ICOM INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF MUSEUMS

ICOFOM International Committee for Museology

COMITÉ INTERNATIONAL POUR LA MUSÉOLOGIE Comité Internacional para la Museología

31st ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM

MUSEUMS, MUSEOLOGY AND GLOBAL COMMUNICATION

MUSÉES, MUSÉOLOGIE ET COMMUNICATION GLOBALE

MUSEOS, MUSEOLOGÍA Y COMUNICACIÓN GLOBAL

CHANGSHA, CHINA

14 – 21 September 2008

ISS 37

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ICOFOM Study Series - ISS 37 Evaluation Committee / Comité de lecture / Comité de evaluación Chair / Président / Presidente André DESVALLÉES Evaluation team members : English papers: Ann DAVIS (Canada), Lynn MARANDA (Canada), Suzanne NASH (Suède) Textes en français: Mathilde BELLAIGUE (France), André GOB (Belgique), François MAIRESSE (Belgique) Textos en español: Mónica GORGAS / Elvira PEREYRA LARSEN (Argentina) Published on behalf of the ICOM’s International Committee for Museology Edité au nom du Comité international pour la muséologie de l’ICOM Publicado en nombre del Comité Internacional para la Museología del ICOM Page make-up / Compaginación / Mise en page André DESVALLÉES Pemanent Advisor / Consejero Permanente / Conseiller permanent de l’ICOFOM Chairman of the Evaluation Committee / Président du comité de lecture / Presidente del Comité de Evaluación © Published on behalf of ICOFOM (ICOM International Committee for Museology) by Chinese National Committee of ICOM ISBN 978-3-00-0254422-2

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CONTENTS / SOMMAIRE / ÍNDICE

Foreward by Nelly Decarolis, President of ICOFOM 7 Avant-Propos de Nelly Decarolis, Présidente d’ICOFOM 9 Prólogo de Nelly Decarolis, Presidente de ICOFOM 5 Provocative Paper / Communication pour provoquer / Documento Provocativo – Lynn MARANDA, Vancouver Museum - Vancouver, Canada REFLECTIONS ON THE TOPICS OF THE ICOFOM SYMPOSIUM 2008 11 RÉFLEXIONS SUR LES THÈMES DU SYMPOSIUM ICOFOM 2008 13 REFLEXIONES SOBRE TEMAS DEL SIMPOSIO DEL ICOFOM 2008 15 Preamble / Préambule / Preámbulo – SU Donghai, Senior Curator, The National Museum of China - Beijing, China MUSEUM, MUSEOLOGY : BE CAUTIOUS OF THE TECHNOLOGY DOCTRINE // MUSÉE ET MUSÉOLOGIE : ATTENTION À LA DOCTRINE TECHNOLOGIQUE // MUSEOS Y MUSEO-LOGÍA : SEA CAUTELOSO CON LA DOCTRINA TECNOLÓGICA 17 1. MUSEUMS, GLOBAL FORUMS FOR CONTEMPORARY MUSEOLOGY // LES MUSÉES, FORUM MONDIAUX POUR LA MUSÉOLOGIE CONTEMPORAINE // MUSEOS, FOROS GLOBALES DE LA MUSEOLOGÍA CONTEMPORÁNEA 21 1.1 Museums, communication agents within cross-cultural understanding // Les musées, agents de communication dans le cadre d’une compréhension interculturelle // Museos, agentes de comunicación en el entendimiento intercultura 21 DUAN Yong, Deputy Director, The Palace Museum, Beijing, China. CULTURAL DIVERSITY : THE STARTING POINT AND GOAL OF MUSEUMS // LA DIVERSITÉ CULTURELLE : POINT DE DÉPART ET OBJECTIF DES MUSÉES // DIVERSIDAD CULTURAL : PUNTO DE PARTIDA Y META DE LOS MUSEOS 23 LIMA Diana-Farjalla Correia, UNIRIO,Rio-de-Janeiro, Brazil. MUSEOLOGY, INFORMATION, INTERCOMMUNICATION : INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE, DIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONAL TERMINOLOGY IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN // MUSÉOLOGIE, INFORMATION, INTERCOMMUNICATION : PATRIMOINE CULTUREL IMMATÉRIEL, DIVERSITÉ ET TERMINOLOGIE PROFESSIONNELLE EN ALMÉRIQUE ET DANS LES CARAÏBES // MUSEOLOGÍA, INFORMACIÓN, INTERCOMUNICACIÓN : PATRIMONIO CULTURAL INTANGIBLE, DIVERSIDAD Y TERMINOLOGÍA PROFESIONAL EN AMÉRICA LATINA Y EL CARIBE 29

TANG Jiaqing, Fujian Museum of Modern Chinese History, Fuzhou, China. MUSEUM AESTHETICS – A CROSS CULTURAL BRIDGE // L’ESTHÉTIQUE DES MUSÉES : UN PONT INTERCULTUREL // ESTÉTICA DEL MUSEO – UN PUENTE INTERCULTURAL 39

1.2 The global dialogue among communities, an interactive process // Le dialogue mondial entre communautés : un processus interactif // El diálogo global entre comunidades : un proceso interactivo 45

DAVIS Ann, The Nickle Arts Museum, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada THE MARKET AND CIVIL SOCIETY // LE MARCHÉ ET LA SOCIÉTÉ CIVILE // MERCADO Y SOCIEDAD CIVIL 47 2. MUSEUMS AND MUSEOLOGY, CHANGING ROLES // LES MUSÉES ET LA MUSÉOLOGIE : UN CHANGEMENT DE RÔLES // MUSEOS Y MUSEOLOGÍA : CAMBIO DE ROLES 57 2.1 Museums, museology and the new information and communication technologies // Les musées, la muséologie et les nouvelles techniques d’information et de communication // Museos, museología y las nuevas tecnologías de la información y la comunicación 57

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CHANG Wan-Chen,National Hsin-Chu University of Education –Chinese Taipei. MUSEUMS IN THE INTERNET ERA AND THEIR RELATIONS WITH THEIR AUDIENCE // LES MUSÉES À L’HEURE D’INTERNET ET LEURS RELATIONS AVEC LE PUBLIC // LOS MUSEOS EN LA ERA DE INTERNET Y SUS RELACIONES CON EL PÚBLICO 59

HERNÁNDEZ HERNÁNDEZ FRANCISCA, Universidad Complutense de Madrid - Madrid, España. APORTACIONES DE LAS NUEVAS TECNOLOGÍAS AL NUEVO CONCEPTO DE MUSEO // NEW TECHNOLOGIES CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE NEW CONCEPT OF MUSEUM // LES APPORTS DES NOUVELLES TECHNOLOGIES AU NOUVEAU CONCEPT DE MUSÉE 71

SCHEINER Tereza, Postgraduate Program in Museology and Heritage, UNIRIO/MAST, Rio-de-Janeiro, Brazil. MUSEUM AND MUSEOLOGY : CHANGING ROLES OR CHANGING PARADIGMS? // MUSÉE ET MUSÉOLOGIE : CHANGEMENTS DE RÔLES OU CHANGEMENTS DE PARADIGMES ? // MUSEOS Y MUSEOLOGÍA : ¿CAMBIO DE ROLES O CAMBIO DE PARADIGMAS? 81 2.2 Museums, museology and the social impact of informatics // Les musées, la muséologie et l’impact social des techniques informatiques // Museos, museología y el impacto social de la informática 91 77 DELOCHE Bernard, Université Lyon 3 – Lyon, France VERS LA PRISE DE CONSCIENCE DE L’EXISTENCE D’UN MUSÉE PARALLÈLE // TOWARDS THE AWAKENING OF THE EXISTENCE OF A PARALLEL MUSEUM // HACIA EL DESPERTAR DE LA EXISTENCIA DE UN MUSEO PARALELO 93 2.3 The symbolism of the virtual space and a new interpretation of reality // Le symbolisme de l’espace virtuel et une nouvelle interprétation de la réalité // El simbolismo del espacio virtual y una nueva interpretación de la realidad 101 BRULON SOARES, Bruno C., Brazil – THE MUSEUM OF PEOPLE : STRUGGLING WITH THE GLOBAL MYTH // LE MUSÉE DU PEUPLE : EN LUTTE CONTRE LE MYTHE PLANÉTAIRE // EL MUSEO DE LA GENTE : LIDIANDO CON EL MITO GLOBAL 103

DOLÁK Jan, UNESCO Chair of Museology and World Heritage - Brno, Czech Republic A MUSEUM IS THE REALITY // UN MUSÉE EST LA RÉALITÉ // UN MUSEO ES LA REALIDAD 115

2.4 A global vision preserving plural identities/common heritage in a changing world // Une vision globale préservant des identités plurielles/un patrimoine commun dans un monde changeant // Una visión global para la preservación de identidades plurales/patrimonio común en un mundo en cambio 123

HARRIS Jennifer, Curtin University of Technology – Perth, Australia GLOBALISATION, POST-COLONIALISM AND MUSEUMS // LA MONDIALISATION, LE POST-COLONIALISME ET LES MUSÉES // GLOBALIZACIÓN, POSCOLONIALISMO Y MUSEOS 125 MARANDA Lynn, Vancouver Museum - Vancouver, Canada MUSEUMS, MUSEOLOGY AND GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS - WHITHER CULTURAL DIVERSITY? // MUSÉE ET MUSÉOLOGIE À L’ÉPOQUE DE LA COMMUNICATION PLANÉTAIRE : UN PAS VERS LA DIVERSITÉ CULTURELLE ? // MUSEOS, MUSEOLOGÍA Y COMUNICACIONES GLOBALES - ¿UN PASO HACIA LA DIVERSIDAD CULTURAL 133 CAI Qin, Senior Researcher, Zhejiang Provincial Museum, Hangzhou, China ON THE PRINCIPLES OF THE MUSEUM’S ROLE IN SAFEGUARDING INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE // À PROPOS DES PRINCIPES CONCERNANT LE RÖLE DU MUSÉE CONCERNANT LA SAUVEGARDE DU PATRIMOINE IMMATERIEL // ACERCA DE LOS PRINCIPIOS DEL ROL DEL MUSEO EN LA SALVAGUARDA DEL PATRIMONIO INTANGIBLE 139

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PRÓLOGO

por Lic. Nelly DECAROLIS Presidente of ICOFOM / ICOM La presente publicación del ICOFOM Study Series Nº 37 reúne una vez más, como es habitual desde hace tres décadas, reflexiones teóricas de profesionales provenientes de la museología y de diversas disciplinas conexas como la antropología, la filosofía, la sociología, la comunicación y las artes. A través de sus distintas líneas de pensamiento y de la variedad de sus enfoques, los autores de los documentos que integran esta compilación procuran dar respuesta a problemáticas que están transformando drásticamente las condiciones de la vida actual: la globalización y la diversidad cultural en la era de Internet, donde la virtualidad ha generado innovadoras perspectivas. Es necesario hacer frente a los cambios producidos por esta revolución tecnológica que se inició a fines del siglo XX; conocer su incidencia en la evolución del museo, de su entorno y en la concepción de lo real; evaluar al mismo tiempo sus alcances y el tratamiento con que deberá incorporar las nuevas tecnologías, sin desvirtuar su esencia ni su filosofía, en la certeza que de este modo no constituyen una amenaza sino un desafío que ofrece diversas alternativas de interacción. Una vez más los contenidos seleccionados responden a la convocatoria que año tras año caracteriza los simposios científico/académicos del ICOFOM. La reflexión gira alrededor de temas puntuales que constituyen, en sí mismos, los fundamentos teóricos de la museología contemporánea, base y sustento del accionar del museo en un permanente vaivén que conjuga la teoría con la praxis. Los autores que integran esta publicación han debido optar entre dos grandes temas para sus reflexiones. Dichos temas, que en una primera instancia parecieran antagónicos, no lo son necesariamente, ya que sus caminos pueden llegar a complementarse e incluso unificarse en la esperanza de lograr una convivencia armónica en beneficio de las condiciones de vida de un mundo convulsionado por numerosas crisis. En el primer tema se invita a rescatar la capacidad del museo para desempeñar un importante papel como foro global de la museología contemporánea. Su objetivo es alcanzar procesos interactivos de entendimiento intercultural frente a las certidumbres e incertidumbres que generan los planteos de la globalización. Asimismo se procura destacar que los cambios radicales producidos en las sociedades, tanto en lo económico como en lo político, social y cultural, se verían beneficiados por la aplicación de una nueva ética global que incorporase, a partir del museo, el respeto por las identidades plurales en su diversidad étnica, ya sea en sus comunidades de pertenencia o fuera de ellas. En el segundo tema, los trabajos académicos se orientan hacia una problemática de candente actualidad: el análisis y la reflexión acerca de los cambios de roles con que se ve enfrentada la museología como disciplina científica y el museo como hacedor, capaz de llevar adelante los cambios que exige el acelerado desarrollo de las nuevas tecnologías de la comunicación y la información en la edad del Internet. Por una parte, el espacio electrónico se ha convertido en un nuevo e importante espacio social que difiere por su estructura de cualquier otro, con una modalidad de acción sin precedentes en la historia que posibilita a los seres humanos el actuar a distancia. Por otra parte, el espacio y el tiempo llegan a transformar las percepciones, los recuerdos y las sensaciones y plantean un cambio fundamental en los conceptos filosóficos referidos a dichas categorías.

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En esta oportunidad, nuestro Comité Internacional es huésped de China a través de la generosa invitación cursada por las autoridades de la Provincia de Hunan, el Comité Nacional del ICOM y la Asociación China de Museos y el encuentro anual 2008 Museos, Museología y Comunicación Global se llevará a cabo en Changsha, milenaria ciudad histórica donde se presentará esta nueva publicación que incluye -entre otros- trabajos de nuestros colegas chinos. Es importante destacar que, con la materialización del ISS 37, el ICOFOM ha dado solución a un reclamo de larga data: la creación de un comité que -en calidad de jurado- tenga a su cargo la lectura, evaluación y selección de los documentos a publicar a partir de este año 2008. Bajo la dirección de André Desvallées, figura de vanguardia de la museología francesa y uno de los más calificados expertos de la museología mundial contemporánea, se convocaron reconocidas personalidades de esa disciplina y de otras afines, quienes llevaron a cabo su tarea con objetividad, idoneidad y rapidez ejemplares. Internet facilitó la labor del comité, y el más estricto anonimato sobre la identidad de los autores fue una regla ineludible durante la etapa de selección. Nuestro especial reconocimiento a todos los miembros del jurado por su dedicación, pericia y respeto en el análisis de todos y cada uno de los documentos presentados; en forma particular, a André por haber aceptado este desafío. A los autores de los trabajos presentados, sin excepción, publicados o no publicados, nuestro agradecimiento por su valiosa colaboración y por haber comprendido la importancia de un espacio que nació, allá por 1977, como producto de los sueños de un grupo de visionarios que creyeron en la museología. A partir de ese momento y a lo largo de todos estos años de investigación y estudio, numerosos miembros del ICOFOM han tenido y continúan teniendo la capacidad y la fe necesarias para consolidar y presentar la evolución del pensamiento museológico a través de una producción bibliográfica de características únicas en su género, que constituye el corpus teórico de una disciplina científica llamada Museología...

Buenos Aires, 29 de agosto de 2008

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FOREWORD

Nelly DECAROLIS, President of ICOFOM / ICOM

As in the last three decades, the ICOFOM Study Series No. 37 also includes theoretical comments made by professionals from the fields of museology and other related disciplines such as anthropology, philosophy, sociology, communication and arts.

Through different lines of thought and a variety of approaches, the authors of the documents of this compilation attempt to answer the queries arising from concepts which are drastically transforming current living conditions: globalization and cultural diversity in the Internet age, in which virtuality has given rise to new prospects. It is necessary to face the changes brought about by this technological revolution which started at the end of the 20th century; get to know its incidence on the evolution of museums, their environment and the notion of the real, and at the same time, evaluate the scope of the technological revolution and how museums should incorporate the new technologies without changing their essence or philosophy, in the certainty that technology is not a threat but a challenge offering several options for interaction.

Once again the selected contents are the outcome of ICOFOM scientific/academic symposia held year after year. Reflections included herein refer to specific topics which are in themselves the theoretical foundation of contemporary museology, the basis and support of museum-related activities in a permanent flow between theory and practice.

The authors of the papers included in this publication have opted between two broad topics which, in a first approach, may seem to be opposing subjects but are not necessarily so. They can complement each other and even become unified in the hope of achieving a harmonic coexistence to favour living conditions in a world affected by many crises.

The first topic retrieves the museum’s capacity to play an important role as a global forum of contemporary museology. Its purpose is to set up interactive processes for inter-cultural understanding vis-à-vis the certainties and uncertainties of globalization. Furthermore, an attempt is made to highlight that the radical changes taking place within societies at the economic as well as political, social and cultural levels will benefit from the application of a new global ethics which, based on museums, will include respect for plural identities in their ethnic diversity, either within or outside their communities of origin.

The second topic is covered by academic papers which address a current problem: analysis and reflection on the shifting roles faced by museology as a scientific discipline and by museums as entities that are capable of implementing the changes required by the speedy development of new information and communication technologies during the Internet age. On the one hand, the electronic space has become a new, important social setting, different from any other as regards its structure, which allows human beings to act remotely, in a manner without precedents in history. On the other hand, space and time can transform perceptions, memories and feelings which bring about a fundamental change in both of the above philosophical categories.

On this occasion, China will host our International Committee's meeting by kind invitation of the Hunan provincial authorities, the National Committee of ICOM and the Chinese Association of Museums. The 2008 Annual Meeting on Museums, Museology and Global Communication will take place in Changsha, a thousand-year-old city where this

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publication - which includes, among others, works of our Chinese colleagues- will be presented.

It is important to underscore that through publication ISS 37, ICOFOM has provided a solution to a long-standing claim : the creation of a committee to act as a jury in charge of reading, evaluating and selecting documents to be published as from 2008. Under the guidance of André Desvallées, one of the most qualified experts of contemporary world museology and an avant-garde figure of French museology, renowned personalities of this and other related disciplines were convened and carried out their work with exemplary objectivity, dedication and promptness. Internet facilitated the committee’s job and allowed compliance with the unavoidable rule of maintaining the strictest anonymity of the authors at the selection stage. Our special acknowledgment to all jury members for their dedication, skill and respect in analyzing each and every one of the papers presented and, particularly, to André for having accepted this challenge.

Our gratitude to all authors, whether their papers were published or not, for their valuable contribution and for having understood the importance of our organization which was created back in 1977 as a result of the dream of a group of visionaries who believed in museology. As from then and throughout 30 years of research and study, several ICOFOM members have had the necessary capacity and intent to consolidate and present the evolution of museological thinking through a unique annual publication that has built the theoretical corpus of a scientific discipline called Museology.

Buenos Aires, 29 August 2008

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AVANT-PROPOS

de Lic. Nelly DECAROLIS, Présidente d’ICOFOM

Cette publication de l’ICOFOM Study Series Nº 37, organe de diffusion de l’ICOFOM,

réunit encore, comme elle le fait depuis trois décennies, des réflexions théoriques de professionnels de la muséologie et de diverses disciplines connexes comme l’anthropologie, la philosophie, la sociologie, la communication et les arts.

À travers leurs différents courants de pensée et la variété de leurs points de vue, les

auteurs des documents qui composent ce recueil de textes essaient de donner une réponse aux problématiques qui sont en train de transformer d’une façon drastique les conditions de la vie actuelle, comme la mondialisation et la diversité culturelle à l’ère de l’Internet, où la « virtualité » a introduit de nouvelles perspectives. Il faut faire face aux changements produits par cette révolution technologique qui a commencé à la fin du 20ème siècle ; il faut connaître son incidence dans l’évolution du musée, de son entourage et de sa conception du réel ; il faut évaluer ses effets et le traitement que le musée devra employer pour incorporer les nouvelles technologies sans dénaturer ni son essence ni sa philosophie, ayant la certitude qu’elles ne sont pas une menace mais un défi qui offre de différentes alternatives d’interaction.

Une fois de plus, les textes répondent à l’appel qui caractérise les Symposiums

scientifique/académiques de l’ICOFOM. La réflexion tourne autour de thèmes ponctuels qui constituent en eux-mêmes les fondements théoriques de la muséologie contemporaine, base et support de l’action du musée, dans un permanent va-et-vient qui joint ensemble la théorie avec la praxis.

Les auteurs des textes de cette publication ont dû opter, de leur part, entre deux

grands thèmes pour ses réflexions. Ces thèmes, qui pourraient d’abord paraître antagonistes ne le sont pas forcément, puisque leurs chemins peuvent arriver à se compléter et même à s’unifier dans l’espoir d’atteindre une cohabitation harmonieuse qui apporte des bénéfices aux conditions de vie d’un monde bouleversé par de crises nombreuses.

Le premier thème invite à récupérer la capacité du musée de jouer un rôle important

en tant que forum mondial de la muséologie contemporaine. Son but est d’atteindre des procès interactifs de compréhension interculturelle face aux certitudes et incertitudes provoquées par les questionnements de la mondialisation . Pareillement, ce premier thème essaie de mettre en relief le fait que les changements radicaux dans les sociétés, aussi bien sous l’aspect économique que sous l’aspect politique, social et culturel, pourraient tirer profit de l’application d’une nouvelle éthique mondiale qui, à partir du musée, inclurait le respect envers les identités plurielles en leur diversité ethnique, soit dans leurs communautés d’appartenance ou hors d’elles.

Le deuxième thème axe les travaux intellectuels vers une problématique de grande

actualité : l’analyse et la réflexion autour des changements de rôles auxquels doit faire face la muséologie en tant que discipline scientifique et le musée comme réalisateur, capable de mener à bien les changements exigés par le développement accéléré des nouvelles technologies de la communication et de l’information dans l’ère de l’Internet: d’une part, l’espace électronique est devenu un espace social nouveau et important qui diffère de n‘importe quel autre par son structure, avec un mode d’action sans antécédents dans

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l’histoire qui donne aux êtres humaines la possibilité d’agir à la distance. De l’autre, l’espace et le temps arrivent jusqu’à transformer les perceptions, les souvenirs et les sensations et proposent un changement dans les concepts philosophiques concernant ces catégories.

À cette occasion, notre Comité International est l’hôte de Chine à travers la

généreuse invitation faite par les autorités de l’ICOM national, l’Association des Musées Chinois et la Province de Hunan pour effectuer la Réunion Annuelle 2008 Musées, Muséologie et Communication Globale. Notre remerciement le plus profond à tous ceux qui nous accueillent si gentiment dans la ville de Changsha, où sera présentée cette nouvelle publication, qui compte des collègues chinois parmi ces auteurs,.

De même, il est important de souligner très spécialement, qu’avec la présentation de

l’ISS 37, l’ICOFOM s’acquitte d’une demande de longue date : la création d’un véritable comité de lecture et d’évaluation, chargé du choix des documents pouvant être publiés dès cette année. Sous la direction d’André Desvallées, un des experts les plus qualifiés de la muséologie mondiale contemporaine, figure d’avant-garde de la muséologie française, furent sollicitées des personnalités reconnues de cette discipline et des disciplines connexes, qui ont travaillé avec une objectivité, une application et une rapidité exemplaires. L‘Internet a rendu plus facile le fonctionnement, et le plus strict anonymat de l’identité des auteurs a été la règle incontournable.

À eux tous, et spécialement à André, notre reconnaissance la plus sincère pour le

dévouement dans leur travail, pour l’aptitude et le respect dans le traitement de tous et de chacun des textes, publiés et non publiés - dans ce dernier cas pour des motifs règlementaires le plus souvent dûs à des erreurs d’interprétation des thèmes imposés ou bien aux questionnements théoriques concernant le travail intellectuel qui caractérise l’ICOFOM).

À tous les auteurs des travaux présentés, sans exception, mon remerciement pour

leur précieuse collaboration et pour avoir compris l’importance d’un espace qui est né en 1977 comme résultat des rêves d’un groupe de visionnaires qui ont cru en la muséologie. Dès ce moment, et pendant toutes ces années de recherche et d’étude, de nombreux membres de l’ICOFOM ont eu et continuent d’avoir la capacité et la foi nécessaires pour raffermir et présenter l’évolution de la pensée muséologique à travers une production bibliographique, unique en son genre, le corpus théorique d’une discipline scientifique : la Muséologie.

Buenos-Aires, le 29 Août 2009

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PROVOCATIVE PAPER

REFLECTIONS ON THE TOPICS OF THE ICOFOM SYMPOSIUM 2008 : Museums, Museology and Global Communication Lynn MARANDA - Vancouver, Canada ___________________________________________________________________

The world is changing with a rapidity that exceeds any imagination. Communication is almost instantaneous. Every structure within the communications grid is affected, whether it be cultural, social, economic, political or otherwise in nature. So too, museums and by extension, museology, are drawn into the web and many of the ‘sacred’ constructs and elements are being bombarded by a movement of change the world has hitherto not experienced.

Can museums/museology withstand the onslaught as some of its most cherished

components are challenged? Can museums continue to be the sole keepers of the world’s tangible and intangible heritage? At the same time, will museums be able to maintain the ethical precepts they hold so dear? The very fact that the core of museum work, the collections, can now be digitized and presented in so many different ways poses a challenge to the ‘sanctity’ of the object. It now questions the closely held perception of authenticity, and even calls into question whether the ‘real’ is necessary any more.

Communication by the current electronic means is now so wide-spread and multifaceted that information and images can easily be appropriated, manipulated, and sent to the far reaches of the earth within an instant. Think of the potential consequences for the museum object, from one that is fixed in a finite space, to one that is suddenly mobile in a space that is virtually infinite. No limits in time or place. Hard to conceive of such an extreme change in such a short space of time. But how the museum chooses to meet this challenge will depend largely on how it decides to address the issue.

Yet another ‘new reality’ is securely in place. What does the museum do? Meet it head-on ? Fight it tooth and nail ? Give in to it ? Become complacent in the hope that the phenomenon will pass ? Ignore it? Examine ways in which it can work ? Whatever course is chosen, it cannot be avoided. It is global and it is here to stay and it will evolve into what we do not yet know at present.

Museums will be compelled to change regardless of approach, or they risk being left

behind as a useful commodity to the publics they serve. They can internalize the rationale for the route they choose to take or they can reach outward towards the benefits that can be gleaned. Certainly, museums have their collections which they will continue to process and preserve for present and future generations. Museums almost religiously safeguard these materials for use, normally by them for the edification of their publics. But what about their use by the public at large ? Museums now have the opportunity to be able to disseminate their collections to their publics on a scale unmatched just a few years ago. Databases, in which collections information and images are stored, have been developed and made available to whomever would wish access. The outreach capabilities are almost endless.

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But, what about the important question of the relationship between globalization and cultural diversity ? Cultures have undergone change ever since contact with ‘others’. Trading between different cultural groups and the resultant cultural appropriations have been a way of life since time immemorial. ‘Unspoiled’ cultures no longer exist and blue jeans and T shirts are worn even in remote ‘third world’ villages. While evidence of contact and change first manifests itself in the material culture of a people, this does not necessarily mean that the structures of that culture will also change in a like manner. Change, however, is as ongoing as the cultural continuum in which it is reflected. Nothing stays the same. Now, with the advent of an electronic evolution that challenges anything that has gone before, is there a fear that the cultures will cease to exist in diverse forms and that cultural annihilation could be the norm?

It is certain, however, that high-speed communication will afford the rapid dissemina-

tion of information on any subject to wherever and whomever has the economic and technological capability to receive the same. For museums and museology, is this not an opportunity to play yet another role, this time in support of the preservation of cultural diversity through the promotion of cross cultural respect and understanding through dialogue involving multiple voices ?

The purpose of the 2008 theme and the topics for discussion is to begin to examine

the interface between global communications and museums/museology, and the changes this phenomenon has already made and will continue to make in our arena of activity. How will we address this issue ? How can we make it work for us ? Over time, there have been many other external-originating factors which have caused museums to change their perspective and ultimately their way of thinking and their mode of operation. True, the biggest incursion into our comfortable little world has probably been the current electronic ‘revolution’. Will museums adapt to this new stimuli as they have to so many before ? Can these changes be reflected in the precepts governing museology ? Is there another ‘new’ museology on the horizon? Who knows what the future will hold and where museums and museology will be even a decade from now ? Rhetorical questions for speculative thought in a world full of change and yes, uncertainty.

Vancouver, Canada 30 March 2008

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COMMUNICATION POUR PROVOQUER RÉFLEXIONS SUR LES THÈMES DU SYMPOSIUM DE L'ICOFOM 2008 : Musées, muséologie et communication planétaire Lynn MARANDA - Vancouver, Canada ___________________________________________________________________

Le monde est en train de changer à une vitesse qui dépasse notre imagination. La communication se fait presque à l'instant. Chaque structure dans les réseaux de communication en est atteinte où ce que se soit: la culture, la société, l'économie, la politique, etc. Les musées et, par extension, la muséologie son entraînés vers la Web et ils sont nombreux les constructus et les éléments 'sacrés' a être bombardés par un mouvement de changement que le monde n'avait pas ressenti jusqu'à nos jours.

Les musées, la muséologie, peuvent-ils supporter le choc lorsque leurs plus chers composants se trouvent menacés ? Les musées, peuvent-ils rester les seuls gardiens du patrimoine mondial, matériel et immatériel ? En même temps, les musées, seront-ils capables de conserver les préceptes éthiques qu'ils soutiennent avec passion ? Le fait même que l'axe du travail muséal, les collections, puissent aujourd'hui être digitalisées et présentées de façons tellement diverses, pose un défi à la 'sainteté' de l'objet. On met en question la perception d'authenticité et on doute même que le réel soit encore nécessaire.

La communication à travers les moyens électroniques actuels est tellement répandue et elle est si multiface qu'elle permet de s'emparer de l'information et des images, de les manipuler facilement et de les envoyer jusqu'aux plus lointains confins de la Terre en un seul instant. Pensons aux effets potentiels d'un objet muséal depuis celui qui se trouve fixé dans l'espace fini, jusqu'à celui qui, tout à coup, se déplace dans un espace virtuellement infini, sans avoir de limites ni dans le temps ni dans l'espace. Il est difficile de concevoir un changement si radical dans une période de temps si courte. Le moyen que le musée choisira pour faire face à ce défi dépendra en grande mesure de la façon dont il décidera d'aborder le thème.

Cependant, on trouve une autre 'nouvelle réalité' solidement installée dans un espace d'action. Que fait le musée ? Lui fait-il face ? Lutte-t-il de toutes ses forces contre elle ? Cède-t-il ? Devient-il complaisant en attendant que le phénomène passe ? L'ignore-t-il ? Examine-t-il les formes d'action ? Choisir n'importe quel chemin est inévitable. Le phénomène est mondial : il est ici pour y rester et il évoluera vers quelque chose que nous ne connaissons pas encore.

Les musées seront contraints de changer sans qu’il soit tenu compte de leur point de vue ou, dans le cas contraire, ils risquent d'être laissés de côté comme une marchandise utile pour les publics qu'ils servent. Ils peuvent internaliser la raison fondamentale du chemin qu'ils choisissent de prendre ou tirer les bénéfices qu'ils peuvent glaner. Certes, les musées ont des collections qu'ils continueront de traiter et de préserver pour les générations actuelles et pour celles qui viendront. Les musées sauvegardent religieusement ces matériels afin de les utiliser normalement au bénéfice de leurs publics. Mais, que peut-on dire de leur utilisation par le public en général ? Les musées ont aujourd'hui l'opportunité de pouvoir diffuser leurs collections vers leurs publics à une échelle inégalée il y a seulement quelques années. Les bases de donnés où sont emmagasinées les informations et les images des collections ont été développées et mises à la disposition de n'importe qui voulant accéder à elles. Les capacités d'atteinte sont presque infinies.

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Mais, que dire de l'importante relation qui existe entre mondialisation et diversité culturelle ? Les cultures ont subi des changements depuis leur contact avec 'l'autre'. Le commerce entre les différents groupes et les appropriations culturelles qui en résultent ont été un mode de vie depuis un temps immémorial. Il n'existe plus de cultures 'non contaminées' et les 'blue jeans' et les 'T-shirts' sont portés même par les peuples les plus lointains du troisième monde. Alors que le témoignage du contact et du changement se manifeste en premier lieu dans la culture matérielle d’un peuple, cela ne signifie pas nécessairement que les structures d'une telle culture changeront aussi de la même manière. Le changement, cependant, est aussi continuel que le continuum culturel dans lequel il se reflète. Rien ne demeure pareil. Aujourd'hui, avec l'arrivée d'une révolution électronique qui défie tout ce qui est arrivé auparavant, craint-on que les cultures cessent d'exister dans leur diversité et que l'anéantissement culturel puisse être la norme?

Il est vrai, cependant, que les communications à haute vitesse seront à même de diffuser rapidement de l'information sur n'importe quel thème, vers n'importe quel lieu et à n'importe qui détenant les moyens économiques et techniques lui permettant de la recevoir. Pour les musées et pour la muséologie, n'est-ce pas une occasion de jouer encore un autre rôle, cette fois en soutenant la préservation de la diversité culturelle par la promotion du respect et la compréhension interculturels, au moyen d'un dialogue implquant des voix multiples?

Le but du thème et des sous-thèmes de discussion en 2008 est d'examiner l'interface entre les communications mondiales et les musées/la muséologie, et les changements que ce phénomène a déjà effectués et continuera d’effectuer dans notre sphère d'activité. Comment allons-nous aborder ce thème ? Comment pouvons-nous agir pour qu'il soit efficace pour nous? À travers le temps, il y a eu plein de facteurs externes qui ont obligé les musées à changer leur perspective et même leur manière de penser et leur mode d'action. Certes, la plus grande incursion dans notre petit et confortable monde a probablement été la 'révolution' électronique actuelle. Les musées, s'adapteront-ils à ce nouvel encouragement ainsi qu'ils l'ont fait en tant d'autres circonstances ? Ces changements, pourront-ils se voir répercutés dans les préceptes qui gouvernent la muséologie ? Existe-t-il à l'horizon une autre nouvelle muséologie ? Qui sait ce que l'avenir nous prépare et même où les musées et la muséologie seront dans une décennie ? Ce sont des questions rhétoriques pour une pensée spéculative dans un monde plein de changements et réellement incertain.

Vancouver, Canada 30 Mars 2008

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DOCUMENTO PROVOCATIVO

REFLEXIONES SOBRE TEMAS DEL SIMPOSIO DEL ICOFOM 2008 : Museos, Museología y Comunicación Global Lynn MARANDA - Vancouver, Canada ___________________________________________________________________

El mundo está cambiando con una rapidez que excede toda imaginación. La comunicación es casi instantánea. Cada estructura dentro de las redes de comunicación está afectada ya sea en lo cultural, social, económico, político o de cualquier otra naturaleza. Así también los museos y por extensión la museología son arrastrados a la web y muchos de los constructos y elementos 'sagrados' son bombardeados por un movimiento de cambio que hasta ahora no había experimentado el mundo. ¿Pueden los museos/la museología soportar el embate cuando sus más acariciados componentes se encuentran amenazados? ¿Pueden los museos continuar siendo los únicos guardianes del patrimonio tangible e intangible del mundo? Al mismo tiempo, ¿serán capaces los museos de mantener los preceptos éticos que sostienen tan ardientemente? El mismo hecho de que el eje del trabajo del museo, las colecciones, puedan ser hoy digitalizadas y presentadas de tan diversas maneras plantea un desafío a la 'santidad' del objeto. Se cuestiona la percepción de autenticidad e incluso pone en duda si lo 'real' es todavía necesario.

La comunicación a través de los medios electrónicos actuales está tan extendida y

es tan multifacética que es posible apropiarse y manipular fácilmente la información y las imágenes y enviarlas hasta los más lejanos confines de La Tierra en un instante. Pensemos en las consecuencias potenciales para el objeto de museo, desde aquel que se encuentra fijo en el espacio finito hasta aquel que de pronto se mueve en un espacio virtualmente infinito. Sin límites en tiempo y lugar. Difícil de concebir un cambio tan extremo en tan corto espacio de tiempo. El modo que elige el museo para enfrentar este desafío dependerá ampliamente en cómo decide abordar el tema.

Sin embargo, otra 'nueva realidad' se encuentra firmemente en su lugar. ¿Qué hace

el museo? ¿La enfrenta? ¿Lucha con uñas y dientes? ¿Cede? ¿Se vuelve complaciente en la esperanza de que el fenómeno pase? ¿Lo ignora? ¿Examina las formas en que puede actuar? Cualquiera sea el camino elegido, es inevitable. Es global y está aquí para quedarse y evolucionará hacia algo que aún no conocemos.

Los museos serán compelidos a cambiar sin tener en cuenta su enfoque o de lo

contrario corren el riesgo de ser dejados atrás como mercancía útil para los públicos a quienes sirve. Pueden internalizar la razón fundamental para el camino que eligen tomar o alcanzar los beneficios que puedan recoger. Ciertamente, los museos tienen colecciones que continuarán procesando y preservando para las generaciones actuales y futuras. Los museos salvaguardan casi religiosamente estos materiales para utilizarlos normalmente para beneficio de sus públicos. Pero, ¿qué decir de su utilización por el público en general? Los museos tienen hoy la oportunidad de poder difundir sus colecciones entre sus públicos en una escala inigualada hasta hace pocos años. Las bases de datos en las que están almacenadas la información y las imágenes de las colecciones han sido desarrolladas y puestas a disposición de cualquiera que desee acceder a ellas. Las capacidades de alcance son casi infinitas.

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Pero, ¿qué decir de la importante relación que existe entre globalización y diversidad cultural? Las culturas han sufrido cambios desde su contacto con el 'otro'. El comercio entre los diferentes grupos y las apropiaciones culturales resultantes, han sido un modo de vida desde tiempo inmemorial. No existen más las culturas 'incontaminadas' y los blue jeans y las tshirts son usados aún en los pueblos más remotos del 'tercer mundo'. Mientras que la evidencia del contacto y el cambio se pone de manifiesto en primer lugar en la cultura material de los pueblos, esto no significa necesariamente que las estructuras de tal cultura también lo hagan de la misma manera. El cambio, sin embargo, es tan continuo como el continuo cultural en el que se refleja. Nada permanece igual. Hoy, con el advenimiento de una revolución electrónica que desafía todo lo que ha pasado con anterioridad, ¿se da el temor de que las culturas dejen de existir de diversas maneras y que la aniquilación cultural sea la norma?

Es cierto sin embargo que las comunicaciones de alta velocidad podrán afrontar la

rápida difusión de la información sobre cualquier tema, hacia cualquier lugar y a cualquiera que tenga la capacidad tecnológica de recibirla. Para los museos y la museología, ¿no es ésta una oportunidad de jugar otro rol, esta vez en apoyo de la preservación de la diversidad cultural a través de la promoción del respeto y la comprensión del cruce de culturas por medio de un diálogo que involucre múltiples voces?

El propósito del tema y los subtemas de discusión para 2008 es examinar la

interface entre las comunicaciones globales y los museos/la museología, evaluando los cambios que este fenómeno ya ha producido y continuará produciendo en nuestra arena de actividad. ¿Cómo nos vamos a referir a este tema? ¿Cómo podemos hacer para que funcione para nosotros? A través del tiempo, han habido muchos factores externos que han obligado a los museos a cambiar su perspectiva y hasta su manera de pensar y su modo de operar. Es cierto, la mayor incursión en nuestro mundo pequeño y confortable ha sido probablemente la actual 'revolución' electrónica. ¿Se adaptarán los museos a este nuevo estímulo, así como lo han hecho en tantas oportunidades? ¿Podrán estos cambios verse reflejados en los preceptos que gobiernan a la museología? ¿Existe en el horizonte otra 'nueva' museología? ¿Quién sabe lo que nos depara el futuro y dónde estarán los museos y la museología, incluso dentro de una década? Cuestiones retóricas para un pensamiento especulativo en un mundo cargado de cambios y realmente incierto.

Vancouver, Canada 30 de marzo de

2008

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Preamble // Préambule

MUSEUM, MUSEOLOGY : BE CAUTIOUS OF THE TECHNOLOGY DOCTRINE SU Donghai, Senior Curator, The National Museum of China - Beijing, China ABSTRACT

The revolution that is going on about the information technology is having a huge impact on the development of the human society. We shall never underestimate the influence of the technological revolution, but we should not overestimate its significance either. If we reach the point of adoring technologies, we are falling into the technology doctrine and the harming effect of technologies is coming into shape. The most direct harm of the technology doctrine is the marginalization of the culture. The technology doctrine has four wrongs. First, technologies are methods and tools instead of purposes. The reason for museums to exist is decided by the purpose of having them. By adoring technologies, technologies are placed on top of purposes. Second, the technology doctrine is wrong in putting the man-made world of the virtual reality upon that of the reality and having the former adored. Third, the materialized museum is the source of information and the information on the Internet is of the second hand, which cannot replace the direct touch with the material. Fourth, the technology doctrine pursues standardization while museums look for diversity.

The responsibility of museology is to settle the relation between the technology and the culture in a right way and thus to use the technology properly without being dominated by it. RÉSUMÉ Musée et muséologie : attention à la doctrine technologique La révolution qui se poursuit à propos des techniques d’information a un immense impact sur le développement de la société humaine. Nous ne devons jamais sous-estimer l’influence de la révolution technique, mais nous ne devons pas surestimer non plus son importance. Si nous arrivons au point d’adorer les techniques, nous tombons dans la doctrine technologique et l’effet nuisible des techniques se met à prendre forme. La nuisance la plus directe de la doctrine technologique se trouve dans la marginalisation de la culture. La doctrine technologique provoque quatre maux. Tout d’abord, les techniques sont des méthodes et de instruments et non pas des objectifs. La raison d’être des musées est décidée par l’objectif qu’ils se donnent eux-mêmes. En adorant les techniques, celles-ci sont situées au sommet des objectifs. Secondement, la doctrine technologique est mauvaise lorsqu’elle place le monde artificiel de la réalité virtuelle au-dessus de celui de la réalité, en adorant le premier. Troisièmement, le musée matérialisé est la source d’informations et l’information sur l’Internet est de seconde main, qui ne peut remplacer le toucher direct avec la matière. Quatrièmement, la doctrine technologique cherche à atteindre la standardisation tandis que le musée recherche la diversité.

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La responsabilité de la muséologie est d’installer la relation entre la technologie et la culture dans une droite ligne et d’utiliser ainsi la technique correctement sans être dominée par elle. RESUMEN Museologia : sea cauteloso con la doctrina tecnológica

La revolución informática que se encuentran en marcha despliega su enorme impacto en el desarrollo de la sociedad humana. Nunca debemos subestimar la influencia de la revolución tecnológica, pero tampoco sobrestimar su significado. Si llegamos al punto de adorar las tecnologías, estamos cayendo en la doctrina tecnológica y su efecto perjudicial comenzará a tomar forma. El daño más directo de la doctrina tecnológica es la marginalización de la cultura. Dicha doctrina contiene cuatro aspectos negativos: primero, las tecnologías son métodos y herramientas, no propósitos. La razón de que existan los museos está determinada por el propósito que los sostiene. Al adorar las tecnologías se las coloca por encima de los propósitos; segundo, la doctrina tecnológica se equivoca al poner al mundo de la realidad virtual hecha por el hombre, por encima del mundo de lo real ; tercero, la materialización del museo constituye la fuente de información y la información en Internet es de segunda mano, hecho que no permite reemplazar el contacto directo con lo material; cuarto, la doctrina tecnológica persigue la estandarización mientras que los museos buscan la diversidad.

La responsabilidad de la museología es establecer la relación entre la tecnología y la cultura de la manera correcta y, de esta forma, utilizar dicha tecnología debidamente, sin dejarse dominar por ella.

* * *

Technologies improve as the economy booms, and the revolution that is going on about the information technology is having a huge impact on the development of the human society. We shall never underestimate the influence of the technological revolution, but we should not overestimate its significance either. If we reach the point of adoring technologies, we are falling into the technology doctrine and the harming effect of technologies is coming into shape. The most direct harm of the technology doctrine is the marginalization of the culture and the loss of the cultural value, so there has to be the caution against the expansion of the technology doctrine. At present the technology doctrine is invading into museums and museology. Some papers in both the international and the Chinese museum circles are for the technology doctrine and they describe the information technology to be decisive in the direction of the development of museums. According to them technologies seem to be deciding the future and the fate of museums. They even claim that technologies are changing both the foundation of and the way of the existence of museums. Their points are exaggerations that do not fit in with the actual situation of museums. I believe that the technology doctrine has four wrongs :

First, the technology doctrine has reversed the relation between the purpose and the

method. Technologies are methods and tools instead of purposes. It is the purpose that decides the method, and not the method that decides the purpose. The reason for museums to exist is decided by the purpose of having them, and technologies are nothing but ways to pursue the purpose. It is the purpose that decides the fate of today’s museums. Now the fate of museums is decided upon the realization of its core value and historic mission. In its strategic plan for the years between 2005 and 2007, the International Committee of Museums (ICOM) restated the core value and historic mission of museums and it also realized the social responsibility of museums through a series of real-world actions. This social responsibility is being extended from traditional museums to the broader scope of communities. I think that the strategic direction of the ICOM is very right and the theme of

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this annual convention about museology is good too. It gives us the chance to discuss about what to do and how to do during the global communication between museums.

Second, the technology doctrine has reversed the relation between the reality and

the virtual reality. The revolution of the information technology has created a world of the virtual reality and brought about new ways of communication between human beings. In a way the world of the virtual reality is independent of that of the reality, but it is also rooted in the latter. Without the world of the reality, there will never be that of the virtual reality. The technology doctrine is wrong in putting the man-made world of the virtual reality upon that of the reality and having the former adored. What it is for has been a confusion of the status of the two worlds. If we do not adore technologies blindly and if we observe the life objectively, we can come to the realization that technologies should not be placed in a position that is above everything else. The fact in China is that the 2,400 museums are still the main part of the museum culture and that digital museums are only a supplemental tool.

Third, the technology doctrine has reversed the relation between the way of

transmission of the information and the source of the information. The Internet is a symbolic way of transmission in the information age but the transmission through the Internet has its limitation. Whether to use the way of transmission should be decided upon the request from the source of the information. In this case the materialized museums are sources of the information. According to the characteristics of the information of the materialized museums, there are three ways to transmit the information. First, the direct contact with the material. To directly observe and even to touch the original artifact is the No 1 way of transmission for the cultural information of the materialized museums. It is also the best way of transmission. The information that is gained through touching can be first hand indeed. Second, the transmission through the media, such as newspapers, magazines, movies, television channels and books. This way of transmission can result in the loss of the part of the information that can be only gained through the process of feeling. The third way is the transmission through the emerging Internet. Because of the development in digital technologies, this one may be able to provide a more real-life feeling than other forms of the media. But it cannot replace the first way of transmission because the information that is transmitted through the Internet has been technically dealt with, and in this way it is of the second hand. That is why although the Mona Lisa can be watched with a real-life feeling on the Internet people still go all the way to the Louvre for a look at the genuine piece.

Fourth, the technology doctrine is no good for the diversity of the museum culture.

Museums are the natural platform of the cultural diversity as well as the important cultural organization to preserve and to display the cultural diversity. But the technical adaptation has a nature that is contrary to the diversity. The foundation of the technology doctrine is the digitalization, and the foundation for the digitalization is the standardization. Without a uniformed formula there will not be the technology doctrine. So, from the point of view of the cultural characters of museums, the technology doctrine is no good for the diversity and prosperity of museums. The responsibility of museology is to settle the relation between the technology and the culture in a right way and thus to use the technology properly without being dominated by it.

Museums need new technology, but not the technology doctrine ;

Exaggerations about the technology are impairments of the culture.

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1. MUSEUMS, GLOBAL FORUMS FOR CONTEM- PORARY MUSEOLOGY

LES MUSÉES, FORUM MONDIAUX POUR LA MUSÉOLOGIE CONTEMPORAINE

MUSEOS, FOROS GLOBALES DE LA MUSEOLOGÍA CONTEMPORÁNEA 19

Museums, communication agents within cross-cultural understanding

Les musées, agents de communication dans le cadre d’une compréhension interculturelle

Museos, agentes de comunicación en el entendimiento intercultura

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CULTURAL DIVERSITY : THE STARTING POINT AND GOAL OF MUSEUMS

DUAN Yong, Deputy Director, The Palace Museum, BEIJING, CHINA

ABSTRACT

Looking from its origin, the definition and the reality, the museum is a diversity of ideas and practice. Humanity, humankind’s living environment and human-created culture have achieved unity at the level of “pluralism”. Museum is the most important medium connecting the past, present and future. Its ultimate mission is to protect and carry on the cultural diversity which is the heritage of mankind and its environment. In modern times with economic globalization, Chinese museums are faced with challenges and opportunities.

RÉSUMÉ Diversité culturelle : point de départ et objectif des musées

En regardant depuis son origine, la définition et la réalité, le musée est une diversité d’idées et de pratiques. L’humanité, l’environnement dans lequel vit l’espèce humaine et la culture qu’elle a créée ont achevé de l’unir à un niveau de pluralisme. Le musée est le média le plus important entre le passé, le présent et le futur. Sa mission finale est de protéger et de conserver la diversité culturelle qui est le patrimoine de l’humanité et son environnement. De nos jours, avec la globalisation économique, les musées chinois doivent faire face à de nouveaux défis et opportunités. RESUMEN Diversidad cultural : punto de partida y meta de los museos A la luz de su origen, su definición y su realidad, en el museo converge una diversidad de ideas y prácticas. La humanidad, su entorno y la cultura creada por el hombre, han alcanzado la unidad en un nivel de pluralismo. El museo es el medio de conexión más importante entre el pasado, el presente y el futuro. Su fin último es proteger y conservar la diversidad cultural que representa el legado del género humano y su medio ambiente. En nuestros días, con la presencia de la globalización económica, los museos chinos se enfrentan a nuevos desafíos y oportunidades.

* * * I．The museum is a culturally diverse place whose operation involves multiple factors

The words for “museum” (including “museum” in English) in all major Western languages invariably originate from the Greek “mouseion”, which means “a temple for Muses”. Muses (Mousa in Greek) are the nine daughters produced by Zeus, the Pantheon of gods, and Mnemosyne, the Goddess of Memory. Each of them is the protector of a different art or science.

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In Greek mythology, Muses are deities second in number only to the twelve

Titans symbolizing nature and life, which suggests the intrinsic relationship between the museum and diversity.

In the late 19th century, when European and American modern museums were first introduced to China, they were referred to as “public place” (gongsuo), “temporary dwelling place” (xingguan), “the place where multifarious things are at display” (wanzhongyuan), “painting exhibition pavilion” (huage), “weapon display building” (junqilou), “treasury” (jibaolou) , “treasure-collection courtyard” (jibaoyuan), “the place where many strange things are collected” (jiqiguan)1. This confusing naming disunity had actually sprung from the diversity of museums. Eventually only four similar names remained: bowuguan (the current Chinese name for museums), bolanguan, boguguan, and bowuyuan (a name currently adopted for large-scale museums), of which bowuguan is the most commonly used.

This Chinese translation of “museum” successfully captures two basic features of the museum: bo, which means diversity and heterogeneity, and wu, or “objects”, on which the museum has been established and based. The earliest use of the Chinese phrase, bowu, is found in Zuozhuan, or Zuo Qiuming’s History of the Spring and Autumn Period compiled around 500 BCE—“On hearing Zichan’s words, the Lord of Jin said, ‘A gentleman is he who is learned about diversified things’2.

Now that Muses are protectors of art and science, “mouseion” assumes the meaning of “a shrine for art and science”, which embodies the original intention and pursuit for the museum. After modern museums were created, Samuel Johnson (1709-1804), a celebrated man of letters, defined “museum” in his monumental Dictionary of the English Language (1755) as a place for storing and displaying strange objects embodying rich knowledge. However, this definition, rather narrow in connotation, seems mainly to refer to natural museums.

When the International Council of Museums (ICOM) was founded in 1946, it defined “museum” in its Statutes as follows: “The word ‘museum’ includes all institutions open to the public, of artistic, technological, scientific, historical or archaeological collections, including zoos and botanical gardens, but excluding libraries, except in so far as they maintain permanent exhibition rooms.” Its classification of “artifacts” shows that museums can be highly diverse.

ICOM revised the definition of “museum” many times in 1951, 1962, 1971 and 1974. Its 1989 definition recently has become the “classic” formulation: “A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.” In this definition the “collected artifacts” of museums achieve its greatest diversity.

In 2004, ICOM further expanded the scope of artifacts and museums to include objects related to “intangible heritage” and “digitized activities” that comply with the

1Wang Hongjun. p.72. The study of museum in China. Shanghai : Shanghai Classics Publishing House, 2001. 2The Annotations of the Thirteen Canons. p.2024. Zhejiang Ancient Books Publishing House, 1998.

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relevant museum criteria. In 2007, ICOM completely deleted the examples under the definition of “museum”. This act could be regarded as the fulfillment of this process3.

ICOM’s constant revision on the definition of “museum” reflects the reality of “increasing diversity” in the field of modern museums. However, it must be said that the expansion of the inclusiveness of “museum” has led to uncertainty of its implication, which has given rise to doubts and divergences within museum circles. As a matter of fact, attempts to define the connotation of “museum” have caused a split which greatly weakened ICOM (monuments and sites broke away from ICOM and established the ICOMOS, International Council on Monuments and Sites) and a threatening though not dangerous crisis (the impact of the new museology movement).

The close relationship between museums and diversity also lies in the fact that there is still not a universally acknowledged perfect classification of museums, which, in most cases, are classified by the type of their collected items. For example, the Japanese Council of Art Museums has classified museums into 10 types, to wit, comprehensive, native, fine arts, history, natural history, technology and industry, zoos, aquariums, botanic gardens and animal, water and plant museums4; the American Association of Museums (AAM) groups museums under 13 categories and 72 sub-categories such as comprehensive, science, art, history, sports, children’s, companies, exhibition areas, etc5. Besides the common standard concerning artifacts, features of the places have been introduced in classifying museums, which makes the Americans’ classification appear somewhat disorderly and unsystematic. Many foreign museologists believe that all the existing museums throughout the world can be specifically classified into 301 types6. This classification, incorporating different classification standards (such as collections, trades, disciplines and nationalities etc.), is still not satisfactory.

Whatever the length of its history, the prosperity of its economy, the amount of its population, the composition of its ethnic groups, the beliefs of religions, each of nearly 200 countries and regions all over the world has museum-type institutions. The fact proves from another angle that museum is a concept and practice that could adapt to pluralism and has universal value.

There is no place where museums can not be found. II. The Ultimate Mission of Museum: Protection and Continuity of Cultural Diversity

Museums are essentially a cultural phenomenon concerning “heritage of humanity and its environment”.

As estimated by scientists, the number of the species living on this planet ranges between five and one-hundred million. Together these species form an ecological system in which they are inter-independent. As a result of environmental pollution and man-made damage, dozens of the species disappear from the world every day. In 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development passed the

3See conference documents of the International Council of Museums. 4Journal of Chinese Museums, “Tables of Basic Information on and Number of Visits to Japanese Museums in 2000”. July 2002. 5Wang Hongjun. p.53. The study of museum in China. Shanghai: Shanghai Classics Publishing House, 2001. 6Journal of Chinese Museums, “Table of Information on 301 Types of Museums at the End of the 20th Century”, edited and translated by Shen Yonghua. July 2002.

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Convention on Biological Diversity to slow down the rate of extinction of endangered species, to give the earth the best possible protection and to achieve sustainable development.

The most intelligent of all sentient beings, human beings still differ in a multitude of ways. Although 99.9% of human genes are of the same, it is the 0.1% different genes which determine that there are no two exactly same human beings in the world. Even those allelic humans produced by cloning technology are different in terms of perception of time and space, consciousness, culture etc.

Obviously, the human race as a whole is of different races and nationalities. By color of skin, they can be divided into white, yellow, black, brown and other races; by culture, they may be classified into about 2,070 ethnicities; and by language, they may be categorized into about 3,500 nationalities.

Throughout human history, hundreds of civilizations and cultures once existed or exist in this world—according to Arnold Joseph Toynbee’s (1889-1975) statistics, at least 26 civilizations have imposed their respective significant influences7. It is their fusion, evolution and development which have shaped the world’s present-day cultural landscape.

In 1971, the Canadian government announced its policy of multiculturalism, and became the first country which made multiculturalism a basic state policy. And in 1988, it promulgated and implemented Canadian Multiculturalism Act, which officially established the legal status of this state policy.8 Multiculturalism has also become one of the basic features of the United State—the most typical immigration country. In 2001, at the 31st conference of UNESCO adopted Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, which asserts that cultural diversity is a basic feature of humanity and “the common heritage of humanity”. In 2005, in order to further reinforce these concepts, UNESCO’s 33rd conference adopted the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

Humanity, humankind’s living environment and human-created culture have achieved unity at the level of “pluralism”. Museums, as places keeping the “heritage of humanity and its environment”, must realize their value in keeping the evidence.

In Greek mythology, Muses’ mother is the Goddess of Memory. In Chinese, “having rich knowledge of history” (bogu) often comes together with “knowing much on the present” (zhijin). Museum is the most important medium connecting the past, present and future. Its ultimate mission is to learn about, protect, develop and carry on the cultural diversity which is the heritage of mankind and its environment.

In other words, by protecting and developing cultural diversity, mankind is in effect protecting and carrying on the integrity of humanity. This helps us comprehensively recognize the past of mankind, build the present of mankind and explore the future of mankind. It also requires us to advocate pluralism, tolerance, respect and objective understanding and discard prejudices, narrow-mindedness, arrogance and subjective conjectures.

7Arnold Joseph Toynbee: A Study of History. Liu Beicheng and Guo Xiaoling, translators. Shanghai: Shanghai People's Publishing House,2000. 8Bureau for External Cultural Relations, Ministry of Culture. “A Report on International Cultural Development”. Beijing: The Commercial Press, 2005, P.682.

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In his masterpiece Tolerance, Hendrik van Loon (1882-1944) records many painful lessons brought about by prejudices and arrogance and reveals that the history of human progress9, in a sense, is mankind marching constantly toward pluralism and tolerance. Contemporary philosophical research also indicates that the mainstream thought had been monism since ancient to modern times. However, pluralism had become the mainstream of contemporary thought. Even those developed countries with monist religion as mainstream belief adopt the national policy that separates politics from religion, so as to tolerate plural beliefs and prevent former historical failures.

In modern times with economic globalization, economic structures of all the countries all over the world tend to be similar. They share the prosperity and decline of development, and face the crises of environmental pollution, shortage of energy, etc. Multiculturalism is also faced with new challenges. Therefore, we need new pluralistic approaches. We should not only avoid equating globalization with “homo-culturalism” but also setting up any dichotomy between multiculturalism and universal values (we human beings share 99.9% of genes after all).

Museums must shoulder heavy responsibilities. III. Challenges and Opportunities for Chinese Museums

Chinese Museums, which have been based on Chinese history, Chinese environment, and Chinese people, boast unsurpassed advantages of resources.

China is a country with a long history and a continuous civilization. Archeologists have divided China’s Neolithic civilization into six periods and summed up dozens of archaeological cultures. The Neolithic age was followed by the three dynasties Xia, Shang and Zhou (2,100 BCE-700 BCE) during which “their ritual systems were different from each other” (according to Shangjun Shu or the Book of History written during the 4th century BCE)10. The Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (770-221 BCE) witnessed a cultural boom famous for the numerous contending schools of thought. Following the Han dynasty (established in 207 BCE), although the rulers claimed to “expel all other factions and esteem Confucianism as the primary”, in fact, Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism and Shamanism coexisted, which eventually shaped the mainstream Chinese culture that has lasted till today.

China is one of the largest countries with a highly complicated terrain. Covering an area of 9,600,000 square kilometers and with an elevation difference of more than 8,800 meters, it is well-known for its beautiful and highly diverse landscapes. Regions vary in terms of climate, products and people’s lifestyles. As was said in two books i.e. Spring and Autumn Annals (Yanzi Chun Qiu) 11written in the 3rd century BCE and Han History (Han Shu) written in the 1st century, “customs vary from area to area”.

China is one of the countries with the largest population, the most nationalities and the most diversified religions. All those diversified and splendid folk and ethnic cultures make up an integral Chinese culture.

9Hendrik van Loon.Tolerence. Ze Wei and Jin Cuiwei, translators. Beijing: Shenghuo-Dushu-Xinzhi Joint Publishing Company, 1985. 10All My Favorite. p.914. Zhejiang Ancient Books Publishing House, 1999. 11All My Favorites. p.726. Zhejiang Ancient Books Publishing House, 1999.

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This historical, geographical and ethnic diversity has laid a solid foundation for the development of Chinese museums, provided Chinese museums with many possibilities and demonstrated the strength and potential of Chinese museums in protection and continuation of the country’s cultural diversity.

At present, Chinese museums number about 2,600 and are still quickly growing; and these museums cover all the known types in the world, intangible heritage museums and digitized museums included.

However, we must be aware that Chinese museums still face many problems such as small absolute numbers and even smaller relative to population, uneven geographical distribution, unbalanced development of different types of museums, uncoordinated development of software and hardware, and less than ideal use. For example, on the one hand, in China on average there is a museum for every half-million people and therefore, in this regard there exists a vast gap between China and developed Western countries; on the other, most of the Chinese museums receive fewer visitors on average.

Against the background of economic globalization, Chinese museums are faced with pressure and even challenges, which are, in essence, the pressure and challenges confronting Chinese culture. Therefore not only the relevant authorities and museums but also Chinese society at large must address these pressures and challenges, seize opportunities and improve Chinese museums as soon as possible.

There may be thousands of political, economic and systematic approaches. In the final analysis, only one cultural approach will be effective: to make full use of China’s advantage in multiculturalism to give an edge to Chinese museums. Only in this way can Chinese museums meet the needs of visitors, survive and fulfill their ultimate mission.

To be more specific, every museum may forge their own advantages and characteristics in accordance with their respective aims of establishment, historical origin, current status, and objective conditions.

Representative national museums should orient themselves towards the world, improve themselves constantly, carry out communication and dialogue on equal footing with famous foreign museums and take upon themselves the mission of protecting, disseminating and carrying on Chinese culture in the international circles.

Relevant authorities may vigorously promote the establishment and development of local, ethnic, folk, industrial and specialized museums and museums in disadvantaged areas like living quarters of ethnic groups, remote mountains, and underdeveloped regions by means of favorable policies, more investment, publicity campaigns and encouragement.

Under the circumstances of opportunities and challenges coexisting with one another, informed by traditional wisdom such as “seeking common ground while preserving differences”, in the not-too-distant future Chinese museum staff are actively carrying out the practice and research of multicultural museums. They will surely be able to build a museology with Chinese characteristics and to bring about a Chinese school of theory appropriate for and conducive to the development of Chinese museums in international museum circles.

The prospects for museums are bright.

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MUSEOLOGY, INFORMATION, INTERCOMMUNICATION : INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE, DIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONAL TERMINOLOGY IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN LIMA, Diana-Farjalla Correia– UNIRIO – Rio-de-janeiro, Brazil. ABSTRACT Museology and Museum, space for intercultural dialogue, taking Latin America and the Caribbean as the venue for multiple cultures representative of autochthonous groups and of population waves which compounded throughout several centuries. The issues regarding the local language, the language of the areas of knowledge, the natural language and the documentary language in face of the communication challenge of the providing of, and of the access to specialized information within the heritage theme as studied by the museums – Documentation and Museum Information. The new information and communication technologies - ICTs (Internet as example), widen and make way for reflection on the possible action of Museums in a Latin American and Caribbean network system thereby comprising, in their cybernetic environment, a model and action which tends to the intercultural demand information needs. In keeping with the choice and construction of the terminology repertory to be used, as to what regards documentary language, the diversity of expressions relating to cultural traditions. Moreover, establishing a strict stance for the interpretation and consolidation of words and concepts used in the field of Museology, therefore, in the realm of what is named professional language, a living example as well, of the intangible heritage which molds the spaces of knowledge. RÉSUMÉ Muséologie, information, intercommunication : patrimoine culturel immatériel, diversité et terminologie en Amérique latine et dans les Caraïbes La Museologie et le Musée sont placées en tant qu’espace privilégié pour le dialogue interculturel, prenant en compte l'Amérique Latine et les Caraïbes comme lieu des multiples cultures représentatives des groupes autochtones et des arrivéees des populations qui se sont ajoutées tout au long de plusieurs siècles. Les questions concernant les langues locales, le langage des domaines de la connaissance qui opèrent comme application disciplinaire dans le champ muséologique, de la langue naturelle et du langage documentaire face au défi de la communication pour l'approvisionnement et l'accès aux informations spécialisées dans la thématique du patrimoine étudié par les musées (documentation et Information). Les nouvelles technologies de l’information et la communication NTICs (par exemple l’Internet), engendrent et élargissent la réflexion sur la performance possible des musées dans le système conçu comme réseau latino-américain et des Caraïbes, en composant dans cet environnement cybernétique un modèle et une action qui répondent aux besoins en informations de la demande interculturelle, par la recherche et la recréation. Dans le choix et la construction du répertoire terminologique, il faut utiliser un langage documentaire, respectueux de la diversité des expressions relatives aux traditions culturelles locales. Et, aussi, pratiquer beaucoup de rigueur dans l’interprétation et la consolidation des termes et concepts utilisés dans le champ de la muséologie, donc, dans le contexte de ce qu’on appelle le langage professionnelle ou le langage spécialisé, autant dire exemple vivant du patrimoine immatériel qui configure les espaces de la connaissance.

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RESUMEN

Museología, información, intercomunicación : patrimonio cultural intangible, diversidad y terminología profesional en América Latina y el Caribe Considerando que el museo es un espacio de diálogo intercultural y teniendo en cuenta que América latina y el Caribe es un lugar de múltiples culturas, representativas de grupos autóctonos y de olas poblacionales que se fueron agregando a través de los siglos, los temas a los que se refiere el presente documento se refieren a cuestiones relativas al lenguaje local, al de las áreas de conocimiento, al natural y al documental, a la luz del desafío de la comunicación y del acceso a la información especializada en la temática del patrimonio estudiada por los museos – la documentación e información del museo. Las nuevas tecnologías de la información y la comunicación (NTIC, cuyo ejemplo es Internet) – abren el camino hacia la reflexión sobre el posible accionar de los museos dentro de una red latinoamericana que comprenda, en su entorno cibernético, un modelo y una acción que apunte a las necesidades interculturales de información. Todo esto se lograría de acuerdo con la elección y construcción de un repertorio terminológico que contemple un lenguaje documental respetuoso de la diversidad de expresiones relativas a las tradiciones culturales locales. Del mismo modo, estableciendo un riguroso enfoque en la interpretación y consolidación de los términos y conceptos utilizados en el campo de la museología, en el ámbito de lo que se denomina lenguaje profesional o especializado, como ejemplo vivo de la herencia intangible que conforma los espacios del conocimiento.

RESUMO Museologia, informação, intercomunicação : patrimônio intangivel, diversidade cultural e terminologia professional em Amercica latina e o Caribe A Museologia e o Museu posicionados como espaço privilegiado para o diálogo intercultural, tomando-se a América Latina e o Caribe como local de múltiplas culturas representativas dos grupos autóctones e das levas populacionais que se foram agregando ao longo de vários séculos. A questão das linguagens locais, da linguagem das áreas do conhecimento que operam como aplicação disciplinar no campo museológico, da linguagem natural e da linguagem documentária frente ao desafio comunicacional do provimento e do acesso à informação especializada na temática do patrimônio estudada pelos museus --- Documentação e Informação em museus. As novas tecnologias de informação e comunicação TICs, a Internet como exemplo, ampliam e dão passagem para refletir acerca da possível atuação dos museus em sistema em rede latino-americano e caribenho, compondo neste ambiente cibernético, modelo e ação que atenda às necessidades de informação da demanda intercultural por pesquisa e recreação. Respeitando-se, na seleção e construção do repertório da terminologia a ser utilizada, no que concerne a linguagem documentária, a diversidade das expressões relativas às tradições culturais locais. E, também, determinando rigor para interpretação e consolidação dos termos e conceitos usados no campo da Museologia, portanto, no âmbito do que se denomina linguagem profissional ou linguagem de especialidade, exemplo vivo, também, da herança intangível que conforma os espaços do conhecimento.

* * * Museology: Open to Intercultural Dialog

When exploring the countries and cultures scattered throughout the geographical region known today as Latin America and the Caribbean, a rich mosaic appears, highlighting similarities and differences. During the past five centuries, the patchwork history of this

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region has been recorded through the cultural legacies of traditions bequeathed by our forefathers.

After the era of the Great Explorations, commanded by the Portuguese and Spanish crowns that discovered a ‘New World’ (in those faraway days, the boundaries of the ‘known world’ were marked by shipping routes through the Mediterranean); the heritage of the autochthonous tribes − today known as indigenous peoples – was enriched by other elements introduced by waves of new social groups settling in this region. In parallel to the many different cultures rooted in Europe and Asia, the marked presence of African groups must be recalled, shipped over by the slave trade until the XIX century.

The quest for harmony between hearts and minds has necessarily been a hard-won process of permanent construction that is being built up through intercultural dialog, notwithstanding the many different ways of viewing and dealing with the world adopted by these social groups.

Within this vast geographical region and the context of its widely-varying cultures, it is vital to consider carefully the points where links may be established, in order to compose an interactive design that will underpin (inter)communication through intercultural dialog within the sphere of museum actions.

Taking the word ‘museum’ as a reference, the universe of Museology is a fertile field for a wide variety of models that express conceptual categories typifying their many different representations and practices.

All of them are also firmly rooted in an idea that, although broad-ranging, strives to qualify a specific configuration whose purpose is to acknowledge the typological characteristics of other areas as well, whose profiles must be tailored to the needs of the museum field, bearing in mind the multidisciplinary links that develop in this area.

Many types of museum modes that reflect glimpses of the universe of knowledge thus allow countless areas of expertise to be explored, of particular interest are those addressing and specializing in interpretations of cultural expressions.

In museums with a wide variety of nomenclatures and formats in many different countries, the purpose of fostering communication among cultures has been building up a solid track record over the years, steadily fine-tuned by professionals specializing in this field.

Cultural Heritage and Museum Information

Pursuing their roles within societies, museums are developing into areas of understanding to an increasing extent, effectively responding to all the segments that constitute the faceless masses known as museum publics. Thus, categorized as institutions that preserve collective heritages, museums are attempting to perform their activities in ways that will make them intelligible to visitors exploring their exhibitions, as well as for other users of their services, especially those linked to information. Particularly outstanding among these seekers of knowledge are researchers who contact museums for consultation purposes and in order to explore the legacies enshrined in the collections preserved by these institutions.

Within this specific context of museum collections, it must now be stressed that this designation also encompasses what are known as records in museum collections, meaning documentation that represents the various facets of intangible cultural assets in either texts or images. Illustrating this point, how can melodies and songs be transcribed, and written or taped descriptions, as well as pictures of dances and rituals, among other ways of documenting cultural expressions?

The Social Memory (HALBWACHS, 1990) represented by the many collections found in museums and similar institutions has long been the territory of Museology, offering fertile ground for heritage studies.

Over the years, the concept of heritage: "the combined creations and products of nature and man, in their entirety, that make up the environment in which we live in space and time” (ICOMOS, 1982) has gradually (and clearly with increasing wisdom) been urging −

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alongside and with content of identical value − the concept of cultural property (social memory assets) that are both tangible and immaterial (without physical support). Through this approach, it has been possible to encompass other intangible expressions of culture.

This consequently paves the way for understanding diversity and accepting others (different cultures) in a wide variety of mental and physical aspects: as cultural representations and practices. In earlier days, the artifacts produced by humankind were the subjects of analysis, while today it is the process itself – resulting in the artifacts and activities – that are being studied, meaning the community relating its experiences is now the subject of museology studies.

Similarly, with regard to elements arising from Nature, it has been acknowledged that the perception that assigned them the same symbolic attributes (BOURDIEU, 1989) − meaning acknowledgment as natural assets − was undoubtedly the proper identification resulting from the consideration of a ‘cultural view’. A natural asset or ‘collective memory’ transcends the boundaries of its origin and has become a cultural asset arising from Nature.

In general, and briefly, it might be said that this understanding addresses the problems raised by new assets that are part of the cultural heritage and also new museum models. Thus, issues are added, such as the expansion of the operating concept of the purposes of museums.

(…) “The “intangible cultural heritage” means the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity. For the purposes of this Convention, consideration will be given solely to such intangible cultural heritage as is compatible with existing international human rights instruments, as well as with the requirements of mutual respect among communities, groups and individuals, and of sustainable development.” (UNESCO, 2003)

Based on the understanding of content presented above, it may be affirmed that museums must handle any type of cultural testimony, which also includes documenting social processes (endorsements by transformations in aspects of society) with significant peculiarities, in terms of their representative or symbolic character. Thus, they function as means of communication, providing at one and the same time contents and sources for reading and construing the messages from the areas, for both the model and the social action, in other words meanings are expressed through aspects of cultural practices and representations.

In the field of Museology, the issue of communication is a recurring topic for analysis, particularly aspects stressing intercultural matters in which Latin America and the Caribbean are particularly rich, with a striking presence when the area addresses the diversity of the countless social groups in this region.

Recalling that − diversity is highlighted by countless shadings that extent throughout “the universe of ethnicities, religious beliefs, social classes, stratification and genders − known as ‘minorities’ and their various categories − and, in territorial terms, regional problems that also affect major urban hubs in many different aspects and meanings.”(LIMA, 1998, 47); − within the context of the world views developed by social groups, the diversity of cultural construals in time and space determine differences that delineate life styles, considering each variant as a common and specific system that is in turn empowered to define and acknowledge what demarcates the identities of the groups; − this system consists of symbolic devices, understood as emotional and cognitive schemes presented in culturally coded ways, meaning particular signs and specific meanings that establish the identified element as a symbolic component (LIMA, 1998).

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This component is of the order of tangible formulations of notions, abstract expressions of experience rooted in perceptible forms, concrete inclusions of ideas, attitudes, judgments, nostalgias or beliefs” (GEERTZ, 1989, 105).

It must be stressed that, at the level of this paper, there is action (instead of concern). This process must move ahead, in order to encompass cultural differences related to the context of heritage issues in any region where they are clearly apparent in settings, communities, collections of items and the documentation covering expressions of intangible cultural assets. From the standpoint of museum studies, they have become the subject of communication processes developed by Museology.

It is thus a matter of returning to the information standpoint – understood through its characteristics in the scientific area as a field of Information Science, and its specific practices for communicating knowledge within society.

For the issue in question, this includes elements for construing the multiplicity of cultural expressions. Thus, considering cultural plurality as a representative cluster of diverse community groups, their relationships with their physical surroundings and the existential space that is specific to them, including contact with other cultures, which endows intangible cultural assets with capital importance.

This circumstance indicates that the subject addressed in this manner can be considered under the academic denomination of cultural information, with a museum-based approach. Thus, it may be affirmed that it is quite valid to include the application of knowledge of Information Science in Museology within the subject of Information in Museums.

This is the competence (according to the concept presented in the work of Pierre Bourdieu) exercised by the dimension of culture, strengthening its prerogatives that legitimizes cultural expressions and assigns them value as community identity benchmarks.

Similarly, this should be understood as Social Memory benchmarks, constituting an image of belonging, which is a term and concept reflecting the acknowledgment and inclusion of the individual identified as a member of a specific social group. This consequently involves the issue of cultural identity: “Heritage is a reality, a possession of the community, and a rich inheritance that may be passed on, which invites our recognition and our participation." (ICOMOS, 1982).

The sets of cultural elements expressing construal of world views and their correlated life styles that build up as social forms of integration are quite naturally endowed with symbolic significance, also carrying denominations that are specific to the cultures producing them. When using the term ‘cultures’ it should be recalled that the meaning presented in this paper reflects the understanding of the groups and also relationships to natural surroundings, with cultural properties or assets, considered as examples in this natural category, insofar as they are assets related to the group heritage.

It is within this context that Museology appears as a specialty, alongside other areas of knowledge and folk wisdom: lore and legend characteristic of the social groups that generate the expressions analyzed by specialists.

At this stage, an area can be glimpsed that fosters dialog among disciplines and cultures.

Museums and Intercultural Dialog

The basic theme is taken as being the context of the assets for which the museum is the appropriate place to activate this mindset in actual practice, whose content is the links and communications built up among cultures, fostering interaction of knowledge in order to achieve mutual respect that underpins intercommunity solidarity.

Examining the context of the museum field within the multidisciplinary complex that houses it and its technical and conceptual functions, the cultural transmission process is identified through communications, conducted by museums in the role of institutional social agents.

Communications activities are performed through disseminating cultural information

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related to museums (the same as Information in Museums) (REED; SLEDGE; 1988),among the people in their daily lives, from the standpoint of specialized publics as well as lay groups that constitute the consumer clientele presenting demands for information.

This information encompasses what is known as either cultural or natural heritage assets (depending on their type: tangible or intangible), and is modulated according to the specific field characteristics, acting through: – museum collections that also include stand-alone items and groupings in musealized spaces, all in their multiple aspects; In other words: as presented in the course of this papers, the word ‘collection’ extends to encompass intangible expressions representing certain manifestations of social processes that have been recorded in Museum Documentation (ASIST, 2008). In other words, they are arranged in some kind of systematic order that facilitates data retrieval. – exhibitions and their messages, communicated in any type of area; – publications produced in a wide variety of presentations and supports; – courses and lectures; – specialized services for researchers, ensuring easy access to sources for study on aspects of cultural assets related to the collections in the databases that constitute networked information systems (including the Internet)

If the museum communication process was physically limited to the site of the institution during the 1980s for people seeking information from the databases, in terms of automated data systems built up on the collections − regardless of whether they were researchers or ordinary users with any other type of requirements such as recreation − this situation changed from the 1990s onwards.

During this period, electronic communications were already ushering in new Information and Communication Technology (ICT) resources, handled through the worldwide web. The internet imposed sweeping changes on the relationships between museums and their publics: researchers, visitors, course students and other people establishing links with museums or similar institutions, dealing with records related to intangible heritage assets.

Two of these modifications are particularly striking in the relationship process: – in terms of demands for information from outside museums, access through long-distance and direct consultations by logging into museum data systems; – for agents located within museums, although many of them were already operating through integrated networks in their cities or regional systems, extending their capacity to disseminate information at the international level.

Museology and studies undertaken in the field of intangible heritage assets from this time onwards could not fail to appear in the sphere of intercultural dialogs, allowing ample access to the contents of museum collections, books and archives. This was true to the extent that museums, as places of research, have always included libraries and archives in the technical sections of their structures. Today, many institutions have clustered these two sectors together into documentation centers or information centers.

It is by pursuing the purpose of acting in depth and with the necessary scope that testimony can be gathered together in cyberspace that is fragmented by the division of distributed cultural heritage, stored according to the disciplinary categories that scattered it throughout the correlated technical sectors of these institutions.

The purpose of this gathering process is to respond to demands seeking information at two levels.

The first consists of the source of consultation represented by the collection, or similar, usually studied by Museology, while the latter is traditionally linked to other related sources, meaning the source of consultation represented by the reference for the study of the collection. This source or reference is usually found in archives and libraries, fostering progress along the path of building up knowledge by studying these collections. But it should not be forgotten that museum collections also contain many elements (items) that serve as sources for either the collection itself held by a specific museum, or for other collections held by other museums. More specifically, there are rich possibilities opened up

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through museum studies of intangible cultural assets and the dissemination of this information.

Heritage, Museum Terminology, Intercommunication

Modern systems applied through Information and Communication Technologies allow links to be built up among various collections in different institutions and at different locations (Internet links).

Controlled vocabulary (including refined thesauri) guide these tasks, identifying the desired technical categories; the images are an invitation to ‘enter’ computerized areas, with sound and movement encouraging the process of discovering the electronic world...

The range of resources available to Museology and museums within the information and communications context unveils vast and even measureless horizons, for the purposes of specialized research or just for pleasure.

In order to achieve (and maintain) fruitful intercultural dialogs while ensuring that this really occurs, the text, image or sound databases must be available for access – through their indexing terms (descriptors). This includes technical terms specific to the areas illustrating the specialized knowledge applied to the various types of museums as well as to the denominations specific to each culture portrayed.

Above all, in the geographical region under examination, museums that were once subject to Spanish and Portuguese rule should be willing to offer bilingual consultation systems on their websites. They might well opt for English – which seems to be the lingua franca of today’s world – as an effective way of ensuring access by large numbers of people on other continents. Thus, they would present either Spanish and English or Portuguese and English websites. The same procedure that is being proposed here could well be extended to countries on other continents where Spanish or Portuguese is spoken.

Recalling the comment on the cultural mosaic at the start of this paper, it is perhaps time to consider a unified data system that integrates museum information throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Their contents would be presented through the internet, using the terminology museology and other related disciplines, while respecting vernacular and cultural traditions and the specific characteristics of local groups.

It is thus timely to examine the activities and roles of the museum in society as a repository of the collective heritage.

When examining the possibility of structuring systems from the standpoint of unifying data on collections and other activities performed by museums, it is necessary to consider – in view of the links between natural language and documentary language (artificial language used for documentation purposes) – the ‘youth’ of Museology as a field of knowledge, which is moving towards maturation and consolidation.

Thus, it is vital that the necessary attention should be paid to theoretical and practical configuration studies that address consensus indicators, demarcating and establishing clear terms for use by Museology, in terms of construing concepts, while bearing in mind that terminological inconsistencies will certainly be perceived. This will be prompted by contents that often extend beyond the obscure, the varied and the conflicting, in addition to absorbing expressions from other fields of knowledge without the necessary adaptations and clarifications in terms of the meaning given for their application.

What is urged here is that studies should be conducted on the use of terms and concepts in this field, of what is known as the specialty language, an element integrating the field not only among peer professionals, but which also allows this same field of knowledge to communicate intelligibly with people seeking information on a globalized planet, thus fostering intercommunication.

This approach consists of a communication process that transfers information, which is implemented through disseminating the same terms and concepts, although emphasizing and certainly not discarding the issue of highlighting the specific characteristics of local terminologies. This procedure helps museum database users to master this terminology over time through a process of (re) cognition that is gradually built up.

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In the field of initiatives striving to present works related to issues of terminology within the museum context, among other actions, it is necessary to mention (LIMA; COSTA, 2007) the permanent research project conducted by the International Committee for Museology (ICOFOM) and the International Council of Museology (ICOM) exploring Terms and Concepts of Museology, which began during the 1990s at the international level12.

These efforts spread throughout Latin America thanks to the efforts of the Regional Organization of ICOFOM Sub-Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean (ICOFOM LAM) responding to information requirements in the internet era.

In 2003 and 2004, proposals drawn up by ICOFOM and ICOFOM LAM called for the official inclusion of Brazil in the work under way in South America. In 2004, the Brazilian branch of investigations into museum terminology became an institutional research project, registered as an academic activity at the Rio de Janeiro Federal University (UNIRIO)13. With work beginning in 2005, this research project was conducted under the same title: Terms and Concepts of Museology. It is linked to the Graduate Program in Museology and Heritage (PPG-PMUS) Master’s Degree which in turn is being implemented through a partnership between UNIRIO and the Museum of Astronomy and Related Sciences (MAST).

Reflecting on issues involving intercommunication among museums within their current context, representing a wide variety of disciplines as well as highly diversified cultures, is crucial for consolidating the mastery of this field, firming up on the horizon of intercultural dialogs.

In closing, and as set forth in this paper, this prompts timely consideration of the challenges facing the globalized cybernetic world, examining the possibility of a meticulous reassessment of the current types of museum information in terms of ideas and types of action. At the moment, and as is ascertained through field studies such as the project presented here, reflection is required on the museum circuit, which has moved to the center of global discussions, focusing on the issue of the right to lawful enjoyment of cultural diversity and the right to information, which are issues related to social inclusion.

12 André Desvallées, permanent advisor of ICOFOM launched this Project and is now its International Coordinator 13 The Research Project on Terms and Concepts of Museology – UNIRIO is coordinated by the author of this paper, Professor Dr. Diana Farjalla Correia Lima. The team consists of researchers Professor Dr. Tereza Scheiner (UNIRIO) and Professor Dr. Lena Vania Ribeiro Pinheiro from the Brazilian Science and Technology Institute (IBICT) as well as three Introduction to Science fellows (students in the Graduate Museology Course) who are preparing three sub-projects. The Coordinator and researchers are members of ICOM (ICOFOM and CIDOC).

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REFERENCES ASIST. American Society for Information Science and Technology. < http://www.asis.org/> Consulted: June 2008. BOURDIEU, Pierre. A economia das trocas simbólicas. Introd. Org. Sel. de Sergio Miceli. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1986. (Coleção Estudos) CAMERON, Duncan. The museum as a communication system and implication of museum education. Curator, New York, American Museum of Natural History, v. 11, n.1, 1968. CASTELLS, Manuel. A sociedade em rede. São Paulo: Paz e Terra. 1999. v. 1. DESVALLÉES, André. 2000. Terminologia Museológica. Proyecto Permanente de Investigación – ICOFOM LAM. Rio de Janeiro: ICOFOM LAM, Tacnet Cultural. CD-ROM. FARJALA, Diana; Rodriguez, Igor. Patrimônio, herança, bem e monumento: termos, usos e significados no campo museológico. In: ICOFOM/ICOFOM LAM - International Symposium Museology and History: a field of knowledge. Córdoba/Argentina. Munich, Córdoba: ICOFOM Study Series - ISS 35. 2006. p. 243-250. GEERTZ, Clifford. A interpretação das culturas. Rio de Janeiro: Guanabara-Koogan,1989. HALBWACHS, Maurice. A memória coletiva. São Paulo: Vértice,1990. ICOMOS. 1982. Charter for the Preservation of Quebec's Heritage.- La déclaration de Deschambault. (Quebec: ICOMOS Canada). <http://www.icomos.org/docs/deschambault>. Consulted May 2008. LIMA, Diana Farjalla Correia. Museo y diversidad cultural: implicaciones de un espacio simbólico de poder. In: ICOFOM LAM 98 - Encuentro Regional. Museos, Museología y diversidad cultural en América Latina y el Caribe (7). 13-20 junio 1998. México DF: ICOFOM LAM, ICOM México, Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiño. 1998. p. 34-44 Espanhol. p. 45-54 Português. LIMA, D. F. C.; COSTA, I. F. R. Ciência da informação e Museologia: estudo teórico de termos e conceitos em diferentes contextos -- subsídio à linguagem documentária. In: CINFORM (7) Encontro Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa. Salvador: Instituto de Ciência da Informação, Escola Politécnica da Universidade Federal da Bahia - UFBA. 2007. http://www.cinform.ufba.br/7cinform/soac/viewabstract.php?id=32. Consulted June 2008. MESA REDONDA, Las ventajas de Internet para los museos. Noticias del ICOM. BoletÍn del Consejo Internacional de Museos. Paris: ICOM, 2003. v. 56, n. 1, p. 24. MULTIMEDIA Y REDES, Especial. Noticias del ICOM. BoletÍn del Consejo Internacional de Museos. Paris: ICOM, 1996. v. 49, n. 4. REED, Patricia Ann, SLEDGE, Jane. Thinking about museum information.. Library Trends, Champaig/Illinois, 37, (2): 220-231, Fall 1988. Library Trends has become the premier thematic quarterly Journal in the field of American Librarianship. Library Science Annual. UNESCO. 1972. Convention concerning the protection of the world cultural and natural heritage --The General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization meeting in Paris from 17 October to 21 November 1972. <http://www.international.icomos.org/e_charte.htm>. Consulted: May. 2008. UNESCO. 2003. Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage: article 2, definitions 1. Paris, 29 September - 17 October 2003, 32nd session. <http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?pg=00006>. Consulted: June 2008.

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MUSEUM AESTHETICS – A CROSS CULTURAL BRIDGE TANG Jiaqing, Fujian Museum of Modern Chinese History - Fuzhou, China ___________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT

Museum aesthetics, a human-centered theory for which comparative research is applied and museums are interpreted in a modern aesthetic way, is a bridge of cross-culture understanding and exchange. Firstly, we should put museums into the course of human’s social beauty, clarify historical relationship among their emergence, development and people’s pursuit and creation of beauty, so as to reveal the development rules of museums. Secondly, we should aesthetically position and demonstrate the basic elements and operation mechanism and clarify the basic connotation and mutual relationship among content beauty, formal beauty and aesthetic education, so as to uncover their aesthetic characteristics and working rules. Museums mainly aim to spread the beauty content (cultural relics) to vast audiences in the form of beauty (display), in order to promote human’s comprehensive development and to shape perfect personality. Museum aesthetics will become a theoretical guidance for museum development in the new century.

KEYWORDS: Museum, Aesthetics, Cross-Culture

RESUMEN La estética del museo – un puente intercultural La estética del museo – teoría centrada en el factor humano que promueve la investigación comparativa e interpreta al museo de un modo estético moderno – es un puente intercultural de entendimiento e intercambio. En primer lugar, debiéramos colocar a los museos dentro del ámbito de la belleza social del ser humano, aclarar la relación histórica existente entre su surgimiento, su desarrollo y la búsqueda y creación de belleza, de forma tal de revelar las reglas bajo las cuales se desarrollaron los museos. En segundo lugar, debiéramos posicionarnos estéticamente y demostrar los elementos básicos y sus mecanismos de funcionamiento, y aclarar la connotación básica y la relación mutua entre la belleza del contenido, la belleza formal y la educación estética, de forma tal que queden al descubierto sus características estéticas y sus normas de trabajo. Los museos apuntan principalmente a difundir su contenido de belleza (reliquias culturales) al gran público en forma de presentaciones estéticas (exhibición), a fin de promover el desarrollo integral del hombre y moldear una personalidad perfecta. La estética del museo se convertirá así en guía teórica de su desarrollo en el nuevo siglo. Palabras clave: museo, estética, intercultural.

* * * Museums, which symbolize the civilization advancement of human beings, are

developing along with the social, economic and cultural progress. After steeping into the 21st century, museums will act as “the emissary of beauty” and transmit natural beauty, social beauty, artistic beauty, scientific beauty and technological beauty to people, playing an important role in creating the new century’s civilization.

The museum undertaking in the 21st century needs guidance of brand-new museology in accordance with the global cultural trend. However, current museology mainly focus on research on museum applied technologies and theories and lack originality of research on fundamental museum theories. It is emphasized that “museology is related to many subjects

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including humanities, social science, technological science and natural sciences and features considerable crossing 14.” Nevertheless, when seeking to open the door of museology with keys of other subjects, people don’t carry out comparative research on the museology with other subjects on the basis of the cultural characteristics and development rules of museums themselves. Therefore, we can say that the genuine museum theoretical system is to be established. For instance, when theories and methods of applied pedagogy are used for research on museum education, the idea that “museum education is different from school education” is taken note of, and opinions such as that “museums feature vast target education groups, diversified education content and visual education forms” 15, but we haven’t gone deep into research and discussion on some significant theoretical issues, such as how to grasp the characteristics and rules of museum education and how to make museum education successful. In addition, when facing continuously emerged new-styled museums, traditional museology becomes so bleak, which can be described as “traditional museum concepts have failed to include the content of modern museums” 16.

It is obvious that research on museology has lagged behind the development of museum undertaking. When facing museum undertaking in the 21st century, people have to reconsider the museology retrospectively and makes efforts to seek breakthrough for research on museology. Being analyzed from the angle of futurology, research direction on museology in the new century will change in the following four aspects:

1. From research on applied museology to research on theoretical museology Applied museology is not able to expound the essential traits and development rules of

museums, though they can explain single principles for museum work. Research on museology in the new century will investigate the museum history, summarize the rules of museum work, discuss theoretically museums’ cultural traits, and create a distinctive system of museology from the angle of philosophy

2. From ordinary research to comparative research on museology Ordinary museology always focus on demonstration and discussion from the angle of

the subject itself, leading to insufficient profundity and extent. Research on future museology will pay more attention to cross study of multiple subjects, obtain scientific theories regarding museums from comparison and thus lead museology to a deeper extent.

3. From research of “object-centered” to research of “human-centered” Nowadays, although the academe has proposed the opinion that museums are

“combination of human and objects” and “human and objects are equally related with each other” 17, actual research always are trapped in the “object-centered” fetters. Innovation of research on museology in the new century lie in extending “human-centered” research, putting “objects” of museums into the long river of human history for the purpose of investigation and focusing on humanistic concern. Only we research on museology in a “human-centered” way, can comprehensive social benefit be achieved for museums and can development of museum undertaking be vigorously advanced.

4. From traditional museum research to modern museum research Social development and scientific and technological advancement require that

museums not only display the past but also represent today and future. Traditional museum aesthetics fail to instruct the practice of modern museums, which requires future museum aesthetics alter concepts, update consciousness and theoretically explain the practice of new-styled museums from the angle of modern aesthetics.

114 Basis of Chinese Museology, Shanghai Classics Publishing House, 1995 15 Basis of Chinese Museology, Shanghai Classics Publishing House, 1995 16 Basis of Chinese Museology, Shanghai Classics Publishing House, 1995. 4 The opinion that museums are combination of human and objects was proposed by a Japanese scholar, which became the basis for post-war theories of museology

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Four changes in the research direction on museology will drive the historic leap for practice and theories of museums in the new century. The museum aesthetics is no other than a theory with modern interpretation of museums, conforming with the “four changes” regarding research on museology in the new century. Therefore, museum aesthetics is a bridge of cross-culture understanding and exchange.

Within the rage of museum aesthetics, basing on the outlook of philosophy, people objectively research on the history, status quo and future of the museum beauty and grasp the property, traits and development rules of their beauty. By investigating the history of museums, we can know that the process of museums’ emergence and development is just the cause of people’s pursuit and creation of beauty. Beauty is developed along with the social development, while social advancement not only accelerates the creation of beauty but also invents the museum beauty. The ancients had started collection of natural objects, labor tools and products closely related to human’s living, and these original aesthetical activities containing faiths are exactly the bud of museums. The temples of ancient Greece and Alexandria Municipal Museum, which are called early stage museums, have collected articles including cultural artworks as well as gems, booties, botanicals and zoos, suggesting that pursuit of fortune and artistic aesthetics is a motivation for the emergence of museums. Renaissance from the 14th to 16th century in Europe is a great drive for museums, during which the collection range extended from artworks ancient articles to natural specimens and folk-custom relics and people paid attention to the value of aesthetics and sciences. The industrial revolution in the 18th century made the museum undertaking advanced significantly. Europe had established a batch of important museums successively. The Museum Louvre in Paris, which was opened in 1793, created a new era for museum socialization and was a new symbol for people’s share of museum beauty. In the 19th century, the development of scientific & industrial museums enriched and perfected the content of museum beauty. During this period, various museums about nature, history, sciences, art and so on were established, making natural beauty, social beauty, artistic beauty, scientific beauty and technological beauty displayed in museums. For the purpose of social education, museums started to classify collected articles with the method of display, push ahead with comprehensive education and leisure activities 18 and spread the museum beauty. Modern museums feature not only large quantities and fast development speed but also diversified types and more reasonable layouts. For example, there are 418 museums in Brazil, of which the museums about history account for 30%, museums about art 22%, museums about natural sciences 18%, special museums 14% and memorial museums 1% 19. On one hand, it is the result of human’s all-round pursuit and creation of beauty, and on the other hand, it suggests that museum education should be in accordance with human’s comprehensive and harmonious development. Therefore, successful aesthetic education of museums and comprehensive promotion of people’s moral disposition and cultural quality are the ultimate goal of museums’ work. Western scholars think that museums are intended to “educate the country, provide entertainment and enrich life” 20, and Chinese modern educator Cai Yuanpei definitely proposed to take advantage of the function of aesthetic education for museums, invoke ordinary people’s interest in elegancy and nobility and build ordinary people’s wisdom and morality 21 In the 20th century, the contemporary trend of museums’ buildings, equipment and display forms shows museums’ concern about human beings, and “beautifying society and consummating human” become the subject of museums’ work and guide the museum undertaking in its future direction. According to above analysis, we can find that the development of museums and the course of social beauty tend to converge. Similarly, we can discover the development diversity of various museums in different countries with the general characteristics of museum beauty; we can 18 “Education and Leisure” is the tenet for some American museums 19 Basis of Chinese Museology, Shanghai Classics Publishing House, 1995 20 The opinion of “educate the country, provide entertainment and enrich life” is the “Three Es” principle of “Educate, Entertain, Enrich” proposed by western museum scholars 21 Citizens’ Obligation on Education by Cai Yuanpei

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reveal museums’ development rules. When discussing the essence and characteristics of museums from the aspect of aesthetics, we can reveal the social function and working rules of museums. The basic elements of museums include: collected articles, display and audiences (education), constituting the basic meaning of the museum beauty. Collected articles are representative and typical practicalities with historical, scientific and artistic values. According to the opinion that “beauty lies in quintessence”, collected articles are representative things for natural beauty, social beauty, artistic beauty, scientific beauty and technological beauty, which is the content and basis of museum beauty. Museums’ collection and protection of relics and specimens are actually human’s pursuit and recognition of beauty. Display and exhibitions are actually the process of combining relics and specimens in accordance with certain subjects, sequences and art forms, which actually are creative activities revealing the museum beauty and embodiment of museums’ formal beauty. Education of museums actually lies in their aesthetic education activities with certain forms and approaches, which educates the public in the aspect of thoughts and morality and spreads scientific and cultural knowledge. In a word, museum work is to transmit the content of beauty (relics and specimens) to vast audiences in the form of beauty (display). With colleted articles as the basis, display as the bridge and aesthetic education as the purpose, museums make the three aspects be related and interplay with each other and embody museums “human-centered” essence and characteristics, while all other functions such as scientific research, management and buildings are used to serve the essence and characteristics.

When grasping the essence and characteristics of museum beauty and realizing the working direction for the purpose of aesthetic museum education, we can summarize the development rules of museum beauty. Therefore, museum aesthetics can become the theoretical guidance of the museum undertaking in the 21st century.

The foundation of museum aesthetics has epoch-making meaning, which must employ the weapon of applied philosophy, comprehensively investigate the history of museums, reveal the essential characteristics and working rules of museums and provide guidance for the future museum development. Firstly, we should put research on museum aesthetics into the course of human beings’ social beauty for the purpose of investigation, clarify museums’ emergence and development and their historical relationship with human’s pursuit and creation of beauty, and accordingly reveal the essential characteristics and development rules of museum beauty, so as to create an “aesthetic over bridge” for the museum undertaking in the 21st century. Secondly, we should aesthetically position and demonstrate basic factors and operation mechanism, basic connotation and mutual relationship among content beauty, formal beauty, aesthetic education, and uncover their aesthetic characteristics and working rules. For example, with regard to research on content beauty, we should follow the classification of natural beauty, social beauty, artistic beauty, scientific beauty and technological beauty to analyze the cultural meaning of collected articles, accordingly broaden the horizon of museum’s collection and provide theoretical basis for developing new-styled museums. With regard to research on formal beauty, we should realized the aesthetic position of display work, summarize the principles of display arts and drive the improvement and advancement of display arts on the basis of bridge function during creating and appreciating beauty for display. With regard to research on aesthetic education, we should pay attention to the visual, pleasing and free traits of museum education, focus on the central task of “promoting human’s comprehensive development and shaping perfect personality”, realize museums’ education function, summarize the rules of museums’ aesthetic education, and create a new way for museums’ “human-centered” essence and characteristics. In addition, with regard to some issues including buildings & environment and scientific research & management, we should carry out research from the angle of aesthetics, realize their role in museums, take advantage their aesthetic function and make them serve creation and transmission of museum beauty. In a word, museum aesthetics should investigate museums in an all-round way, from objective to microcosmic,

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from objects to human, from static to dynamic and from exterior to interior, so as to form an integrate theoretical system of museum aesthetics.

In the new century, museum aesthetics not only is full of livingness and energy like spring bamboos breaking the ground but also faces challenges and selection, which needs concern and cultivation from the whole society. Therefore, as transmitters of beauty, our vast museum practitioners should devote ourselves to practice and theoretical research on museum beauty in the new century. During the great practice of constructing socialism and harmonious society, museum practitioners should not only make pioneering efforts with a dutiful attitude but also study hard for improvement in moral and professional quality and aesthetic capability, so as to create a new pattern for museum work according the rules of beauty. We believe that museum aesthetics will move towards the spring of museum undertaking !

�New Aesthetics by Ouyang Zhou, Zhejiang University Publishing House, 1995

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1.2 The global dialogue among communities, an interactive

process

Le dialogue mondial entre communautés : un processus interactif

El diálogo global entre comunidades : un proceso interactivo

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THE MARKET AND CIVIL SOCIETY DAVIS Ann, The Nickle Arts Museum, University of Calgary - Calgary, Canada ______________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT The market and civil society.

There are many communities important to museums and many ways of defining such communities within today’s global sphere. The two I would like to discuss are the market and civil society. These two communities, with the addition of a third, government, are central to the operation all societies, with the emphasis on each of the three being given varying weights in different countries. These three centres of power are of considerable interest to and have important impact on museums all around the globe. Over the past few decades many granting bodies, governments and philanthropists have demanded that museums operate more like business, more like the market, and have suggested that market forces should regulate museums. But is this the right approach? Should private, market interests be separated from public, civil society interests? Are market forces compatible and helpful to civil society in general and museums in particular? How should these two communities interact?

This paper is based on the work of Michael Edwards and his fascinating, newly published book, Just Another Emperor: The Myths and Realities of Philanthrocapitalism. Civil society is different from the market and those differences must be acknowledged and protected. Markets work because they stick to a clear financial bottom line. Social transformation, by contrast, has none of these clear markers. Rather it has many bottom lines and strategies to reach them, and relies on participants outside the control of any one group. Unlike the market, as Edwards explains, “civil society is open to more radical alternatives rooted in completely different visions of property rights, ownership and governance.” Museums, part of civil society and agents of social transformation, have to negotiate with markets but keep a clear focus on their civil society community. RÉSUMÉ Le marché et la société civile.

Il y a bien des communautés qui sont importantes pour les musées, et bien des façons de les décrire dans l’environnement mondial d’aujourd'hui. Les deux communautés dont je souhaiterais débattre sont le marché, et la société civile, auxquelles on peut aussi rajouter les gouvernements. Ces trois entités sont au cœur du fonctionnement de toutes les sociétés, et leur mise en valeur respective varie d'un pays à l'autre. Partout dans le monde, ces trois centres de pouvoir sont, pour les musées, à la fois une source d’intérêt et d’influence. Ces dernières décennies beaucoup d'organismes de financement, de gouvernements et de philanthropes, ont exigé que les musées fonctionnent davantage comme des entreprises, à l’image du marché. Aussi, ont-ils suggéré que ce soient les forces issues du marché qui désormais doivent régir le fonctionnement des musées. On peut se demander si cette approche est la bonne? Par définition, les intérêts publics, produit de la société civile, et ceux du marché, n’ont-ils pas des objectifs contradictoires ? Les forces du marché sont-elles utiles et compatibles avec les intérêts de la société civile en général et des musées en particulier.

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Mon intervention est basée sur le travail de Michael Edwards et de son livre qui vient de paraître: Just Another Emperor : The Myths and Realities of Philanthrocapitalism. (Un empereur de plus ! Mythes et réalité du capitalisme philanthropique) La société civile diffère du marché, et ces différences doivent être reconnues et protégées. Les marchés fonctionnent parce qu'ils visent un résultat financier clair auquel ils se tiennent. Par contre, la transformation sociale n'a, elle, aucun objectif précis. Elle viserait plutôt un grand nombre d’objectifs, avec autant de stratégies pour y arriver. Elle dépend des participants qui échappent au contrôle d'un groupe quelconque. A l'opposé du marché, nous explique Edwards, "la société civile est ouverte aux alternatives radicales qui prennent racine dans des visions totalement différentes des droits de la propriété, des biens et des personnes morales, et de la bonne gouvernance." Les musées, part intégrale de la société civile et acteurs de transformations sociales, se doivent de négocier avec les marchés, tout en gardant à l’esprit que leur mission est de servir leur société civile, au sein de leur communauté. RESUMEN El mercado y la sociedad civil. En la actualidad existen numerosas comunidades que son de importancia para los museos y muchas formas de definirlas dentro de la esfera global. Quisiera referirme aquí a dos de ellas, el mercado y la sociedad civil. Estas dos comunidades, con el agregado de una tercera, el gobierno, son vitales para el funcionamiento de todas las sociedades y se les otorga un énfasis cuyo peso varía según los distintos países. Estos tres centros de poder son de considerable interés y tienen un impacto significativo en todos los museos del mundo. En las últimas décadas muchos organismos que otorgan donaciones, tanto gubernamentales como filantrópicos, exigen que los museos operen como empresas comerciales a imagen del mercado, e incluso sugieren que los museos sean regulados por las fuerzas del mismo mercado. Pero ¿es éste el enfoque correcto? ¿Debieran estar separados los intereses privados del mercado de los intereses públicos de la sociedad civil? ¿Son las fuerzas del mercado compatibles y solidarias con la sociedad civil en general y con los museos en particular? ¿Cómo debieran interactuar estas dos comunidades?

* * *

Este documento toma como base el trabajo de Michael Edwards y su fascinante libro, recientemente publicado, Just Another Emperor: The Myths and Realities of Philanthrocapitalism. La sociedad civil es diferente del mercado y esas diferencias deben ser reconocidas y protegidas. Los mercados funcionan porque se atienen a una línea de base claramente financiera. En contraste con lo anterior, la transformación social no posee ninguno de estos indicadores. Más bien posee muchas líneas de base y estrategias para alcanzarlos y descansa sobre participantes que se encuentran fuera del control de cualquier grupo en particular. Como lo explica Edwards, a diferencia del mercado, “la sociedad civil está abierta a alternativas más radicales, enraizadas en visiones completamente distintas de los derechos de propiedad, posesión y gobernabilidad”. Los museos, al ser parte de la sociedad civil y agentes de transformación social, tienen que negociar con los mercados pero al mismo tiempo mantener claramente focalizada su comunidad, conformada por la sociedad civil.

There are many communities important to museums and many ways of defining such communities within today’s global sphere. The two I would like to discuss are the market and civil society. These two communities, with the addition of a third, government, are central to the operation all societies, with the emphasis on each of the three being given varying

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weights in different countries. These three centres of power are of considerable interest to and have important impact on museums all around the globe. Over the past few decades many granting bodies, governments and philanthropists have demanded that museums operate more like business, more like the market, and have suggested that market forces should regulate museums. But is this the right approach ? Should private, market interests be separated from public, civil society interests ? Are market forces compatible and helpful to civil society in general and museums in particular ? How should these two communities interact ? This paper is based on the work of Michael Edwards and his fascinating, newly published book, Just Another Emperor: The Myths and Realities of Philanthrocapitalism22. As the subtitle suggests, Edwards is concerned with philanthrocapitalism, that form of philanthropy characterized by large donations, backed by the belief that the world may be saved by revolutionizing philanthropy, making non-profit organizations operate like business and creating new markets for goods and services that benefit society. Recent people involved in philantrocapitalism are Bono and his Global Fund, Bill Clinton and Bill Gates. To study this new brand of philanthropy, Edwards examines in considerable detail the differences between the approaches of the market on the one hand and civil society on the other hand. It is these differences that that I find most useful in considering the operation of museums, a part of civil society. Edwards has both broad and deep experience to back his study. He has held senior management positions in international organizations such as Oxfam-GB, Save the Children-UK and the World Bank. He is currently the Director of Governance and Civil Society at the Ford Foundation, centred in New York City. Some Definitions Market

In economics, a market is a social structure that emerged to make possible the exchange of rights, or ownership, of services and goods. Markets enable services, firms and products to be evaluated and priced through supply and demand. There are two roles in markets, buyers and sellers, with at least three actors needed for a market to exist; at least one actor, on the one side of the market, who is aware of at least two actors on the other side whose offers can be evaluated in relation to each other. A market allows buyers and sellers to discover information and carry out a voluntary exchange of goods or services. Today much debate centres on the freedom of the market, or the extent to which it is regulated by laws internal or external to a country or jurisdiction. The Chicago School of Economics, of which Milton Friedman was the best-known proponent, posited that the freest market was the perfect scientific system. Friedman argued for the elimination of all government regulation and trade barriers, and for cuts to social spending. A more centrist point of view was that of John Maynard Keynes, an advocate of interventionist government policy, who influenced Roosevelt’s New Deal after the 1929 stock market crash. Keynes’ ideas, along with those of his acknowledged successor, the Canadian John Kenneth Galbraith, led to the creation of social security in the USA, public health in Canada, welfare in Britain and workers’ protection in France and Germany. The distinction between business and the state is important in capitalism. Capitalism requires a free market, for capitalism is a for profit economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners, rather than by the state. Within capitalism is found business, a company operating by market forces, where profit is the determining metric. Civil Society Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), a German philosopher, identified civil society as an autonomous self-governing sphere, which can transform individual strivings for particular advantage into the public good. Broadly speaking, the term was then split to the

22 (New York City: Demos: A Network for Ideas & Action, the Young Foundation, 2008).

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political left and right. On the left, it became the foundation for Karl Marx's bourgeois society; to the right it became a description for all non-state aspects of society, expanding out of the economy into culture, society and politics. A second, related, concept of civil society is Tocqueville's23 notion that civil society is an intermediate sphere of voluntary association sustained by an informal culture of self-organization and cooperation.24 But then the idea that there might be this third sector, civil society, existing between market and state was lost to contemporary analysis. However, by the 1980s, both the term civil society and the concept were actively revived. At that time the European Union made an attempt to give institutions of society, sometimes called non-government organizations (NGOs), not just governments and business, a voice at the policy-making tables in Brussels. The transition to post-industrial societies was bringing up important questions about social cohesion and social participation in European counties that are increasingly heterogeneous and diverse.

The London School of Economics Centre for Civil Society defines civil society as …the arena of uncoerced collective action around shared interests, purposes and values. In theory, its institutional forms are distinct from those of the state, family and market, though in practice, the boundaries between state, civil society, family and market are often complex, blurred and negotiated.… Civil societies are often populated by organizations such as registered charities, development non-governmental organizations, community groups, women's organizations, faith-based organizations, professional associations, trade unions, self-help groups, social movements, business associations, coalitions and advocacy groups.25

Robert D. Putnam has argued that even non-political organizations in civil society are vital for democracy. This is because they build social capital, trust and shared values, which are transferred into the political sphere and help to hold society together, facilitating an understanding of the interconnectedness of society and interests within it. 26 Typically organizations in civil society, like museums, are built on the principles of cooperation, solidarity and caring, attitudes that are very different from the logistics of business and the market. Museums : agents for social change and development ICOM declared the theme of 2008 International Museum Day to be “Museums: agents for social change and development.” As befits a global institution seeking to appeal to big and small, rich and poor alike, this theme is broad enough to incorporate just about every point of view and certainly encompasses the two communities of market and civil society. The editorial of the spring issue of ICOM News sought to delineate some directions for this project, pointing to the need to develop new tools to achieve sustainable development and evaluate the worth of heritage. “Both movements”, the editor contends, “depend on a critical reconsideration of the proprietary divisions apparent in the idea of ‘heritage’: one’s ‘own’ or ‘other’ peoples.” Furthermore science and new technologies “can be perceived of as conflicting discourses and methods” or, “incorporated into new hybrid 23 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 – 1859) was a French political thinker and historian best known for his book Democracy in America. 24 John Ehrenberg, “Beyond Civil Society”, New Politics, vol. 6, no. 4 (new series), whole no. 24, Winter 1998. 25 Centre for Civil Society, London School of Economics (2004-03-01). Retrieved on 8 May, 2008. 26 Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions In Modern Italy, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). Another more recent book by Frances Moore Lappé, Democracy’s Edge: Choosing to Save our Country by Bringing Democracy to Life, (San Francisco: Jossey-Brass, 2006) also discusses the market and civil society, although Lappé does not use the term civil society. Lappé is best known for her iconic 1971 book Diet for a Small Planet.

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forms, … show that there is no monopoly on innovation and that barriers can be overcome.”27 On the topic of social change, articles discuss the importance of eco-museums and slavery museums. David Fleming, chair of INTERCOM, remarked forcefully that “It is becoming more and more widely accepted that museum can be powerful engines of social change, through their educational power. Over time, and in partnership with others, local museums can help transform communities.” 28 Equally transformative, Peter Friess suggested that technology can change the processes by which we create exhibitions, while Roberta Cafuri cautioned that the digital divide is imposing a northern hemisphere growth model on other parts of the world.29 While the solutions might vary widely, the authors of these diverse opinions all agree that there are serious problems in the world that museums can help to address. These dreadful concerns include famine, poverty, slavery, racism, disease, violence and drugs, just to name a few. The question then is how to do this? What system or systems to use? Some see the solution in the market; others think civil society is the answer. The market approach Can the market deal with the social problems of the world? Certainly there are a number of important attempts. For-profit organizations, including the Gates Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative, have made huge investments in global health. As well pharmaceutical companies are becoming active participants in initiatives to sell drugs at reduced prices. Another high-profile success story is micro-credit, increasing poor people’s access to savings, credit and other financial services. On a smaller scale, there are a number of focused initiatives that are successfully using market methods to benefit society. These include SunNight Solar, which produces solar-powered flashlights and sells them at a discount, and One Laptop Per Child, which manufactures and sells cheap computers loaded with open-source software.30 As Edwards asks, “What does the evidence tell us” about the success or failure of these market initiatives? “First, that it is perfectly possible to use the market to extend useful good and services. Second, that few of these efforts have any substantial, long-term, broad-based impact on social transformation, with the possible exception of micro-credit.”31 What about social enterprises that engage in revenue generating activities? A Stanford Business School study of environmental NGOs found that “pragmatic” ones, those that engaged in fundraising, failed more often than “pure” ones, those that did not compromise their principles to attract revenue or profile. In Canada a survey of human service organizations determined that organizations that shifted their mission to make money failed. In the US, both the YMCA and the YWCA got into trouble in the early 2000s by trying to increase their presence in upscale urban areas and consequently saw their social impact decline. As well the Nature Conservancy and Habitat for Humanity are being investigated because of various deals with business.32 It is not a pretty picture, underlining how difficult it is to blend the social and financial bottom lines. Perhaps the answer is technology. And technology has, unquestionably, revolutionized the speed and methods of information exchange. Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, in his book The World Is Flat, joyfully proclaimed that the global playing field has been leveled, that today’s technology allows anyone working anywhere to participate in the wealth of the market.33 Through technology, Friedman believes the divide

27 Lysa Hochroth, p. 2. 28 Ibid., “The International Slavery Museum”, p. 7. 29 Ibid., pp. 3 – 5. 30 Edwards, pp. 33 – 37. 31 Ibid, p. 37. 32 Ibid., pp.39 – 41. 33 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005)

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between the very wealthy and the very poor can be reduced, thus addressing many of the globe’s systemic problems. Unfortunately his optimism is not universally shared.34 The idea that trade and technology can have a leveling effect is an idea with a long history, at least since the invention of the telegraph and telephone. Professor Richard Florida, recently hired by the University of Toronto, author of The Rise of the Creative Class, and, published just months ago, Who’s Your City, suggests Friedman is only partly right. He declares in his 2008 book: “By almost any measure, the international economic landscape is not at all flat.”35 He goes on to explain that a lot of really smart people have been tripped up because they “see globalization as an either–or proposition. It’s not. The key to our new global reality lies in understanding that the world is flat and spiky at the same time.”36 While, in this new book Florida’s thesis concerns the importance of specific locations, cities, the clustering of economic activity and innovation, something of considerable importance to local museums, what is more germane to our current discussion is Florida’s documentation of the problems of market growth and the question of the market’s ability to solve social problems. If a free market is the best way to solve global social problems, we might assume that the country with the freest market might be the most prosperous and secure and its people the happiest, Milton Friedman’s contention. The United States of America, arguably the world’s most important market economy with great technological resources, bears examination in this regard.37 Here flatness has not happened. The reverse is true. Many claim US society is in decay. Today the disparity between the most wealthy and the poorest is greater than at any other time since the fall of the stock market in 1929. Thirty-five million Americans are so poor they do not know where the next meal is coming from. Public education is, in Bill Gates’ word, “broken”; quality, affordable day-care is virtually unobtainable; 16% of the population has no medical insurance; 34% of African Americans and 37% of Hispanics keep their children indoors because they live in dangerous neighbourhoods.38 When teaching in Washington, DC, Florida asked his graduate students from foreign countries where they wanted to eventually settle. He was shocked by their answers: they all wanted to raise their children outside the United States, claiming that in their own countries the educational systems were better, the society less materialistic and there was less pressure to work so there was more time for family.39 Even if civil society organizations are not businesses, perhaps the market can help these organization to improve their financial and management capacities. Certainly civil society organizations, like those in the market, need to have a clear focus for their work, to have strong learning and accountability mechanisms and the ability to motivate staff and volunteers, in short appropriate management practices. However the idea that investment in social action should be cost-effective is too often conflated with a particular market definition of efficiency.40 The idea that civil society organizations are not “well run” often comes from a narrow, market definition of effectiveness, one that is not sympathetic to either the goals or the operating methodologies of civil society. A recent study by the Nonprofit Quarterly actually found that non-profit leaders were more effective than their for-profit counterparts on fourteen out of seventeen markers of leadership, including risk taking, persuasiveness and

34 For a devastating review of The World Is Flat see Edward Leamer, “A Flat World, A Level Playing Field, a Small World After All or None of the Above? Review of Thomas L. Friedman, The World Is Flat”, Journal of Economic Literature, 45, 1, 2007, pp. 83-126. 35 Who’s Your City, (Toronto: Random House, 2008), p. 18. 36 Ibid., p. 20. 37 Two recent books, along with Lappé’s mentioned above, are particularly scathing about the current social problems in the US: Al Gore, The Assault on Reason, (New York: Penguin, 2007) and Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, (Toronto: Alfred Knopf Canada, 2007). 38 Florida, pp. 253-259. 39 Ibid., pp. 259-260. 40 Edwards, pp. 43 – 45.

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vision41. Museums certainly have experienced pressures to be more business-oriented, and granting agencies, including governments and philanthropic organizations, are exerting increasing control over museums, which has the effect of reducing autonomy and flexibility, for museums are being forced to spend and report on each donation exactly as prescribed. Introducing the different logics of civil society and the market in the same organization can confuse the bottom line, complicate accountability and stimulate mission drift. Using civil society

Civil society is different from the market and those differences must be acknowledged and protected. Markets work because they stick to a clear financial bottom line. Social transformation, by contrast, has none of these clear markers. Rather it has many bottom lines and strategies to reach them, and relies on participants outside the control of any one group. Unlike the market, as Edwards explains, “civil society is open to more radical alternatives rooted in completely different visions of property rights, ownership and governance.”42 Market efficiency is not the same as effective human fulfillment, and market norms do not properly express democratic values, for they do not price real assets such as the environment and social cohesion. Markets exist to satisfy the needs of individual consumers who have the ability to pay; civil society exists to meet needs and rights regardless of people’s ability to pay. “[D]emocracy and civil society …[work] hard to contain and channel the enormous energies of capitalism and to contain its tendencies to inequality.”43 There are examples of philanthropy and funding that really do make a social difference. One such is the Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centers in Mumbai, India, that works with slum dwellers to build their capacities to fight for their rights. Another successful organization is Shack Dwellers International, a global movement that has been able to secure a place for the urban poor at the negotiating table when policies on housing are being discussed by the World Bank and other important donors. In the United States, Make the Road by Walking, which builds grassroots organizations in areas most affected by injustice in Los Angeles and New York, is another positive contributor.44 In Canada funding for museums from the federal government comes from two sources, one a government department, the other an arms-length organization. The federal government’s Heritage Department, through the Museum Assistance Program, gives grants that are so prescribed in their accounting methods that my museum recently decided not to apply for a $100,000 grant that we had a good chance of being awarded. We calculated that the grant would cost us more to administer than it was worth.45 On the other hand, the Canada Council for the Arts, an arms-length organization that can determine its own criteria for accounting, recently awarded my museum a small grant for translation on the basis of a two paragraph e-mail and simply requires a similar e-mail once the translation has been done and the money spent. The first organization, under the control of the present Conservative government, is instituting market policies to regulate museums; the second organization, under its own control, is responding to the needs of museums. Those groups, be they philanthropists or governments, that do effectively support civil society, are the ones that change the social and political dynamics as needed to enable

41 www.nonprofitquarterly.org, January 7, 2008. 42 Edwards, p. 57. 43 Ibid., p. 59. 44 Ibid., pp. 78-79. 45 This federal government has clearly absorbed the lessons of the Chicago School and wants to reduce spending to civil society organizations. Recently it cut the allocation to the Museum Assistance Program, arguing that all the funds had not been granted, without looking at why that might be.

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whole communities to share in the fruits of innovation and success. Key to success is respecting the people, the museologists or the marginalized, changing the power relations and the ownership of assets, so that the recipients are firmly in the driver’s seat. Edwards concluded

This is why … civil society is vital for social transformation, and why the world needs more civil society influences on business, not the other way around – more cooperation not competition, more collective action not individualism, and a greater willingness to work together to change the fundamental structures that keep most people poor so that all of us can live more fulfilling lives.46

Both Richard Florida and Jane Jacobs, two Americans who moved to Canada, are also interested in how all can live more fulfilling lives, and, since we are globally increasingly urbanized, how we can live better in cities. Cities, too, is where most museums are located, so this discussion is very pertinent to the health of museums. Jacobs was interested in finding out what economic expansion really is. She determined that it is not just increasing the volume of economic output, making more. Rather it is also, and more importantly, differentiation, making things new and different.47 This differentiation, for Jane Jacobs as for Joseph Schumpter48, turns on innovation, and innovation is the result of a diverse pool of resources. Famously Jacobs, in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, detailed the pressing need for diversity in cities, diversity of age, race, income, interests, education, housing, commercial establishments, and heritage. Following her, Florida documented and quantified the features which Americans feel make cities livable. Florida identified five factors, two of which lead the list in importance: “aesthetics, physical beauty, amenities and cultural offerings”, and “basic services, schools, health-care, affordable housing, roads and public transportation.”49 Given the prominence ascribed to aesthetics in this list, its position as the most important factor in making cities livable, Florida goes on to parse this quality. Topping the pyramid within aesthetics, he identifies physical beauty, such as rugged mountains and picturesque lakes. Next comes outdoor space, including parks, playgrounds and trails. For those concerned that their city could therefore not compete with San Francisco or Vancouver, given the beauty of their natural settings, he contends that the man-made warehouse districts, historic houses, and “magnificent urban park systems hand-crafted by great landscape artists”50 also have very real appeal. As well he records that his survey found culture and nightlife play a significant role in place satisfaction, with those communities being strongest that combine traditional high-culture institutions with a vibrant street life of art, music and theatre. Museums, especially when defined broadly to include parks, historic houses and old neighbourhoods, thus are central to urban satisfaction. Some conclusions Al Gore, in his recent polemic The Assault on Reason, underlined the importance of separating power and wealth, something he contends is not currently happening in the United States. He argued persuasively that self-interest must be subservient to the public good, that the exercise of power can only be undertaken after full and open consultation with those affected.51 Using somewhat different language, but meaning the same thing, Michael

46 Edwards, pp. 80-81. 47 See especially her book The Economy of Cities. 48 An economist who predicted the destructive forces of corporatism, Schumpter taught at Harvard University from 1932 to 1950. 49 Edwards, p. 163. 50 Ibid., p. 167. 51 (New York: Penguin Books, 2007).

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Edwards explained that the best results in raising economic growth while simultaneously reducing poverty and inequity occurs when markets are subordinated to the public interest, when public and private interests are separated. 52 This separation would be done by government. The market, determining to make money, would do so in service to long-term goals that favours redistribution and social stability, goals set and monitored by governments. Edwards sees countries that follow these policies - he names Sweden, the Netherlands and Canada53 - as scoring high on social indicators, while those which do not, like the United States, slipping into more violence and inequality. The US now ranks 42nd in the world in life expectancy and, according to Oliver James, “selfish capitalism” has produced a measurable decline in emotional well being there as well.54 So what to do? How can the market and civil society communities work together rather better than has been happening to pursue social transformation? How can museums contribute to this vital process? The first step both Michael Edmunds and Al Gore agree is to have a full-throated debate, to ensure that the problems are given appropriate exposure and the solutions are sough from all stakeholders. As Edwards contends, “Deep rooted differences about capitalism and social change are unlikely to go away,” so “why not put all questions on the table and allow all sides to have their assumptions tested?”55 If we are to change, to do things differently, we must work seriously to that end. Harvey Weingarten, President of the University of Calgary, gave a speech recently on the topic of sustainability at the university. In it he detailed that in 2006 the university used 72 million sheets of paper, but that by 2007 this frighteningly large number had been somewhat reduced to 56 million sheets by installing printers that printed on both sides of the page. Emphasizing the need to change and the fallacy of a total reliance on technology but the difficulty in doing so, Weingarten concluded that

I suspect that the magnitude of paper use on many of our big universities is similar. The irony is that paper use often increases despite all the new digital technology. A lesson, I suppose, is that if we are to become more sustainable, it is not just about introducing new technology. It is also about doing things differently from the way we did them in the past. This appears to be hard. As John Maynard Keynes said: “…the difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones….”56

Edwards outlines specific actions that should be undertaken. He urges an investment in learning, especially in research and evaluation, surely music to museologists. He seeks a serious commitment to transparency, accountability, and democracy so that recipients would have a real voice in governance and program strategy. He urges devolution to promote the long-term financial independence of civil society and to reduce the costs of application procedures. All of these actions underline the differences between markets and civil society and are dependent, to some extent, on the willingness of governments to rebalance constantly the private and the public good. All these suggestions would be of great value to museums to help them be more effective agents of social change.

These two communities, the market and civil society, are vital to the effective working of a democratic, fulfilled society, but it is in their separation that we find strength. When 52 Edwards, p. 51. 53 Regrettably Canada, under the present federal conservative government, is weakening or abandoning a number of its market constraints and reducing its support for civil society organizations. 54 Edwards, p. 52, quoting Madeleine Bunting’s review of O. James, The Selfish Capitalist, (London: Vermilion, 2007), in the Guardian, January 5, 2008. 55 Ibid., pp. 83-84. 56 , May 2, 2008, “Sustainable Development: It’s an Imperative, Not an Option”, Sustainable Urban Development Leadership Summit, from www,ucalgary.ca, May 23, 2008.

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museums champion innovation and differentiation, while firmly maintaining their values, those of civil society, then they will promote and advance that social transformation we deem so necessary. Museums are part of civil society, not part of the market community. But these two communities need to work together, to cooperate not to compete, to seek collective action not individualism. To paraphrase Edwards, museums, then, “have nothing to be ashamed of in not being a business, and everything to gain by re-asserting their difference and diversity.” 57

57 Edwards, p. 92.

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2. MUSEUMS AND MUSEOLOGY, CHANGING ROLES //

LES MUSÉES ET LA MUSÉOLOGIE : UN CHANGEMENT DE RÔLES MUSEOS Y MUSEOLOGÍA : CAMBIO DE ROLES

2.1 Museums, museology and the new information

and communication technologies

Les musées, la muséologie et les nouvelles techniques d’information et de communication

Museos, museología y las nuevas tecnologías de la información y la comunicación

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MUSEUMS IN THE INTERNET ERA AND THEIR RELATIONS WITH THEIR AUDIENCE

CHANG Wan-Chen, National Hsin-Chu University of Education –Chinese Taipei. ___________________________________________________________

ABSTRACT

The use and development of new science and technology has promoted the trend of globalization, and changed the ecology of today’s museums. The introduction of the World Wide Web, in particular, has been the most pivotal factor influencing museum development worldwide. The use of the Internet has not only expanded museum functions, but has also exercised a subversive effect on the interactive relationship between museums and their audiences. The subject of discussion in this article therefore is the extent to which museums face change in their interactive relationship with their audience now that they have accepted the arrival of the Internet era.

The article first introduces the history and development of museums’

use of the Internet, illustrating how museums, within a very few years, have rapidly developed museum website installations. Then, it analyzes the nature of museum website designs and the functions that they provide, and, with the help of existing research findings about museum website users, illustrates the relationship between actual museum audiences and museum website visitors. The article will illustrate that the overwhelming majority of actual museum audiences and museum website visitors are one and the same people, but that there are differences between the two categories in their expectations towards museums and museum websites, and the forms of behavior that they exhibit. The article will therefore further analyze the question of what people expect of a museum website and, moreover, how should museums maintain even more interactive relationships with audiences through websites.

Finally, the article will move from discussion of the websites installed

by actual museums, to an analysis of concepts and classifications of museums in the virtual environment. This article hypothesizes that in the near future a virtual museum following the example of Wikipedia will truly break down all barriers of space, language and culture, and realize the half-century old ideal of the, “museum without walls.”

RÉSUMÉ Les musées à l’heure d’Internet et leurs relations avec le public

L’exploitation et le développement de nouvelles technologies ont accéléré la mondialisation et bouleversé l’écosystème des musées d’aujourd’hui. L’avènement de l’Internet est l’un des facteurs déterminants de ce grand bouleversement. En effet, la mise en œuvre de nouveaux procédés d’information dans des musées a considérablement élargi leurs fonctions, et transformé de façon radicale leurs relations avec le public. L’article essaie d’analyser dans quelle mesure ces changements ont modifié et modifieront

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encore l’interaction entre le public et les musées ayant accepté de vivre à l’heure d’Internet.

Dans un premier temps, l’article va rappeler l’histoire et le

développement de l’usage de l’Internet par le musée, en illustrant comment la création de sites web s’est très vite imposée dans le monde des musées comme un moyen de communication incontournable. L’article examinera ensuite la conception de ces sites et les fonctions qu’ils proposent. Par une étude comparative des visiteurs « réels » et « virtuels » basée sur les résultats d’enquêtes menées par d’autres chercheurs auprès des usagers, l’article mettra en lumière le fait que la grande majorité des visiteurs virtuels correspondent aux visiteurs réels, mais que leurs attentes et leurs comportements diffèrent en fonction du mode de visite choisi. Ceci nous amènera à considérer ce que le public attend vraiment des sites de musées, afin de montrer comment les musées pourront le satisfaire en proposant toujours plus d’interactivité dans leurs relations réciproques.

Enfin, l’article pousse plus loin cette analyse par une réflexion

fondamentale sur le concept même du musée et sur sa classification dans un environnement purement virtuel. Il serait tentant de croire qu’un musée virtuel, à l’instar de Wikipédia, pourrait voir le jour dans un avenir assez proche. Ce musée qui s’affranchirait de toute barrière spatiale, linguistique ou culturelle serait la réalisation d’une vieille idée datant d’une demie-siècle, celle d’un « Musée imaginaire ».

RESUMEN

Museos en la era de Internet y sus relaciones con el publico

La explotación y el desarrollo de las nuevas tecnologías han acelerado la mundialización y trastornado el ecosistema de los museos de hoy. El advenimiento de Internet es uno de los factores determinantes de ese gran desorden. En efecto, la puesta en práctica de nuevos procedimientos de información en dichas instituciones ha ampliado considerablemente sus funciones y ha transformado de manera radical sus relaciones con el público. El artículo intenta analizar en qué medida esos cambios han modificado y modificarán aún más la interacción entre público y museos en la era de Internet.

En un primer momento, el artículo recuerda la historia y el desarrollo

del uso de Internet por parte del museo, ilustrando cómo la creación de sitios web se ha impuesto rápidamente en el mundo museal como medio de comunicación insoslayable. Seguidamente, examina la concepción de esos sitios y las funciones que proponen. Para poder realizar un estudio comparativo de los visitantes “reales” y “virtuales”, basado en los resultados de encuestas llevadas a cabo con los usuarios por otros investigadores, el artículo saca a la luz el hecho de que la gran mayoría de los visitantes virtuales se corresponden con los visitantes reales, si bien sus expectativas y sus comportamientos difieren en función del modo de visita elegido. Esto nos llevará a considerar lo que el público espera efectivamente de los sitios web de los museos, a fin de mostrar cómo estos últimos podrán darle grandes satisfacciones a través de una mayor interactividad en sus relaciones recíprocas.

Finalmente, el artículo va más allá de este análisis a través de una

reflexión fundamental sobre el concepto mismo de museo y sobre su clasificación en un entorno puramente virtual. Se diría que un museo virtual, al estilo de Wikipedia, podría surgir en un futuro próximo. Ese museo, que liberaría

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toda barrera espacial, lingüística o cultural, sería la realización de una vieja idea que data de más de medio siglo: la de un “Museo imaginario”.

* * *

The use and development of new science and technology has promoted the trend of globalization, and changed the ecology of today’s museums. The introduction of the World Wide Web, in particular, has been the most pivotal factor influencing museum development worldwide. The use of the Internet has not only expanded museum functions, but has also exercised a subversive effect on the interactive relationship between museums and their audiences. The subject of discussion in this article therefore is the extent to which museums face change in their interactive relationship with their audience now that they have accepted the arrival of the Internet era.

The article first introduces the history and development of museums’

use of the Internet, illustrating how museums, within a very few years, have rapidly developed museum website installations. Then, it analyzes the nature of museum website designs and the functions that they provide, and, with the help of existing research findings about museum website users, illustrates the relationship between actual museum audiences and museum website visitors. The article will illustrate that the overwhelming majority of actual museum audiences and museum website visitors are one and the same people, but that there are differences between the two categories in their expectations towards museums and museum websites, and the forms of behavior that they exhibit. The article will therefore further analyze the question of what people expect of a museum website and, moreover, how should museums maintain even more interactive relationships with audiences through websites.

Finally, the article will move from discussion of the websites installed

by actual museums, to an analysis of concepts and classifications of museums in the virtual environment. This article hypothesizes that in the near future a virtual museum following the example of Wikipedia will truly break down all barriers of space, language and culture, and realize the half-century old ideal of the, “museum without walls.”

The development of the use of the Internet by museums. The application and development of new science and technology has

promoted the trend toward globalization, and changed the ecology of today’s museums.

New science and technology integrated by museums includes the

relatively early developed digital archives (at first used in internal management), distance learning, the making of multimedia exhibits and CDs and so on, but the pivotal factor that most influenced museum development remains the introduction of the World Wide Web.

The Internet appeared in 1960’s America, initially serving defense

purposes. In the 1980s it was used to link educational institutions to each other, but it was not until the 1990s that it became universally available to individual users. Since considerable research has already been accumulated in the field of the history and development of media, we can look back quite clearly at the

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recent development of the Internet. 58 Even before the Internet appeared, photography and printing technology had aroused interest in André Malraux’s concept of the, “museum without walls.” Now that use of the Internet, has become universal, moreover, we can all the more look forward to a society without boundaries, completely unlike that of the past. The author consents that new media, just like old media, should be understood as “a means to organize and structure knowledge and visitor attention, not as a means of communication or a set of devices.”59

Most people in today’s society grew up in an environment in which such media as television and cinema are everywhere, and are used to stimulation of the auditory and visual senses. But the Internet is by its nature extremely different from television or cinema. Television and cinema, for all the richness and diversity of their output, constitute a passive form of broadcasting, while the Internet makes communication active and alive. Internet users can search for information about things that they want to learn about, and fulfill their wishes of their own accord. Television or cinema audiences, except through being investigated on camera or by writing letters direct to the production company, cannot easily make their views known. On the Internet, however, people can easily (technically and psychologically speaking) and directly convey their opinions. This is the particular feature of the Internet that facilitates interaction. The free gathering and exchange of information of all sorts from this limitless network has quite naturally and automatically become a feature of life for most people in the world in the past few years. This kind of interactivity, breaking of barriers, and transcendence of national boundaries, brings the people of the whole world closer, and is one of the factors promoting the advance of globalization. What this article wishes to discuss is what level of change, in terms of the interactive relationship with their audience, is faced by museums that have embraced the Internet era.

Most museums all over the world, regardless of whether their

museum development policy places more emphasis on their collection or on their audience, and regardless of the extent to which they are involved in participating and serving society, have already proactively or reactively installed websites, and developed on-line museum services. There are some museums that, satisfied with their rich collection or current state of operations, don’t understand the necessity for museums to develop on the Internet. As regards this kind of question, museum staff should not ask themselves, “What do we need the Internet for?” Rather, they should start from the perspective of the audience, and wonder, “What will be the effect if we do not develop on the Internet?” If they do that, the answer will be very clear. From the perspective of current trends, museums that do not develop on the Internet effectively cut themselves off from the vast Internet community.

In theory, the current residents of the global village all know that all

government and civilian services already exist on the Internet. In fact, however, although the integration of museums and the Internet is a relatively recent phenomenon, the quality and variety of museum websites is astonishing. To be sure, there is no lack of websites that introduce, assess or report on museums

58 A. Briggs & P. Burke, A social history of the media: From Gutenberg to the Internet, Oxford: Polity, 2002; D. Edgerton, The Shock of the old: Technology and global history since 1900, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. 59 M. Henning, “New media”, in: S. Macdonald (ed.), A companion to museum studies, Oxford: Blackwell, 2006, p. 303.

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on the Internet, but only through the exclusive websites installed by museums themselves, with actively developed content and services, can the general public enjoy the rich resources of museums. In France, museums started to install websites open to the general public only in 1995. Taiwan did so at about the same time; the first website installed by a museum appeared in 1996 at Taipei’s National Museum of History. But, within only a few years, the on-line museum scene had totally changed. In 1999, a report stated that 10,000 museums in approximately 120 countries had installed websites, and that this increased by almost one per day.60 Also, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) from 1996 opted to collate the websites of museums world-wide, using Virtual Library museums pages (VLmp).61 Today, VLmp has become one of the most useful links for exploring the world’s museums. VLmp designer and renowned museum expert, Jonathan Bowen, has presented research on VLmp users, showing that the number of person-utilizations of VLmp in August 1994, the month it started, totaled 3459, and that the number increased at a steady rate thereafter, until by April 2008 it already exceeded six million.62 At the same time, research on online users’ expectations and manner of usage has been moving on apace in recent years.63 The nature and magnitude of the Internet audience has already become another focus of research on museum audiences.

To appreciate the changes and differences that have occurred in just

a few years, we need only compare the rich content of today’s museum websites with the situation a few years ago, when such websites listed a museum’s basic information and most recent events in a large-character, clipboard manner (sometimes adding some of the works from the museum’s collection with introductory text). We can foresee that, in the future, in line with the forging ahead of the quality and quantity of on-line services, and the even greater availability of the Internet, people will develop even greater skills for setting up their own databases. Also, since this is now an irresistible general trend, the advance of science and technology (such as the current gradually more widespread availability of broadband) will very soon make Internet access quicker and quicker, computer capacity greater and greater, and installations more and more widespread. And when all museums have their resources on line and have established more intimate links with each other, we will have a different museum culture.

The above stated capacity of the Internet for almost instantaneous

interactivity regardless of geographic constraints could offset the shortcomings and difficulties faced by traditional museums in communicating with their audiences. Museum staff is gradually experiencing the responsibility to open up and share resources with society (here meant in the broad sense of, “worldwide society.”) Perhaps we have all experienced that minute narrowing of psychological distance that occurs when one makes an enquiry of, or enters into some transaction or other, with a passenger or guest who is a stranger, or when one considers communicating by the traditional means of a letter or by e-mail. The Internet is on the one hand open and instantaneous, while on the other

60 S. H. Madoff, “Where the Venues Are Virtually Infinite”, New York Times, Jan. 10, 1999, sec. 2, p. 41. 61 http://icom.museum/vlmp/ 62 Jonathan P. Bowen, “Time for Renovations: A Survey of Museum Web Sites”, in : Musems and the Web 1999, New Orleans, March 1999. URL: http://www.archimuse.com/ 63 K. Futers, “Tell me what you want, what you really, really want: A look at Internet user needs”, in: Proceedings Electronic Imaging in Visual Arts (EVA). Paris, Sep. 1997. URL: http://www.open.gov.uk/mdocassn/eva_kf.htm

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hand it actually has camouflaged functions, and can, at least to some extent, establish equality between people among whom in actual, real-life society there are wide gaps.

Museum staff should perhaps worry about whether the development

of the Internet might strip away people’s desire to visit actual museums. More and more research, however, indicates that the Internet experience performs the function of encouraging people to visit museums. Besides, we should not underestimate basic human nature; that is to expect always through one’s own senses to confirm in person one’s Internet experiences of contact or study.64 We can therefore presume that henceforth humanity will naturally separate the visiting of museums into two categories of experience: the virtual and the actual. The virtual experience is a kind of process of establishing a database, while the actual visit can be used to verify the effectiveness or otherwise of that database. Virtual visits transcend national boundaries, while actual visits are constrained by the geographical space in which one is located. Since people always wish to verify things for themselves, museums can even develop policies to design websites of superior quality to attract their audiences to visit in person.

Museum audiences and museum website visitors. According to a recent study, the overwhelming majority of visitors to

museum websites are also members of the museum audience.65 This study also indicated that over 60% of museum website visitors believe museum websites should provide the same portfolio of services as the actual museums, but an even greater number ― over 80% of those interviewed ― said that they hold different expectations of on-line museums than of actual museums. This is not in fact a self-contradictory result, because what people understand is intrinsically different from the way they behave. But as far as the previous point is concerned, the issue meriting further attention is that: If museum websites are supposed to provide the same services as actual museums, should there be a model for an ideal museum website? One study in support of precisely such a proposition argues that the ideal museum website should faithfully reflect museum missions and functions.66 Among the seven items listed by that study as necessary attributes of museum websites, technical competence and visitor information clearly received the greatest emphasis.67 This point illustrates the complexion of the typical museum website.

Almost all museum websites include the museum’s basic information

and event news. The study cited above also showed that numerous museum visitors look for information on-line to plan their visit before visiting the museum, and conduct further study on-line after their visit. In this respect especially, museums and their websites complement each other. The National Palace Museum (NPM) ― which boasts the most extensive website set-up of all of

64 Jean-Louis Déotte, “Le musée comme banque de données”, Le musée, l’origine de l’esthétique, Paris : L’Harmattan, p. 394. 65 P. F. Marty, “Museum websites and museums visitors: digital museum resources and their use”, Museum Management and Curatorship, vol. 23, no. 1, 2008, pp. 81-99. 66 D. D.M. Mason & C. McCarthy, “Museums and the culture of new media: an empirical model of New Zealand museum websites”, Museum Management and Curatorship, vol. 23, no. 1, 2008, pp. 63-80. 67 These attributes are “technical competence”, “visitor information”, “market segmentation”, “mission, education”, “income generation”, “attractions and exhibits” and ‘relationships”. See ibid.

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Taiwan’s museums ― follows the commonly seen, “tree and branch,” design structure, and uses the homepage as its starting point, conducting the visitor to web-pages deeper within the site.68 The current homepage of the NPM shows the principal characters from the most recent animation created by the museum. This animation has received much praise from around the world. The NPM intends to use this animation to free itself from the old-fashioned image that it has traditionally conveyed, and to narrow the gap between itself and the younger generation. A cursory visit to the website shows that it provides up-to-date news and information about the collection, exhibitions, its calendar, educational activities, the membership system, the museum shop, and so on. Also, in line with most museum websites, the NPM’s web pages all consist mainly of text, with pictures only as visual aids. When visitors browse the website, what they are mainly doing is reading; the only difference is that the Internet uses hyperlinks, while books use page numbers. Most of the information, moreover, is there to explain, supplement or extend the museum’s real-world activities.

Another issue is that if the same museum audience holds different

expectations of actual museums and online museums, even adopting different behavior in respect of each, then we should further consider what these expectations are. How does the behavior differ? The study by Marty, referred to above, indicates that museum website visitors expect singular experiences that cannot be duplicated in the real world. What he means by singular experiences is experiences that the actual museum cannot deliver. Examples would be information about exhibitions that have already finished, or behind-the-scenes activities, such as the process of restoration, or, more importantly, items from the museum’s collection that cannot be displayed in its actual exhibition space.

The NPM has begun to make part of their permanent collections

available via the Internet for research and educational purposes. As we can see, for presenting the permanent collection, the NPM selects some works from each category and the users of the web can only accept the “offers” of the museum passively and don’t have the right to research their wants. This is to say, in fact, that the NPM has not yet provided a so-called “database.” Most of the capital for a museum database comes from a rich collection of artifacts, but whether a museum should place all of the items from its collection on the Internet is of course determined by the quantity of such items and by the museum’s policy. The British Museum’s approximately 300,000-item collection database search, for example, enables users to search by theme, era, and collection number and so on.69 Among the works for which searches can be made on the Internet, there are some for which, for copyright reasons or other reasons, photographs do not exist, but the Internet has already brought tremendous convenience to researchers. The British Museum says that the work of digitizing its collection is still underway and that it expects the remaining 140,000 items to finish being placed on-line at the end of 2009. By 2011, moreover, the museum will also have placed on-line its records of conservation treatment and scientific analysis and historic files and records, thus providing even clearer explanations of the archive photographs and historic images of the collection.

Sometimes a museum will make an exclusive database using

important items from its collection. France’s Musée Guimet, for example, is collecting a set of over 6000 top quality Chinese ceramic items. This set of ceramics is the collection of Ernest Grandidier, from the late nineteenth and

68 http://www.npm.gov.tw/ 69 http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database.aspx

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early twentieth centuries. Grandidier in 1894 donated his collection to the Musée du Louvre, but later, in 1945, the French government transferred it in its entirety to the Musée Guimet. The latter in 2001 exhibited the collection anew, and, at the same time, commenced a project to digitize its database.70 This collection, because of its size, however, has never been able to be exhibited in full. In fact, the items exhibited to date are far inferior to those remaining in the museum’s storerooms. For this reason, being able to search on-line is extremely significant. Currently, what has been collected in the database remains partial, but the information for each item is relatively complete. Especially important is the fact that most artifacts have many detailed pictures attached to their database entries, items which one cannot otherwise observe even by visiting the museum.

The method and effort of the British Museum are undoubtedly the

models that all museums should follow. But the achievements of the British Museum are confined to that museum alone. If the resources of many museums could be combined, the results would be all the richer. France's Joconde system, for example, incorporates national artifacts within a database.71 This system, created under the direction of the French Museums, Ministry of Culture, entered planning in 1975, and, as of March 2008, already had over 360,000 works on-line, with approximately 20,000 related pictures. These works come from 282 museums in such diverse fields as archaeology, art, anthropology, history, science and technology, and so on. A search of the Joconde system frequently brings in an accidental harvest. Because this is an inter-museum system, one search will identify together all collected works with a common theme or artist but held by other museums, thus extending its research tentacles to a range that users have previously not known. Basically, each work has extremely detailed information attached to it, including, apart from basic information, relevant exhibition information and publication records. This author believes that this kind of system is the most helpful to researchers, because it enables them completely of their own accord to search for the information they need, rather than passively accepting what the museum provides.

If the installation of a database is mainly to serve researchers and

experts, then further to use collection items to create educational programs amounts more especially to an exercise of museums’ responsibility towards young people, students and the general public. I would like to give, here, a few examples that I consider quite good. First, museums with rich collections, like New York s Metropolitan Museum of Art, are especially capable of creating such excellent study resources as Timeline of art history.72 The Metropolitan Museum of Art has also designed a series of courses that can be studied interactively, and are suitable for use in private study or in parent-child interaction.

The overwhelming majority of on-line classes are created to

complement museums’ special exhibitions. This is often the case in other countries too. Very few, however, are for exhibitions designed for the Internet. Via the Internet, we can also create a new form of exhibition in which not all the works included are actually shown at one physical location. The online exhibitions of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), for example, include previous actual exhibitions as well as exhibitions especially designed and created for the Internet. 73 These exhibitions differ from most websites that

70 http://www.guimet-grandidier.fr/html/4/index/index.htm 71 http://www.culture.gouv.fr/documentation/joconde/fr/pres.htm 72 http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/splash.htm?HomePageLink=toah_l 73 http://expositions.bnf.fr/usindex.htm

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introduce exhibitions in two major respects. Firstly, they adopt a linear reading mode, with the intention of echoing our experience of visiting an actual exhibition. Secondly, their web-pages consist mainly of pictures ― just as when we visit an exhibition we are mainly attracted by the works ― rather than of the text that clearly characterizes most websites.

In this era in which information development and scientific and

technological techniques are taking off, a website that is not constantly updated and maintained will very quickly appear outdated, and it will become redundant much more quickly than an actual museum. Perfect maintenance requires a sufficiency of funds, a grasp of new technology, an understanding of user circumstances and needs, and ongoing use of the museum’s resources In fact, currently museums all over the world attach a shared importance to the Internet, but that is one thing and actual investment of manpower, equipment and funds quite another. In February 1997, the National Gallery in Washington, activated a website, very quickly realized the importance of website maintenance, and drew up three development objectives: One: To enable Internet users to find the National Gallery’s website easily. Two: To enable users quickly to find information of the sort that they are seeking. Three: To prompt users, once they have finished using the website, to wish to revisit it at a later date.74 These three objectives could be supplied for reference to all museums hoping to develop the ideal website.

Research of Bowen previously cited also shows that 74 percent of

Internet users wish to be able to search on-line for information about new exhibitions, and that 87 percent wish to be able to view related pictures.75 Also, 52% of Internet users wish to be able to download museum’s pictures. Indeed, websites that lack pictures find it difficult to retain the interest of people used to receiving information from the media, but museums need not put high-quality pictures on the Internet, and could thus avoid affecting transmission speeds and downloading for use that infringes their copyright. Also worth noting is the fact that website homepage transmission speeds are too slow, and cause people to lose patience and abandon their effort, with the result that their very first attempt ends in failure. What merits museum staff’s attention is that the purpose of installing a website lies in the promotion of education, not in advertising. Whether a website provides services that are diverse and take the user’s imagination into account will determine the levels of satisfaction with which it is received. The homepage should clearly indicate the website’s structure and services available to users. The audience, for example, could be informed about the museum’s location and the public transport that serves it, current exhibitions and activities, with information about special exhibitions especially plentiful and excellent. Children could look for games designed for them, and teachers could look for supplementary teaching resources or guided tour services, and even download a teacher’s manual, and researchers or students could enter the museum’s database, ask questions of museum research staff by means of opinion exchange areas, and even purchase publications or merchandise on-line. When people are unable to visit a museum in person for reasons of transportation, economics, geography, time (the Internet is open 24 hours a day) or whatever other reason, the feasibility of these activities, makes them all the more compensatory and precious.

74 N. B. Johnson, “Tracking the Virtual Visitor: A Report from the National Gallery of Art”, Museum News, March/April, 2000, pp. 42-45, 67-71. 75 Jonathan P. Bowen, “Time for Renovations: A Survey of Museum Web Sites”, Op. Cit.

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Striding towards the museum websites of the virtual society. As museum websites become parts of digitized and interactive

search systems, scholars are starting to be concerned about the issue of museums’ loss of materiality. I wish to conclude by especially raising the concept of what is known as the virtual museum. If the work of the traditional museum has mainly been to conserve, collect, exhibit and communicate about cultural assets and to establish cultural identification, then the virtual museum can perhaps perform the function of connecting the past with the society of the future.

There could be three forms of virtual museum.76 The first type of

virtual museum doesn’t exist in actual society, but it possesses the structure of a museum. A website about the artist Vermeer, for example, could be included in this type.77 This website provides information about the artist, and pictures of all of his works. This information explains the artist’s life and creations, in the same way as the website of a traditional museum. 78 But this website presenting Vermeer also provides designs for educational activities and explanations of exhibition planners’ thinking, which is also to say that what stands out about this website is not simply that it exhibits Vermeer’s works but also that it retains different means of explanation of works. Another special aspect of it is that it incorporates all of Vermeer’s works, which no actual museum could do.

The second type of virtual museum is created completely by

computer artists. Through software and application languages, a computer artist can design a virtual environment and let people play in it. There are currently already many computer artists who have created what is known as New Media Art, but one computer artist might also use media created by computers to call into question or criticize museums, or to design an ideal, dream museum. In this kind of museum, all the functions of an actual museum could be duplicated, to the extent that exhibited works could also be well-known, actually existing works. But it would be different from an actual museum in its virtual environment and its strong interactive interface. Although I am unable to provide an existing example, one can imagine that a virtual museum of this sort might greatly satisfy all the curiosity about museums shared by the audiences of actual museums. Audiences could visit the institutions or works that they are currently prevented from visiting by all the temporal and physical obstacles of the current era, or gain experiences that are unimaginable in the real world. This type of museum would possess an interactivity that has not yet been completely explored.

Finally, the third type of virtual museum also does not yet exist, but its

appearance is foreseeable. Some museums, such as New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, let website visitors select works to set up their own digital collection.79 This situation is a little like being able to place items in a “shopping basket” when purchasing on-line. But we can especially presume that one kind of virtual museum might be created

76 M. Kruse, Museums, galleries, art sites, virtual curating and the world wide web, dissertation presented for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1998. 77 http://www.ballandclaw.com/vermeer/ 78 For example, the Picasso Museum in Paris. http://www.musee-picasso.fr/ 79 J. Bowen & S. Filippini-Fantoni, “Personalization and the web from a museum perspective”, in: D. Bearman & J. Trant (ed.), Museums and the Web 2004, Canada: Archives & Museum Informatics. Available from http://www.archimuse.com/

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and maintained completely by Internet users, very much in the manner of Wikipedia. This museum will possess all the functions of an actual museum, collecting artifacts and holding exhibitions, as well as all kinds of educational activities, but the difference between it and the second type of museum will be that all of its activities will be open for Internet users to take part in and administer. Internet users could decide by means of mutual discussion or voting whether a certain work should be collected, or how a work should be explained, in the way a curator usually does. The experience of Wikipedia tells us that the establishment and maturation of the Internet community brings us a mechanism with which we can examine ourselves.80 As a result, the reliability of this sort of virtual museum has not yet achieved the absolute levels enjoyed by the traditional museum (although it will seriously challenge those levels). Any person can take part in maintaining this virtual museum, regardless of his/her age, profession, (he might perhaps even be a member of museum staff) location or user language. Wikipedia even has multi-lingual versions. In this virtual museum, audiences of different languages could easily consider differences between different cultures and traditions in the interpretations of works. If what I am imagining transpires, then we can look forward to a museum without walls that truly smashes barriers of space, culture and language.

Even though the greatest feature of museums is that they possess

artifacts. But we should also recognize that museum artifacts that lack explanations also lack life. The Internet enables museums to collect and exhibit artifacts and information for the purposes of explanation, and to reach vast potential audiences. Current museums all profoundly appreciate the truth of the argument that they are intimately intertwined with the Internet and that the Internet can bring huge changes to museums. Of course there are still countless museums all over the world, especially small-scale museums with few resources that still have not set up their own websites. Alternative schemes might be realized by the private sector or government providing assistance, or integrating the museums within particular areas to set up shared websites. But the rise of the Internet does not mean that it is about to replace actual museums. Its function should be to encourage people or to trigger their motivation to visit actual museums. Finally, the practical use of science and technology is a matter for people. Museums should make use of the features of the Internet to develop their whole range of functions, without limiting themselves solely to Internet development.

80 C. Vandendorpe, “Le phénomène Wikipédia: une utopie en marche”, Le débat, numéro 148, janvier-février 2008, pp. 16-30.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Bowen, J. P. (1999) “Time for Renovations: A Survey of Museum

Web Sites”, in : Musems and the Web 1999, New Orleans. URL: http://www.archimuse.com/

Bowen J. & Filippini-Fantoni, S. (2004). “Personalization and the web from a museum perspective”, in: D. Bearman & J. Trant (ed.), Museums and the Web 2004, Canada: Archives & Museum Informatics. Available from http://www.archimuse.com/

Briggs, A. & Burke, P. (2002). A social history of the media: From Gutenberg to the Internet, Oxford: Polity.

Déotte, J.-L. (1994). “Le musée comme banque de données”, Le musée, l’origine de l’esthétique, Paris : L’Harmattan.

Edgerton, D. (2007). The Shock of the old: Technology and global history since 1900, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Futers, K. (1997) “Tell me what you want, what you really, really want: A look at Internet user needs”, in: Proceedings Electronic Imaging in Visual Arts (EVA). Paris. URL: http://www.open.gov.uk/mdocassn/eva_kf.htm

Henning, M. (2006). “New media”, in: S. Macdonald (ed.), A companion to museum studies, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 302-318.

Johnson, N. B. (2000). “Tracking the Virtual Visitor: A Report from the National Gallery of Art”, Museum News, pp. 42-45, 67-71.

Kruse, M. (1998) Museums, galleries, art sites, virtual curating and the world wide web, dissertation presented for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University.

Madoff, S. H. (1999). “Where the Venues Are Virtually Infinite”, New York Times, Jan.10,1999, sec.2, p. 41.

Marty, P. F. (2008). “Museum websites and museums visitors: digital museum resources and their use”, Museum Management and Curatorship, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 81-99.

Mason, D. M. & McCarthy, C. (2008) “Museums and the culture of new media: an empirical model of New Zealand museum websites”, Museum Management and Curatorship, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 63-80.

Vandendorpe, C. (2008) “Le phénomène Wikipédia: une utopie en marche”, Le débat, n° 148, pp. 16-30.

Chefs-d’œuvre de la collection Grandidier du Musée Guimet. URL : http://www.guimet-grandidier.fr/html/4/index/index.htm

Collection Database Search of the British Museum. URL: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database.aspx

Joconde – Catalogue des collections des Musées de France. URL : http://www.culture.gouv.fr/documentation/joconde/fr/pres.htm

Musée national Picasso Paris. URL : http://www.musee-picasso.fr/ National Palace Museum. URL: http://www.npm.gov.tw/ Paintings of Vermeer. URL: http://www.ballandclaw.com/vermeer/ Timeline of Art History of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. URL:

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/splash.htm?HomePageLink=toah_l Virtual Exhibitions of Bibliothèque nationale de France. URL:

http://expositions.bnf.fr/usindex.htm Virtual Library museums pages. URL: http://icom.museum/vlmp/

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APORTACIONES DE LAS NUEVAS TECNOLOGÍAS AL NUEVO CONCEPTO DE MUSEO HERNÁNDEZ Francisca Hernández, Universidad Complutense de Madrid - Madrid, España. ___________________________________________________________________ RESUMEN

Aportaciones de las nuevas tecnologías al nuevo concepto de museo En el mundo moderno se observan dos tendencias destinadas a coexistir. Por un

lado, existe una fuerte inclinación a proteger la propia identidad y las características que ésta encierra. Por el otro, los medios masivos nos presionan hacia una clara uniformidad que destruye las identidades culturales personales. Enfrentando esta realidad, los museos y la museología se encaminan hacia la apertura de nuevos espacios donde las ideas, las experiencias y los métodos de trabajo puedan subrayar cuáles son nuestros miedos, nuestras dudas, nuestros anhelos y deseos, cara a cara con las nuevas tecnologías emergentes. Por lo tanto, exponer las realidades que los museos y la museología tienen que enfrentar nos ayudará a comprender mejor la forma en que las sociedades construyen su discurso, se enfrentan a la realidad y contestan sus cuestionamientos.

Por otra parte, los museólogos todavía se preguntan hasta qué punto las nuevas tecnologías deben influir en la vida y en la dinámica de los museos. Es evidente que los museos se irán organizando cada vez más con la utilización de redes de computación. Atravesarán una metamorfosis que los hará más accesibles a los ciudadanos del mundo, sin necesidad de que los visiten físicamente. El concepto ‘museo’ tendrá que ser redefinido, ya que no podrá aplicarse más a una localización donde los objetos son almacenados y conservados. Su rol ya no será el de almacenar colecciones de objetos, sino más bien colecciones de conocimientos de diferente tipo que serán difundidas universalmente. ¿Significa esto que ha llegado el fin de los museos tradicionales? ¿Estamos distorsionando el concepto clásico de ‘museo’ sin saber hacia dónde nos dirigimos? A fin de responder estas preguntas debemos alegar que el concepto de museo no es fijo ni incapaz de evolucionar. Todo lo contrario, creemos que el futuro de los museos puede encontrarse en su habilidad para adaptarse a la realidad del mundo moderno. De este modo es posible comprender las emergencias de un nuevo tipo de museo virtual o museo on line.

Sin embargo, ¿cuál es el papel del nuevo museo virtual? Principalmente, un rol educativo que debe ayudar a difundir la idea de preservar la herencia cultural. En una visita virtual, los visitantes pueden encontrar reproducciones de las piezas originales, como así también reconstrucciones virtuales de cosas que no existen en la realidad. Esto es un signo de que las ideas sobre lo no existentes, pueden materializarse y volverse casi tangibles en un museo virtual, en el cual también contemplamos obras de arte sin ningún tipo de barrera física. Debemos asumir los desafíos que presenta este mundo moderno y encarar el futuro de los museos con entusiasmo e imaginación. Sólo así seremos capaces de humanizar la cultura haciéndola universal sin excluir las características individuales de la identidad de cada comunidad. Palabras clave : Nuevo concepto de “museo”, nuevas tecnologías, globalización, universalidad, identidad, memoria cultural, museo virtual.

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ABSTRACT New technologies contributions to the new concept of museums

In the modern world, there are two trends, which are bound to co-exist. On the one hand, there is a strong tendency to protect one's identity and the cultural characteristics that it embodies. On the other hand, mass media push us towards a clear uniformity, which destroys cultural personal identities. Facing this reality, museums and museology are bound to open new spaces where ideas, experiences and working methods that could underscore which are our fears, doubts, longings and wishes vis-a-vis the new emerging media technology can be expressed. Therefore, by exposing the realities that museums and museology have to face, this will help us better understand the way that societies construct their discourse, they way they face reality and answer their questions.

On the other hand, museologists are still wondering about to what extent these new technologies must influence on the life and dynamics of museums. It is evident that museums will more and more organize themselves by using computer networks. They will undergo a metamorphose that will render them more and more accessible to the world citizens without the need of physically visiting them. The concept of "museum" will have to be re-defined since it will no longer apply to a location where objects are stored and curated. The role of museums will no longer be storing collections of objects as much as collections of different types of knowledge which will be universally disseminated. Does this means that the end of traditional museums has arrived? Are we distorting the classical concept of 'museum' without knowing where we are going? In order to answer these questions, we have to claim that the concept of "museum" is not fixed and unable to evolve. On the contrary, we believe that the future of museums can be found in their ability of adapting to the reality of the modern world. Thus, the emergence of a new type of virtual or "online" museum can be understood.

However, which is the role of the new virtual "museum"? Chiefly, an educational role, which should help spread the idea of preserving cultural heritage. In a virtual tour, visitors can find reproductions of original pieces, as well as virtual reconstructions of things that do not exist in reality. This is a sign that irreal non-existent ideas can materialize and become tangible in a virtual museum, where we also look at art pieces without any physical barrier. We must, therefore, assume the challenges that this modern world presents and face the future of museums with enthusiasm and imagination. Only thus will we be able to 'humanize" culture by making it universal, and without excluding the individual identity features of each community. Key-words : New 'museum" concept, new technologies, globalization, universality, identity, cultural memory, vitual museum RÉSUMÉ Les apports des nouvelles technologies au nouveau concept de musée

On observe dans le monde moderne deux tendances destinées à coexister. D’un côté, il y a une forte inclination à protéger la propre identité et les caractéristiques qu’elle renferme. De l’autre côté, les médias nous poussent vers une claire uniformité qui détruit les identités culturelles personnelles. Pour faire face à cette réalité, les musées et la muséologie s’acheminent vers l’ouverture des espaces nouveaux où les idées, les expériences et les méthodes de travail puissent souligner nos peurs, nos doutes, nos souhaits et nos désirs face aux nouvelles technologies émergentes. Il faut donc exposer les réalités que les musées et la muséologie doivent envisager pour qu’elles puissent nous aider à mieux comprendre la façon selon laquelle les sociétés construisent leur discours, font face à la réalité et répondent à leurs questions.

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D’ailleurs, les muséologues se demandent encore jusqu’à quel point ces nouvelles

technologies doivent avoir influence sur la vie et sur la dynamique des musées. Il est évident que les musées feront leur organisation chaque fois plus souvent à l’aide de réseaux d’informatique. Ils subiront une métamorphose qui les rendra chaque fois plus accessibles aux citoyens du monde, sans qu’ils aient besoin de les visiter physiquement. Le concept musée devra être redéfini étant donné qu’il ne pourra plus être appliqué à une localisation où les objets sont emmagasinés et conservés. Le rôle des musées ne sera plus celui d’emmagasiner des collections d’objets, mais plutôt des collections de différents types de connaissances qui seront répandues universellement. Est-ce que ça veut dire que la fin des musées traditionnels est arrivée? Déformons-nous le concept classique de musée sans savoir vers où nous nous dirigeons? Afin de répondre à ces questions nous devons affirmer que le concept de musée n’est ni fixe ni incapable d’évoluer. Tout au contraire, nous croyons que l’avenir des musées peut se trouver dans leur habilité pour s’adapter à la réalité du monde moderne. C’est ainsi qu’on peut comprendre l’apparition d’un nouveau type de musée virtuel ou musée online.

Cependant, quel est le rôle du nouveau musée virtuel? Principalement, un rôle éducatif qui doit aider à répandre l’idée de préserver l’héritage culturel. Lors d’une visite virtuelle, les visiteurs peuvent trouver des reproductions de pièces originales, de même que des reconstructions virtuelles de choses qui n’existent pas dans la réalité. Cela est un signe qui montre que les idées sur ce qui n’existe pas, peuvent se matérialiser et devenir presque tangibles en un musée virtuel dans lequel nous pouvons contempler aussi des chefs d’œuvre sans aucune barrière physique. Nous devons accepter les défis que le monde moderne nous pose et envisager l’avenir des musées avec de l’enthousiasme et de l’imagination. Seulement ainsi, nous serons capables d’humaniser la culture en la faisant devenir universelle sans exclure les caractéristiques individuelles de l’identité de chaque communauté. Mots clés: Nouveau concept de musée, nouvelles technologies, globalisation, universalité, identité, mémoire culturelle, musée virtuel.

* * * 1. Globalización, universalidad e identidad de la memoria cultural. Nos encontramos inmersos en un mundo globalizado donde intercambiamos toda clase de bienes y de servicios que hacen sentirnos dentro de un extraordinario mercado cultural mundial. En él tenemos la posibilidad de adquirir nuevos conocimientos e ideas que se van incrementando a medida que nos sumergimos en el mundo virtual y descubrimos que estamos ante un fenómeno de diversidad cultural que se pone de manifiesto en la pluralidad de identidades. Nunca como hoy hemos estado dominados por un mundo globalizado y, al mismo tiempo, hemos sentido con mayor fuerza el deseo de conservar nuestra propia identidad cultural. Adentrarnos en el misterio del ser humano es descubrir que, a la vez, es único y diverso y que en él se dan tanto la unidad como la diversidad. Por eso, la museología y los museos han de estar atentos a la diversidad cultural que se pone de manifiesto en cualquier sociedad humana. No se dan sociedades humanas sin una cultura propia, individual y específica, a pesar de que nos movamos todos dentro del marco de la globalidad y universalidad del ser humano. Podemos afirmar que la globalización nos abre a un proceso polisémico que, por una parte, nos evidencia que los conceptos de cultura y de la propia identidad van unidos a los derechos humanos que se traducen en las ideas de tolerancia, respeto, equidad e

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igualdad y, por otra, los medios de comunicación de masas nos llevan a asumir la tendencia a la uniformidad que conlleva implícita la destrucción de las identidades culturales individuales. Eso significa que nuestra sociedad ha de hacer frente a las realidades globales nacionales y locales, asumiendo un compromiso con la pluralidad que se da en la relación del ser humano con la cultura y la naturaleza y que se traduce en las diferentes manifestaciones del patrimonio tangible e intangible, material e inmaterial. Constatamos, por tanto, que hoy estamos asistiendo a un enfrentamiento entre globalización e identidad que está modificando de algún modo nuestra forma de concebir el mundo y las relaciones entre las personas.

Los museos han de estar dispuestos a abrir nuevos espacios donde puedan compartirse ideas, experiencias y métodos de trabajo que nos permitan explicitar cuáles son nuestros deseos y aspiraciones, nuestras dudas y nuestros temores ante la nueva realidad que nos presentan las nuevas tecnologías de la información y de la comunicación. Es evidente que hoy hemos avanzado mucho en la gestión y difusión de los contendidos de los museos, pero es preciso seguir progresando en el establecimiento de nuevas dinámicas de trabajo interdisciplinar. En las sociedades multiculturales se da una progresiva organización en redes que puede contribuir a la difusión y consolidación de un nuevo concepto de museo más abierto, más amplio y más plural y, al mismo tiempo, facilitará la reafirmación de una nueva cultura museística capaz de dar sentido a las diferentes singularidades e identidades locales y nacionales. De este modo, la globalidad, la sociedad de la información y el resurgimiento de la propia identidad están contribuyendo a que la persona realice un ejercicio de introspección en un intento de recuperar su memoria histórica como forma de sentirse más cercanos al tiempo y al espacio que les ha tocado vivir y que les hace sentirse seguros de su propia identidad, evitando caer en una dinámica tan amplia y tan global que le impide manifestarse tal como es. Por eso, habrá que ponerse a la tarea de construir una memoria que sea, al mismo tiempo, global y heterogénea, capaz de asumir la pluralidad cultural y evitando por todos los medios sucumbir a una homogeneización de las culturas, en un intento de emular los procesos de homogeneización económica que se están dando en el mundo actual.

Ante esta situación, hemos de preguntarnos si la museología puede jugar o no un papel importante a la hora de reflejar tensiones y conflictos que vive nuestra sociedad, si puede o no ser un espacio de diálogo donde se respete y reconozca la diferencia y la diversidad, en un intento de solucionar dichos conflictos sociales. Ante un mundo globalizado, la museología está llamada a proteger y conservar los rasgos esenciales de las diferentes comunidades que representan su identidad cultural.

No obstante, hemos de destacar que la globalización ha tenido diversas consecuencias para dichas comunidades, puesto que algunas identidades locales se han fortalecido, mientras que otras se han ido desintegrando y un tercer grupo ha contribuido a la formación de unas identidades nacionales que se van debilitando poco a poco. En general, podemos decir que existe una confrontación entre identidades locales y globalización, en un intento de construir nuevas identidades locales y globales. Desde nuestro punto de vista, las diferentes comunidades deben afirmar su identidad local recuperando todos sus registros tangibles e intangibles con el objeto de conservar su memoria y la conciencia colectiva como un patrimonio vivo que han de transmitir. Todo este vivo y variado patrimonio está adquiriendo una dimensión económica debido a la presencia del turismo cultural, que es necesario potenciar y dinamizar, porque la museología tiene un compromiso respecto al patrimonio que ha de convertirse en fuente de desarrollo y de progreso para las comunidades locales. Es necesario, por tanto, repensar la museología y los museos desde una dimensión fenoménica, siendo conscientes de que existen diferentes formas de presentar la realidad

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museal según se opte por uno u otro sistema de pensamiento propio de la sociedad en la que nos movemos. El museo es una realidad plural que pretende dar respuesta a las diferentes manifestaciones del individuo y de las sociedades. No es extraño que la identidad del museo sea múltiple y se adapte a las coordenadas del espacio y del tiempo, al ser considerado no tanto como un producto cultural cuanto como un proceso en continuo cambio que es capaz, al mismo tiempo, de representarse a sí mismo y a la realidad que lo circunda. Por eso, descubrir las diferentes realidades con las que ha de trabajar la museología y los museos nos servirá para conocer mejor la manera en que determinadas sociedades construyen su propio discurso y se sitúan ante el mundo que tienen delante de sí y que han de interpretar para ser capaces de responder a sus interrogantes. De ahí ha de surgir un nuevo estilo de vida más pluralista, donde ya no cabe reivindicar la supresión de una cultura sobre otra, sino que entre todas se apuesta por la creación de una nueva identidad capaz de incluir a todos sin excepción alguna. 2. Las Nuevas Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación y el cambio del concepto de museo

Ante el nuevo contexto del resurgimiento y desarrollo de las tecnologías de la

información y la comunicación, los museólogos no dejan de preguntarse en qué medida éstas han de influir en la vida y en la dinámica de los museos. Está claro que los museos, cada vez más, van a intentar organizarse sirviéndose de las redes informáticas y van a experimentar un gran desarrollo virtual que les va a hacer más asequibles a cualquier ciudadano del mundo sin que, necesariamente, tenga que acudir físicamente a los lugares donde se encuentran ubicados. Eso significará que los organizadores de los museos, al programar los servicios de comunicación e interpretación museológica, ya no estarán ubicados en un único lugar o edifico, como tradicionalmente ha venido sucediendo, sino que estarán diseminados por todos los espacios virtuales. Y esto no será así sólo por seguir unas estrategias territoriales o de gestión, sino por un nuevo concepto de museo y de cultura museal.

En efecto, hoy más que nunca, es necesario redefinir el concepto de museo porque ya no nos basta con considerarlo como un lugar donde se clasifican y depositan los objetos. La función del museo ya no consistirá tanto en formar colecciones de objetos cuanto en elaborar colecciones de conocimientos que sirvan para ser transmitidos universalmente. Si durante mucho tiempo los museos tradicionales han tratado de servir a sus propias comunidades locales desde los espacios concretos en los que se encontraban, hoy están llamados a convertirse en procesos dinámicos que pondrán de manifiesto los flujos y las experiencias de todas aquellas personas que se encuentren conectadas a la red. Todos sabemos que una de las funciones principales de los museos ha sido la de administrar sus colecciones, pero hoy vemos que su tarea primordial ha de ser la de gestionar la información que proporcionan los objetos y que nos clarifican cómo fueron la vida, las costumbres y el pensamiento de quienes los fabricaron. Solo así, sirviéndose de una nueva articulación y proyección virtual de los museos, será posible que el conocimiento del pasado pueda ser transmitido de manera dinámica, accesible y actualizada para las personas que viven en el presente.

Pero ante este contexto de transformación virtual y de comunicación en red, muchos se preguntarán si no estaremos contribuyendo a la desaparición definitiva del museo. Si los museos virtuales tienen la capacidad de aportarnos una gran cantidad de información sobre sus contenidos, sin necesidad de tener que visitarlos físicamente, ¿no estaremos contribuyendo de manera indirecta a que el público deje de visitar los museos?, ¿perderán su razón de ser los museos nacionales y locales frente al fenómeno global de la nueva cultura museal que tiende a la generalización universal?, ¿hemos de dejar los parámetros

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que durante mucho tiempo hemos utilizado a la hora de ordenar y presentar los discursos museográficos o tendremos que buscar otros nuevos?, ¿perderá todo su valor la concepción cronológico-lineal del museo tradicional frente a los archivos digitales que, con su exhaustiva información de textos e imágenes, nos permiten programar nuestra visita al museo de forma personalizada? En definitiva, ¿no estaremos desvirtuando el concepto tradicional de museo sin tener claro con anterioridad hacia dónde nos dirigimos dentro del campo museal? Tratando de responder a estas preguntas, hemos de aceptar que el concepto de museo no es algo inamovible, fijo e incapaz de evolucionar. Por el contrario, el museo es una realidad viva, dinámica, abierta y con capacidad creativa. Somos conscientes de que la idea de museo ha ido evolucionando a lo largo del tiempo y, en consecuencia, no debemos pensar que está cerrada para siempre. Al contrario, opinamos que el futuro del museo se encuentra en su capacidad de adaptación a las nuevas realidades del mundo actual. Eso significa que el museo no puede vivir de espaldas al influjo que Internet y las nuevas tecnologías están ejerciendo en nuestra sociedad. De ahí que podamos afirmar que está surgiendo un nuevo concepto de museo: el museo virtual o museo on-line. A través de él, se pone a disposición de todos los públicos posibles, sin ningún tipo de limitación temporal o geográfica, unos determinados contenidos materializados en imágenes digitalizadas y en explicaciones teóricas sobre los mismos, sirviéndose de un entorno gráfico que resulta muy atractivo y que, al mismo tiempo, permite una navegación cómoda y fácil sirviéndose de los diferentes hipervínculos que nos llevan de un museo a otro sin movernos de casa. De este modo, podemos asegurar los contenidos incluidos en la red, al tiempo que nos permite renovarlos periódicamente y modificar su diseño.

En segundo lugar, hemos de advertir que las características de los museos reales y virtuales son diferentes y debemos exigirles que nos proporcionen experiencias distintas. Ha de quedar fuera de toda duda que el contacto directo con los objetos o colecciones de un museo real es una experiencia radicalmente diferente por su valor vivencial y existencial. En el museo real no sólo contemplamos las obras expuestas o experimentamos determinadas leyes físicas o sensoriales, sino que nos adentramos en un ámbito donde podemos observar el entorno, analizar el contexto, variar el recorrido de la visita, criticar la museografía utilizada o simplemente detenernos a contemplar extasiados un cuadro que nos ha llamado especialmente la atención. Se trata de vivir el museo, de humanizarlo y de sentirlo como una realidad que está ahí y nos interpela, nos cuestiona y nos invita a salir de nosotros mismos para tener una experiencia estética que nos ayude a repensar el futuro con creatividad e imaginación. Esto es importante no olvidarlo porque el ser humano ha de tratar de vivir la vida pensándola, asumiéndola y transformándola desde la realidad concreta que le toca vivir, siendo consciente de que una cosa es la vida real y otra, muy diferente, la realidad virtual. He ahí la función humanizadora e integradora del museo real que hemos de tener siempre presente.

Pero también es verdad que los museos virtuales han tratado de ofrecer al visitante internauta una experiencia virtual irrepetible e inimaginada apenas hace unos años. Entre los museos virtuales hemos de distinguir, al menos, dos tipos diferentes. Por una parte, se encuentran los museos virtuales que poseen un interfaz presencial, es decir, que cuentan con un edificio arquitectónico construido en un determinado lugar. Corresponden a los museos reales y en ellos el visitante va seleccionando y pasando páginas para visualizar diferentes imágenes relacionadas con alguno de los temas expuestos en los museos reales. Al visitante se le ofrece una base de datos bastante amplia en la que puede encontrar descripciones de las piezas, el mapa de las diferentes salas, los horarios y actividades propias del museo. Digamos que se trata de un trasvase del museo real a una web que Internet nos ofrece para poder acceder a él y que nos presenta y nos transmite la información de forma lineal y sin que sea necesario interactuar demasiado mental y emocionalmente.

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Otros museos virtuales tratan de reproducir de forma mimética la misma vida del

mundo cotidiano, intentando eliminar los límites físicos del mundo real que no existen en el virtual. Son los museos creados en el ciberespacio que tratan de desarrollar aquellos aspectos que se aproximan más al observador del objeto de estudio y de los contenidos informativos sobre determinados temas. Para ello, se crean puertas virtuales que nos permiten entrar en un museo virtual que es el reflejo exacto de lo que sucede en la realidad, el marco de referencia del sujeto, al igual que sucede con la pintura figurativa. Podemos darles el significado que queramos y priorizar dicho significado frente al significante como hacía el funcionalismo.

No obstante, el museo virtual no debe convertirse en una mera exposición que trata de atraer a los visitantes a las instalaciones físicas o de potenciar las ventas on-line, sino que su objetivo fundamental ha de ser el de dar a conocer las grandes obras de arte a un público cada vez más amplio y plural. Además, desde el punto de vista didáctico, será posible iniciar a los jóvenes alumnos en el conocimiento de las diversas escuelas, períodos y estilos, mostrándoles sus fondos y explicándoles sus características. Y todo ello desde el aula, sin tener que trasladarse al museo. Evidentemente, esta será una primera fase de contacto con la realidad museal a través de la red informática, que servirá de preparación para, llegado el momento adecuado, poder acercarse a las obras y ser capaces de entablar un contacto directo con ellas, ya sin intermediarios innecesarios.

Por otra parte, hemos de destacar que, mientras que para mantener un museo real es preciso contar con grandes inversiones para costear las infraestructuras, el personal especializado y la adquisición de fondos, un museo virtual tan sólo necesita disponer de un espacio en un servidor web, un pequeño equipo informático encargado del diseño y mantenimiento del sitio y otro que se encargue de los contenidos. Por supuesto, existe el problema de la adquisición de imágenes que deberán ser adquiridas respetando los derechos de propiedad de las instituciones que las custodian. En todo caso, estos museos virtuales, creados sin interfaz de los museos tradicionales, favorecen la creación e información de diferentes historias relacionadas con los protagonistas, con los objetos artísticos o con los debates que sobre ellos se realizan, al tiempo que rompen las barreras del tiempo y del espacio, sin que tengamos que preocuparnos por los horarios de visita, la necesidad de guardar silencio o de cumplir unas determinadas directrices que nos vienen impuestas desde fuera. El visitante entra en el museo sin salir de su espacio geográfico y lo visita siendo consciente de que posee un referencial común en un espacio sin límites ni barreras: el ciberespacio.

Estos museos virtuales, creados digitalmente, poseen un funcionamiento en el ciberespacio y no necesitan de una “arquitectura presencial” en la que existan salas, recorridos, techos o paredes. Podemos afirmar que son pura creación que se revela y desarrolla en el ciberespacio. El observador deja de ser sujeto pasivo y se implica en la consecución de unos objetivos en los que cuenta clarificar la memoria colectiva, apuntando hacia un nuevo museo que responda a las exigencias y a los sueños de la comunidad universal. Para ello, habrá que estar atentos para recibir de forma abierta, dinámica y crítica todas aquellas aportaciones del arte y sus creadores, siendo conscientes de que el público se convierte en co-autor y partícipe en la dinámica creativa, mediante la utilización de las diferentes redes de arte virtual que atraen su atención y le impelen a participar activamente.

Inmersos en la democracia de la tecnología, los conservadores de museos del siglo XXI no deben obviar la importancia de incorporar al público en la elaboración del nuevo concepto de museo global y en sus actividades comunitarias. No es tiempo de conservadurismos institucionales, sino de abrirse a un diálogo sincero y cordial con las nuevas tecnologías de la comunicación porque, querámoslo o no, los museos han de dirigir su mirada hacia una web semántica donde las nuevas tecnologías tienen mucho que

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aportarnos. El museo virtual está llamado a describir la historia del arte, de sus creadores y del público que lo contempla, pero también ha de conservar, estudiar y difundir el arte virtual que surja de su propia actividad cibernética. Las posibilidades del museo virtual son impredecibles y se escapan a nuestra imaginación, pero lo que es seguro es que aquél está llamado a realizar lo que ningún otro museo será capaz de conseguir jamás: la universalidad de su exposición. 3. El nuevo museo, llamado a interpretar la realidad desde el simbolismo del espacio virtual.

A medida que nos adentramos en el nuevo concepto de museo, descubrimos que un

aire fresco va invadiendo el campo museal y nos lleva a pensar que, ante la continua repetición de los mismos esquemas que nos encontramos en la vida real, surge un deseo de revitalización de los museos donde éstos dejen de ser “muertos vivientes” para convertirse en espacios vivos, capaces de asumir la realidad con todas sus consecuencias. Los museos no está muertos, como tampoco lo está el arte y la poesía, pero necesitan un espacio de libertad donde puedan expresar la vida que late dentro de ellos. Para ello, necesitan que desaparezcan las actitudes despóticas y poco democráticas que, en ocasiones, entorpecen en su interior la libertad de acción y dificultan la actividad creativa de los artistas y del público. De hecho, los artistas van, poco a poco, despojándose de los modelos existentes y tratan de crear entornos virtuales que les posibiliten alumbrar un nuevo arte más abierto, más libre y más dinámico. De tal manera que podríamos preguntarnos si podemos distinguir con facilidad qué es el arte cuando nos estamos refiriendo al mundo virtual. Es indudable que el mismo concepto de arte se comienza a cuestionar porque ya no sabemos si se refiere a las obras expuestas o a la recreación que de ellas se hace. Y, por otra parte, se nos plantea el dilema de saber quién es el que las contempla, si la persona que entra en el museo virtual y simbólico o una recreación de la misma.

El ser humano es capaz de visualizar en la mente realidades inexistentes e, incluso, distinguir sus diferentes comportamientos aún antes de que se hagan realidad. Nuestra mente es capaz de diseñar formas y mecanismos que nos permiten saber con antelación cómo se van a comportar cuando se materialicen en un determinado objeto. Eso significa que, cuando nos adentramos en el museo virtual, estamos siguiendo el mismo esquema y aceptamos acercarnos al mundo intangible e inmaterial, conscientes de que es otra forma de ver la realidad. No se trata de trasvasar el mundo real al mundo virtual, sino de adentrarse en un mundo diferente que nos permite caminar juntos en la visita al museo virtual, al tiempo que nos enriquecemos mutuamente mientras navegamos al unísono en la red.

Si algo quiso enseñarnos Malraux con su museo imaginario era que existen otras muchas alternativas al museo tradicional y que, por tanto, el museo en sentido amplio ha de concebirse como un proceso dinámico, abierto y creativo que tiene lugar más allá de un tiempo y un espacio claramente diferenciados y bajo múltiples formas de expresión. El museo es por naturaleza plural y posee una gran capacidad creativa que le permite abrirse a cualquier realidad que rodee al ser humano y, al mismo tiempo, le capacita para transformar el significado de los objetos y obras de arte con los que se encuentra y relaciona. Y es precisamente el nacimiento del mundo virtual quien ha puesto de relieve que, al igual que en el museo imaginario, la fotografía, el cine y el video eran instrumentos que contribuían a la difusión de las obras de arte, también en el museo virtual, a través de las imágenes digitales, acerca las obras al internauta y las hace presentes en cualquier lugar del mundo de forma individualizada y sin tener que moverse de la propia casa.

Todo es posible gracias al espacio virtual que no necesita de la materialidad de los objetos para hacerlos presentes, sino que los imagina y recrea manipulando el ordenador.

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De este modo, podemos llegar, incluso, a representarnos un museo sin objetos materiales porque es la misma virtualidad la que los reconstruye y les da vida en la imagen que los ilustra, representa, interpreta y expone en la pantalla. Adquieren movimiento y vida propia no sólo los objetos, sino también el mismo museo considerado como continente, y el espectador se convierte al mismo tiempo en creador de sus propias representaciones mentales, capaz de generar nuevas imágenes tratando de desafiar a la propia realidad espacio-temporal, adentrándose en el mundo de lo imaginario e intangible en un intento de alcanzar la inmortalidad y la esencia misma de las cosas.

Pero, ¿qué función están llamados a desempeñar tanto el museo imaginario como el museo virtual? Una función eminentemente educativa y concienciadora de la necesidad de conservar el patrimonio cultural. El visitante virtual es invitado a entrar dentro de un espacio simulado en el que se le exponen los diferentes itinerarios que puede recorrer haciendo clic en un simple ratón de ordenador. En la visita se pueden encontrar tanto reproducciones de obras originales como reconstrucciones digitales que, en muchos casos, no existen en la realidad al igual que no existen los paneles donde las vemos expuestas. Es la señal de que lo irreal e inexistente puede tomar cuerpo y materializarse en la ficción digital del museo virtual, donde se nos permite aprender a mirar las obras de arte sin ninguna clase de barreras físicas.

Una vez más, hemos de insistir en que los museos virtuales no están para suplir al museo real, sino para enseñar a mirar las obras de otra manera, para sensibilizar al visitante, para educarle y motivarle de cara a que aprenda a valorar el patrimonio cultural y, por supuesto, a ser imaginativo creando su propia idea de museo. Sería interesante hacer un estudio sobre la frecuencia de las visitas que el público hace a unos y otros museos para poder comparar las incidencias más significativas que pueden darse, tanto en el ámbito de las colecciones como en el de las tiendas y compras que los internautas hacen de los objetos del museo a través de la red. De hecho, en el Museo de Arte Thyssen Bornemisza de Madrid se han realizado cinco millones de visitas virtuales y sólo un millón de visitas reales. Eso significa que estamos ante una nueva forma de acercarnos y experimentar el museo. Éste se universaliza y su contenido puede difundirse por cualquier lugar del mundo. El objeto pierde su dimensión sagrada y simbólica y se convierte en una realidad virtual que podemos contemplar, manejar y manipular desde nuestro ordenador. Una nueva forma de entender la museología y los museos está siendo alumbrada y no podemos mirar para otro lado añorando un pasado que, sin duda, fue glorioso, pero que ya no existe y, posiblemente, no vuelva a repetirse jamás.

Nos toca, por tanto, asumir los nuevos retos que el mundo actual nos presenta y estar dispuestos a afrontar el futuro con entusiasmo y generosidad. Ello conllevará ciertos riesgos, pero estamos seguros de que, si sabemos responder con creatividad estando atentos a los deseos de la sociedad de nuestro tiempo, tanto la museología como los museos se verán enriquecidos y valorados por el aprecio y la consideración de un público cada vez más amplio y más plural que lo fue en tiempos pasados. La democratización de la cultura y la posibilidad de acceder al conocimiento de las obras de arte es un logro del que debemos enorgullecernos porque el principal objetivo de la museología no es otro que el de acercar los museos y sus obras al público que quiera contemplarlo. Si las nuevas tecnologías de la comunicación e información nos sirven como herramientas para conseguir dicho propósito, no vemos por qué hemos de tener cierto miedo a asumirlas e integrarlas dentro de los museos. Lo importante es que todo ello nos sirva para humanizar un poco más nuestro mundo y para descubrir que todas las manifestaciones de la cultura, por muy diversas que sean, nos enriquecen y nos ayudan a comprender a los demás. Tal vez sea ese el verdadero simbolismo que hemos de descifrar cuando nos adentramos en el mundo virtual: que el ser humano, por encima de las diferencias, está llamado a ser protagonista de su propia existencia desde la libertad, el compromiso y la solidaridad.

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MUSEUM AND MUSEOLOGY: CHANGING ROLES – OR CHANGING PARADIGMS ? Prof. Dr. SCHEINER Tereza, Postgraduate Program in Museology and Heritage, UNIRIO/MAST – Rio-de-Janeiro, Brazil ABSTRACT

Museology is today perceived in process, and as constituted in the interfaces between the existent fields of knowledge and social practices. It gains force and significance through the study of the Museum, as social phenomenon and cultural representation. Some of these concepts have not been properly developed by museum theory : despite the efforts and production of some theorists, there remains a difficulty in apprehending the Museum beyond its institutionalized form, and the object as intangible reference. The source of such difficulty is the inappropriate relationship made between the paradigms of Modernity and the new ideas about Museum and museology, which can only be explained and understood within the framework of contemporary thought. The answer to this dilemma remains in the capacity of assuming that contemporary knowledge is the epistemic foundation of Museology. To better address these challenges, Museology must try to consolidate itself as a scientific discipline, reinforcing its methods, re-defining its goals and opening to plural interfaces with other fields of knowledge. Some issues must be urgently addressed : 1) The place of Museology in contemporary knowledge ; 2) The relationship between Museology and Communication Theory ; and 3) The role of Museology as a vehicle for intercultural dialogue.

Keywords : Museum; Museology ; Communication ; Trans-disciplinary approach ; Intercultural dialogue.

RÉSUMÉ Musée et muséologie : changements de rôles ou changements de paradigmes ?

La muséologie est comprise aujourd’hui comme un domaine en constitution, construit en interface entre les champs disciplinaires existants et les pratiques sociales. Ce domaine gagne force et signification à travers les études sur le Musée, comme phénomène social et représentation culturelle. Certains de ces concepts n’on pas été encore bien développés par la théorie muséologique : même avec les efforts et la production de certains théoriciens, il reste encore difficile d’appréhender le Musée au delà de sa forme institutionnalisée, et l’objet comme référent immatériel. Cette difficulté se base dans la relation impropre qui se fait entre les paradigmes de la modernité et les nouvelles idées sur le Musée et la muséologie, qui ne peuvent être comprises que dans le cadre de la pensée contemporaine. La réponse à un tel dilemme réside dans la capacité à assumer que la pensée contemporaine est la vraie base épistémique de la muséologie. Pour mieux aborder la question, on doit essayer de consolider la muséologie comme discipline scientifique, en renforçant ses méthodes, en redéfinissant ses objectifs et en ouvrant des interfaces pluriels vers d’autres champs de la connaissance. Quelques questions doivent être rapidement approchées : 1) la place de la muséologie dans la pensée contemporaine ; 2) la relation entre la muséologie et la théorie de la communication ; 3) le rôle de la muséologie comme véhicule du dialogue interculturel.

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Mots-clés : Musée. Muséologie. Communication. Approche transdisciplinaire. Dialogue interculturel. RESUMEN

Museos y museologia : ¿roles cambiantes o paradigmas cambiantes? La museología es percibida hoy como un proceso constituido por las interfaces entre

los campos del conocimiento y las prácticas sociales existentes. Cobra fuerza e importancia mediante el estudio del museo, tomado como fenómeno social y representación cultural. Algunos de estos conceptos no han sido debidamente desarrollados por la teoría de la museología. A pesar de los esfuerzos y la producción de algunos teóricos, aún permanece la dificultad de aprehender al museo más allá de su forma institucionalizada y del objeto como referencia intangible. La fuente de tal dificultad es la relación inapropiada existente entre los paradigmas de la modernidad y las nuevas ideas sobre el museo y la museología, las cuales sólo pueden ser explicadas y comprendidas dentro del marco del pensamiento contemporáneo. La respuesta a este dilema reside en la capacidad de asumir que el conocimiento actual es el fundamento epistemológico de la museología. Para abordar mejor estos desafíos, debe tratar de consolidarse como disciplina científica, reforzando sus métodos, redefiniendo sus metas y abriéndose a interfaces plurales con otros campos del conocimiento. Algunas cuestiones deben tratarse con urgencia: 1) el lugar de la museología dentro del conocimiento contemporáneo; 2) la relación entre la museología y la teoría de la comunicación y 3) el papel de la museología como vehículo para el diálogo intercultural. Palabras clave: museo, museología, comunicación, aproximación transdisciplinaria, diálogo intercultural.

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Museology is today accepted as being founded in three central issues: the social relevance of cultural heritage and the necessity of acceptance of difference; the enlargement and diffusion of the concept of heritage; and the importance of the concepts of museum and heritage to the information society. Always in movement, perceived in process, museology constitutes itself in the interfaces between the existent fields of knowledge and social practices – and gains force and significance through the study of the museum, as social phenomenon and cultural representation.

Nevertheless, some of these concepts have not been properly developed by

museum theory : despite the efforts and production of some theorists, there remains a difficulty in apprehending the museum beyond its institutionalized form, and the object as intangible reference. The source of such difficulty is the inappropriate relationship made between the paradigms of modernity and the new ideas about Museum and museology, which can only be explained and understood within the framework of contemporary thought. The answer to this dilemma remains in the capacity of assuming that contemporary knowledge is the epistemic foundation of museology, a discipline that gains shape and develops as from the 1960’s.

Assuming museology as a product of contemporary thought implies in assuming that

the concepts of object, museum and heritage are founded in the perception of the immaterial; and that the perception of material culture with all its representations, so important to the history of traditional museums and to museum practice, must be re-oriented to fit this new framework. This is a very difficult movement, considering that we have, behind us, centuries of epistemic distance between “science and philosophy, human and natural

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sciences, ethics and politics81”; and that, to align the ideas of Museum and museology to a concept of knowledge based in the epistemology of complexity, we must review our own history, our own academic experience – and develop an articulated approach of ‘complex reality’ that emphasizes the importance of trans-disciplinary approach.

To better address contemporary issues related to social, political and ethic

developments, museology must try to consolidate itself as a scientific discipline, reinforcing its methods, re-defining its goals and opening to plural interfaces with other fields of knowledge. Some issues must be urgently addressed :

1) The place of museology in contemporary knowledge Much has been said about the place of museology in the system of knowledge and about its characteristics, limits and possibilities either as a science or as a set of practices concerning museum work. The first articles by the founders of museum theory are now widely known and have given way to hundreds of academic papers, as well as to many discussions in the area. Yet much is still to be done, if we want to seriously establish and consolidate museology as an academic field of study.

First of all, it is imperative to make a deep and complete review of the production already existent in the field of museum theory – identifying the paradigms and sources of knowledge that lie behind the works of each one of our theorists; and trying to understand what ideas and/or situations have motivated such production. Some partial reviews made in the 80’s, based in the production of ICOFOM papers82, have led to interesting perceptions of the relationships between the fields/areas of origin of authors and ideas developed. But we must recognize that they did not lead to a systematic and methodological approach of the production in our field: that is still to be done. We must do research on us – on our own production. No field of study will ever reach maturity without some kind of acknowledgement of its own production; and that includes bibliographic and bibliometric analysis and similar methodologies, which provide better understanding of the frequencies and distribution of use of terms, ideas and references – as well as of the trends and movements which motivate citations and the choice of authors for references. Museology may not be only a discipline in the field of information science (and I strongly believe it is much more than that), but it does need to organize the information it generates and spreads, according to the international standards of the ‘organization of knowledge’.

The studies on terms and concepts of museology are a good example of what may – and must – be done in the field. We all reckon the importance of terminology studies for the constitution of a ‘museological language’, articulated as from the debates around the terms ‘museology’, ‘museum’ and related ones. The first papers by ICOFOM members, organized

81 ELZRIK, Mariza Faerman. Dialogar com o Mistério do Mundo: a aventura da complexidade em Edgar Morin. In: Estudos Leopoldenses, Série Educação. UNISINOS, Vol. 1. No. 1 julho/dez. 1997. p. 49-64 82 See papers by SCHEINER, Tereza. Museus e identidades (museums and identities). In: Apolo e Dioniso no Templo das Musas (Apollo and Dionysus in the Temple of the Muses). Master Dissertation. RJ: ECO/UFRJ, 1997. p. 117- 122; and VAN MENSCH, Peter. Untitled. In: [ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR MUSEOLOGY / ICOFOM, 8]; October 1986, Buenos Aires [Argentine]. Symposium Museology and Identity - Colloque La Muséologie et L’Identité. Comments and views – Commentaires et points de vue. Coord. Vinoš Sofka. Stockholm: International Committee for Museology / ICOFOM; Museum of National Antiquities, Stockholm, Sweden. (ICOFOM STUDY SERIES – ISS 11). 1986. Org. and edited by Vinoš Sofka. Reprint and edited by Martin R. Schärer. Contributors and ICOFOM reprint in charge of Anita Shah. Hyderabad, India. 1995. Book 3. p. 37-40, English. An organized reference of authors involved in the ICOFOM production was also done by Martin Schärer in the 90’s, which provided some very interesting data for posterior studies.

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by Sofka83; and the recent papers organized by Desvallées and Mairesse84 are among the classics in this trend. Yet such studies need to be implemented, especially outside Europe – and outside the boundaries of the French language. Some research experiences developed in Latin America illustrate what can be done in this area: the Argroup project, in Argentina, with studies developed in Spanish; and the Brazilian project “Terms and concepts of museology” – which has been performing systematic work, in Portuguese, on specific terms such as museum ; museology ; muse ; heritage (patrimony) ; virtual – have both produced and published documents that are important for the field of museology, not yet properly acknowledged by the peers, in and outside the region.

It is also imperative to develop a wide map of theoretical tendencies, that makes

possible to understand the real ‘frameworks of thought’ in our field - much beyond the dozen articles that have been elected by some peers as ‘representative’, in the past 35 years, thus remaining iconized as the ‘ultimate sources’ in museological thought. Even considering the importance of such articles to the development of theoretical museology, much in their contents is now outdated and needs to be revised; in many cases, they have already been revised, yet revisions were not properly acknowledged.

Studies in theoretical museology have proven that our field has a strong philosophical background, as well as very deep roots into the social and political sciences. Most analytical studies about the interfaces between museology and other fields have privileged the visions of sociology and anthropology – perhaps due to the fact that both fields (first anthropology, and then sociology) were in development and consolidation in the 19th century – the period widely recognized as ‘the century of museums’. It is not by chance that ICOFOM was created by an anthropologist and that many of the scholars who contributed to the development of museum theory come from that field. Sociology, by its turn, has deeply influenced the development of museums in the second half of the 20th century, leading to the concepts of the ‘new museum’ and ‘new museology’.

Some of these ideas remain untouched, as if socio-cultural analysis did not change itself, and could still be developed without taking into consideration the contemporary paradigms. Concepts such as ‘ecomuseum’, ‘new museum’ and ‘site museum’85 are now under revision in different countries – but a comparative analysis of such studies must be urgently made, or we will be repeating each other’s ideas over the next decades. A recent conference on ecomuseums, realized in Guiyang Province, in China86, has unveiled a vigorous and engaged theoretical production on the subject, by Asian colleagues.87 Such ideas must be compared to those in other regions, especially with Latin America, where there is a considerable literature on the matter.

83 See SOFKA, Vinos (Org.) MUWOP 1 and 2; and ISS 1 to 5; 12; 13. 84 See DESVALLÉES, André. (Org.) Terminologie de la Muséologie. ICOM/ICOFOM. Paris: 1999. Preprints. 280p. CD ; MAIRESSE, François (Org.). Définir le Musée. Defining the Museum. Morlanwez, Belgium: Musée Royal de Mariemont, 2005; and MAIRESSE, François; DESVALLÉES, André. (Dir.) Vers une redéfinition du musée? Avant-propos de Michel Van Praët. Paris : l’Harmattan, 2007. 225 p. 85 In French, musée de terrain, musée de site, or musée de territoire 86 Communication and Exploration. International Ecomuseum Conference. Guiyang, China, June 1-6, 2005. 87 One of the papers presented states: “ecomuseum practice has spread to many countries. However, the undeniable fact is that the development of the ecomuseum movement in the world is not as inspiring as the founders and the advocates might have expected. The concept of the ecomuseum has led to heated arguments and variations in practice. These arguments and difficulties need to be researched and ecomuseum practice evaluated (…) constructive and critical attitudes to these issues are essential, because outright support or blind condemnation is not helpful to the development of ecomuseums. It is important to face up the truth and pursue the possibility of the link between idealism and reality”. HUANG Chun, Yu. A crucial issue for ecomuseums: the link between idealism and reality. In: Communication and Exploration. Guiyang, China – 2005. Documenti di Lavoro di Trentino Cultura. Coord. Editoriale Maria Pia Flaim. Trento: Asessorato della Cultura, 2005. p. 43-45

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As for the philosophical source, although it has influenced the development of museum theory from the beginning88, it has been seriously investigated only from the 90’s. Some important papers and books have already been produced and published concerning these relationships89; but there is still an immense work to be done in this area.

It has long been considered that museology is inter-disciplinary in its origins; yet it

must now be perceived within the framework of trans-disciplinary studies, under which a set of parameters, approaches and procedures adopted by the different areas of knowledge are examined, in order to make clear where, when and how they ‘fold’ over each other. Let us not forget, the trans-disciplinary experience leads “to the reinvention of scientific and intellectual activities 90 ”, promoting collective intelligence through the cooperation of specialists from different disciplinary fields. In the last decades, the new technologies and the information / communication industries have promoted a spectacular outgrow of existing disciplinary fields – more than 10.000 in the 1990’s and many, many more in the present days.91 An over-multiplication of publications and academic papers increased the collections of archives and libraries everywhere. No one is able to accompany what goes on inside each discipline or specialty field.

In such context, sharing knowledge became more than a necessity – became a strategic behavior. From at least three decades already, specialists have been joining efforts in multidisciplinary projects, summing forces yet keeping their individuality, in the pursuit of a common ground for action. Museology is one of those fields, and has grown out in the interfaces between disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, history, art, chemistry, physics, philosophy and new fields, such as cultural studies, computer sciences and information sciences. It must now develop towards the growth of collective intelligence, identifying issues that must be approached and developed in common with other fields, generating collective knowledge that transcends all those disciplines. As already mentioned in previous works92, trans-disciplinary topics must be addressed and designed as a neuronal net, an open system without hierarchy and which produces crossed references of all kinds, in all directions – making possible a fertile and innovative approach of the issues related to museology and heritage, in the crossroads between art, science and technology.

Trans-disciplinary studies will

reinvent the intellectual, generating a true moral conversion towards knowledge, founded in the ethics of socially shared responsibility, and aiming at the promotion of a new humanism (…) the condition is to search [the new total intellectual] not in the individual, but in the group or collectivity93.

88 See STRANSKY, Z.; GREGOROVA, A. and others. MUWOP 1-2 and ISS 1-10. 89 See DELOCHE, Bernard. Museologica. Contradictions et logique du musée, 2è. Ed. Mâcon : W/MNES, 1989 ; SCHEINER, Tereza. Museology and the Third Millennium: the philosophy of change. In: Museology. ICOM / ICOM STUDY SERIES No. 8. Paris: ICOM, 2000; VIEREGG, Hildegard (org.). Symposium Museology and Philosophy. Colloque Muséologie et Philosophie. Coloquio Museología y Filosofía. Museologie und Philosophie. [21 Annual Conference of the International Council of Museology / ICOFOM]. Coro, Venezuela. 28 November – 04 December 1999. Coord. Tereza Scheiner and A. Reyes. Munich: International Committee for Museology / ICOFOM; Museums-Pädagogisches Zentrum, Munich, Germany. ICOFOM STUDY SERIES – ISS 31. 1999. 90 DOMINGUES, Ivan. Apresentação. In: Conhecimento e Transdisciplinaridade II. Aspectos metodológicos. (Knowledge and Trans-disciplinarity II. Methodological Aspects). Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG, 2005. p. 27 91 DOMINGUES, Ivan. In Op. Cit., p. 28. 92 SCHEINER, Tereza. Images of the Non-place. Communication and the New Heritages. Doctoral Thesis in Communication and Culture. RJ: ECO/UFRJ, 2004. 93 Ibid. In Op. Cit., p. 31

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Very interesting studies are under way under such tendencies, and they have been trying to identify and map the interfaces between disciplines related to museology, as well as some common issues now under debate. Some of these studies were initiated in Europe, in the late 1990’s, by theorists such as Ivo Maroevic. Others are being developed outside Europe94, and still need to be recognized and considered in our international community.

2) The relationship between museology and communication theory Museum theorists must recognize the importance of communication theory to the

constitution of the field, re-examining its influence under the paradigms of contemporary thought. Due importance has been attributed to Peirce and the studies about the sign; some works have also considered the influence of Russian scholars of the 1930’s, who approached culture as a semiotic system – a textual system, oriented towards collective memory and which perceives, gathers and diffuses information, in constant movement and change. Ideas of scholars like Bakhtin, who developed a dialectic idea of language that led to the concept of discursive genders - discursive forms that relate to the infinite spheres in the use of language, articulating them through modelization processes that define infinite possibilities of message production, in the specific times and spaces of each culture; or Ivanov, who defined culture as information, and cultural codes as semiotic systems, have influenced the development of theoretical thoughts in museology, as from the 60’s, especially in what refers to: a) interpreting museums as agents for social development; b) perceiving museums as discursive instances (leading to the development of a ‘museological language’); c) understanding museums as inserted in the semiosphere.

These ideas and their influence over museum theory must now be reviewed and re-

analyzed. The concept of cultural codes as semiotic systems should remain as a central perspective in theoretical museology : it helps understanding how different cultures create and develop different types of museums – all of them specific representations of the Museum phenomenon (this one, a philosophical concept). It also helps understanding that museality is not a specific quality of any object (either tangible or intangible), but an attributed value - a fluid value, attributed to specific references of reality and based in the perception that different social groups develop of such reality, through specific relationships with space, time and memory, according to their world visions and systems of thought. As an attributed value, the perception of museality may thus change over time and space, according to the ways by which each society refers to reality. And, if the concept of museality is in continuous change, so it is the concept of Museum.

Research on Theory of Communication will also make clear the extension of the interfaces with other fields of knowledge that, from the 19th century, have influenced the development of museums and museology. Among many other examples, we may remind the ideas of Stuart Mill on the economy of the fluxes, the mechanics of operations of intelligence and the perception of society as organism – which led to the concept of network; or the ideas of H. Spencer about communication as an organic system. Theory of communication, in its interface with sociology, will also help understanding the importance of the concept of ‘public’ to western society and its relationships to the development of a ‘museological language’ – as well as the importance of the study of the relationships between social groups and the development of the different media95 .

94 Some of these studies are being developed in Brazil, by specialists in the field of Information Science – generating important publications and academic debates. See PINHEIRO, Lena Vania Ribeiro; GONZALEZ DE GÓMEZ, Nélida; LIMA, Diana Farjalla Correia. 95 See School of Chicago – 1910/1940 and the Mass Communication Research works - 1930/1960.

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The analysis of museum publics has enabled the perception of specific dynamics of relationship between visitor and museums; which, by their turn, have led to the perception of the museum as place of encounter, a place that only gains significance when the observer meets the thing (object / monument / culture / natural or cultural process) that is to be observed. Here, the museum becomes a metaphoric experience – developed in the encounters between the visible and the speakable, presented as evidence:

Formal Logics dedicates to make concepts portray the sense of things, in their variability, richness, historicity, humanity and semantic field. The signs perceive things as inside a system or linguistic code. The metaphor founds new codes and brings new perspectives over things, which imply in new ways of knowing them. Instead of asking for the ‘being’ [the soul] of things, as in traditional metaphysics, the metaphor will ask for what is between them – their similarities, and the sense they acquire for us…96

The last decades have made possible to approach the museum as a semiotic system

- where sets of objects, mediated by the complex museological language, acquire and define significance. And, if the realm of significance is not other than the world of language, museum objects may also be considered symbolic objects, significant units in the museum discourse. Communication theory must thus investigate the limits and possibilities of the museum as a significant system, identifying the different plans of content that effectively contribute to link each sign to its cultural context – and the ways by which such processes occur.

Museology may approach the Museum either as a paradigm, a representation or an

event. As a paradigm, the idea of Museum would be linked to a historicized society, where knowledge is under a framework of political dominance, based on the concepts of reason and truth – a world that has survived through social exclusion and manipulated discourse. This approach has lost significance since the 19th century has developed the experience of diversity, opening up to the perceptions of relative time, space and matter: since then, it has been acknowledged that the Museum has more than one single face, and that the museum discourse may be contradictory, unexpected and plural. As representation, the idea of museum is linked to human experience as Absolute: here, what matters are humanized time and space. Yet ‘modern’ thought reminds us that to represent implies to have the ‘present’ as an absolute condition, generating a movement of permanent retreat towards the past, which will then be re-actualized as origin, and re-presented as narrative. The present would thus exist always in connection with the past – justified and signified by the past. To represent, it is also necessary to select references, and consequently to exclude. A challenge is herein installed: how to re-present in multiplicity, avoiding the tendency to believe that the world is what remains from that which passed, and to project the museum onto the sphere of absolute neutrality ?

Let us thus examine the possibility of conceiving the Museum as an event –

thoroughly linked to the irruption of the new, not needing to exist as pre-established form, representation in time or presence materialized in space. An event that may be simultaneously one (that which exists) and many (how and where it exists) - able to be presented under simultaneous, different forms; able to exist in many spaces, in synchrony with different times – even with real time. As an event, the museum may detach from the relational chain established by the cognitive systems and become part of a new relational chain that incorporates simulation, but seduction as well. Similar to a fractal, it may be infinitely unfolded, each ‘fold’ containing the same characteristics of the original, each image multiplying in a virtual space.

96 BRANDÃO, Carlos Antonio Leite. A traduzibilidade dos conceitos. Entre o visível e o dizível. In: DOMINGUES, Ivan. Op. Cit, . p. 53

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As an event, the Museum may become part of a new process of truth, where it is possible to imagine situations other than consecrated opinions and knowledge; and to accept knowledge in potency, opening up to a new ethics, directed not to a ‘better world’, but to a world where a new humanity, immerse in virtuality, paradox and contradictions, finds a proper place to live.

3) The role of museology as a vehicle for intercultural dialogue

Only believing in the Museum as an event, a place for encounter, a spontaneous and democratic process it will be possible to act museology as a vehicle for intercultural dialogue, giving opportunity to difference of expression, in an atmosphere of thorough social and cultural respect. That is the main ethical duty of museology in the present days: to analyze the existent gaps between museum practice and museum theory, indentifying where, when and why ideas and proposals waste out in the domain of discourse. On the other hand, it must be observed and analyzed when, where and why innovative practices may be considered truly ‘museological’, thus contributing to reinforce Museology as a disciplinary field.

The idea of developing museums for intercultural dialogue is being long addressed

by policies in the museum field, and its spirit is represented in the ICOM Strategic Plan. The importance assigned to this issue is reflected in the work of ICOM CCTF - Cross Cultural Task Force, a group of specialists devoted to stimulate, enhance and multiply opportunities of discussing and acting towards inclusiveness in museums. A first International Conference on the Inclusive Museum was realized in Leiden, Netherlands, in June 2008, with hundreds of participants from different world Regions - and other conferences and meetings are already scheduled, with the same intent. Each member of CCTF addresses these issues according to his/her own cultural and professional reality, and the sum of efforts is intended to contribute for the global dialogue in the museum field.

Among the proposals presented in plenary at the mentioned event97, the following ones make use of museum theory as a framework for action :

a) understand heritage not as a totality, but as a multiple, able to generate news

forms of universality and fraternity; b) promote the sharing of knowledge, authority and responsibility over the symbolic

memory and the cultural production of different social groups, stimulating participation in the processes of recognition, establishment, musealization and use of references that each of them recognize as ‘heritage’;

c) recognize the cultural significance of the past, not only as a source for actions in

the present, but in mediation with the present: the past is not something that has passed away, but something that is contained within the present;

d) incorporate new technologies, perceiving the museum as a hypertext, an event, a

space of possibilities – and being open to new methods for documentation, preservation and interpretation of diversity;

e) encourage innovation and creativity, having in mind that the communicational

process does not end in real time, yet extends into a reflexive process – a thoroughly individual movement;

97 SCHEINER, Tereza. Some thoughts on museums, inclusiveness and Museology. Ideas presented in the I International Conference on the Inclusive Museum. Leiden, Netherlands, June 10, 2008 (unpublished).

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f) emphasize the importance of imagination and creativity, recognizing the evident

emotional character of heritage and the strong links that exist between the idea of heritage and our relationships with the many ‘worlds’ within and around us

Let us not forget, an inclusive museum must have inclusive professionals, able to

establish new forms of dialogue with the public – ready to participate in new experiences and to see things as they really are; able to cope with change and to develop new practices.

In such a context, it remains our responsibility to establish new perceptions and

develop new significance to Museology, working the tensions between past and present, tradition and innovation, individual and collective action, theory and practice. It is up to us to be the translators of meanings that will make museums able to cope with the demands of this new century. That is why we defend a trans-disciplinary approach to Museology: it will enable us to add to concepts, images and methods, “a performance, a way of use, a quantum that deciphers experience, giving it significance”98. Yet we may not let theory be limited by practice : as Adorno used to say, “it is precisely those theories not conceived to be applied which have a better probability of being fruitful in practice” 99.

Rio de Janeiro, June 2008.

98 BRANDÃO, Carlos Antonio Leite. A traduzibilidade dos conceitos. Entre o visível e o dizível. In: DOMINGUES, Ivan. Op. Cit, . p. 93 99 ADORNO, Theodor. Marginal notes on theory and praxis. Apud DOMINGUES, Ivan. Op. Cit, p. 98.

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2.2 Museums, museology and the social impact of informatics Les musées, la muséologie et l’impact social des techniques informatiques Museos, museología y el impacto social de la informática

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VERS LA PRISE DE CONSCIENCE DE l’EXISTENCE D’UN MUSÉE PARALLÈLE DELOCHE Bernard, Université Lyon 3 – Lyon, France _____________________________________________________________________ RÉSUMÉ

La culture qu’a transmise le musée depuis deux siècles est née dans le bassin

méditerranéen (Egypte, Israël, Grèce, Rome) et elle sert principalement à diffuser et à maintenir les valeurs de l’Occident. Aujourd’hui, si le musée est en train d’être concurrencé par les nouveaux médias, ce n’est pas parce que la cyber-visite pourrait remplacer la visite physique, mais parce que ces médias ont aussi favorisé l’émergence d’une autre culture à la fois plus internationale et plus diversifiée. Ce « musée parallèle » est une vitrine sans bâtiments, sans collections et sans institution ; c’est assurément le vrai musée virtuel. Le musée traditionnel ne disparaît pas, mais il tend à se transformer en observatoire critique de la vie sociale. Son rôle nouveau consiste à poser des questions et à agir sur les mentalités. ABSTRACT Towards the awakening of the existence of a parallel museum

The culture which the museum has transmitted for two centuries was born in the Mediterranean basin (Egypt, Israel, Greece, Rome) and it is mainly used to diffuse and maintain the values of the Occident. Today, if the museum is being competed with by the new media, it is not because the cyber-visit could replace the physical visit, but because these media also supported the emergence of another culture at the same time more international and more diversified. This “parallel museum” is a window without buildings, collections and institution ; it is undoubtedly the true virtual museum. The traditional museum does not disappear, but it tends to be transformed into critical observatory of the social life. Its new role consists in raising questions and acting on mentalities. RESUMEN

Hacia el despertar de la existencia de un museo paralelo La cultura que el museo ha transmitido durante dos siglos nació en la cuenca del Mediterráneo (Egipto, Israel, Grecia, Roma) y ha servido para difundir y mantener los valores de Occidente. Hoy en día, si el museo se ve forzado a competir con los nuevos medios, no es porque la visita cibernética pueda reemplazar la visita física, sino porque estos medios también favorecen la emergencia de otra cultura internacional y diversificada. Este museo paralelo es una vitrina sin edificios, sin colecciones y sin institución. Es, sin lugar a dudas, el verdadero museo virtual. El museo tradicional no desaparece, pero tiende a transformarse en un observatorio crítico de la vida social. Su nuevo rol consiste en plantear preguntas y actuar sobre las mentalidades.

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En quoi les NTIC (Nouvelles technologies de l’information et de la communication) tendent-elles à modifier le rôle social du musée ? A première vue, la question paraît manquer de pertinence, tant les musées sont éloignés des NTIC, qui n’offrent à leurs yeux qu’un petit intérêt de mise en valeur des collections au même titre que les techniques d’éclairage, les vitrines ou les guides imprimés. Pourtant ces

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nouvelles technologies ont un impact social si important qu’elles sont en train de menacer ou tout au moins de concurrencer sérieusement les musées institutionnels. Mais cela, personne ne le dit parce que personne ne le voit.

Car, avant d’être une institution chargée d’abriter des collections dans un bâtiment, le musée est d’abord une fonction 1 2 . Et cette fonction relève de la communication dont elle est une spécification en tant que transmission. La transmission, qui est une communication non interactive dans le temps plutôt que dans l’espace 3, a pour contenu la culture, c’est-à-dire ce qui fait de chacun de nous un être humain. Mais on doit constater qu’il y a d’autres moyens d’exercer la même fonction de transmission : d’une manière générale, les médias ont toujours joué ce rôle, ce fut le cas de l’imprimerie à la Renaissance, de la presse écrite au XVIIe siècle, puis plus tard de la radio et de la télévision, aujourd’hui ce sont le multimédia et le réseau mondial d’Internet qui s’en chargent. Or chaque média se trouve solidaire de certains contenus culturels, aussi l’apparition d’un nouveau médias tend elle à bouleverser l’ordre social 4, car le média n’est pas un simple canal indifférent à ce qu’il véhicule dans la mesure où il contribue aussi à produire les contenus transmis. Ainsi, la télévision ne s’est pas contentée de diffuser des images animées accompagnées du son, mais elle a promu une culture de l’image, qui a façonné les manières de penser et d’agir de la société actuelle. Dans ce contexte, non seulement le musée est un moyen de transmission daté historiquement, mais il se trouve associé à des contenus culturels en partie abandonnés, en tout cas sérieusement relativisés. Avec les NTIC les outils de production et de diffusion de la culture se sont déplacés au profit des nouveaux médias qui tendent à générer d’autres contenus culturels. Voilà le phénomène dont il faut tenter de mesurer l’ampleur et la portée.

Reprenons donc l’interrogation initiale de Lynn Maranda dans son texte de présentation du thème de cette année : « Les musées peuvent-ils continuer à être les uniques gardiens du patrimoine mondial, matériel et immatériel ? Au même moment, sont-ils capables de conserver les principes éthiques qui leur sont si chers ? 5 » Ces deux questions sont en effet les seules qui méritent aujourd’hui d’être posées. I - Le caractère relatif de la culture transmise par le musée

Pendant deux siècles le musée a servi à véhiculer la culture, il ne semble d’ailleurs pas avoir connu d’autre destination, toutefois la culture qu’il transmettait et qu’il continue encore de transmettre était une culture dominante, certes, mais particulière et géographiquement située, celle de l’Occident. Les nouveaux médias informatiques nous ont enfin permis d’en mesurer le caractère tout relatif et de prendre des distances par rapport à elle.

En parallèle avec l’école, depuis ses origines officielles, c’est-à-dire depuis sa fondation sous la Révolution française, le musée était un rouage majeur de conservation et de diffusion de la culture. Le couple école/musée remplissait alors, dans un contexte laïc, les fonctions dont l’Église catholique avait eu le monopole durant près de deux millénaires : la distribution des savoirs (domaine intellectuel, par

1 B. Deloche, « Définition du musée », dans F. Mairesse et A. Desvallées (dir.), Vers une redéfinition du musée ? Paris, L’Harmattan, 2007, p. 100. 2 3 R. Debray, Introduction la médiologie, Paris, PUF, 2000, p. 15. 4 Régis Debray explique que l’imprimerie a détrôné les clercs et, plus récemment, la télévision aboli le privilège des enseignants, ibid., p. 47. 5 L. Maranda, « Can museums continue to be the sole keepers of the world’s tangible and intangible heritage? At the same time, will museums be able to maintain the ethical precepts they hold so dear ? » Reflections on the topics of the ICOFOM symposium 2008 : Museums, Museology and Global Communication. Ci-dessus : p. 13.

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les universités et les collèges) et celle des images (domaine sensible, par les tableaux et les sculptures des églises). Les moyens avaient changé, les contenus s’étaient déplacés : au dogme et à la morale chrétienne se substituait le nouveau dogme humaniste du citoyen libre et responsable, à la fois sujet et législateur (Rousseau, Kant). Tandis que l’école formait le citoyen en lui apprenant à lire et à écrire, en lui transmettant l’histoire et la géographie, c’est au musée que revint le soin d’éduquer par l’image en montrant des thèmes édifiants grâce à ces médias que sont les tableaux et les sculptures, accrochés à des cimaises, placés dans des vitrines ou posés sur des socles. École (monopole du savoir) Église (monopole du savoir et des images) Musée (monopole des images) avant 1789 de 1789 à 1990

Si l’on admet assez volontiers cette filiation historique, en revanche on oublie un peu trop facilement que l’esprit des contenus véhiculé par ces deux institutions est resté globalement le même que celui que transmettait l’Église, car le dogme du citoyen libre et responsable est le fruit d’une histoire et les valeurs qui s’y trouvent associées sont toujours celles de l’Occident chrétien à la constitution desquelles ont contribué tant l’Égypte ancienne (découverte de l’individualité spirituelle selon Hegel) qu’Israël (conquête du monothéisme) ou la Grèce (naissance de la démocratie) et même Rome (élaboration du droit). Ces valeurs forment une unité cohérente et forte, centrée sur le respect dû à la personne humaine, que l’on désigne depuis la Renaissance sous le nom d’humanisme.

C’est Malraux qui a, le premier, explicitement établi le lien entre le musée et l’humanisme 6. C’est lui qui a insisté sur le fait que le musée ne transmet pas des biens matériels, car non seulement les objets qu’il conserve ont perdu leur valeur vénale en devenant inaliénables mais on a découvert également que les collections ont toutes une dimension symbolique impalpable et par là même immatérielle. Un tableau de Vermeer ou de Van Dyck n’est en aucun cas réductible aux matériaux qui le composent (toile, châssis, pigments) et pas davantage à sa valeur d’assurance, car son intérêt pour nous vient de ce qu’il porte avec lui une certaine vision du monde, celle de la Hollande ou de l’Angleterre du XVIIe siècle, qui a contribué à faire de nous ce que nous sommes. Notre culture occidentale est d’abord un héritage symbolique, elle est donc immatérielle par définition, en dépit de la matérialité des supports sur lesquels s’appuient les valeurs morales transmises.

Ce que l’on oublie trop souvent, ou que l’on feint de ne pas voir, c’est que, en sélectionnant soigneusement les témoins à transmettre (les œuvres d’art, les découvertes scientifiques, les produits de la technique, mais aussi la belle nature dans laquelle l’homme se reconnaît), les musées ne font rien d’autre qu’assurer la survie des valeurs de l’Occident, c’est-à-dirfe une hégémonie spirituelle. Toutefois l’entreprise

6 « Le musée est un des lieux qui donnent la plus haute idée de l'homme. » A. Malraux, Le musée imaginaire, Paris, Gallimard, 1965, p. 10. On sait par ailleurs que c’’est de Malraux que l’on a dit qu’il était « la voix de l’Occident » (G. Suarès, Malraux, la voix de l’Occident, Paris, Stock, 1974).

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est beaucoup moins innocente et désintéressée qu’il n’y paraît, car la diffusion de la culture occidentale s’est toujours accompagnée d’intérêts économiques. Ce qui était vrai déjà lors de la colonisation de l’Afrique l’est encore aujourd’hui lorsque nous tentons de faire passer une leçon sur les droits de l’homme au moment même où nous signons des marchés qui se chiffrent en millions de dollars. Seulement aujourd’hui le mécanisme, impossible à dissimuler, apparaît enfin au grand jour. Et le musée fait ainsi partie d’un « pack » dans lequel les valeurs morales servent d’alibi ou de caution à des intérêts beaucoup moins avouables. Jadis on pouvait mener une démarche caritative plus ou moins désintéressée sans réellement comprendre les enjeux économiques qui s’y trouvaient associés, aujourd’hui c’est impossible. En effet, l’incroyable rapidité des moyens de communication par les NTIC et sa conséquence qu’est la mondialisation ont révélé cette subtile contradiction et contraignent à s’interroger sur l’opportunité ou même la possibilité de maintenir un musée conçu selon le modèle d’une courroie de transmission morale destinée à favoriser des intérêts très matériels. Tel est la triste réalité de l’ethnocentrisme.

Ce qui ne signifie d’ailleurs pas que l’on doive pour autant renoncer aux droits de l’homme, car le problème du droit à la nourriture, à la liberté, à la dignité, à l’instruction et au travail se pose aujourd’hui de manière scandaleuse pour des milliards d’êtres humains, et il est inconcevable de feindre de l’ignorer. Simplement, il faut s’y prendre autrement pour conduire les autres civilisations à la découverte de ce que l’on peut considérer comme la grande contribution humaine de l’Occident. II - La concurrence des autres moyens de production et de diffusion de la culture

Les NTIC ont donc aidé à découvrir le caractère tout à fait relatif et fragmentaire de la culture ainsi transmise, mais elles ont fait beaucoup mieux puisqu’elles servent actuellement de points d’appui à l’élaboration d’une autre culture, elle-même diffusée par ces nouveaux supports. En un sens, même si cela a de quoi choquer, leur omniprésence a fait qu’elles sont devenues aujourd’hui l’équivalent d’une religion, notamment parce qu’elles apportent une réponse à tout (elles disent ce que l’on peut savoir, ce que l’on doit croire, ce qu’il convient de faire : la connaissance, le dogme, l’éthique, etc.). Cependant la période école/musée, qui n’aura duré en tout qu’à peine deux siècles, semble aujourd’hui en voie d’être abandonnée au profit d’un nouveau monopole, certes différent (car non fondé sur l’autorité divine comme à l’époque de domination de l’Église) et plus diversifié (car les réponses sont multiples), mais sans doute tout aussi puissant dans ses effets sur la vie sociale. École (monopole

du savoir) Église NTIC (monopole du savoir (nouveau et des images) monopole global)

Musée (monopole

des images) avant 1789 de 1789 à 1990 depuis 1990

Que se passe-t-il aujourd’hui ? Si la réponse est globalement simple dans son principe, elle se révèle complexe dès que l’on tente de comprendre quel est l’impact du phénomène observé depuis deux décennies sur les musées.

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Il est d’abord bien évident que ce qu’on appelle à tort le « musée virtuel » pour

évoquer le cyber-musée n’occupe qu’une très petite place dans la révolution culturelle à laquelle nous assistons. D’une part, il faut rappeler que le musée virtuel n’a rien à voir avec le cyber-musée, puisqu’il s’agit d’un simple abus de langage hérité du discours des journalistes. En effet le « virtuel », qui désigne ce qui est « en puissance » par opposition à ce qui est en « acte » (Aristote), n’a pratiquement rien à voir avec les prouesses électroniques, l’informatique, la numérisation, l’image de synthèse, la photographie numérique et le monde des machines à information. Pour être net, lorsqu’on parle de « musée virtuel » c’est le plus souvent le cyber-musée qui est visé sous une désignation totalement inadéquate du point de vue philosophique. Inutile de revenir sur cette question déjà abordée à diverses reprises dans plusieurs publications 7. D’autre part, le phénomène du « musée en ligne » ou du cyber-musée, malgré son caractère toujours spectaculaire pour le grand public, n’est qu’un épiphénomène face au problème tout à fait actuel de la concurrence des médias. Mettre les collections sur Internet, organiser des parcours de visite à l’écran, au lieu de la classique visite physique, ne change guère les choses même si l’on simule le grincement des parquets sous les pas des visiteurs. Désormais, le public n’a plus à se déplacer ni à suivre les traditionnelles longues files d’attente des musées institutionnels, car, après avoir inséré un Dvd dans sa machine ou choisi un site de musée sur Internet, il lui suffit de quelques clics de souris pour orienter sa cyber-visite dans une direction ou une autre. Mais, quant au fond, rien n’a vraiment changé tant on s’efforce de faire que les contenus exposés soient toujours les mêmes : les mêmes tableaux, les mêmes séries de céramiques ou de bronzes. Le cyber-musée donne la fallacieuse impression d’un changement radical, alors qu’il ne s’agit que d’une modification du mode d’accès aux collections. Ce n’est donc pas là que réside l’impact social des NTIC.

Mais la vraie concurrence est ailleurs. Les nouveaux médias ne se réduisent pas à des instruments que l’on pourrait mettre au service de n’importe quel contenu à transmettre, parce qu’ils produisent eux-mêmes de nouveaux contenus capables d’engendrer des effets également nouveaux. Quelle est la différence entre l’ancienne culture et celle que diffusent les NTIC ? Il est manifeste que les jeunes d’aujourd’hui ne vont pas « surfer » sur Internet et n’achètent pas des Dvd pour retrouver le Louvre ou l’Ermitage, le Metropolitan Muséum ou les Guggenheim, pour voir la Joconde ou les frises du Parthénon, mais qu’ils cherchent dans ces nouveaux médias non seulement de nouveaux contenus (vedettes de la chanson ou du cinéma, etc.) mais également de nouveaux rapports avec les contenus, ce que précisément les anciens modes de diffusion de la culture ne leur apportaient pas, notamment ce que j’appelle « l’interactivité non linéaire » 8. A la différence du musée, qui exclut presque toute forme d’interactivité, les NTIC proposent sans cesse à la fois des réponses aux questions et des choix à faire par l’opérateur. Dans ce contexte, il n’y a plus de parcours contraint puisque chaque sujet construit lui-même son cheminement. Dès 1967, McLuhan avait souligné la faiblesse du musée traditionnel marqué par la prédominance du visuel et des processus contraignants et proposé l’idée d’un musée non linéaire sans fil conducteur ni « story line » d’aucune sorte 9.

Cette culture véhiculée par les nouveaux médias est bien loin d’être une absence de culture ou même une sous-culture, elle est également loin de déstructurer l’esprit comme on l’a dit parfois (Corinne Welger-Barboza), mais elle procède différemment de notre culture traditionnelle. Elle substitue à la classique stratégie de planification (réalisation d’un programme préconçu) une démarche tactique qui permet 7 B. Deloche, Le musée virtuel, Paris, PUF, 2001, p. 219 sq., et La nouvelle culture, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2007, p. 160 sq. 8 B. Deloche, La nouvelle culture, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2007, p. 158. 9 M. McLuhan, H. Parker et J. Barzun, Le musée non linéaire, tr. fr. par B. Deloche et F. Mairesse avec la coll. de S. Nash, Lyon, Aléas, 2008.

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une adaptation à chaque situation nouvelle. Ainsi le public se trouve-t-il au contact de modèles renouvelés : ce ne sont plus les saints et les héros, les prouesses de la technique ou la belle nature, ces traditionnels thèmes des musées qui inspiraient la crainte, le respect ou l’admiration. Car désormais ce que ce musée d’un nouveau genre nous montre n’est rien d’autre que nous-mêmes. La mutation avait été amorcée pas les musées d’anthropologie qui avaient fait descendre les expôts du ciel sur la terre pour nous montrer enfin des choses voisines de notre quotidien (les sabots du paysan auvergnat du XIXe siècle ou l’habitat du paysan roumain, etc.), mais aujourd’hui il n’y a plus même la distanciation du temps ou de l’espace : ce que je vois n’est ni ancien ni exotique, c’est mon présent actuel, celui même dans lequel je vis. Ainsi, par Internet, je me trouve moi-même le héros d’une histoire (ex. l’usage de la webcam). C’est mon identité propre que je retrouve avec seulement la mise à distance que procure l’image ou même la vision de l’autre comme un autre moi-même (grâce à la téléréalité).

En un sens, les nouveaux médias constituent de fait une sorte de musée parallèle. Un musée sans collections (sauf si l’on considère comme des collections la quasi-infinité des sites Internet et de leurs contenus), un musée sans visite (sauf si l’on assimile le parcours de l’internaute à une visite de musée), mais un musée qui transmet une culture propre, c’est-à-dire originale et neuve, complexe et diversifiée. A ce titre, ce musée sans le nom représente la concurrence la plus sévère qu’ait jamais rencontré le musée traditionnel, puisque cette culture nouvelle est en passe de supplanter celle dont s’était nourri le musée jusqu’ici. III - Les nouvelles fonctions du musée : observatoire interactif de la vie sociale et levier d’action sur les mentalités

Face à cette mutation dans le processus d’élaboration et de diffusion de la culture, mutation sociale sans précédent depuis l’invention de l’imprimerie, le musée est-il condamné à disparaître ? Il est bien évident que l’institution que nous connaissons n’est pas appelée à s’effacer brutalement et que l’on ne rayera pas de la carte le Louvre ou le British Museum, le Prado ou la Pinacothèque, les Offices ou Pitti, car il est fréquent que les anciennes figures d’un phénomène coexistent avec nouvelles, c’est ainsi que l’imprimerie n’a pas évincé l’écriture manuscrite, que la radio et la télévision n’ont pas tué la presse écrite. Simplement le média-musée a perdu sa portée de média dominant et son impact social se trouve du même coup considérablement réduit. Ainsi compris, par une sorte de mise en abyme, le musée se trouverait réduit à une sorte d’objet de curiosité, considéré comme étant lui-même un témoin du passé au moins autant que comme un gardien des témoins du passé. En France, le Museon arlaten, ce musée de la Provence fondé à Arles par le poète Frédéric Mistral, est en cours de restructuration en tant que témoin des musées d’une certaine époque, à ce titre il est lui-même devenu un objet de musée. Voilà qui illustre la fin d’une époque. La question est de savoir si tout l’avenir du musée peut se ramener à cela.

Il semble au contraire qu’on assiste à de réelles tentatives de mutation de l’institution elle-même. Après divers essais de renouvellement et d’adaptation illustrés notamment par la nouvelle muséologie des années 1980, certains projets de musées semblent enfin abandonner l’idée de lutter contre la concurrence des nouveaux médias, car les moyens inaugurés par la concurrence sont trop puissants et la bataille pratiquement perdue d’avance. La culture vivante d’aujourd’hui évolue en marge du musée et ses nouvelles figures sont fort éloignées des valeurs de l’humanisme sur lesquelles reposait l’institution que nous connaissons. Et même si, dans ce domaine comme dans beaucoup d’autres, il subsiste toujours quelques fossiles à côté des figures nouvelles, l’avenir du musée ne semble pas être indéfectiblement lié à l’intégrisme réactionnaire. Dès qu’il renonce à être le temple et le gardien de la

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civilisation, le musée se découvre une nouvelle fonction. Abandonnant toute forme d’immobilisme, il endosse désormais le double rôle d’observateur de la vie sociale et même d’acteur.

1) Observatoire de la vie sociale d’abord, car il n’est pas possible d’être un acteur efficace sans avoir au préalable observé attentivement le milieu social. Et ce milieu social se traduit d’abord par des questionnements. D’où une nouvelle exploitation des collections et la multiplication des expositions temporaires consacrées à des questions d’actualité plus ou moins brûlante, comme le sont l’euthanasie, les OGM, les épidémies de sida, de vache folle ou de grippe aviaire, etc. Mais ce sont également les nouvelles relations familiales (familles monoparentales, mariage des homosexuels, etc.), les nouveaux comportements de la jeunesse (nouvelles conduites, nouveaux rapports sociaux, nouvelles manifestations collectives, etc.), en grande partie générés par les modèles que fournissent les NTIC. Le phénomène des médias technologiques n’y échappe pas comme en témoignait l’exposition sur « Les immatériaux » organisée à Paris au Centre Pompidou dans les années 1980 : le musée exposait alors certains des problèmes posés par l’irruption de l’informatique dans la vie sociale. De ce point de vue les musées de société renvoient à la société des images d’elle-même et lui permettent ainsi de se réfléchir. Toutefois cet observatoire ne fournit pas une simple image fidèle de la société, il joue un rôle critique en suscitant des questions sur ce qui semble à tous relever de l’évidence, en confrontant le public aux contradictions de la société contemporaine ; c’est le rôle qu’a joué le Musée d’ethnographie de Neuchâtel (Suisse) pendant un quart de siècle sous la houlette de Jacques Hainard.

2) Acteur également, dans la mesure où l’on découvre que le musée n’est pas seulement un conservatoire d’objets, même immatériels, mais qu’il peut aussi servir de levier en vue d’une transformation des relations sociales. C’est déjà dans cette perspective que l’écomusée avait été conçu au cours des années 1970. Le public ne visite plus les collections pour elles-mêmes, mais il découvre à travers la sélection qui en a été faite le message qu’on tente de lui faire passer. Les collections cessent alors d’être des témoins sacrés du passé pour devenir les supports intuitifs et sensibles d’un discours plus ou moins complexe que l’on tente de lui faire passer. De ce point de vue aussi, le Musée d’ethnographie de Neuchâtel a joué un rôle exemplaire en renonçant au culte de l’objet pour aller chercher les expôts dans la vie quotidienne (par exemple au supermarché). La présentation des objets nourrit alors un faisceau d’interrogations destinées à déstabiliser le visiteur en le contraignant à renoncer à ses idées préconçues et à se défaire de ce que Jacques Hainard à Neuchâtel puis à Genève (Suisse) appelle « la pensée ordinaire ». On pourrait dire des choses comparables à propos du projet de Musée des civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée que développe aujourd’hui Michel Colardelle à Marseille, une des premières expositions destinées à préfigurer le nouvel établissement avait pour titre « Parlez-moi d’Alger » et visait à transformer le regard que les Marseillais portent sur cette ville-miroir de l’autre côté de la Méditerranée. Ainsi l’institution sert-elle de médiation dans la résolution de certains problèmes sociaux tels que la coexistence des cultures. Le musée ainsi réinterprété tend à devenir un puissant outil de transformation des mentalités. Conclusion : le renouveau de la muséologie

Mutation radicale s’il en est, car le musée ne peut plus fonctionner comme avant, il doit se défaire de ses vieux vêtements : non seulement les expôts, mais la relation qu’entretient le visiteur avec eux, les parcours, les messages véhiculés, tout a changé ou est en train de changer. C’est ainsi que la mondialisation nous oblige à poser autrement les problèmes, car nous ne pouvons plus continuer à sauvegarder notre culture en feignant d’ignorer qu’il existe d’autres cultures, d’autres modes de vie, d’autres mentalités.

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Ces nouvelles fonctions contraignent à faire des choix éthiques qui engagent la

muséologie. En effet, une fois les sacro-saints dogmes de l’Occident relativisés, il ne s’agit pas de soumettre le musée à un nouveau dogme pour servir la pratique d’un nouveau culte (pas davantage celui de l’islam que celui du stalinisme). Il s’impose donc de savoir à quelles fins on va faire servir ce puissant levier d’action sur la vie sociale 10. Or ces fins ne sauraient être imposées de quelque manière, elles doivent au contraire faire l’objet d’un consensus entre les cultures. C’est là précisément que la muséologie trouve enfin son véritable rôle : elle n’est ni une science ni une simple pratique de métier, ce qui était l’objet du débat d’ICOFOM publié dans MuWoP en 1980. Sa seule mission concevable est, semble-t-il, de s’interroger sur les fins auxquelles on doit soumettre le musée. Voilà pourquoi je pense qu’elle n’est rien d’autre que l’éthique du musée, c’est-à-dire une discipline philosophie de fondement et de choix : savoir ce que l’on va faire, pourquoi et comment on veut le faire 11. C’est tout.

10 L’Ecole du Louvre avait précisément organisé en mars 1983 un séminaire intitulé Quels musées, pour quelles fins, aujourd’hui ? Paris, La Documentation française, 1983. 11 B. Deloche, Le musée virtuel, p. 130-145.

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2.3 The symbolism of the virtual space and a new interpretation of reality

Le symbolisme de l’espace virtuel et une nouvelle interprétation de la réalité El simbolismo del espacio virtual y una nueva interpretación de la realidad

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THE MUSEUM OF PEOPLE : STRUGLING WITH THE GLOBAL MYTH BRULON SOARES Bruno C., Museologist, Master in Museology and Heritage, PPG-PMUS – UNIRIO/MAST - Rio-de-Janeiro, Brazil. _____________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT

The advanced system of transportation and communication conquered by modern technology caused the powerful effect of making men and women lost in space. A big part of this scenery that is being sold to us by contemporary times is built of myths. In this context, we observe that the representation of identities has always characterized the organization of human groups in time and space and has always been one of the biggest parts of the museums’ role. Observing the non-place, as a space where social relationships happen in a truly independent form from the local, it’s possible to perceive a rich universe of human representations that were connected to the conceptions of culture and society of the social groups. The dynamic of globalization has always existed with the human race ; the most important for Museology is that it calls the attention to the very origin and foundation of the Museum, emphasizing the images the individuals create of themselves in the ‘global’ world. Key-words: Museum, Museology, Globalization, Identity. RÉSUMÉ Le musée du peuple : en lutte contre le mythe planétaire

Le système avancé des transports et de la communication que les technologies modernes ont conquises a eu comme grave conséquence de faire que les hommes et les femmes soient perdus dans l’espace. Une grand partie de ce décor qui nous est vendu à notre époque est constitué de mythes. Dans ce contexte nous pouvons observer que la représentation des identités a toujours caractérisé l’organisation de groupes humains dans l’espace et le temps et a toujours été l’une des parts les plus importantes du rôle des musées. Dans l’observation du non-lieu, en tant qu’espace où les relations sociales arrivent de manière vraiment indépendante du local, il est possible de percevoir le riche univers des représentations humaines qui étaient reliées à la conception qu’ont les groupes sociaux de la culture et de la société. La dynamique de la mondialisation a toujours existé avec la race humaine ; le plus important pour la muséologie, c’est qu’elle attire l’attention sur l’origine et les fondements du Musée, accentuant les images que les individus créent pour eux-mêmes dans le monde ‘global’. Mot-clés: Musée, Muséologie, Mondialisation, Identité. RESUMEN El museo de la gente : lidiando con el mito global

El avanzado sistema de transportes y comunicaciones conquistado por la tecnología moderna tuvo el poderoso efecto de hacer que hombres y mujeres se perdiesen en el espacio. Gran parte de este escenario que nos vende la contemporaneidad está formado por mitos. En este contexto observamos que la representación de las identidades ha caracterizado siempre la organización de los grupos humanos en el tiempo y el espacio y constantemente ha sido una de las

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facetas más importantes del rol desempeñado por los museos. Al observar el no lugar como un espacio donde las relaciones sociales se dan en forma verdaderamente independiente de lo local, es posible percibir un rico universo de representaciones humanas que se hallaban conectadas al concepto de cultura y sociedad de los grupos sociales. La dinámica de la globalización siempre ha existido en la condición humana; lo más importante para la museología es que atraiga la atención hacia el origen y los fundamentos del museo, poniendo énfasis en las imágenes de sí mismos que crean los individuos en el mundo ‘global’. Palabras clave: museo, museología, globalización, identidad RESUMO O museu de pessoas : lutando com o mito global

O avançado sistema de transportes e comunicação conquistado pelas tecnologias modernas ocasionou o poderoso efeito de tornar homens e mulheres soltos no espaço. Grande parte deste cenário que nos é vendido pela contemporaneidade é constituído de mitos. Neste contexto, observamos que a representação das identidades sempre caracterizou a organização dos grupos humanos no espaço e no tempo e sempre constituiu uma das mais importantes faces do papel desempenhado pelos museus. Ao observar o não-lugar, como espaço onde as relações sociais se dão de forma verdadeiramente independente do local, é possível perceber um rico universo de representações humanas que se ligam às concepções de cultura e sociedade dos grupos sociais. A dinâmica da globalização sempre existiu com a raça humana; o mais importante para a Museologia é que ela chama a atenção para a própria origem e fundamentação do Museu, enfatizando as imagens que os indivíduos criam de si mesmos no mundo ‘global’. Palavras-chave: Museu, Museologia, Globalização, Identidade.

* * * “Your attention, please. For a security matter, if your bags are unattended, they

will be removed and destroyed.” Those were the words I heard repeatedly during the long five hours waiting for my next flight in Heathrow, London. The unfilled time made me observe, in the biggest airport of the world, the intense traffic of people, in an endless non-place. Many were those running against time, while others, like me, waited for the time to run. Everyone was very different, but in an incoherent search to seem the same. The line with people waiting for the flight to Nairobi crossed itself with the one where there were the passengers to New York. So many similar gates, leading to such different places. On the indescribably uncomfortable benches, many people were waiting for the time to pass faster. The dissatisfaction with the non-place was palpable and the lack of everything that constitutes the ‘self’ for each one of those people was easily perceived.

Nonetheless, all the diverse identities were being seen there, coexisting. Each one passing, running or without any rush, were bringing with them the solid home – or its invaluable miss – symbolically represented by the luggage dragged along and under the constant care of the eye and the hands, menaced by the warn that nervously repeated itself: if they were left alone, they could be removed and destroyed. Little by little, each person started firmly holding their bags, the piece of home that identified them and that, suddenly, was menaced to perish in the non-place; to disappear. Today, we deny the identities for the cosmopolitan ghost. Truthfully, we are still tribal, local and familiar beings in our essence, even though we are – some of us – trying to cover it all with the mask of the transitory existence of human beings in a world

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that claims to be global, and it is disseminated the idea of a future in witch it’s going to be shared by all. Even if this mask actually existed as a true reality among few, there is no way to predict that it would become a truly universal phenomenon. We are constantly flying in search of the earth to land. We search the way back home or something to bring with us and enrich it. We look for the familiar, the group that is common to us. Even those who migrate look for the memory of the home that is gone. The cosmopolitan world is filled with the nostalgia of the identities that have been lost in the air. Everyone hopes, deep inside, to come back to sleep on its own pillow, back to be among their equals. Everyone of us, anybody who today has been fighting against a world that is dangerous to the existence of the identities that have always defined the organization of human groups in time and space – and that have always been one of the biggest parts of the museums’ role –, are, in fact, looking for the definition of our own selves submerged in this infinite universe of undefined representations. 1. Five hours in Heathrow: discovering the myths

In the taciturn environment of Heathrow, while some of the groups organized themselves according to the common places of origin, others were identified ethnically12, or by race, assuming an imagined ethnicity – the black people originated from the most diverse regions of the world shared the same space in the openness of the airport. Black women were divided according to the identity that prevailed, either as a black person or as a woman. This way, the organization of people in the space of the airport was defined by each one’s imagination of the common origin – which revealed to be completely delusional. Everyone searched, even if subconsciously, the relationship with the ‘same’ in the mirror of identities. Among this imagined geography, traced by people themselves in the lobby of the airport, the only ones who exhibit some kind of true happiness were those who brought with them the home almost entirely, the family or parts of it.

Even inside, submerged in a universe of lost bodies that could only wait for the

departure and nothing else, I could find out that the non-place was expanding itself through the place in which it was inserted. Not very far from there, in Heathrow, the local community protests irrupted against the possibility of one more expansion of the airport. The authorities tried to stop the crowd with violence.

The advanced system of transportation and communication conquered by

modern technology caused the powerful effect of making men and women lost in space. Millions of people start moving about in accelerated ways, deserting the rural areas and the smaller towns to follow the big city lights. The word “metropolis” is no longer big enough 13 , today sociologists are already studying the problem of “megalopolis”.

Now everything and everyone became movable. All the structures are menaced

and vulnerable to an extension never before seen. This “footlooseness” – as Schumacher name the phenomenon – is the more serious, the bigger the country. Producing megalopolis in rich countries, it also produces, as consequence, an increasing number of people, who, having become footloose cannot find a place anywhere in society. In the poorer countries this phenomenon produces mass migration into cities, mass unemployment, as well as the threat of famine, as human

12 The term “ethny” was introduct in 1896 by Vacher de Lapouge. In his book “Economy and society”, Max Weber shows that the ethnic group distinguishes itself from race indicating that it’s based on the belief of a common origin. (JEUDY, 2005. p.39). 13 SCHUMACHER, E. F. Small is beautiful: economics as if people mattered. New York: Harper Perennial, 1989. p.72.

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life is drained out of rural areas. The result, according to Schumacher, is a “dual society” 14 without any inner cohesion, subjected to a maximum political instability.

Nevertheless, a big part of this scenery that is being sold to us by contemporary

times is built of myths. The idea of a global village, as if the instant dissemination of news actually informed people, is more about the myth of the “shortening of distances”, making proliferate the notion of contracted time and space, as if the entire world was “reachable to the hand” of all15. Even if such notion existed in potency, would it really be possible in a fragmented world? How can we guarantee that so many peoples without access even to electric power could be interested in leaving their origins to join this make-believe village? The way it is suggested by Milton Santos, this is only a made-up idea that is delivered to all of us, established by the fantasy of the advanced technique, built to make us believe in a world that doesn’t exist. The concept of the global village reveals how supposedly easy it is to communicate with whoever is far away, as if the communication with neighbors was nearly inexistent.

In the real villages, therefore, the exactly opposite happens. I ask, though, if we

lost our connection with the tribe. At the moment when the internet started to become popular, all we could think about was how wonderful it would be to be able to connect ourselves with the whole world. In Brazil we were seduced by the idea of Brazilians fraternizing with Japanese people in the space of the electronic web. The truth, though, is that today we use this tool, many times almost exclusively, to speak with neighbors and family. The ‘corner communities’, the bar, have moved to the computer screen. ‘Globalization generates localization’. As Acselrad16 puts it, the collapse of spacial barriers doesn’t mean that the significance of space is decreasing. Faced with the delocalized spacial logic of the states, the local is subordinated to the global. As cosmopolitan as we can be, for as much time as we can spend flying in airplanes around the world, there is a moment when it becomes necessary to think about the place for landing.

Santos17 doesn’t let us forget that the places are what rationalize the global

world. In every place of the planet, it’s clear that local life manifests itself as an answer and a reaction to globalization. The local means a possible dynamic of communication that can happen either from people to people, or from people to things. It is, as Bellaigue suggests it, a refined, detailed and touched communication, of a plurality of senses18. It is in this local communication that acts the majority of the museums.

In the end of the XXth century, politics and even scientific authorities started

referring to the notion of identity (or identities) as if it was something definitive, easily perceived and communicable, translatable; this way everything would be easy for museums. The ethnography museums have multiplied, which not always has been something positive. We have seen, in the last years, the successive creation of local museums, open-air museums and ecomuseums around the world19. This means, in fact, an answer to the current need for ‘roots’ and to the real identity crises produced by

14 Ibidem, p.75. 15 SANTOS, Milton. Por uma outra globalização. Do pensamento único à consciência universal. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2002. p.18. 16 ACSELRAD, Henri. Sustainability and Territory: Meaningful Practices and Material Transformations. p.37-58. In: BECKER, Egon & JAHN, Thomas (editors). Sustainability and the social sciences. A cross-disciplinary approach to integrating environmental considerations into theoretical reorientation. London / New York: Zed Books, 1999. p.44. 17 SANTOS, Milton. Op. cit. passim. 18 BELLAIGUE, Mathilde. TERRITORIALITÉ, MEMOIRE ET DEVELOPPEMENT. L’écomusée de la communauté le Creusot / Montceau-les-Mines (France). In: SYMPOSIUM MUSEUM, TERRITORY, SOCIETY: NEW TENDENCIES/NEW PRACTICES. ISS: ICOFOM STUDY SERIES. Londres, ICOM, International Committee for Museology/ICOFOM, n. 2, p. 4, Aug. 1983. 19 Ibidem.

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wars, colonialism, neo-colonialism, totalitarian regimes, economic potencies dominating the poorer countries, disparity of classes inside nations, etc.

In the true anthropological origin of our societies, there was a genuine

territoriality, according to which the habitants belonged to what belonged to them. A strict relationship created the sense of identity, founded in the fact that the community was limited in space. In present time, though, in the attempt to believe in social structures independent from place, the very notion of tribe independent from space is, then, disseminated.

Anthropologically speaking, a tribe is a group of people united in a single social

and political system, sharing a common set of beliefs and values. Mitchell calls attention to the fact that we use the word 'tribe' in the sense to denote the group of people who are linked in one particular social system20. But, according to the author, when we talk about tribalism in urban areas, we refer not to the linking of people in a patterned structure – a tribe – but rather to a sub-division of people in terms of their sense of belonging to certain categories. There is no necessary correlation between a tribal structure on one hand and tribalism, in the sense implied on Mitchell’s works, on the other. The one is a system of social relationships; the other is a category of interaction within a wider system. This way, it is possible to think on the tribalism phenomenon in the global world, as a mechanism of connection with the local and one of resistance to the cosmopolitan ghost. Nonetheless, to point tribes – in the classic anthropological sense –, seems to be one more illusion of a world that wishes to be simpler then it truly is.

Once I observed the non-place – as a space where social relationships happen

in a truly independent form from the local – I could perceive a rich universe of human representations that, in a peculiar way, were connected to the conceptions of culture and society of the social groups that make themselves represented. Each individual, lost in the ethereal space of the airport, forged for themselves an imaginary place of origin, generating, this way, cultural representations of their own ‘selves’. It was expressed the constant human search for a stable origin in the global world, a search for the imaginary home, that we never desired to leave. Waiting for five long hours in the giant airport, I found out a museum of people organized according to the representation that each one created of themselves. If the primordial Museum is the one that is created in the merge of the conscience and the subconscious, in the moment when the individuals recognize their own selves inserted in the world, as Scheiner suggests it21, then I was before a real museum, culturally inhabited by people who whish to be recognized in the middle of the most diverse and arbitrary representations.

Considered a Caucasian in my own nation, defined in many places, by other

Caucasians, as Latin or even Hispanic, I was, definitely, out of place. Little by little, more and more black people came to sit together and I could see that the white people were organized in the other side of the lobby. It seems that I was the only one there not to understand the logic of group organization in that place full of signification. I discovered myself in an imaginary ghetto from which I quickly had to leave, because there wasn’t a single group there with which I could relate. In a world where all the references are being lost, the biggest and heaviest luggage we carry is the one that compose the imaginary identifications that define ourselves in space. This was what I could observe in Heathrow.

20 MITCHELL, J. C. The Kalela Dance. Manchester University Press, 1956. Disponível em: www.era.anthropology.ac.uk/kalela/. p.30. 21 SCHEINER, T. C. Apolo e Dionísio no templo das musas. Museu: gênese, idéia e representações na cultura ocidental. 1998. Dissertação (Mestrado em comunicação) – Programa de Pós-Graduação em Comunicação e Cultura. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro/ECO, Rio de Janeiro, 1998. p.41.

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2. Museums and communities in the global world To speak of museums and globalization certainly means to speak of people. Even though, for some time the community museums have been a paradigm in Museology, considered by many as the best example of how the Museum must deal with a diverse reality, we know today that any museum can be the diversity it wants to see represented for the human communities. The matter for all the museums is, at first, to discuss the very concept of ‘community’ – one more myth for museologists, coined by globalization – and how it’s been approached in contemporary world. Communities can be thought as something that is constituted in the relationship between people and their commons, in every possible way, as well as between them and the natural and social environment in which they live. It’s about the idea, very well known in Anthropology, of social group, defined in the ethnographer’s look on determined group of people, in the recognition of identities in time and space. The term ‘group’, as explains Lucy Mair, has special meaning in the social anthropologists’ language. It doesn’t mean any reunion of people; it’s about a “corporate community with permanent existence” 22 . In other words, it means a reunion of people with common interests and rules that attach the laws and duties of its members to each other and to these interests. The notion of ‘community’, in the majority of the assumptions, possesses a sense of good thing23; the term gives the idea of a comfortable and cozy place. In a community everyone is well understood, everyone listens to who is close, which relates this concept to the idea of security24. Bauman says that, actually, we never find in any self-proclaimed community the pleasures that we dreamed of. According to this author, at the moment when the community becomes an object of contemplation and exam of its own self, when it starts to “verse on its own singular value”, it means that it’s dead, it doesn’t exist anymore. In contemporary time, since we start having information that travels in high velocity, independent from its carriers in time and space, the frontier between ‘in’ and ‘out’ cannot be established in a rigid way anymore. This may be one of the reasons why more and more communities diversify themselves and fall into the indefinable dynamic of ephemerid. According to Bauman25, “communities come in many colors and sizes”, and as they need to be defended to survive and to appeal to their closest members so that they can assure their survival with its individual choices, we can see that current communities are constantly been postulated: more projects then reality, “something that comes after and not before the personal choices”. Fragility and transition are what define these communities of occasion, and they are what give sense, in a globalized space, to the representations that we create of ourselves. 2.1 Convenience Museums As Eric Hobsbawm observed it, “the word ‘community’ has never been used so indiscriminately as in the decades when the communities in the sociological sense became difficult to find in real life” 26. The truth is that men and women look for groups to be a part of, in a world in which everything is in constant transition. It’s this search for an identity, though, that leads all individuals through the path of forced changes in the conception of their own ‘selves’ so that they can belong to a certain profile. We mark and change our own flesh: tattoos and silicon prosthetics work like labels so that each

22 MAIR (1982 apud CAMPOS e SANZ, 2004, p.14). 23 BAUMAN, Zygmunt. Comunidade. A busca por segurança no mundo atual. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 2003. p.7. 24 Ibidem, p.9. 25 Id. Modernidade Líquida. Rio de Janeiro: Ed. Jorge Zahar, 2001. p.194. 26 HOBSBAWM (1998 apud BAUMAN, 2001).

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person can be identified in the group, as a way to symbolically reinsert the own body in the cultural sphere. Communitarism, according to Bauman, promotes an evident kind of home that “for the majority of people is more of a nice fairy tale than a matter of personal experience” 27. The shared identity brings with it the illusion of the home, of the common origin that is so searched as a way to be protected from the ghosts that can be found outside, where live the ontological uncertainties. Nonetheless, there is no identity that isn’t constructed. The contemporary communities tend to be volatiles, ephemerals and directed to a ‘unique purpose’. Their duration is short, even though it’s “full of sound and furry”. The term, proposed by the author, that better illustrates these ‘new’ communities is “cloakroom community”, which well captures some of its characteristic signs. Bauman explains that the audience of a concert dresses to the occasion, obeying a code distinctive from the one they daily follow. This act, in the same time that separates the visit as a ‘special occasion’, also makes the audience seem more homogenous than in life outside the theater; and it’s the presentation that brings everyone to that place, as different as they may be in their daily lives. But before entering the auditorium, they leave their overcoats or capes, wore on the streets, in the cloakroom of the theater house. If during the presentation all the eyes are on the stage and everyone’s attention is directed to the same short term cause, after the curtains are closed the audience take back there belongings in the cloakroom and, “as they dress their street clothes again, they return to their mundane roles” dissolving themselves a few moments later in the diverse crowd that fills the streets of the city. Cloakroom communities, also known as “carnaval communities”, need a spectacle that appeals to interests that are similar to different individuals and that rejoin them during some time in which other interests – that separate them instead of unite – are temporarily left aside. Those are communities quickly dissolved in the post-modern scenery, which can last a fraction of a second according to the instant interests. In a context in which the identities are built and dissolved in the velocity of the changes in collective interests, and the permanence in the group happens according to a momentary convenience, how can the museums adapt themselves to these changes? The illusion of a shared identity that can be given by the spectacle of cloakroom communities doesn’t last much longer than the excitement of the performance. Would it be a ‘convenience museum’, directed by the spectacle of instant identities, the only kind capable of surviving the new times? The way I could observe at Heathrow airport, today the sense of the communities is expressed in the existing ‘with’ at the present moment in which everyone is alone. In contemporary communities prevail the being black with other black people, or being woman with women, etc., not in the classic tribal sense, but only in the name of a circumstantial need. The tribe here is delusional and dissolvable. I ask, therefore, – and these are questions the museums should be asking – who is, in the so called global world, only black, or woman, or homosexual, or Latin American… – these are pure communities, imagined communities, and their short term is defined by their own incapacity to survive the real world. These are masks wore by their own supporters that don’t constitute real complex identities, and to think of the contemporary museum this way doesn’t mean to think of these disposable masks, but of the real people hidden behind them.

27 BAUMAN, Zygmunt. Op. cit. p.197.

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2.2 Crossed communities The term ‘syncretize’, in its semantic root, means to unite in face of a common

enemy28, as it has been taught by history. This etymologic example let us think of crossed cultures in the sense of the necessity of the ‘other’ for the perception of diversity. Diversity, though, cannot be defined as a simple product of the external eye.

Cultures are susceptible to be mixed. All cultures are hybrids. Nonetheless, this

cannot result in the foundation of a new ideology originated from globalization. Gruzinski remembers that the phenomenon of mixtures doesn’t imply, however, the character of novelty that is usually attributed to it29. All the cultures either were or are being mixed all the time. According to the author the notion of merged races – phrasal that implies a mixture of beings as well as a mixture of imaginaries – brings to the thinking a confusion of concepts and ideas.

The comprehension of the mestissage is connected to intellectual habits that tend to prefer the monolithic agglomerations in instead of intermediary spaces. These spaces ‘in between’ – created, for example, in the New World by colonization30 – make appear and develop new ways of thinking, in which the vitality resides in the capacity of transfiguration and generation of criticism to what is established as supposedly authentic.

Hybridation has a long path in the Latin-American cultures. When the mixed races appear in America on the XVIth century, it brings along the confluence of distinguish temporalities (the one from the Christian western culture and the one from the Amerindian worlds). It transcends linearity. Making realities relative, mixtures loose the aspect of a disorder and become a fundamental dynamic 31 . In post-colonial America, the relationships between “winners”, “losers” and “collaborators” – all coming from very different universes – generate consequences of unprecedented complexity. Despite the confusion that characterizes this so called “mixed thought”, it is already possible to know how the cultural identities are being formed in Latin America. Gruzinski remembers that the phenomenon of mixtures has converted in a daily reality32, watchable on the streets and everywhere; multiform and omnipresent, it associates beings and forms that were, a priori, not destined to be close together.

It is this crossed cultures scenario, impossible of being ignored in every corner

of the world, especially in the era of accelerated communication, that is – in a realistic or a delusional way – the subject of most of our museums. Communities, in the old or the new sense, are being created, intercepted, transfigured, destroyed and rejoined again in high speed. Many community museums, ethnographic museums, or even virtual museums are incapable of capturing the essence of the modern identities and their transformation in time. These museums will exist as forms of struggling against all the global myths, responding to the forces of the human will for permanence – and that’s where it lies their huge importance. 3. Identities in process: for a museum in movement

The thing that has been transforming the modern identities since the end of the XXth century, according to Stuart Hall33, is a framework of structural changes that has been fragmenting the cultural landscape of class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race and 28 The origin of the term comes from the island of Crete when, in the XIIIth century, in the fury of a ‘globalization’, it was invaded by the Venetian Empire. MORRIS, Jan. The Venetian Empire. A sea voyage. London: Penguin Books, 1990. p.75. 29 GRUZINSKI, Serge. El pensamiento mestizo. Barcelona: Biblioteca del presente. Paidós, 2000. p.18. 30 MIGNOLO (1995 apud GRUZINSKI, 2000, p.45). 31 GRUZINSKI, Serge. Op. cit., p.60. 32 Ibidem, p.43. 33 HALL, Stuart. A identidade cultural na pós-modernidade. Rio de Janeiro: DP & A, 2006. p.11.

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nationality, which in the past used to give solid localizations to social individuals. Today, even our personal identities are being shaken once the conception that we have of our selves as integrated subjects is relative34. The stable “sense of the self” we had for granted, that before could exist, has been definitively revealed as something unreachable. The idea that identities are historically defined and not biologically implies the notion of a subject that assumes different identities in different moments. And these identities aren’t necessarily unified to a coherent ‘self’.

Once the modern societies became more complex, they acquired a more

collective and social form35. It’s born, then, a more social notion of the subject. The individual is seen as something localized and “defined” in the interior of the big structures of modern society. The “rational individualism” of the Cartesian logic soon would be questioned by Sociology. The complexity of the social structures where individuals lie, then, would only be perceived later. This process results in the conception of a contemporary subject in possession of a transitory identity, disconnected from any axis, divided between the contractions of the ‘self’, in a constant struggle to be culturally inserted in a world as unstable as the individual capacity to comprehend itself.

Furthermore, the perception of such subjective complexity isn’t restricted to

individuals, and it spreads itself to every kind of social group. The truth, though, as Canclini puts it, is that in multiethnic and multicultural nations as the Latin Americans, we can question the existence of a cultural unification that we are forced to see with eyes trained to analyze uniform social structures as it was desired to exist in modern times. According to this author, there are not even hegemonic classes as efficient to eliminate the differences or completely subordinate them36. All cultures are defined in the frontiers, and, this way, they “loose the exclusive connection with the territory, but gain in communication and knowledge”.

In the current context, cultures and identities are perceived as processes, flows

– and are defined according to other cultures and other identities. They are constantly being transformed. Cultural identity is expressed as a consequence and not as an object in itself: it is the immediate social consequence of the identification of a subject or group with its culture and heterogenic products, and the development of the social historic conscience. The identity is the culture internalized in subjects, subjectively appropriated under the form of a conscience of the self in the context of a limited field of shared significations. The human dignity and cultural identities are built in the quotidian, from the valorization of traces that define each individual to themselves and in their relationships with the world37. This is the great problem generator of the discussions involving ethnographic museums which, throughout a definitive and objectivity view of human groups, create simulacrums of identities, interpreting people from small fragments of their culture, building identities based in delusional images.

The museum that tries to capture fixed images in the middle of this

inexhaustible flow of cultural identities that is everywhere, is committing a fatal mistake. Museums must, on the contrary, join the flow, let them go with it and transform themselves in the measure of the transformation of the very identities they desire to transmit. If the whole globe is a single museum of people working in a constant process of transformation and re-signification, it’s the duty of all kinds of museum to join it, reinventing themselves everyday, because that has always been the nature of 34 Ibidem, p.12. 35 Ibidem, p.29. 36 CANCLINI, Néstor García. Culturas Híbridas. São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo, 2006. p.274. 37 SCHEINER, T. C.. Museologia, identidades, desenvolvimento sustentável: estratégias discursivas. In: ENCONTRO INTERNACIONAL DE ECOMUSEUS (2) / ENCONTRO DO SUBCOMITÊ REGIONAL DO ICOFOM PARA A AMÉRICA LATINA E O CARIBE (9). Comunidade, Patrimônio e Desenvolvimento Sustentável / Museologia e Desenvolvimento Sustentável. Coord. PRIOSTI, Odalice M., PRIOSTI, Walter V., SCHEINER, Tereza. Santa Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. 17 / 20 mayo 2000.

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communication; global or local, it is powerful as it touches diversity – and this is no novelty to the world.

Globalization, good or bad, all we know is that there is no such thing as an

equal globalization for all the people in the ‘globe’. The term ‘global’ denotes not only a universal phenomenon, but also something that establishes a homogenous dynamic, something that happens in the exact same proportion to everyone on Earth. This is, evidently, make-believe. In an upside-down world, the capitalistic economy is defined by the burden of foreign debt, as well as the violent inflationary processes and the tendency to strong income disparity38. Culturally, the organization of this world has fallowed the hegemony of neo-liberal economics: according to Reboratti, “globalization has meant that hamburgers are consumed in Lima and doughnuts in Recife, but it has not made ceviche popular in New York or feijoada in London”.

In instead of producing a homogenous planet, globalization is constantly

generating diversity and complex scenarios in an unstoppable motion. This dynamic that has always existed with the human race, arrives in modern times full of myths and fantasies. But the most important for Museology is that it calls the attention to the very origin of the Museum, invented by people’s desire of celebrating themselves and of seeing their images culturally represented, emphasizing that the images the individuals create of themselves can be perceived as masks they wear – and masks are always being removed and replaced. Everyone is daily making their own Museum, a result from the human experiences in the world, where every single person is the soul object and subject of creation.

In a world that proclaims itself global, there is no reason for museums to remain

as individual islands of content, “each a repository of idiosyncratic processes and expertise”39. Museums cannot continue to be the sole keepers of the world’s heritage, when even the concept of heritage has been shaken by globalization itself. The Museum should be able to provide the empowerment of the human groups, so that they can express themselves in the language of their living culture – and this is the role of a museum committed with global communication. And this culture, as Hugues de Varine puts it, is rooted in a dynamic heritage that is undergoing a constant process of transformation and creation40. The actual heritage with which the Museum must be compromised is the change itself and how it affects people. The phenomenon Museum has already taken as many forms as we thought it was possible and, everyday, it is getting even more dynamic then it was to begin with. Well, that’s what I could notice while waiting to fly once more.

Rio de Janeiro, June, 2008

38 REBORATTI, Carlos E.. Territory, Scale and Sustainable Development. p.207-222. In: BECKER, Egon & JAHN, Thomas (editors). Sustainability and the social sciences. A cross-disciplinary approach to integrating environmental considerations into theoretical reorientation. London / New York: Zed Books, 1999. 336p. p.213. 39 FRIESS, Peter. The tech virtual: digital democracy in exhibit design. ICOM NEWS. N. 1, 2008. p.3. 40 DE VARINE, Hugues. The museum as a social agent of development. ICOM NEWS. N. 1, 2008. p.5.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

ACSELRAD, Henri. Sustainability and Territory: Meaningful Practices and Material Transformations. p.37-58. In: BECKER, Egon & JAHN, Thomas (editors). Sustainability and the social sciences. A cross-disciplinary approach to integrating environmental considerations into theoretical reorientation. London / New York: Zed Books, 1999.

AUGÉ, Marc. Não-lugares. Introdução a uma antropologia da supermodernidade. Campinas, SP: Ed. Papirus, 2005.

BAUMAN, Zygmunt. Comunidade. A busca por segurança no mundo atual. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 2003.

______. Modernidade Líquida. Rio de Janeiro: Ed. Jorge Zahar, 2001. BELLAIGUE, Mathilde. TERRITORIALITÉ, MEMOIRE ET DEVELOPPEMENT. L’écomusée de la

communauté le Creusot / Montceau-les-Mines (France). In: SYMPOSIUM MUSEUM, TERRITORY, SOCIETY: NEW TENDENCIES/NEW PRACTICES. ISS: ICOFOM STUDY SERIES. Londres, ICOM, International Committee for Museology/ICOFOM, n. 2, p. 4, Aug. 1983.

CAMPOS, M. D. e SANZ, J.. Antropologia educacional. Vitória: Núcleo de Educação Aberta e à Distância (nead) - Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, 2004.

CANCLINI, Néstor García. Culturas Híbridas. São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo, 2006. FRIESS, Peter. The tech virtual: digital democracy in exhibit design. ICOM NEWS. N. 1, 2008. GRUZINSKI, Serge. El pensamiento mestizo. Barcelona: Biblioteca del presente. Paidós, 2000. JEUDY, Henri-Pierre. Espelho das cidades. Rio de Janeiro: Casa da Palavra, 2005. HALL, Stuart. A identidade cultural na pós-modernidade. Rio de Janeiro: DP & A, 2006. MITCHELL, J. C. The Kalela Dance. Manchester University Press, 1956. Disponível em:

www.era.anthropology.ac.uk/kalela/. MORRIS, Jan. The Venetian Empire. A sea voyage. London: Penguin Books, 1990. REBORATTI, Carlos E.. Territory, Scale and Sustainable Development. p.207-222. In: BECKER,

Egon & JAHN, Thomas (editors). Sustainability and the social sciences. A cross-disciplinary approach to integrating environmental considerations into theoretical reorientation. London / New York: Zed Books, 1999. 336p.

SANTOS, Milton. Por uma outra globalização. Do pensamento único à consciência universal. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2002.

SCHEINER, T. C.. Museologia, identidades, desenvolvimento sustentável: estratégias discursivas. In: ENCONTRO INTERNACIONAL DE ECOMUSEUS (2) / ENCONTRO DO SUBCOMITÊ REGIONAL DO ICOFOM PARA A AMÉRICA LATINA E O CARIBE (9). Comunidade, Patrimônio e Desenvolvimento Sustentável / Museologia e Desenvolvimento Sustentável. Coord. PRIOSTI, Odalice M., PRIOSTI, Walter V., SCHEINER, Tereza. Santa Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. 17 / 20 mayo 2000.

______. Apolo e Dionísio no templo das musas. Museu: gênese, idéia e representações na cultura ocidental. 1998. Dissertação (Mestrado em comunicação) – Programa de Pós-Graduação em Comunicação e Cultura. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro/ECO, Rio de Janeiro, 1998.

SCHUMACHER, E. F. Small is beautiful: economics as if people mattered. New York: Harper Perennial, 1989. . VARINE, Hugues de. The museum as a social agent of development. ICOM NEWS. N. 1, 2008

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A MUSEUM IS THE REALITY DOLÁK Jan, UNESCO Chair of Museology and World Heritage Brno, Czech Republic

ABSTRACT A museum is the reality

The purpose of this document is to raise the issue about the place museums and museology have vis-à-vis a changing world. Are we really living a sort of revolution caused by the Internet or just an acceleration in the dynamics of development?

The new information and communication technologies (ITCs) are rejected by some people, unquestionably admired by others, but impossible to deny by all. On the basis of Jean Baudrillard’s and Kerstin Smeds’s works, the document presents an analysis not only of the way in which technology impacts on the life of museums, but also the benefits it provides to specific issues related to collections, mainly the exhibition as such. It emphasizes that ITCs are only a vehicle to support, in a greater or lesser degree, the efforts made by a museum in its task of conveying knowledge, but they are never able to enrich history in itself.

In this respect, in the article by Peter van Mensch published in the Nordisk Museologi (Nordic Museums) review, this is thouroughly analyzed and doubts are presented about projects oriented to a documentation which comprise personal stories and memories where the collective memory only gathers summaries of private statements.

Following Jean Baudrillard’s thought, it is supported in this context that civilization has lost three basic pillars for its own existence : reality, history and diversity, and an analysis is presented about the way of having access to ‘fictions of reality’ which are experienced within this virtual hyper-reality. It is also mentioned that information excesses do not allow the creation of a truthful picture of the circumstances and ‘fictions of reality’ become ambiguous signs that hinder the differentiation of reality from virtuality.

The main axis of this document is the verification of truth within the framework of a museum’s activity in its role of interpreting, presenting and transmitting the museological heritage as a real legacy for future generations. RÉSUMÉ Un musée est la réalité

Le but de ce document est de mettre en relief la place qu’occupent les musées et la muséologie face à un monde en changement. Sommes-nous vraiment en train de vivre une sorte de révolution provoquée par l’Internet ou seulement une accélération des dynamiques du développement ?

Les nouvelles techniques de l’information et de la communication (NTIC) sont rejetées par certaines personnes mais elles sont incontestablement admirées par d’autres ; or, il est impossible de nier leur importance. Sur la base des travaux de Jean Baudrillard et de Kerstin Smeds, l’article présente une analyse non seulement de la manière dont la technique influence la vie des musées, mais aussi sur les bénéfices qu’elle apporte au

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secteur propre des collections, et spécialement celui des expositions. L’article met l’accent sur le fait que les NTIC sont seulement un véhicule pour soutenir, à différents degrés d’intensité, les efforts faits par un musée dans le but de diffuser les connaissances. Mais il souligne qu’elles n’ont pas la capacité d’enrichir l’histoire.

À cet égard, dans un article signé par Peter van Mench, et publié dans la revue

Nordisk Museologi (Musées Nordiques), cette idée est analysée en profondeur : on y exprime des doutes sur des projets qui tendent vers la production de documents traitant d’histoires personnelles et de souvenirs où la mémoire collective ne réunit que des résumés de témoignages privés.

Poursuivant la pensée de Jean Baudrillard, on considère dans ce contexte que la

civilisation a perdu trois piliers fondamentaux pour sa propre existence - la réalité, l’histoire et la diversité - et on présente une analyse sur la manière d’accéder aux «fictions de la réalité» pratiquées dans cette hyper-réalité virtuelle. On mentionne aussi que les excès d’information ne permettent pas de créer une image vraisemblable des circonstances et que «les fictions de réalité» deviennent des signes ambigus qui empêchent de distinguer la réalité de la virtualité.

L’axe principal de ce document est la vérification de la vérité dans le cadre de

l’activité muséale et dans son rôle d’interprétation, de présentation et de transmission du patrimoine muséal, véritable héritage pour les générations à venir. RESUMEN

El museo es la realidad

El propósito de este documento es plantear la preocupación sobre el lugar que ocupan el museo y la museología frente a un mundo en cambio. ¿Vivimos realmente en una especie de revolución originada por Internet o sólo se trata de una aceleración en la dinámica del desarrollo?

Las nuevas tecnologías son repudiadas por algunos, admiradas sin cuestionamiento por otros, pero imposibles de negar. Apoyado en trabajos de Jean Baudrillard y Kerstin Smeds, en el documento se analiza no sólo la manera en que la tecnología afecta la vida de los museos, sino los beneficios que aporta a temas específicos referidos a las colecciones, en especial a la exhibición. Destaca que las mismas son tan sólo un vehículo para apoyar, en mayor o menor grado, el esfuerzo del museo, capaz de ayudar al conocimiento pero nunca de enriquecer a la historia como tal.

Al respecto, se analiza detalladamente el artículo de Peter van Mensch, publicado en la revista Nordisk Museologi (Museos Nórdicos), poniendo en duda proyectos dirigidos a la documentación de historias y recuerdos personales en los cuales la memoria colectiva cuenta tan sólo con resúmenes de declaraciones particulares.

Siguiendo el pensamiento de Jean Baudrillard una vez más, se considera en este contexto que la civilización ha perdido tres pilares básicos para su existencia: la realidad, la historia y la diversidad y se analiza la forma de acceder a los ‘simulacros de la realidad’ que se vivencian dentro de la hiper-realidad virtual. Los excesos en la información impiden crear un cuadro fehaciente de las circunstancias y ‘los simulacros’ se convierten en signos ambiguos que no permiten diferenciar la realidad de la virtualidad.

El eje principal de este documento es la verificación de la verdad en el marco de la actividad del museo, en su tarea de interpretar, presentar y transmitir el acervo museal, como un verdadero legado para las generaciones del futuro.

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* * *

When we open the pages of newspapers and, in particular, of the specialized press,

including philosophical or museological coverage, we learn relatively quickly that we live in a time of revolution (social, technical, economic, environmental….). Forecasts for the next few years are for the most part pessimistic - not a novelty in itself since the last truly satisfied philosophers, with a few exceptions, were Voltaire and company. So we are introduced to an extraordinarily dark future of crises, global and worldwide, of course. Umberto Eco calls these super pessimistics “the harbingers of the Apocalypse”. And sometimes the opinions of the best minds on the planet remind us of news items from commercial television channels. The more bloody and shocking the content, the better the reports sell (or is it the philosophies?). In addition to this, more modest voices are almost lost in the ether. But whether a dark future or a complicated but measurable progress lies ahead, where is nowadays the place of museums and -by extension- of museology? Are we truly going through a revolution of some kind, or is it only an acceleration in the dynamics of development?

I have always tried to be modern; perhaps, according to some theoreticians, I became

post-modern and soon I will apparently be trans-modern (based on the presentation of a colleague at the May conference "Museology in the 21st century: problems of studying and teaching" which took place in St. Petersburg). Is this just the desire to present one’s own importance, i.e. living the revolution? On the other hand, those who are evidently unable to produce evidence for their revolutionary nature speak about themselves as the “lost generation”. And is there really any value for oneself in being concerned with such matters anymore? Let's leave to the psychologists the answers to those questions.

The sense of the post-modern emphasis on irreducible diversity -the original meaning

of the word was suspect, doubtful, perverted- is not so much the fact of plurality as a radical defence of the “extraordinary” against the universalist demands of knowledge, the model of which is a modern idea of science. Clearly, the most expressive desire to “do it differently” is to be found in art. As the Swedish sculptor Claes Oldenburg writes: “I am in favour of an art which can do more than sit on its backside in a museum”. Therefore, art seeks to free itself of the traditional norms and values of which the museum is the depositary.

This image differs only slightly from that offered by the world of modern media, in

which the reality of reality is dispersed. Reality itself is nothing but an intricately organised medium in which information constantly comes to life and dies. The witness is not the one who holds to some global perspective in his discourse on the world; on the contrary, the witness is the one who asserts his local vision of the world and carries responsibility for it.

Without any doubt, from the end of the Second World War at the latest, mankind has

moved into a more dynamic phase of its development. In a certain way, the world is becoming a global village. Often, but more slowly, museums have been able to react to these developments, in order to adapt to the situation and to respond to the questions put forth by mankind here and now. Despite the efforts of many museums, the museum world (to say nothing of the world of museology) rarely gets involved in world-shaking issues such as the problems of minorities, cultural identity, cross-cultural communication, and neither in the imminent issues of environmental development. Quite simply, we seldom get involved in the present – we mainly focus our role in detecting findings only little related to today’s life. And if we grasp a truly “live topic”, we often fail to present the final products at its best, so that we lose to other sharper “communicators”.

Another extreme is, however, a “topical approach at any cost”, such as may be

observed in the archaeological exhibition in Stockholm History Museum, which included

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something defined as “unidentified objects of the 20th century”. Is this contribution of archaeology the way that provides answers to today’s questions?

If we speak about dynamic development, I somewhat hesitate to use the word “revolution” – all around the world, since the end of the Second World War, since the collapse of the colonial system as well as the fall of the Iron Curtain, technology has been the main actuator. Cursed by some, uncritically admired by others, but undeniable to everyone. How does this dynamic development in technology (revolution, if you wish) affects the life and work in a museum? The first important helper was a simple typewriter. For me, personally, the Museum of V. I. Lenin in Prague, which I visited sometime in the mid-1980s, was almost a revolution of technology itself with its nearly 30 video projectors connected to TV screens. We learned how to work with computers, almost can’t communicate now other than by e-mail, browse the Internet daily and find new and better museum websites. In this respect, technology is most welcome and highly beneficial. I cannot think of situations where technology would hinder administrative communication, filing, conservation, protection, promotion, information, etc. An exhibition is a different matter. Technology, particularly the latest such as the 3D presentation, is naturally welcome in this area as well. Some exhibitions could not even be organised without the latest technology, e.g. the presentation of the remains of a Viking house “Reykjavik 871+ -2”. In this respect I would like to draw your attention to the interesting ARCO system international project (WIZA : 2008).

Technology, however, must remain a vehicle of museum efforts; it must not become their objective. It is not an impressive show that we strive for. Technology must not overshadow a museum exhibit, making it a useless accessory, a mere artifact as it may have unfortunately been in Polish Hniezdno.

In a recent conference, a 3D projection enthusiast praised these innovations as

“history enriching”, inviting to participate in “historical picnics”. Various means of technology may help us understand some aspects of history but by no means can they be “history enriching.” Otherwise we would really get into some sort of virtual, artificial world where, for example, the blockade of Leningrad may be presented as a “historical picnic”.

This evokes the fundamental theoretical formulations of the late French philosopher Jean Baurdrillard. In Baudrillard’s opinion, our current civilisation has lost the three key pillars of its existence: reality, history and diversity. Reality was destroyed by the loss of link between the sign and the object. Information technology, created to make communication as effective as possible, has actually resulted in satiety of information, which we are less and less able to assemble in order to create a comprehensive picture. The link between the object and the sign has dissolved into a tentative play among signs themselves, continuously generating new layers of signs. The world is thus falling into a sort of reality, more real than reality, i.e., hyper-reality. This hyper-reality consists of simulacrums – signs which are ambiguous in terms of whether and to what extent they relate to reality and to what extent they are pure virtuality. Simulacrums have been created by people but they live their own lives independent of their creators. It is grotesque that this murder of reality happened as a result of our efforts to improve our awareness of the world and ourselves. The loss of a historic thread is compensated by turning to previously lived, emotion-filled experiences which we strive to revive, trying to find ourselves within them. This also relates to museum culture. Kerstin Smeds is right in asking: “Are we then going to witness total anarchy of narratives and meanings in cyber-space? Subcultures, subjective beliefs, conspiration theories? Will the “real“ world cease to be real and turn entirely virtual, spiritual? Remains to be seen [..]. Is the futurologist Rolf Jensen right in saying that we have already left the information society behind and are now entering the ‘dream society’ where the best story is what counts and what will make the money, and the future?” (SMEDS : 2007)

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When science lets us peep into something which we had been unaware of, thus disclosing human ignorance, we often respond by anti-science, making space for wide-reaching amateurism. The often observed efforts for “democratisation of culture”, for moving cultural heritage from “dry academic corners” are, in fact, just an aggressive attack against any scientific approach in our work. The recent opinion poll regarding the new 7 Wonders of the World is just a sad example (DOLÁK : 2008).

The industrialisation and never-ending pressures for financial profits of the museum

culture has turned it into a mere entertainment. Then it may seem irrelevant what people do for their entertainment. However, museums should play a role of cultural institutions, irreplaceable by others. Quite simple, museums pursue activities which cannot be pursued by any other institutions. Non-museum activities are then those that may be done by someone else. However, this is an extreme simplification of a very complex issue into just two sentences. Supporting museum culture, however, must be based on its own knowledge-based, scientific platform.

When is then modern technology beneficial for museums, monuments, etc., and

when is it misleading? We welcome the possibility of special numeric codes accompanying standard

descriptions enabling visitors to gain more information using their mobile phones and Internet access. Visitors themselves may then decide how much information they need (van Mensch 2005). Should these codes be added to funny, humorous or otherwise slick information? If this information is clearly differentiated from the serious information (i.e. may be omitted as required) - why not? However, this information, observations, etc, must be clearly demonstrable, i.e. historically truthful, honest in terms of history methodology.

If we try to find a single-word equivalent to the word museum, we might come up with

“memory” or “collection.” This collection may be managed, marketed, conserved, exhibited as well as used for various educational, entertaining or other activities. A collection represents a museum’s effort; the type of collection determines (may determine) the typology of the museum. This is, in my opinion, today’s crucial issue. What does a museum shelter and what doesn’t? ICOM Mission Statement issued for the ICOM General Conference in Vienna in 2007 states quite clearly: “But collections still remain (at) the core of basic knowledge, competition and value of a museum.” And what should we understand by the term ‘collection’?

Let us look at some examples of creating museum collections. Denmark experienced

a true craze at the occasion of the wedding of Denmark’s crown prince in 2004. Museum documentation of this event was very thorough. Eight museums, two archives and two university departments decided to co-ordinate a scientific project documenting the day “in the public, private and virtual space.” (PEDERSEN : 2008). Everything was documented “from dinner plans and costumes to trash from the streets.” Using the Internet and e-mails, large collections of photos and video-recordings of the family celebration were created. We cannot but praise highly our Danish colleagues for this holistic approach to the event. With regard to the clearly defined “topic” I would even agree with recording personal testimonies, even though they are verifiable to a certain extent.

According to some writers, there are two types of memory. Museums and similar

institutions gather and protect the so-called "historical memory" but in addition to this there is the so-called “collective memory by groups of people themselves”. Then “...modern technology appears to provide new possibilities to increase access and interpretation, but also to bridge the gap between historical memory and collective memory, without the collective memory being alienated (stolen) from those memories themselves“. (VAN MENSCH: 2005, p.17). In his wide-ranging article, Peter van Mensch describes some uses

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of modern technology which I would however divide into beneficial (incontrovertible) and others somewhat controversial. (VAN MENSCH : 2005). Sometimes in my view this is rather thin ice, i.e. a narrow boundary between good and evil. Let’s look at some approaches which try to capture, preserve and publish personal stories, the memories of specific individuals.

We cannot be against the “Imagine Identity and Culture” project in Amsterdam, in

trying “to highlight the culture and identity of migrants as seen from their own perspective“. This can only be done with difficulty using traditional museum approaches (especially three- dimensional documentation).

New information was certainly provided by the “Brussels Belongs to Us” project and

the “Amsterdam Memory of the East” project. Of a similar nature are the “Canadian Location is Everything” project or the “Amsterdam Emotional City Plan” which records personal responses divided into eight emotions and 18 themes. The “Amsterdam Trading Places” project gathering personal responses directly insists that not only the place, the people and the buildings are important in a description of personal memories. “Maybe the heavy rain makes you remember how lost you where at the city, walking alone. Or the sun was so hot…“ (VAN MENSCH : 2005, p. 19). We collect all of this as our legacy to future generations! We should similarly check out the “Yellow Arrow” project (www.yellowarrow.org), the “Italian Slow City” project and others. Anyone who wishes to do so can go to the History Museum in Stockholm to store his "personal memories”. As an example we can find an urn there with the ashes of a recently deceased young man. Is this about the urn, about the ashes or about the notion that young people at the beginning of the 21st century died in tragic circumstances? How is it possible to generalise this notion? Are these approaches really suitable for a museum? Are all these attempts at cultural biography or psychogeography really revolutionary changes (paradigms for museum work) worthy of being followed in other parts of the world? From personal experience I know that, in practice, the most is said by those who do not have too much to say because they know little. Does this element not turn up into many (all?) thesauruses preserving today’s responses? In addition I do not believe that a simple totalling up or summary of a few personal responses will lead us to some kind of corresponding form of collective memory. I consider the term collective memory a concept under which the memory of an individual is defined as a phenomenon, a term for which the social milieu is paramount (e.g. family, religious group or even nation). The individual identifies himself with those events, personalities, etc., considered important by the group where he belongs. Collective memory tends to be used by a group for various purposes, but it always unifies and disregards everything which might isolate the individual.

In considering the so-called Social Software, it is as if we even longed for a direct

telephone connection with the one who has lodged his personal memories and the one who wishes to share them with him, comment on them and so on (VAN MENSCH : 2005). Let us try to look at the problem from the other side. Nowadays, many, mainly young people, share sensitive information about themselves and those close to them on the Internet. This can however be misused and distributed on-line in a context of which they have no inkling. We are coming into conflict (indeed a legal conflict) between freedom of expression and the protection of privacy. In public (on the Web) we have no privacy, as it is shown by the sad story of the Canadian boy Ghyslain who recorded himself on video fighting as Darth Maul against an imaginary enemy. His spiteful fellow classmates uploaded these recordings on the web, complete, with lighting and musical effects. The boy, now known as the Star Wars Kid, became an unwillingly Internet “celebrity” laughed at by all for his clumsiness; the boy ended up in psychiatric care. This unfortunate video was in fact seen by over 7.5 million visitors to You Tube.

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Another example is 25 year-old Jessica, writing her personal blog, in which she describes her intimate activities with her boyfriend. It turned out as you might expect, her boyfriend sued her.

Solove adapts the Internet to the teenager, not only by the length of its existence to date. He is impudent, ill-disciplined, fearless, unscrupulous, always testing and often failing to consider the consequences of his behaviour.

Great freedom can be both a blessing and a curse (KOČIČKA : 2008). I would remind all users and promoters of emotional maps that all our emotions when placed outside our head can be misused and that the privacy must be protected from others.

Museums sometimes want at any price to have pubertal acne and dive into uncharted waters.

The thing which worries me in this connection from the point of view of museology is the truthfulness, the creation of a true legacy for future generations, capturing today’s true nature, verifiability, truth, in short reality. Let us continue to check out in our work whether we are on the ground of reality or just making Baudrillard’s simulacrums.

We must not “see the mission of museum culture only in the visualisation of

phenomena attractive to and welcomed by people, regardless of their truth or falseness, but on the contrary: to defend truth and by using collection thesauruses to form, cultivate a treasury of memory in the interests of cultural growth and the improvement of humanity…” (STRÁNSKÝ: Museums in the Context of Cyberculture, unpublished text held by the author of this article). A museum is, in my opinion, a reality above all. Then anything which departs from this space is not only not museum-like, it may even be an outright anti-museum. BIBLIOGRAPHY BAUDRILLARD, Jean. Amerika. Miroslav Petříček jr.. Praha, Dauphin, 2000. p. 159. BAUDRILLARD, Jean. Dokonalý zločin. Alena Dvořáčková. Olomouc: Periplum, 2001. p. 180. BAUDRILLARD, Jean. Rozhovory s Baudrillardem. Petr Mikeš. Olomouc: Votobia, 1997. p. 179. DOLÁK, Jan. Cultura do patrimonio e sua conservacao. Um olhar contemporaneo sobre a preservacao do patrimonio cultural material. Rio de Janeiro: Museu Histórico Nacional, 2008. p. 218-230. KOČIČKA, Pavel. Privacy, a public matter. (Reviews of Solove, D.J.. The Future of Reputation, Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on Internet, Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2007, 247 pp.). MF Dnes. 3.5.2008, no. 2008, p. D8. PEDERSEN, Lykke L.. Celebrating in the public, private and virtual space : Contemporary study of the Danes and the Crown Prince´s Wedding in 2004. Connecting Collecting. Stockholm: Nordiska Museet, 2008, pp. 34-38. SMEDS, Kerstin. The Escape of the Object? : Crossing borders between collective and individual, physical and virtual. Unpublished text in the author´s possession. STRÁNSKÝ, Zbyněk Zbyslav. Museums in the context of cyberculture. Unpublished text in the author’s possession. VAN MENSCH, Peter. Annotating the environment Heritage and new technologies. Nordisk Museologi. 2005, no. 2, pp. 17-27. WIZA, Wojciech R.. ARCO system – a universal solution for virtual museum. Heading Towards a Modern Museum, Varšana 2008: Pre-conference proceedings from the Conference of the same name held on 6-7 March 2008. 2008.

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2.4 A global vision preserving plural identities : common heritage in a changing world

Une vision globale préservant des identités plurielles : un patrimoine commun dans un monde changeant préservant des identités plurielles Una visión global para la preservación de identidades plurales : patrimonio común en un mundo en cambio

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GLOBALISATION, POST-COLONIALISM AND MUSEUMS Jennifer Harris, Curtin University of Technology – Perth, Australia ABSTRACT

Globalisation in museums emerges from a long history of their engagement with diverse cultures. Contemporary debates about globalisation need to be understood as emerging from post-colonial issues about allowing the lives and voices of others to be represented in the museum space. The central element of globalisation is intense interconnectedness made possible by worldwide communication technology. It should be understood in museums, therefore, not as something radically new, but as offering an intensification of the processes of dialogue that were begun some decades ago as museums responded to post-colonial challenges. This paper examines the twin globalising forces of homogenisation and local resistance to it by looking at the example of the famous Benin Bronzes from West Africa and their recent exhibition in Paris at the Musée du Quai Branly. The bronzes were exhibited in an aesthetic framework rather than in political and historical contexts and provoked much criticism. If museums wish to respond to globalisation they need to respond to such criticisms and see them as a positive and potentially productive opportunity. RÉSUMÉ La mondialisation, le post-colonialisme et les musées

Dans les musées la mondialisation émerge d'une longue histoire de leur implication avec différentes cultures. On doit comprendre les débats contemporains sur la mondialisation comme découlant des questions post-coloniales qui se posent sur le fait de savoir si l’on peut représenter la vie et la voix des autres dans l'espace muséal. L'élément central de la mondialisation est une intense interconnexion qu’a rendue possible la technologie de communication mondiale. Il devrait donc être compris dans les musées, non pas comme quelque chose de radicalement nouveau, mais comme offrant une intensification des processus de dialogue qui avaient commencé plusieurs décennies auparavant, lorsque les musées avaient répondu aux défis post-coloniaux. Le présent papier examine les deux forces de la mondialisation formées par l'homogénéisation et par la résistance locale qui s’y oppose, en examinant l'exemple des célèbres Bronzes du Bénin de l’Afrique de l'Ouest et leur récente exposition à Paris au Musée du Quai Branly. Les bronzes ont été exposés dans un cadre esthétique plutôt que dans des contextes politiques et historiques et ont provoqué de nombreuses critiques. Si les musées veulent répondre à la mondialisation, ils ont besoin de répondre à de telles critiques et de les considérer comme une occasion positive et potentiellement productive. RESUMEN

Globalizacion, poscolonialismo y museos La globalización en los museos proviene de la larga historia de su compromiso con las diversas culturas. Los debates contemporáneos sobre la globalización deben ser comprendidos como emergentes de cuestiones poscoloniales que permiten que las vidas y voces de los otros sean representadas en el espacio del museo. El elemento central de la globalización es la intensa interconectividad que hace posible la comunicación mundial de la tecnología. Por lo tanto, deberá ser entendida en los museos no como algo radicalmente

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nuevo, sino como un ofrecimiento de intensificación de los procesos de diálogo que comenzaron décadas atrás cuando los museos respondieron a los desafíos poscoloniales. Este documento examina las dos fuerzas de la globalización, constituidas por la homogeneización y la resistencia local que se le opone, examinando el ejemplo de los célebres Bronces de Benin del África Occidental y su reciente exhibición en París, en el Museo del Quai Branly. Los bronces fueron exhibidos en un marco estético fuera de los contextos políticos e históricos, provocando muchas críticas. Si los museos desean dar respuesta a la globalización, deben responder también a tales críticas y verlas como una oportunidad positiva y potencialmente productiva.

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An extraordinary exchange took place during the ICOFOM meeting at the ICOM conference in Vienna in August 2007. An impassioned plea from a Benin delegate for the Benin Bronzes (C16-C19) to be returned to West Africa was met by a vigorous refusal from French delegates who argued many things including that the bronzes were too fragile to travel and, finally, in an exasperated tone: “the French people wish to see them too”. They suggested that, in Africa, photographs could be substitutes for the famous sculptures which were taken by the British in a punitive expedition in 1897 from Benin City amid huge general destruction. They have been exhibited in the British Museum and other museums throughout Europe. The French delegates’ argument took no account of the role of important objects in forming national identity, fostering local pride and attracting a tourist industry, nor the long debate on the morality of the removal of objects of cultural heritage significance from their original locations.1

That such an encounter should take place at the University of Vienna in a room filled with people from countries including Canada, Australia, Germany, Brazil, Argentina and the USA was a sign of the global aspect of the contemporary museum world. The international exchanges, in which the museological problems of one country were found to be very similar in another, proclaimed the global preoccupations of museums. The refusal of the French delegates to listen to the arguments of the African, however, was the most remarkable aspect of all. It was remarkable not because it was politically rash, indeed untenable, to insist on the ownership rights of a western former colonising power, but because it was 2007 and most of the museologists present that day thought that debate on these issues had already become very sophisticated during the previous thirty years as museums began to relinquish authority and open to debates on post-colonial responsibility (Clifford & Marcus, 1986; Karp & Lavine, 1991; Karp, Kreamer & Lavine, 1992; Pearse, 1995; Vergo, 1989). This is not withstanding the sentiments and unacknowledged politics of the 2001 “Declaration on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums: ‘Museums Serve Every Nation’” (Karp et al., 2006, 247). This document restated the museum power status quo, asserted the rights of major museums to retain their huge collections acquired from other cultures and attempted to ignore the politics and history of collection.

In the light of that moment in Vienna, this paper reflects on globalisation in the post-colonial museum space. It argues that, for museums, globalisation emerges from a long history of engagement with the diversity of world cultures and does not represent a radically new era. Despite globalisation’s homogenising force it does not threaten the museum’s pre-eminent role in caring for original objects nor suggest that the museum’s existence is under threat. This paper works from the position that elements of globalisation have been 1 The claims to ownership of the Benin Bronzes are complicated by the fact that the modern nation of Benin, formerly Dahomey, is not the place where they were made; they were made in what is now part of Nigeria.

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perceivable in museums since colonisation and museum collection began, indeed that museums were among the leading institutions which forged those global connections (Sheets-Pyenson, 1988). The contemporary understanding of globalisation as instantaneous communication and massive worldwide interconnectedness must be understood as an intensification of the former, colonising, reality of museums. This paper looks at the way that museums can be understood in terms of globalisation as places where the power of western cultural imperialism is maintained and where it is simultaneously resisted. The discussion is illustrated by looking at the example of the contested Benin Bronzes and their exhibition in Paris at the Musée du Quai Branly. Globalisation and museums

The great interconnectedness of the world which is enabled by communication technologies is popularly and disapprovingly understood as a force for homogenisation – the “’Americanisation’, ‘Disneyfication ‘ and ‘McDonaldisation’ of the planet” (Sofield, 2001: 105) producing a sameness that is found in so many parts of the world. Homogenisation is understood to be a negative force because it demolishes cultural diversity. An opposite effect of globalisation, however, is perceived in a movement towards maintaining diversity, expressed as “localisation”, fragmentation of culture (Allen & Sakamoto, 2006: 2; Featherstone, 1995; Sofield, 2001) and the acceleration of hybridisation (Milward, 2003: 80; Trouillot, 2002: 9), leading in some cases to the collapse of political systems, for example, Yugoslavia. It leads to cultural clashes that are focussed on asserting identity against the force of homogenisation. International travel shows us readily that although we can buy a McDonald’s hamburger in so many cities of the world, to buy one in Paris is very different from buying one in Taipei where our fellow diners are different and the world outside the restaurant is very different. In fact, those moments of engaging with such global products are also the moments of perceiving difference.

In Vienna, during that Benin-French exchange, we were faced with some important questions. Were we witnessing a debate which could be styled as a “relic” from a bundle of issues concerned with the rebalancing of rights after the withdrawal of many colonising powers from their colonies? In other words, could we ignore this exchange as an embarrassing vestige of former debates? Or, was it possible that the clash we were witnessing was symptomatic of both on-going post-colonial preoccupations and, at the same time, the abrasive clash described by Karp et al. (2006) as a museum expression of globalisation? Were globalisation issues in the museum institution emerging from on-going post-colonial encounters?

Debates on the moral role of the museum in the post-colonial era have resulted in the rewriting of many museum vision and mission statements in order to reposition museums as places of cultural encounter and cultural protection, rather than as perpetrators in the cultural despoilation of conquered indigenous peoples. Before globalisation was grappled with by museums there were some decades during which the New Museology and responses to post-colonial challenges were implemented in many parts of the world. Many museums now insist on a rhetoric of reconciliation that repositions museums as sites of dialogue where exciting cultural discoveries are daringly imagined (Vergo, 1989; Karp & Lavine, 1991).

Rethinking the mission of the museum has been aimed especially at finding new approaches to the representation of marginalised people. Hence, women are more extensively represented, everyday life is celebrated and people who have been colonised are consulted about their artefacts. In some cases, contested objects and skeletal remains have been returned to indigenous people and, in some museums, the presence on the staff of indigenous and colonised peoples is mandatory. In addition, and crucially for the French example, many non-western objects have been re-valued, their knowledge value expanded

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from a purely ethnographic interest to encompass a new “art” status. In some cases, they have been re-designated as art works only. (This problem is discussed further below.) Although there are thousands of examples of artefacts still being held by western museums that were acquired in dubious circumstances during the colonial era, the debates have been fully aired. Many museums by late 2007 had made substantial gestures towards rectifying historic wrongs. In Vienna, that day, we were forced to rethink the role of the museum in an era of post-colonial response and globalisation.

In the volume of museum essays, Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global Transformations, Karp et al. (2006) argue that the world of museums has changed substantially since its companion volumes (Karp & Lavine, 1991; Karp, Kreamer & Lavine, 1992) appeared and that “international and global connections have become central today to the circumstances of museums and other display institutions (Szwaja & Ybarra-Frausto, 2006: xii).

“The range of museum roles, definitions, and cross-institutional relations entails conjunctions of disparate constituencies, interests, goals and perspectives. These conjunctions produce debates, tensions, collaborations, contests, and conflicts of many sorts, at many levels – museum frictions that have both positive and negative outcomes… these frictions play out as museum-generated social processes and globalizing processes intersect and interact.” (Kratz & Karp, 2006: 2)

Fulfilling a dream to repair the damage of the colonising years has become a constant theme of museums as they grapple with their past complicity in the colonising process. As museums have moved to cultural inclusiveness and the removal of hierarchies, the unwritten assumption has been that acrimony would be reduced; in many cases this appears to have been the case. An outstanding example is the Museum of Anthropology in British Columbia which has created itself as a centre of dialogue between various Canadian indigenous peoples. The twin forces of globalisation, however, homogenisation and local fragmentation, have continued in many other cases to aggravate the very cultural wounds that rethinking the museum was intended to soothe. The globalising force to homogenise is described by Birkett (2006) as necessarily and continuously resisted. Globalisation “lives - like any system - on its resistances, with an inherent potential to create new and diverse identities, forms and values” (Birkett, 2006: 47). She is optimistic: “resistance involves reimagining the culture of everyday life in forms that will bring the global and the local into new configurations” (Birkett, 2006: 62). Resistance, therefore, is central to globalisation. It is a sign of the inherent globalisation clashes enabled by the spectacular communication of modern technology and it leads to friction between different cultural groups.

In France, the relocation of ethnographic objects to the Pavillon des Sessions inside the palace of The Louvre in April 2000, was a forerunner for the new museum, Musée du Quai Branly which was to be dedicated to non-European art. It seemed to be a moment in which the desire to repair historic colonial wrongs reached an important landmark. Significantly, it had reached an aesthetic landmark; non-European art was declared to be artistically equal. The French President of the time, Jacques Chirac, enthusiastically supported the entry of non-European arts into The Louvre, saying “’there is no more of a hierarchy of arts than there is among peoples’ and calling it ‘deeply shocking and regrettable’ that three-quarters of the world’s humanity was unrepresented in the Louvre” (Price, 2007: 36-37).

This quote reveals Chirac’s desire for a museological expression of the equality of peoples and art works, but he fails, most ironically, to see that he perpetuates the centuries old hierarchies by privileging The Louvre as the most important destination for the great works of non-French people. Ultimately, therefore, in this particular museolgical logic, it is the French, through The Louvre museum curatorial system, who decide what is great art.

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Admission of artefacts to The Louvre functions, therefore, as a form of imprimatur. On one hand, therefore, statements such as Chirac’s appear to abolish the art hierarchies imposed by Europe but, on the other hand, they are simultaneously imposed as strongly as they ever were because it is still Europe, in this case France, which is deciding what will or will not be considered great enough for entry into the European museum system.

The movement of non-European art into The Louvre was a moment that was both an act of post-colonial reconciliation and also of globalisation as western imperialism asserted its rights to choose the great works of non-European peoples who could be permitted into the European art system. The western imperial choice was an example of the persistence of the powerful and old homogenising European vision of art. Simultaneously, however, as the homogenising vision of Europe was being reinforced, it was also being strongly resisted as many commentators criticised the decision to display the works first and foremost as aesthetic objects and to demote their ethnographic contexts. Chirac’s decrying of the previous absence of non-European art in The Louvre had indeed signalled the dominance of the aesthetic terms under which these art works would move into the Pavillon des Sessions. Ethnographic information was made available in nearby rooms, but was secondary to their aesthetic status decreed by The Louvre. The works, therefore, were presented with little foregrounding of their historic, social and cultural contexts which were the very aspects of exhibition which were being fought for around the world in the post-colonial museological environment.

The opening in 2006 of the Musée du Quai Branly reinforced The Louvre’s 2001 insistence on the exhibition of non-European works in terms of their aesthetic qualities. Artefacts, therefore, are sometimes displayed at odds with their original meanings or even artistic intentions (Price, 2007: 147). Price cites, for example, a cape which was worn by its original owners with stripes running horizontally and which in the Musée du Quai Branly was exhibited with the stripes running vertically because the museum display case was intended for an object that was more vertical than horizontal. The new museum virtually refused to discuss the often dubious and frequently violent backgrounds to France’s acquisition of non-European works. As Price (2007: 172) says, this topic was “handled most selectively” with limited ethnographic material available (Price, 2007: 163). In clinging to old forms of museum authority and limiting contextual political and historical material, the new museum has functioned as an outstanding case for highlighting the clash of cultures that is inherent in globalisation. Dialogue and clash

When the Musée du Quai Branly opened it emphasised that the museum was a place of dialogue. It could be seen, therefore, as enabling a core aspect of globalisation, intense communication. Examination of reactions to the huge exhibition of the Benin Bronzes reveals that it is one thing to state the value of dialogue and quite another for those outside the museum to agree that you have achieved it. The negative reaction to the exhibition indicates that the use of the word , “dialogue”, as a principle to which the museum aspires, could be understood somewhat ironically in the context of globalisation. Where does dialogue connect with globalisation? What is the essence of globalisation? It is intense interconnectedness producing unprecedented communication through new technologies. The communication tends to both homogenise and fragment; to lead to an imperial cultural centre and break, at the same time, into discrete and also hybrid cultural differences. It is crucial to note that communication in the form of dialogue, that is speaking, listening and answering each other is a major principle that underlines post-colonial attempts at re-thinking the philosophy of museums.

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The intention to enable dialogue was undercut in the exhibition of the Benin masterpieces by imposing a western aesthetic framework on the display. The bronzes were displayed in bare, white painted surrounds, a most familiar style of western exhibition which is designed to strip away material implicitly declared extraneous and distracting. The intended result is that the viewer is able to focus on the pure aesthetic qualities of the work. This is a problematic aesthetic, even for western art, as the provision of contexts clearly assists in wider interpretation of the works. To exhibit art works as if they sprang fully formed from a neutral space is to deny almost every aspect of the works except their form. Form, however, also has a history, and knowing that background also enriches the viewing experience.

Insisting on western aesthetics when exhibiting non-western artefacts reveals the homogenising force of globalisation in museums. This style of aesthetics can be difficult for viewers to identify as the stripped back display space appears to be devoid of cultural markers. Until quite recently it was easy for museums to perpetuate this common aesthetics of display because the cultural markers of the producing, western, culture were disguised beneath the apparent neutrality of white space. The exhibition of the Benin Bronzes was somewhat at odds with the aesthetic of the main part of the Musée du Quai Branly with its serpentine “river” path for visitors moving through the exhibits which are displayed mostly in a conservatorially protective semi-darkness. The display of the bronzes in their white surrounds has been, however, replicated, in countless examples in western museums. In many cases artefacts which were functional have had their functionality stripped from them by the museum process as they are exhibited as art objects. The absence of context is the effect of the white space; it nullifies the significance of the histories of the objects.

The era of globalisation is not a new moment for museums. What we can say, however, is that this is a time for museums of the intensification of the post-colonial experience and the intensification of communication and dialogue. In the light of the example of the Benin Bronzes in Paris, the word “dialogue” seems unintentionally ironic. Dialogue about the bronzes has not been confined to their aesthetic values nor seems to have taken place within the museum space. The intention of good will in the post-colonial museum is now confronted with the totalising communication possibilities of globalisation and, therefore, an intensification of critique from outside the museum profession. This is the dialogue that globalisation, with its amazing communication technologies, has made possible. In 2007 and into January 2008, as buses moved around Paris plastered with posters advertising the exhibition Benin: Five Centuries of Royal Art, criticism of the event grew. Given the era of globalisation, the web was, of course, one of the primary places for protest. Below are some examples of the resistance that is as much a part of globalisation as homogeneity.

“These precious items are stolen goods. It cannot even be argued that they are the spoils of war – no war was declared by the British before they carried away these treasures. While many will marvel at the splendour of this exhibition in Paris, it is sobering to consider just how many of the visitors to the Musée du Quai Branly will give the rightful ownership of these priceless exhibits a second thought.” (Williams, 2007)

“…the aesthetic view point prevailed over ethnological presentation and historical depth…most of the materials and objects relating to life at the Benin Royal court, the national attires of the Edo, their dances and festivals were no longer visible. The videos and pictures which explained the process and creation of the bronze objects and the artists at work were left out.” (Opoku, 2007)

The curatorial decision made by the Musée du Quai Branly to decontexualise and depoliticise the sculptures has, in effect, been no different from the long history of the exhibition of the Elgin Marbles at the British Museum where the beauty of the works is

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highlighted, but the on-going requests from Greece for their return all but ignored. Ironically, it is the French who refer to this long running museum scandal in their word for the removal of cultural heritage from its source, “elginisme”, but who seem not to perceive themselves having done the same thing by continuing to restrict the flow of information in the museum and thereby ignoring the politics of the objects and their often violent acquisition. Museum responses to globalisation

Many museums have rushed to respond to globalisation by installing banks of computers, establishing web sites and creating virtual exhibitions. Many analyses of globalisation in museums are confined to comment on these technical areas which seem to threaten the centrality of the importance of the “real” object in collection and exhibition in museums. The role of the museum visitor in this highly technical world is celebrated because the visitor has an enormous information choice. If museums do not, however, also examine the impact of globalisation’s tensions then the museum institution is going to be very slow in responding in a sophisticated manner. It needs to deal with the cultural manner of representation rather than focussing almost exclusively on the impact of technical elements.

Forces of globalisation expose the vulnerability of many museums as they are uncertain how to respond to this new round of debates about exhibition and communication. For many it must seem that the apparent demolition of hierarchies of cultures was a sufficient moral and political response to post-colonial challenges. The Musée du Quai Branly continues to sell the catalogue of the highly aestheticised Benin Bronzes without comment, long after the criticisms began. It seems like a form of institutional paralysis not to respond to the radical democracy of global communication that continues to open the museum world to scrutiny.

Gurian (2007) argues that a practical response by museums to globalisation ought to be relinquishment of authority and the assumption of the role of “knowledge brokers”. I add to this that museums need to grasp the tensions that are magnified by globalisation’s connection to post-colonialism. The tensions should be investigated because it is only in these expressions of dissatisfaction and indeed, anger, that museums can begin to identify moral approaches for their growing disparate audiences. Museums are not going to find answers by looking to the ranks of their culturally homogenous staff. The institutions need to speak to those who made the artefacts or to their descendants. By doing so the moments of tension and clash made so loud by globalisation can be made museologically productive as the museum confronts them. BIBLIOGRAPHY

ALLEN, Matthew and Rumi Sakamoto, eds, Popular Culture, Globalization and Japan, London and New York, Routledge, 2006

BIRKETT, Jennifer, “(En)countering globalisation: resistances in the system”, in Stan Smith, ed, 2006, Globalisation and its Discontents, Essays and Studies, 2006

CLIFFORD, James and MARCUS George E., eds, Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1986

Declaration of the Importance and Value of Universal Museums : “Museums Serve Every Nation” in Karp et al., 2006: 247.

FEATHERSTONE, Mike, Undoing Culture: Globalisation, Postmodernism and Identity, London, Sage Publications, 1995

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GRIFFITH, Tom, Hunters and Collectors: The Antiquarian Imagination in Australia, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996

GURIAN, Elaine Heumann, “Introducing The Blue Ocean Museum: an imagined museum of the nearly immediate future”, paper, International Council of Museums, Vienna, August 18-25, 2007

KARP, Ivan and LAVINE Steven D., eds, Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, Washington and London, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991

KARP, Ivan, KEAMER Christine and LAVINE Steven D., Museums and Communities : The Politics of Public Culture, Washington and London, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992

KARP, Ivan and Corinne Kratz, Lynn Szwaja and Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, eds, Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global Transformations, Durham and London, Duke University Press, 2006

KRATZ, Corinne and KARP Ivan, “Museum frictions: public cultures/global transformations” in Karp et al eds, Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global Transformations, Durham and London, Duke University Press, 2006

MILWARD, Bob, Globalisation? Internationalisation and Monopoly Capitalism: Historical Processes and Capitalist Dynamism, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, Mass, USA, 2003

OPOKU, Kwame, “Benin in Paris: triumph of the asetetic (sic) over the ethnological” AFRIKANET.info 12 October 2007, retrieved on the web 3 June 2008 at http://www.afrikanet.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=771&Itemid=117

PEARSE, Susan, On Collecting: An Investigation into Collecting in the European Tradition, London and New York, Routledge, 1995

PRICE, Sally, Paris Primitive: Jacques Chirac’s Museum on the Quai Branly, University of Chicago Press, 2007

SHEETS-PYENSON, Susan, Cathedrals of Scienec: The Development of Natural History Museums During the Late Nineteenth Century, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Kingston and Montreal, 1998

SOFIELD, Trevor, “Globalisation, tourism and culture in southeast Asia” in Teo, Peggy, Chang, T.C. and Ho, K. C., eds, 2001, Interconnected Worlds: Tourism in Southeast Asia, Oxford, Pergamon, 2001

SZWAJA, Lynn and YBARRA-FRAUSTO Tomás in Karp et al., 2006 TROUILLOT, Michel-Rolphe, “The perspective of the world: globalization then and

now”, in Mudimbe-Boyi, Elisabeth, ed. Beyond Dichotomies: Histories, Identities, Cultures, and the Challenge of Globalization, New York, State University of New York Press, 2002

VERGO, Peter, ed. The New Museology, London, Reaktion Books, 1989 WILLIAMS, Stephen “Benin: glorious treasures” New African December 2007, retreived

on the web 3 June 2008 at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5391/is_200712/ai_n21300739/pg_1

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MUSEUMS, MUSEOLOGY AND GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS : Whither Cultural Diversity? Lynn Maranda, Vancouver Museum - Vancouver, Canada. _____________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT Museum, museology and global communications : Whither Cultural Diversity?

In this age of “globalization”, given the rapidity with which the world is changing, thanks to the advent of the “computer age”, and the fact that world-wide communication is now almost instantaneous, it is difficult to imagine how peoples will be able to retain their cultural distinctiveness. What are the challenges and what role can museums play in the scheme of things?

Museums are a product of the ‘age of discovery’ and have been comfortable in that role. This can not persist, however, in light of the current trend toward instantaneous communications on a global scale. This does not mean that the museum would no longer be the essential repository for objects from extant and, yes, extinct cultures. What it does mean is that the museum needs to become more in tune with modern times, and to achieve this, there needs to be a shift in ideology to allow for the contemporaneousness of museological thought and action. This means that the museum must shed its proclivity for what it considers to be ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ cultures and accept the fact that cultures change and out of these are born hybrids which themselves are as diverse as the milieus from which they originated. The opportunity for museums to address cultural assimilations and the tangential or hybrid cultures that arise from competing ideas provides the museum with new ground to explore.

RÉSUMÉ Musée et muséologie à l’époque de la communication planétaire : Un pas vers la diversité culturelle ?

La mondialisation, l’avènement de l’âge de l’ordinateur, des temps de communication internationaux toujours plus courts… autant de facteurs qui accélèrent les changements dans le monde. Comment, dans ce contexte, les peuples sont-ils à même de garder leurs caractéristiques distinctives ? Les musées peuvent-ils relever ce défi et par là même jouer un rôle dans cet environnement ?

Les musées ont été la vitrine de l’âge des découvertes, rôle qui leur convenait à merveille. Cependant, à l’heure où la communication mondiale se fait dans l’instant, ce rôle d’illustration n’a plus de raison de perdurer. Cela ne veut surtout pas dire que les musées ne se voient plus confier la conservation des objets issus des cultures existantes et bien entendu des cultures éteintes. Ce que ces changements impliquent, c’est que les musées se mettent en phase avec leur époque, notamment en révisant leur base idéologique, permettant ainsi à la muséologie dans sa forme comme dans son action, de rentrer dans le monde contemporain. Mais ce qui est surtout implicite, c’est que la muséologie se défasse de ce qu’elle considère comme « vrai » et « authentique », qu’elle accepte que les cultures aient toujours une base hybride, aussi diverse que les milieux dont elles sont issues. Cette possibilité pour les musées d’être la nouvelle vitrine de l’assimilation culturelle et des nouvelles cultures tangentielles ou bien hybrides qui en naissent est une chance à saisir, un terrain à explorer.

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RESUMEN Museos, museologia y comunicaciones globales : un pas hacia la diversidad cultural

Dada la rapidez con la que el mundo está cambiando en esta época de globalización, gracias al advenimiento de la ‘era de la computadora’ y al hecho de que en la actualidad la comunicación mundial es instantánea, es difícil imaginar cómo harán los pueblos para conservar sus diferencias culturales. ¿Cuáles son los desafíos y cuál el rol que juegan los museos en este esquema?

Los museos son un producto de la ‘era del descubrimiento’ y se han desempeñado cómodamente en ese rol. No obstante, esto no puede persistir a la luz de la actual tendencia hacia las comunicaciones instantáneas a escala global. Esto no significa que el museo deje de ser el depositario esencial de los objetos de culturas aún existentes e inclusive extintas. Significa que necesita ponerse a tono con los tiempos modernos, para lo cual es menester que se produzca un cambio de ideología que permita la contemporaneidad del pensamiento museológico y su accionar. Asimismo, esto significa que el museo debe desprenderse de su inclinación hacia lo que considera culturas ‘reales’ o ‘auténticas’ y aceptar el hecho de que las culturas cambian y que de ellas nacen híbridos que, en sí mismos, son tan diversos como el entorno que los originó. La oportunidad para los museos de abordar asimilaciones culturales y culturas tangenciales o híbridas surgidas de la competencia de ideas, les brinda un nuevo medio ambiente a explorar.

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In this age of “globalization”, given the rapidity with which the world is changing, thanks to the advent of the “computer age”, and the fact that world-wide communication is now almost instantaneous, it is difficult to imagine how peoples will be able to retain their cultural distinctiveness. This is of concern especially since the impetus for the electronic evolution has originated from the centres of world power, those ‘dominant’ cultures whose citizens can socially and economically afford to ‘buy into’ and ‘play’ in this arena. Museums may wonder that the cultural individuality they have so long endeavoured to preserve through their collections, will start to meld to produce a ‘global culture’, devoid of unique identities. Through the ever accelerating globalization movement, are cultures heading towards a metamorphosis and eventual solidification into one identifiable composite (a realization of the concept of the “global village”)? What are the challenges and what role can museums play in the scheme of things?

The following image is offered as a starting point for this discussion. This Associated Press photograph appeared in the “World” section of the Vancouver

Sun newspaper on Wednesday 31 May 2000. The sur-caption reads: “New Guinea natives catch TV news on visit to town”, and the sub-text reads: “Hunting for News: Villagers holding bows and arrows and traditional spears and headdresses on Enarotai Island [in Enarotali?] in West Papua New Guinea [also known as Irian Jaya] look out of place as they arrive in a local town to watch TV news broadcasts, believing they had gained independence from Indonesia, which has ruled for more than 30 years. However, independence was not granted by Jakarta.”

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The question here is whether cultures, such as represented here, can withstand the onslaught not only of the television technology, but also of a new one that can now reach into virtually all corners of the world, one that will continue to evolve into what is not yet known. Yet, as a consequence of the new technology’s effort to maximize the capabilities of instant communication, to inter-connect peoples on a world-wide basis, and to truly achieve the reality of the ‘global village’, it would appear that all roads would ultimately lead away from cultural individuality and towards cultural amalgamation.

While examining the incongruity expressed in the image above which juxtaposes two realities – one which could be identified as ‘indigenous’, and the other, ‘western’ – it would seem that this encounter between two extremes (which may very well not have been the first) is appearing to have little, if any, culturally-based affect, the one on the other. The important factor at work here is one of time. What there is about this image that makes these human figures distinct, are the circumstances and the degree or measurement of time separating the two realities and the level of contact between both.

From the beginnings of human habitation on earth, and in particular, since the large migrations out of Africa some 50,000 years ago, peoples have constantly moved from one place to another. The process of migration has allowed peoples originally holding common beliefs to diverge many times resulting in new ideas developing along separate lines. That movement away from a commonality has embodied a period of time often stretching several thousands of years.

Throughout history, the process has been (and will continue to be) that peoples have migrated. Differences have been created due to the separation of peoples and the time over which they remain apart. Migrations allow for the opportunity of groups of peoples having different cultures to ‘bump’ into each other. Such contacts between peoples result in cultural exchanges and the transference of cultural ideas. The degree of impact seems contingent on the time and distance between occurrences.

Looking again at the image above, the disparity of time and circumstance is evident between these two distinct cultural entities or forces, impacting on and conflicting with each other. This is a graphic example of what has always gone on whereby one group of people has lived separate from others in both time and place. Both cultures have taken very

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disparate migratory routes with one leading to isolation with little or no contact with other cultures along the time spectrum.

While cultural evolution may take place over thousands of years, contact with an idea may result in an instantaneous change. Contact between different cultures allows for the transference of ideas. Some ideas have been found to be more advantageous in the course of existence and these have ‘won out’, thus leading to the replacement of the ‘old’ with the ‘new’. The questions becomes: how long will it take for the ‘aboriginal’ to ‘catch up’ to the ‘western’, as one thing seems certain, the roles will never be reversed – the ‘western’ will not be aspiring to be ‘indigenous’.

Culture, loosely defined as the aggregate of the behaviour of a peoples, is influenced by many factors, including language, ideology, ethos, material tradition, learned behaviour, transmitted traits, and so forth. All these go to create and maintain a culture. They transmit a sense of identity to all members of the group – a sense of “who we are”. In addition, cultures have a locality, a physical place which is part of this identity – a place “where we live” or “from where we come”. Nevertheless, in spite of this, all peoples are basically the same: they have a penchant for selecting and utilizing what is best for the survival of themselves. So too with whole cultures.

When early European explorers first made contact with ‘aboriginal’ peoples in various parts of the world, it did not take long before iron and steel were incorporated into the manufacture of tools and weapons, replacing parts made from culturally modified natural materials of local origin. While the material traditions of a culture may signal the first observable consequences of contact with ‘others’, the composite of ‘cultural identifiers’ of a peoples is a ‘bond’ which enables cultures to maintain distinctiveness.

Immigrant populations, for example, mainly of European descent, in Canada and the United States, live in close proximity with First Nations and Native Americans. These aboriginal peoples, while appearing, through their day-to-day life styles, to have been fully assimilated by the dominant European-based ‘culture’, still maintain a cultural core which is, in fact, undergoing a period of steadily increasing re-assertiveness through waves of cultural resurgence and artistic Renaissance. While this is not the same as it was traditionally, it has adapted itself to forms by which these peoples exert and re-affirm their identity. These cultures are not ‘dead’ as is so often thought – sadly, a belief to the perpetuation of which museums have contributed. They have, due to many super-imposed challenges and upheavals not of their own making, simply changed and adapted for the sake of survival. Today, the very real presence of the cultural continuum provides ample evidence of living peoples cultures, albeit in forms estranged from what it they once were.

If in truth globalization is causing the alteration and indeed, loss of cultural traits for many peoples world-wide, it is because people are being confronted with new opportunities which they adapt to better their lives. To this end, it is only natural that they would choose that course which will bring an improvement. While assimilation of new ideas has always taken place, in this age of the electronic evolution, human interaction and communication on a global scale is faster and more invasive than ever. Change and assimilation are taking place at a rapidly accelerating rate. It is this increase in the time factor of ‘bumping’ that is the basis of the alarm that is being sounded and the concerns being expressed by such organizations as museums.

The museum is a registry of what was. While this is an important task, this conservation cannot keep peoples in the past, especially if they (museums) hope to co-exist in the ‘real world’. As cultures are so quickly assimilating ‘world culture’, it means that the role of ‘discovering’ new peoples is virtually gone. The inheritors of these ‘new peoples’ should now be the focus of museological endeavour, even though perhaps museums are reluctant to accept this role. Why should they not? Museums treat cultures as if they are

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fixed in a specific timeframe, in some cases occupying an almost fanciful place in the past. Museums would see the two men in the image above as points of interest and the objects from their material tradition which they wear and carry as worthy of collection. The interface between the men and the surroundings in which they find themselves apparently would hold little or no interest for museological study, with such being left to the work of anthropologists and sociologists. The perception is that museums deal with a sense of purity, and not the hybrid resulting from assimilation. Museums need to accept this as it is representative of the cultural continuum. While numerous cultures have been declared ‘extinct’, there are so many others that have simply morphed into their surrounding milieu. These cultures have not ‘died’. but rather live in the inheritors who continue to maintain their identity, an identity tied to that of their ancestors. Is this not worthy of museological study?

There is a stereotypical belief or myth that ‘authentic cultures’ are ‘frozen in time’, do not change, and can be visited and observed without interference. Very often, museums and their encased displays perpetuate this notion. Today, this myth is also reinforced by the tourist industry. As indigenous peoples increasingly take control of the marketing of their ‘old’ culture and environment, they have learned to use this misconception to their advantage. By staging special performances for travelers and producing distinctive objects for sale, indigenous peoples also develop stereotypes about ‘the other’, and set boundaries on the ‘consumption’ of their culture.

Museums are in a dilemma and may find themselves in the same position as the two men in the above image. As museums are ultimately the same, representing another element in the transfer of cultural ideas, they may expose themselves to what is an older cultural concept, as the notions of museum and the latest, contemporary modern world are themselves incongruous. Museums are a product of the ‘age of discovery’ and have been comfortable in that role. This can not persist, however, in light of the current trend toward instantaneous communications on a global scale. How can the museum, normally perceived as being locked in the past, meet this new reality in order to become and stay relevant and useful to the publics they serve? What can museums do so that the notion of its value to the community does not disappear? What is the museum going to be?

This does not mean that the museum would no longer be the essential repository for objects from extant and, yes, extinct cultures. What it does mean is that the museum needs to become more in tune with modern times, and to achieve this, there needs to be a shift in ideology to allow for the contemporaneousness of museological thought and action. This means that the museum must shed its proclivity for what it considers to be ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ cultures and accept the fact that cultures change and out of these are born hybrids which themselves are as diverse as the milieus from which they originated. This would be a big step for museums to take, to overcome their resistance to letting go and to become what they had never before imagined.

The opportunity for museums to address cultural assimilations and the tangential or hybrid cultures that arise from competing ideas provides the museum with new ground to explore. How is it possible for the two realities in the above image to come together? While ‘western’ cultures have not entirely seduced those that are still considered ‘indigenous’, it is inevitable that this will happen and the overarching factor in all of this is time. Museums can do much to counteract the ‘romanticized’ view of survival in ‘indigenous’ communities and address the issues of place, time, circumstance and the changes cultures are undergoing, especially in light of the global communications technology currently at work.

Over time, each culture develops in response to circumstance and adapts to new ideas in their own way. It is these differences that will continue to constitute what is diverse among peoples. How the museum chooses to deal with this is open to debate, but if the museum still wants to include cultures as part of their collecting, research, exhibition,

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publication, education purpose, then it needs to move forward and recognize not only the cultural continuum, but also the framework in which change takes place. It needs to concede to the hybrid and acknowledge the value of its study and musealization. This would be a very important role for the museum to undertake, for if it does not perform this task. it runs the risk of being supplanted by an new type of institution which will do so.

Perhaps the trickiest challenge for the museum would be that which has been its primary focus – the collections. How can the museum continue to fulfill its mandate in this area if material cultures blend to become ostensibly the same as that of the visitor? What is there that the museum can offer that can continue to be seen as unique? While this is not an easy question to answer, museums might do well to look to the study and presentation of cultures on a diachronic basis. This would allow for the past manifestations of a culture to be shown not only as stops along the continuum, but also as changing in relation to influences outside of its commonality.

As the material culture changes and melds with that of the more dominant influences, much of that which falls in the category of ‘hybrid’ can be collected and displayed. In addition to this, there are the other aspects of cultures which are highly collectable and these are those comprising the intangible heritage of a peoples. Here, the essential core of the lifeways and thought processes of peoples can be found. While these evidences appear only in an intangible form, they need to be converted to a tangible medium in order to be preserved. This is the paradox of intangibility – once it is collected in its tangible form, it is no longer ‘intangible heritage’. This is particularly the case with peoples where the transference of cultural information is only through oral traditions. Once the information has been recorded, the oral tradition, fundamental to so many cultures, no longer exists. This can be extremely intrusive and museums may wonder if these actions may be contributing to and indeed hastening the annihilation of cultural diversity.

Nevertheless, this is an area of collecting that is open to museums that had formerly focused only on the tangible products of a culture. Collecting in this area would allow for knowledge to be gained in respect of the cultural continuum and the changes that occur in this process. This knowledge is a vital link in the history of mankind and museums can safeguard this as it has with its material culture collections. It may also provide an important insight into the transferring processes occurring in the image above.

With the incursion of the current electronic evolution, museum are now able to disseminate information globally and thus become essential purveyors of important data on cultures and whatever changes that occur. Museums holding diverse collections can readily contact counterparts worldwide for relevant information outside of their own area of immediate source material. This global sharing of information can allow the museums to retain a strong presence not only in their traditional arena of influence, but also in the ‘real world’. Museums can, with the incorporation of the voice of ‘indigenous’ peoples, thus serve as informed intermediary between cultures in transition and the publics they serve.

Whither cultural diversity? As the answer to this question lies in the future, it can only be addressed through speculation and the projection of current trends. The closer the shift towards the realization of the concepts of ‘world culture’ and the ‘global village’, the harder it will become to distinguish the uniqueness of peoples. Since the advent of the electronic evolution and its power to break down the barriers of space and time in respect of global communications, assimilation of ideas outside of the commonality which peoples hold, have taken on a life of their own and are now both invasive and unstoppable. Will cultural distinctiveness be swallowed up by this frenzied rush? Possibly. But who knows? How long will it be before one of the realities in the image above catches up with the other? Whatever the consequence yet to come, museums need to find a niche through this transition and the constructs of museology will be compelled to adapt accordingly.

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ON THE PRINCIPLES OF THE MUSEUM’S ROLE IN SAFEGUARDING INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE

CAI Qin, Senior Researcher, Zhejiang Provincial Museum, Hangzhou, China ABSTRACT Because of the specific characteristics of intangible cultural heritage, the museum has to adopt a different approach from that adopted to deal with tangible cultural heritage, comply with the two principles. First, “Lower-class perspective”. Museums’ work on intangible cultural heritage is closely related with common knowledge, ideas and beliefs. In other words, the museum practices must undertake a “downward revolution”. Second, “Regional experience”. A complete concept of cultural heritage does not mean the integration of all elements of intangible cultural heritage into museological practices. On the one hand, museum resources are limited; on the other, although elements of intangible cultural heritage exist and are transmitted at certain times and in certain spaces, showing a trait of thin distribution. “Customs differ even within walking distances,” yet they reveal a spirit of national solidarity nonetheless. Then, how to adopt the principles mentioned above throughout a museum’s practices in that regard? The following two topics should be discussed: balance between tangible and intangible cultural heritages, and balance between integrity and vitality. RÉSUMÉ Du fait des caractéristiques spécifiques du patrimoine culturel immatériel, les musées ont besoin d’adopter une approche différente de celle utilisée pour aborder le patrimoine culturel matériel en observant deux principes.

Le premier, la perspective de la classe ouvrière. Le travail des musées, sur le patrimoine immatériel est en rapport étroit avec le savoir commun, ses idées et ses croyances. Autrement dit, les pratiques des musées doivent entreprendre une révolution qui commence par en bas. Le second, l’expérience régionale. Un concept complet du patrimoine immatériel ne signifie pas l’intégration de tous ses éléments aux pratiques muséologiques. D’une part, les ressources du musée sont limitées ; de l’autre, même si les éléments du patrimoine culturel existent et sont transmis en certains moments et dans des espaces déterminés, ils montrent la particularité d’une distribution peu convaincante. «Les habitudes diffèrent même si elles existent à quelques pas de distance». Cependant, elles révèlent un esprit de solidarité nationale. En ce sens, comment adopter les principes cités ci-dessus à travers les pratiques du musée? Pour obtenir des réponses, ont devrait débattre les thèmes suivants : l’équilibre entre les patrimoines culturels matériels et immatériels et l’équilibre entre l’intégrité et la vitalité.

RESUMEN Acerca de los principios del rol del museo en la salvaguarda des patrimonio intangible En virtud de las características específicas de la herencia cultural intangible, los museos necesitan adoptar un planteamiento diferente de aquél utilizado para abordar el patrimonio cultural tangible observando dos principios. El primero, la perspectiva de las clases trabajadoras. El trabajo de los museos sobre el patrimonio intangible está estrechamente relacionado con el saber común, sus ideas y sus creencias. En otras palabras, las prácticas de los museos deben emprender una revolución desde abajo. El segundo, la experiencia regional. Un concepto acabado de patrimonio

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intangible no significa la integración de todos sus elementos en las prácticas museológicas. Por una parte, los recursos del museo son limitados; por otra, aunque los elementos del legado cultural intangible existen y son transmitidos en ciertos momentos y en determinados espacios, evidencian la peculiaridad de una distribución poco convincente. “Las costumbres difieren aún estando a pocos pasos de distancia”. Sin embargo, revelan un espíritu de solidaridad nacional. En este sentido, ¿cómo adoptar los principios antes mencionados a través de las prácticas del museo? Para lograr respuestas se deberían debatir los siguientes temas: el equilibrio entre los legados culturales tangibles e intangibles y el equilibrio entre la integridad y la vitalidad.

* * * Since the 1990s, the world community of cultural heritage has extended the concept of cultural heritage from tangible heritage to intangible heritage (non-material heritage), which makes the concept more complete and substantive. In 1997, the UNESCO established a protective system for “Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity”. The first list of intangible cultural heritages, including China’s Kunqu opera, was proclaimed in 2002. The complete concept of cultural heritage brings intangible cultural heritage into the museological practices. As one of the most important heritage institutes, museums do not restrict their practices on the collection, preservation, research and presentation of exhibits, but reveals the information and value system of the whole cultural heritage via either tangible (material) way or intangible (non-material) ways. In 2001, the General Conference of the International Council of Museum (ICOM) added intangible heritage to the definition of “museum” for the first time, declaring “Museums and Intangible Heritage” as the theme for the ICOM General Conference held in Seoul in 2004. The 7th Asia Pacific Regional Assembly of ICOM held in Shanghai in October 2002, with an aim to promote “new heritage concept and modern museums,” affirmed in their Charter “Museums, Intangible Heritage and Globalization” (Shanghai, 2002) that “the voices, values, traditions, languages, oral history, folk life and so on are recognized and promoted in all museological and heritage practices,’ and recommended museums as ‘facilitators of constructive partnerships in the safeguarding of this heritage of humanity.’ Thereafter, the world community of museums had a clearer recognition and understanding of cultural heritage,, and as an indispensable institute, the museum is playing a crucial role in the preservation, collection, research and presentation of intangible cultural heritage.

Bringing intangible cultural heritage into the scope of museological practices is a

challenge to the conventional role of museum. Prominent in the safeguarding of material objects, the museum has seen a noteworthy transformation to meet the demands of preservation, collection, research and presentation of intangible cultural heritage. Recently, the world museum circle has been trying to grasp the function of museums in safeguarding intangible cultural heritage from both theoretical and practical aspects.

According to the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage

adopted by the UNESCO at its 32nd General Conference on October 17th, 2003, “intangible cultural heritage” means the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artifacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity. The “intangible cultural heritage,” as defined in the Convention, is manifested inter alia in the following domains:(a) oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage; (b) performing arts; (c) social practices, rituals and festive events; (d)

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knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; and (e) traditional craftsmanship.

The General Office of the State Council promulgated the Recommendations on

Intensifying the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage on March 26th, 2005. According to Article 2 of the attached Provisionary Measures on the Application and Identification of National Intangible Cultural Heritage Masterpieces, “Intangible cultural heritage refers to great varieties of cultural expressions that are passed down by people of all ethnic groups for generations (e.g. folk customs, performing art, traditional knowledge and skills and related instruments, objects, artifacts, etc.) and cultural space.” As is defined in Item 2, Article 3, “the scope of intangible cultural heritage covers: 1) oral traditions and languages as vehicles of culture; 2) traditional performing art; 3) folk practices, rituals and festivals; 4) folk traditional knowledge and practices related to nature and universe; 5) traditional handcraft skills; 6) cultural space related to the above-mentioned expressions.” Compared with Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, here “cultural space” is included in the content of intangible cultural heritage. According to item 1, Article 2 of the Provisionary Measure, “cultural space refers to the venues of public traditional cultural activities or the period of time when certain events regularly take place, which gives it both spatial and temporal meanings.”

It is obvious that intangible cultural heritage varies in type and expression, being one

with different cultural components. For example, the “five-kilometer red dowry procession” is among the first masterpieces of intangible cultural heritage of Ningbo, Zhejiang. The “five-kilometer red dowry procession” is a nuptial ritual in the Ningbo and Shaoxing areas of Zhejiang. In ancient times, during the bridal procession, local people always carried a bridal dowry along with the wedding sedan beating drums and gongs to enhance a wedding's festive atmosphere. It is said that a bridal procession could be as long as five kilometers. The dowries were wrapped in red including all the daily necessities for ancient Chinese, like cabinets, toilet kettles, wine vessels, basin stands, and dressing cases, which featured a combination of engraving, plastic modeling, gold depicting, lacquer painting, color filling and other techniques and other expressions of folk craftsmanship, such as small wood sculpture, lacquer works, barrel sculpture, bamboo sculpture, bronze works and tin handicrafts. The masterpiece “five-kilometer red dowry procession” includes not only such delicate instruments and other crafts, but also the whole process and space relating to the marriage as well as the wish for happiness by local residents.

Because of the specific characteristics of intangible cultural heritage, the museum has to

adopt a different approach from that adopted to deal with tangible cultural heritage. Material collections in museums bear different information associated with them, and to deal with these physical objects in essence means to collect, preserve, study and present the information embedded in them. In this sense, intangible cultural heritage has always been a part of museum practices. However, the recognition and understanding of this information are far from enough in dealing with intangible cultural heritage, because the museum works only emphasize places of excavation, time, pattern and size rather than handcraft skills, historical background and cultural concept connected with the collections. Take presentation for example. Most exhibits in museums are visible and tangible. Intangible information is mainly transmitted through oral presentations by interpreters or with explanatory words, videos and computer demonstrations as aids, which tends to destroy the integrity and inter-interpretation of cultural heritage. Furthermore, there exists a tendency of “elitism” in the conventional museological practices. Cultural relics applicable to museum practices are usually those of prime value, but the complete cultural heritage concept requires that objects of museum operations not be limited to traditional elitism and historical events, but also address the daily life and customs of ordinary people and to discover great historical proposition from the dispersed “low-class history.”

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Modern museums are intended to present a whole picture of the cultural heritage of humanity, but cultural relics are only material remains of traditional culture rather than the culture itself. Therefore, tangible cultural heritage should be collected, preserved, researched and presented along with intangible cultural heritage including science and technology (various technologies, medicine, astronomy, calendar, etc), philosophy, ethnics, morality, social organizations, literature & arts, marriages, rituals, customs and recreations. Only then can visitors see not only the physical appearance of a nation, but also systematically comprehend its spiritual culture, institutional culture and social system.

Taking both the characteristics of intangible cultural heritage and the nature of museums

into account, the protection of intangible cultural heritage should be comply with the following two principles : 1.“Lower-class perspective” Museums’ work on intangible cultural heritage is closely related with common knowledge, ideas and beliefs. In other words, the museum practices must undertake a “downward revolution”. The monistic orientation in the past excludes the culture of “lower-class” life from the museological practices, but as a matter of fact, the ordinary things of the “lower-class” usually bear high, though intangible, cultural value, directly influencing the representation of the intangible cultural spirit. In this sense, “lower class perspective” means that museums should not only take a just attitude towards different cultures, paying attention to the lower class in particular, but also integrate the historical situations of the lower class, treat the objects collected, preserved, researched and presented with compassionate understanding and pursue deeper connotations that underlie their diverse facades. The non-artistic culture in “lower-class” has a concrete cultural quality, which is an explicit expression of a particular concept. The behaviors of this culture may not be taken aesthetically, but they reveal a cultural atmosphere to convey emotions, cultural notions，and verified history，social structures, religious beliefs and popular customs. Take the primordial folk dance of the She minority for example. The She people invented various traditional dances in their production activities, with “Planting Bamboos” being the most popular. The performers sing and dance to the beat of the gongs, drums and cymbals, presenting the whole process of bamboo-planting, chopping, dipping, and paper making through pulp heating. From the perspective of conventional dancing, it is too mundane to be considered a dance in its strict sense, but it bears a close relationship with the daily life of the She people, linking reality and their ideal about life together. 2. “Regional experience”

A complete concept of cultural heritage does not mean the integration of all elements of intangible cultural heritage into museological practices. On the one hand, museum resources are limited; on the other, although elements of intangible cultural heritage exist and are transmitted at certain times and in certain spaces, showing a trait of thin distribution. “Customs differ even within walking distances,” yet they reveal a spirit of national solidarity nonetheless. Elements of intangible cultural heritage at local levels do not exist alone but rather interact with and interpret each other, with some of them embodying the entire spectrum of local life. The principle of “regional experience” confronts the museum first with the question of how to choose such elements for its practice. Generally speaking, they are chosen from ordinary life to reflect the unique historical processes of the locality as well as special contributions that local residents have made to the nation, the country and humankind as a whole; they are to be capable of representing the common attributes and ethos of local people which can be passed down, with an undying faith, from generation to generation. “Regional experience” is indeed not an abstract judgment about the features of local culture, but seeks to find out specific elements that represent the unity and characteristics of that region. The importance of “region” draws a museum’s attention to a

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specific area. Furthermore, the experience of a small area can be extended even to larger domains; it can, for that matter, provide an opportunity for museum professionals to achieve depth as well as scope in their work by proceeding from microscopic to macroscopic concerns and from strictly empirical research to more theoretical speculations. “Regional experience” is a basic principle for the museum in safeguarding intangible cultural heritage.

As for how to adopt the principles mentioned above throughout a museum’s practices in that regard, the balance between theory and practical application must be discussed.

1. Balance between tangible and intangible cultural heritages The implications of intangible cultural heritage are immaterial and invisible, and can be sensed only through various mediums and material vehicles. But any cultural information has its own material vehicle, without which it will be impossible to bear or transmit information. In the field of intangible cultural heritage, articles represented in a visible way always possess a material quality, except those orally passed down all through the ages by bearers such as language, music, songs, dances, handicrafts and cuisine,. Almost all solid objects of a relatively stable quality are likely to become the carriers of intangible heritage. For example, different kinds of handicrafts like ritual wares, musical instruments, food and wine vessels; statues, gravestones, grave inscriptions, rock paintings, and architectural sites such as ancestral temples; New-Year paintings, manuscripts, general maps, meteorological charts, topographic maps, musical scores, hand-copied books, lections, model calligraphy，and printed books. The measure, style and intrinsic quality of a folk relic or an object typically associated with folk life are considered to be the product of all folk life elements, from which a general trend of people’s creativity, aesthetic views and interests are recognized. Similarly, links of a region’s economic, cultural and historical development as well as the influence of a certain historical period are also established. In addition, a cultural symbol should, above all, be an explicit bearer of national traits, rich with local flavors and folk wisdom. Take the Clamp-Resist (jiaxie) dyeing for example. It is a traditional printing and dyeing technique with clamping blocks engraved with various patterns, boasting a long history in southern Zhejiang. The clamping blocks are made of red firewood, maple, strawberry trees and birch-leaf pear trees ripped into 17 woodblocks. The first and last two boards are 4.8 centimeters thick and engraved on a single side, while the other 14 are 2.8 centimeters thick, engraved with incised inscriptions on both sides. Dip a bolt of undyed cloth in water for 3 to 4 hours and dry it in the shade. When it is more than half dry, fold it into four sections, each 250 cm long. Wrap the folded cloth around a wooden stick. Then fix the clamping-blocks one by one. After proper adjustment and alignment, tie the clamped cloth up tightly. Then dip it into a vat of dyemore. After at least two rounds of soaking and oxidation, remove the woodblocks and hang the dyed cloth on a stand. Once the dyed cloth has been rinsed in the river and dried in the sun, it is a finished product. The extant samples of Clamp-Resist dyeing have been handed down from the Tang and Song dynasties. “For example jiaxie (clamp-resist dyed) silk dresses on the sculptures of Bodhisattvas in the Dunhuang Grottoes, remnants of clamping-blocks, originally unearthed in the Western Regions and housed in the British Museum ever since, and products in the Shōsōin Treasure House, Japan. Through these relics, we can see that the clamping-dyeing technique at that time was a colored dyeing of silk, which is different from today’s plain cotton cloth. Images on the cloth are usually characters of Chinese traditional drama, auspicious patterns, flowers and birds, and Chinese characters, all similar to the real products as described in ancient literature. Intangible cultural heritages can disappear along with the perishing of their human bearers, whereas material carriers can be preserved over long periods of time. Material remains of intangible cultural heritage and other related objects contain different values expressed through its material manifestations - craft, structure, patterns, decoration, style and functions. Form and culture are inseparable. Different cultural elements produce different forms, which in turn contain and embody implicit cultural values, reflecting the material and spiritual life of different groups of people.

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2. Balance between integrity and vitality

Intangible cultural heritage, originally an integral whole, has been fragmented to some degree over time, but from the perspective of museums, intangible cultural heritage should be put back as much as possible into the original context of past life and cultural transmission wherefrom it arises, so as to make sure that the objects to be collected, preserved, studied and displayed are no separate bits and pieces. The idea of integrity is meaningful on two levels: (a) authentic integrity in scope. Intangible cultural heritage of different systems, information types and carriers should all be incorporated into museum practices without any alteration; (b) integrity in cultural concept. While individual elements of a given intangible cultural heritage ought to remain intact, the maintenance of its cultural conceptual entity is all the more important no matter what cultural system each of them belongs to. Integrity is imperitive for museums in their safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage. Therefore, when people want to protect any given heritage, they must protect its general eco-environment, including political, economic and cultural conditions, as well as human thought, values and demands.

From pregnancy and birth to its later development in different periods, intangible cultural heritages have assumed various characteristics of those periods, each of which has added new dimensions to such heritages, like new creations, new mien and new representive figures. Many elements of an intangible cultural heritage can be regarded as having to do with “heritage” only because history is difficult to recover with life moving on or be restored to its “original” state. In this sense, the recognition of the integrity of the heritage’s original state and meaning ought to be based on the development of history. A salient feature of intangible cultural heritage lies in the diversity of its origins, its coexistence with reality, and its inseverable tie with ordinary people. Therefore, there is another meaning in vitality: intangible cultural heritage, like anything, is in a constant process of development and evolution; intangible cultural heritage is bound to be passed down through generations so long as wisdom or life experience remains alive; whereas its cultural kernel should continue to be respected, its potential for development is equally unignorable.

Integrity means keeping the original forms, meanings and functions of today as well as of

yesterday. It is a self-contradictory fact that vitality is deconstruction of objects, or to be more frank, the destruction of integrity. Digital technology, however, provides a better choice for the balance between integrity and vitality. In this way, the original forms of intangible cultural heritage can be preserved through digital means and holographical information storage or retrieval made easier. Therefore, digital technology is the best way to keep the original form of intangible cultural heritage for younger people. Besides, people will have a clearer understanding of human vitality. Despite changing ideas, values and life styles in this revolutionary age, intangible cultural heritage will retain its role in the construction of national, emotional identification and a harmonious society.