Tag Archives: Heritage

Digital Museum Fictions

I’ll give a spoiler alert for this post because, although I have no intention of giving away important plot elements, I am going to talk about Interstellar and I don’t want it to be ruined for anybody here!

I really enjoyed the film on many sci-fi levels, but I was surprised to come across a museumified house in the later part. The house was very much like a heritage centre with screens showing video interviews with contemporaries of the house and the era it was meant to represent. What I thought was interesting was that the portrayal of this house was so easily recognisable as a museum.

The house which formed the museum was recognisable as a 21st century house (in the film a late 21st century house, perhaps) although the museum was present in a 22nd century context. The intention may have been to demonstrate a particular museum style to a 22nd century audience. There are current examples of this, such as the Victorian gallery at Salford Museum and Art Gallery which attempts to display its artefacts and artworks as they would have been arranged in a Victorian context. This cabinet of curiosities approach is an interesting way of showing us how museums used to be, but it does run the risk of invoking all the power structures and biases of (in Salford’s case) the Victorian era; without adequate explanation, the visitor will find their engagement with the exhibition limited to a bygone representational context, preventing alternative perspectives on the artefacts or multiple interpretations.

The Interstellar house museum is surprisingly low-tech. Video screens are pretty commonplace today and of course there are a number of more sophisticated media options now available. If Christopher Nolan orchestrated that museum representation specifically then it would seem that his message is that museums will not use much in the way of digital technology in the next few decades. It seems more likely that the museum representation had less attention paid to it than the rest of the film  and, as such, perhaps we can say that perceptions of museums from outside the heritage industry are that museums are not actually very progressive. What does it mean if it seems realistic to a Holywood production team that museums of the future will not incorporate interactive screens, holograms of previous occupants or virtual tour guides?

On the other hand, there is much to be said for the phenomenological aspect of the museum in the film. The house is there to be experienced; walked through, smelled, heard, seen. Nonetheless this is quite traditional, with rope barriers reminiscent of National Trust houses. The interpretation, I feel, is closed and restricted by traditional museological approaches. The subjectivity of the video interviews on display seems to offer little when the subject matter of the house, and its significance to its previous owners, isn’t expressed or interpreted beyond simple display.

It seemed to me that the absence of digital media engagement was a signifier of how far we have yet to go for people to feel digital technology has a legitimate place in museums.

What do you think? Is it just a film?

Development and neglect

I have been neglecting my blog terribly, but it has been very difficult to justify to myself the time to spend on it in the face of getting PhD work done and family stuff.
Last week I presented on my research progress at the Leisure Studies Association conference at the University of the West of Scotland. The experience was very helpful and one of the questions made me think about the nature of my digital outcome. I was asked if the digital representation of Towneley Park would simply provide a carbon copy of the quiet contemplative appreciation of nature; will it simply reinforce already accepted and predominant perceptions of nature and crystallise them?

The first answer to this is that it wouldn’t matter if it did reproduce predominant perceptions because the important aspect is identifying what the participants feel about the park and exploring the success of its translation into digital media. However, it is already clear that what is important about the park is not static. The participants have been expressing so much about the park that is linked to the seasons, the cycles of their lives, to movement through the park or change in oneself by being in the park. The meanings of the park are not crystallisable because they are uses and they are processual and continual.

So, a recap to cover the absent blog entries.

The story-based nature of the interviews and the data collected so far was pointed out to me by my supervisors last month. Owing to this, I am now aiming to explore the data collected using an approach of narrative analysis. This should help me to analyse not only the interview contents, but also the use of the park space. So here there is narrative expressed through language (spoken and written/transcribed) (Fraser 2004; Schorch 2014 ) but also through the use of space and the use of the body (de Certeau 1984; Tilley 1994). The second stage of data collection is currently underway and involves me visiting the park with participants in order to collect phenomenological, or phenomenologically-prompted, data. Although all aspects of discussing the park are in my view part of knowing the park, it is this second data collection stage which holds a strong sense of “practice as research” for me.

Development of the digital representation has recently been influenced by the following things:

the narrative nature of the park meanings
commonly expressed notions of variety and choice within the park by the participants
thoughts about narrative and choice inspired by an independent game “The Stanley Parable”

These things have led me to consider incorporating aspects of game architectures into the representation of the park…

Gaming at Towneley on the light side

Gaming at Towneley on the light side

No, not with shotguns and coin collecting (at least not with this research project). Rather, I am hoping to incorporate some of the narrative techniques used in game structures which can help to create a sense of place or at least a sense of involvement. This part of my research is in the early stages and I am not aiming to construct anything especially complex, but I am hoping to be able to use a gaming framework to help tell and make accessible multiple Towneley Park stories

Pendle Hill

Pendle Hill all frosty

Pendle Hill all frosty

Last month the frost visited and crisped Pendle Hill with a white coating. It was pretty. I enjoy seeing the hill from various points throughout Pendle and find it a comforting landmark as I return home from work or longer trips away. Its prominence makes me think about the impact of landscape on us; how it subtly becomes part of our subjective interpretation of the world. When I worked in the nearby town of Nelson I used to enjoy seeing Pendle Hill standing tall behind the library as I walked down Market Street. The hill is no Mount Olympus, but I still had to lift my head to take in its horizon. That particular viewpoint seems to highlight the size of the hill, but it isn’t just the physical magnitude of the landmark that makes it so effective.

Symbolically linked with the trial of the Pendle witches and an important aspect of Pendle’s tourism, the hill represents the history and heritage of the area. It is woven into the discourse of life in the region with a local saying suggesting that if you can’t see Pendle then it’s raining and if you can see Pendle then it’s about to rain. From the top you can see for a considerable distance, with many claiming to see as far as Blackpool Tower – perhaps I’ve not had lucky enough weather…

View from Pendle near the bottom

View from Pendle near the bottom

Its impact as a feature of the landscape is, I think, enhanced by its accessibility; it is a steep climb, but achievable by a wide range of people. The hill works as a common ground for conversation because you’ll be hard pressed to find somebody who has not climbed it once. As a consequence there is shared use of landscape and spatial heritage, but also of corporeal heritage; while I am reticent to imply concepts of common sense based on the body (all of our experiences are different, affected by society, culture, history etc.), we nonetheless feel that we have a common frame of reference as our bodies tend broadly to be similar. For me, to learn that somebody else has climbed Pendle is to be sure that they have been to the same place as me and also that they have learned some of the same things that I have.

 

View from the slope of Pendle

View from the slope of Pendle

We feel the work in our thighs and in our lungs as we climb and we see the effect of these exertions in our perception of the landscape or the world – the fruit of the climber’s labour is to see, hear and feel all the things about being on a tall hill that you don’t feel at the bottom. Some of these things are sensual: the wind on our skin or in our ears; the view of the towns and villages. But there are also intangible elements associated with these, such as the concept of space and the awareness that we gain of being within a landscape. The view demonstrates geographical context for us; we perceive ourselves at once to be both in one place and not in the neighbouring places that we see. It is one of the most fundamental othering effects of phenomenology; a simple reminder of the multiplicity of the world and of reality.

From the top of Pendle

From the top of Pendle

De Certeau discusses the hyperreal effect of viewing a city from above, how we feel as though we are seeing the city as a whole; it’s essence captured for us in one vision. But we are unable to see the detail of the functions and lived experience that make a city real. So it is with the view from Pendle Hill. What we see is simplified, like a map of the land reduced to the distant Yorkshire landscape, the towns on Nelson and Colne and the misty horizon towards the west coast. This hyperrealised representation is not a bad thing. It is a beautiful and different perspective.

And afterwards, when we reach the bottom with tired legs and hungry bellies, there are even more subjective experiences to be enjoyed in the Barley pubs.