Thesis Meetings: 1/28/14

Last week resulted in a lot of reading and reading, and a bit more reading. With my new shift/focussing one of the big to-dos was to define new luminaries and get into the scholarship around multi-sensory exhibits.

As a result, I am adding these four to my list of luminaries.

Amanda Cachia: Curator from Sydney, Australia. Currently completing her PhD in Art History, Theory & Criticism at the UC San Diego. Former student at CCA.¹
Madeline Schwartzman: Author of See Yourself Sensing, a survey of artists and designers who explore relationships of the body, technology, and senses.
Georgina Kleege: Teaches creative writing and disability studies at UC Berkeley.
Juhani Pallasmaa: Finnish architect. Author of The Eyes of the Skin – Architecture and the Senses.

Last week I also made my list of CCA faculty I would like to reach out to for a discussion about what they think as artists or curators. So far I have met with one curator, and will reach out to others today.

Here are my discussion questions:

• What is the societal purpose of an art museum?
• Are art museums accessible to the general public? Should they be more or less accessible?
• What is the value of handling objects versus looking at objects?
• As a curator, how do you decide which stories to tell?
• As a historian, what do you do when you don't know the answer?
• In terms of displaying work and telling object stories, what are museums doing right?
• In terms of displaying work and telling object stories, where are museums falling short?

In terms of multi-sensory exhibits, there have been a number of them done and studies and luckily, the general feeling is that yes, they do indeed increase visitor enjoyment, retention, and understanding of the content of the exhibit. This was something that Scott and I spent a majority of our time discussing. If the multi-sensory museum exhibit is often done and accepted as  good, then why am I focusing on this? 

My work needs to be responding to something, or taking a stance; I need to define the motivation driving my experiments. 

Here is where my luminaries come in. In an article about her experience during a touch tour at MoMA, Georgina Kleege writes that vision is immediate and comprehensive, where as touch is additive and discovery happens a bit at a time.² This same point also came up during a discussion with my classmate, Tim Carpenter, and this is one of my driving forces. What would happen if vision were not comprehensive and immediate? A new way of seeing could make you slow down, notice new details, and come up with new questions. How might I make an experience that invites users to view art in an additive way?

Kleege also makes a point that "since everyone does not get to touch the art, as much as they might want to, there is a value in hearing what we—the privileged few—have to say about it.”³ This also feels like potential to become a driving force but I need to think on it for longer.

What else are my driving forces? Scott and I discussed a few options which sounded like there was potential. What does it mean to really experience something from a historical perspective? What about material or process immersion?

What is the experience I want people to walk away with? 

So far my language has been about seeing objects anew, in stages or layers, and finding nuance. I don't want my experiences to feel forced or contrived. This experience, like all museum experiences, should to be enticing. I also don't want to overwhelm people with views. I want increase access by means of creative multi-sensory views, but Scott cautioned against offering so many views that the visitor feels there is nothing left to discover.

What happens when I inevitably cannot display a masterpiece in the design MFA exhibition?
1) Too early to worry about this.

2) There is also the philosophical case to be made that the masterpieces we see today aren't the "original" anyway. There are countless mediation factors; the obvious factors (lighting, glass, museum crowds, velvet ropes) and the less obvious factors (discoloration, canvas modification, restoration, curator and museum perspective, forgeries).

With this in mind, perhaps there really is no genuine experience, in which case it doesn't matter whether the "original" is present. It is a big, bold point to make, but I like it.

To do

Start a running list of all the multi-sensory art exhibitions and related studies

Look into the Pilara Foundation Collection at the photography museum at Pier 24 in relation to the no genuine experience concept.

Come up with +/- six  "driving forces"
Contact more curators and artists
Finish my work plan and keep working

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1. Cachia, Amanda. “Talking Blind: Disability, Access, and the Discursive Turn.” Disability Studies Quarterly 33.3 (2013): n. pag. Web. 23 Jan. 2013.
2. Kleege, Georgina. "Some Touching Thoughts and Wishful Thinking" Disability Studies Quarterly 33.3 (2013): n. pag. Web. 6 Oct. 2013.
3. Ibid.