DigiMuse to make a comprehensive investigation of the
business, organizational, and technology assumptions behind the
provision of electronic information services, and to establish a
working prototype of the capabilities needed for electronic
outreach. This will involve defining a "cultural workbench"
(that is, a set of desktop tools to allow our staff to create
multimedia information products), and an electronic knowledge
products "retail store" (that is, an automated distribution
mechanism).
* * * * * * * * * *
Bearing in mind that all journies begin with one small step, my
institution has set out on that path towards the virtual museum
that we will surely see early in the 21st century. The first
prerequisite is to have knowledge resources in digital form, and
we are only at the beginning of that phase.
Addressing the user-interactivity aspects of the virtual museum
remains in the realm of hypothesis, at present. My feeling is
that the "information utility" concept will best serve the needs
of tomorrow's populace related to their search for personal and
cultural identity. The concept involves not only the ability to
explore freely vast digital information domains, but also the
necessary approach to funding the massive effort necessary to
turn an electronic pipedream into a virtual reality.
George MacDonald
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