Week 2: Collecting &
Exhibiting Things: Theories
of Culture & Museums
Professor: Jan Marontate
School of Communication
Simon Fraser University
Visitor to Digital Dialogues Exhibition
Last Day:
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Course Administration
– Course Website
– Handout # 1: Syllabus, Grading, Schedule,
###ERROR in 1st version###: Quiz #2 is on
Nov. 7th not Nov. 10th !!!
Readings Weeks 1,2,3 (Handout #2)
Fieldwork: Visit to the Vancouver Art Gallery
Today:
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Lecture (1st part of class)
Workshop in Computer Lab (on course
requirements & website creation)
– Meet in 7th floor lab (room7050) at 11:40
– Note: Lab is only accessible from the elevator.
Lecture Outline
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1-Defining Culture: theories of culture,
communication & society
2-Culture & “Things”--Collecting Culture &
Cultural Heritage “Institutions”: Traditions,
Mandates & Professional Practices
3-Challenges of Digital Media, Variable or
Time-based Media for Cultural Heritage
Preservation Traditions
Part 1: Defining Culture—
General Notions (Hooper-Greenhill reading)
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The “High Culture Model”
– Culture as “civilization”, hierarchical notions
focussing on the arts, higher learning, institutions
& integration with organizations associated with
elites (even if they originated in popular or mass
culture)
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Everyday Life (Popular Culture): Lived
experience, belief systems & practices
– “ordinary people”, meanings (values or beliefs) &
practices
Theoretical Definitions of
Culture (Raymond Williams)
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process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic
“development” (or change)—”spiritual” rather than
material, “selective traditions:
Recorded culture (material & symbolic) :
“products”`--works--(intellectual esp. artistic)
embedded in practices, institutions, media, etc.
Everyday values, practices, way of life of a group of
people, period or group --lived experience at a
particular time & place
(Also: Signifiying systems: performed, constructing
meanings)
Manifestations of Culture
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symbolic culture
– values, beliefs, ways of
reasoning, style, tastes,
values, meaning
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material culture
– “things”, techniques
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Combinations of symbolic
& material (Practices &
beliefs, things as evidence)
Roots of Some Scholarly
Approaches : Theories of Meaningmaking
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Psychoanalysis: analyses symbolic meanings as symptoms of
unconscious “displaced” fears & desires (Freud)
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Structuralism & post structuralism (de Saussure)
– Structures (langue) underly everyday communication (Parole)
– Used by others in different ways (Foucault, Lacan, Kristeva etc..)
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Discourse analysis
– Way of representing (talking about) things creates knowledge &
power relations
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Semiology & semiotics
– Sign = Signified + signifier
– Manifest & latent meanings
– Levels of signification
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Denotation (obvious meaning)
Connotation (hidden meaning)
Examples: Critical Evaluation
of Cultural “Things or
Practices”
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”reading” or
“deconstructing”
cultural works &
practices
Other Approaches: Social
Studies & History of Media,
Technology & Communication
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Technological change (change in material
culture, interplay of technology & culture)
Media studies (as a technology for
communicating ideas)
Globalization (technology, communication as
material & symbolic practice)
Persistance of Culture as
Civilization Tradition
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one “good” set of values + practices
education/culture = good citizens +
responsible voters
mistrust + dislike of popular culture
Theoretical work: Matthew Arnold, Leavism
Popular Culture as threat to
“civilization” theories
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popular culture  political disorder / anarchy
(Matthew Arnold)
shared tastes, practices (elite) “good citizenship”
against democracy in culture (Leavis)
– nostalgia for past
– puritanical dislike of mass culture, “low-brow tastes”
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culture = what is best and ability to recognize it
Defining Popular Culture?
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1. culture that is well-liked? (quantitative
dimension)
– how to measure this (# of fans, power of
partisans, costs, etc..)
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2. practices, values & things that are not “high
culture”?
– But changes in “status” (ex. Opera, Jazz)
Defining Popular Culture
(cont’d)
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3. popular culture as Mass culture
– commercial dimension (capitalism)
– notion that audience is non-discriminating
– but what about audiences who know what they
like?(ex.box office flops)
– association with North American (U.S-dominated)
values
Defining Popular Culture
(cont’d)
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4. Popular culture as “from the people”
– who are the “people”?
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5. Popular culture as site of struggle between
“dominant forces” and “forces of resistance”
6. Postmodernist & Post-colonist notions -end of distinction between different forms of
culture
Criticism of Mass Culture (pt of
view of “Civilization” Tradition)
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threat to high culture
exploits people
– mindless hedonism
– addictive & debilitating
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promotes “bad” social habits
– against public good, damaging to individual
Forms/types of Culture
– Dominated -popular culture, media culture, mass
culture, low brow
– Dominant--high Culture, learned Culture, high
brow
– “Outsider” forms--Traditional and Folk Culture
Inequalities in Traditional
Typologies of Culture
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implied ranking
?evolutionary model for cultural change ?
?Western canons?
politics of diversity-- postcolonialist, feminist,
queer studies etc…
Cultural Things &
“Representation”
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Two main meanings
– Symbolic “thing” or text
– Process of presenting
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Connection with “realism”
– Does representation “constitute” reality?
– Is it separate from “reality”?
– Is there a separate “objective” (non subjective)
reality?
Culture as Lived Experience
(Raymond Williams)
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human agency (active involvement)
people not just consumers --create &
transform culture
focus on Feelings/Experience
– shared values of social group
– collective unconscious
– shared ideology
Early Use of Popular Culture in
Educating Children & working
class
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“bad” examples -- to condemn it
defense of popular culture as educational tool
( Stuart Hall & Paddy Whannel)
idea of engaging people to lead them to
“better things”
Problems:
– implied hierarchy of taste (high culture at top of a
single scale)
Definitions of Culture & Key issues in the
content contemporary Cultural Heritage
collections
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Identity politics
– production & reproduction)
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interpretation of meanings
– conscious & unconscious mental processes
– Hermeneutics
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culture & history
– Tradition, ideology, power (hegemony)
– cross-cultural communication, hegemony,
globalization
Part 2: Culture & Collections of
“Things”-
But Collecting Culture & Cultural Heritage
“Institutions”
– Origins of collections and exhibitionary institutions
– Traditions, mandates & codes of ethics
– Retaining old collections & building new?
Depends on specific mandate & cultural context
Preservation of material culture?
 Re-interpretation of meanings of collections
 Democratization & education of publics
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Traditions (the case of artworks & cultural
artefacts in museum contexts)
20th c. notions of collecting
“cultural things”
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original object or artifact as
authoritative, authentic,
unchanging record “frozen in
time”
authority or “aura” of creator
(Walter Benjamin)
– record of artists’ intention, act
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Variations in interpretations
of meanings of “things”
– Classification (artistic vs.
“historic” artifact)
– western, non-western criteria,
(different definitions of art vs.
artifact in “primitive” cultures)
Social Organization of Heritage
Preservation
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Conventions, norms
– Practices, codes or ethics & mandates
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institutional frameworks
– Division of labour, hierarchical organization
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premised on old notions of “authenticity” &
connections to “reality”
– object as primary record of creative act/lived
experience
– preserve state of object at moment of creation
(?)
Questioning
Cultural
Heritage from
Things
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Records of lived
experience and creative
practices are fragmentary,
partial
Why?
– Accidental? Deliberate?
– Contextual? (institutionalized
racism, notions of what is
important or who matters?
Material constraints (war,
poverty etc…)
– Other?
Johann Heinrich Füssli (1741 - 1825):
The Artist Weeping at the grandeur of ancien
ruins, 1778/80 http://www.kunsthaus.ch/
Objects/Artifacts as cultural
heritage (?)
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Records of life & works
– sources of “information”
– “traceurs”, “dispositifs”, devices for tracking social, artistic,
scientific practices & values
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Tensions
– knowledge, practices & objects
– tangible & intangible cultural heritage
Different values according to
the “value” of the object
Scientific? Artistic?
Ethnographic?
 Status of the
object in the
meaning-making
framework in
which it is viewed
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National Museum of Air & Space, Smithsonian Institution
Museums as Cultural authorities &
Institutions for intercultural
communication (History)
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League of Nations after WWI (c. 1920s)
– Social Agenda for the promotions of peace, recognition of
difference & distinctiveness)
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“Civilizing” mission
– Education in the high culture model
– Governmental efforts to control & regulate “norms of social behaviour”
 accept ruling-class authority
 Reshape norms of behaviour
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Museums as locus for intercultural communication :
– cultural heritage as a global right
– place of all time (heterotopia)– Foucault or “timeless”
Origins of Museum Collections
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Diverse roots:
– Popular entertainments & exhibitory institutions :
Curiosity cabinets, fairgrounds, circuses
– Private connoisseurs (learned? Elite?Or not?)
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Role of museum in systematizing collections
– Tensions: “rationalize” collections & use
“scientific” means to present museum objects as
coherent expressions of learned culture while
providing popular amusements
Mandates & Types of Museums
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Diverse: ICOM international committees (by
type of museum or museum profession)
Tensions in Museum Mandates:
Preservation of Elites or
Democratization? Some of challenges
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New skills, communication “across’ disciplines?
Persistence of old organizational structures, values & practices
museum worlds
Interplay of personal and professional, private and
public
– “hot” & “cold” moments, “thick” description (C. Geertz)
Roles of Museum
Professionals
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Hierarchical Division of “labour” & authority
– Director
– Curator (usually a trained historian)
– Conservator (restorer): touches the objects
– Conservation scientist: often training in applied
science (chemistry etc.)
– Technician
– Registrar (documentation)
Codes of ethics: Why?
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“Professionalization” (recognition of museology as a
“scientific” and intellectual discipline)
Cultural Authority of Museums (peacetime &
wartime)
Regulation of disparate practices & protection of
“things”
Protection of Museums from Political Interference
International issues– notion of global ownership of
material culture & intercultural communication
Example: ICOM Code of Ethics
Some key principles in Cultural
Heritage Preservation
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respect for
– meaning of “object or artefact”
– Preservation of collections (in perpetuity)
– In art: respect for creator’s intent
– In historic & cultural museums: community
stakeholders (newer)
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Debates: ownership and authority
– Multiple meanings
Variations in conservation
approaches according to
symbolic value, meaning
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field (arts,
sciences)
status &
meaning of the
object
type of use
treatment
conventions
Pressurized suits (Deep sea and Outer space) National Museum of Air &
Space, Smithsonian Institution
Part 3:
Challenges
from New
Technologies &
Practices
Ex. Ephemeral
Materials
‘Flesh Dress…’ (Jana
Sterbak)
New Ideas about what to
collect
Exhibition of Storefront Display covered with toxic dust from September
11, 2001, New York City. Source NYTimes, Aug. 25, 2006
Performance
example: Julie Laffin, Over, 1996
Obsolete Technologies:
(Nam June Paik. TV Garden. 1974)
Nam June Paik, TV Garden,
2000 version
Nam June Pak: Replacement
Parts Storage Area
Interactive works: example:
ada’web, 1995-1998
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www.adaweb.walker.org
Preservation and Presentation
challenges
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Physical installation components, hardware,
custom software, feedback delay time, c
perfomantive aspects
Multiple genres
– Site-specific (Internet)
– performative (interaction of viewers etc.)
Conservation & professional
practices in the “museum field”
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Archives & preservation of
– Works
– of equipment, replacement supplies & tools of
creation (ex. software & hardware)
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Documentation
– techniques for record keeping & nomenclature
of works & processes
– Information on technical standards (industry)
– Treatment experiences & standards for care
Studying Changes? Example of Art
Museums
T= Can touch
art 24 h a day
without
supervision
(Twenty-four
hours)
– Values & Practices in “art
worlds” (creators, curators,
conservators, technicians,
registrars, archivists,
collectors, publics, etc…)
D=may touch
art during
museum hours
under
supervision
– Arts institutions (mandates,
codes of ethics,
organizational structures,
professional identities)
– International networks
(disciplinary & transdisciplinary collaboration,
national traditions)
Name
Red aura =may touch artworks
Initiatives to Develop New
Strategies for the Preservation of
Variable Media Works
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Many approaches from different perspectives
– Museum traditions
– Industry (film, TV, music etc.)
– Archival traditions (public & private libraries &
archives)
– Government (information management)
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Next week: Begin with two initiatives:
Variable Media Initiative and InterPARES
(See Handout 2)
Second Half of Class: Review of
Course Administration
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Handout # 1: Syllabus, Grading, Schedule, Course Website
ERROR in 1st version: Quiz #2 is on Nov. 7th!!!!
Readings & Fieldwork
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Weeks 1,2,3 (Handout #2)
If time: Discuss visit to
Vancouver Art Galler (Haida
cultural heritage &
contemporary
society?)
– The museum visit as a form of communication
(from the perspective of the visitor, the museum
professionals & the people depicted)
– The “content” of the exhibition
– The museum as a frame or cultural context (other
shows, shop items etc.)
Example: Taste
and style as
culture
“markers”
ex. Subcultures
(“White Trash
Girl”)
“Main
Stream”