Course description from the ITP website:
Instructor: Nancy Hechinger
“If you were inventing a museum today, what would it look like? Who would be there? What would its main purpose be? Before you answer that question, let’s take a look back. The first museums were called Cabinets of Wonder. Usually, a viewer with a guide, often the collector, would open doors and drawers to see what was inside–amazing things from different parts of the world, different times. They were windows on the world to places the visitors would probably never be able to go. The public was very limited; children were usually not allowed in. They were elitist institutions whose mission was archiving the past. Today, although most museums seek to educate and to include more and more diverse visitors, there are fundamental ways—attitudes, techniques, structural issues—that are still lodged in the 19th century. Now, because of a very different kind of Cabinet of Wonder, i.e. the computer and other IT technologies, museums are able to display collections, demonstrate concepts, and reach their audiences in new ways. Most have not taken full advantage of these new tools or had the time to explore how they might change the nature of a museum visit… but we do in this course. We document together the ways in which technology may enhance the museum experience. We evaluate the use of interactive technologies in museums and how that experience might be extended online. But first we observe and study what they do now. We cannot invent a new wheel before we understand the old one. In this course we explore the different kinds of exhibits in museums (object-based collection, demonstrations of phenomena), historic or single topic museums (e.g. The Tenement Museum) and the varied kinds of venues for exhibits (museums, trade shows, traveling, nature centers) Students learn through experience and discussion a brief history of museums and exhibitions, discover criteria for informal learning environments that differ from school room learning. The class is an exploration, observation and theory class. You are asked to visit specific museums: an iconic one of each type. These visits are your primary assignments—sometimes accompanied by a reading. Someone from the assigned museum comes to class and makes a presentation and receives critiques from you. In the second half of the course, we begin to reinvent the museum. What is its purpose in the 21st century? How does the need for a curator change? We look at different museums’ efforts to use technology to take museums beyond the walls, to expand the notion of curators, to include people who don’t have access, or don’t know they do, to the places. And though we focus on museums…we also look at exhibits, and other public displays of information. This is not a design or production class. The assignments are field trips to museums, readings, and writing. The classes are primarily discussion-driven and class participation is the major part of the grade.”
