Panel: Embedding Value: Technological Practices in the Museum, co-organized with Hannah Turner, American Anthropological Association annual meeting. Washington DC, November 24-27, 2017.
This paper examines the histories of augmented media in museums by locating the origins of augmen... more This paper examines the histories of augmented media in museums by locating the origins of augmented media at the turn of the 20th century with the use of stereoscopic image viewers for museum publics. This historic perspective is constrasted with ethnographic accounts of developing an augmented reality exhibit in a contemporary natural history museum, the California Academy of Sciences. Widely used media technologies at the time, stereoscopic images and viewers allowed for individuals to take home and experience the outside world – from the streets of Rome to the exhibits installed at the Chicago Field Museum. Contemporary scholarship in media studies and film studies has situated the stereoscope within the history of virtual or haptic visual environments; yet the use of stereoscopes to engage museum visitors is little understood. By looking at the history of the stereoscope and plotting the proliferation of museum objects on display in stereoscopic images from research completed in institutions such as the Pitt Rivers museum, The Chicago Field Museum, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, this paper both contextualizes the augmented museum – and the augmented museum specimen – in the long history of museum visualization and objectivity. It argues that particular epistemic loyalties and values were not only embedded into institutions by their displayed objects and dioramas, but also by the use of the stereoscope as an early augmented media technology for education and outreach.
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science and technology studies, knowledge organization and indigenous postcolonial theory (particularly concerning ontologies and knowledge organization) and defines the development of a field of thought for museum knowledge organization. It also proposes a selection of terms or ideas for the field of knowledge organization in museums and begins to historicize the development
of the field. This paper calls attention to the practical and intellectual issues raised when other knowledges “meet” museums systemsas well. The history of the study of museums within Foucauldian thought, the origins of contemporary ideas of the socio-technical, the utility of the metaphor of infrastructure, and the notion of technological affordance are all ideas that have been useful in understanding standardized systems in large institutional repositories, especially as museum collections continue to be digitized and circulated widely
by communities. This paper plots the issues we as scholars and professionals should be attentive to when studying the organization of knowledge in museums by developing a theoretical standpoint that engages seriously with the ethics and politics of knowledge.
The RRN creates an on-line research community, allowing geographically dispersed users to collaborate while studying cultural objects held in institutions around the world. Museums and other cultural institutions are contributing their data to the RRN in order to facilitate this research. Diverse user groups, including indigenous communities, share their own perspectives and knowledge with the people and institutions that make up the RRN community.
The Reciprocal Research Network was co-developed by three First Nations communities, the Musqueam Indian Band, the Stó:lō Nation/Tribal Council, and the U’mista Cultural Society, along with the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at the University of British Columbia. A dozen museums also participated in the development process.
Keywords: collaboration, multi-institutional, data sharing, user submitted content, research, on-line community
Read more: Archives & Museum Informatics: Museums and the Web 2010: Papers: Rowley, S. et al., Building an On-Line Research Community: The Reciprocal Research Network http://www.museumsandtheweb.com/mw2010/papers/rowley/rowley.html#ixzz1lALvq1oB
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science and technology studies, knowledge organization and indigenous postcolonial theory (particularly concerning ontologies and knowledge organization) and defines the development of a field of thought for museum knowledge organization. It also proposes a selection of terms or ideas for the field of knowledge organization in museums and begins to historicize the development
of the field. This paper calls attention to the practical and intellectual issues raised when other knowledges “meet” museums systemsas well. The history of the study of museums within Foucauldian thought, the origins of contemporary ideas of the socio-technical, the utility of the metaphor of infrastructure, and the notion of technological affordance are all ideas that have been useful in understanding standardized systems in large institutional repositories, especially as museum collections continue to be digitized and circulated widely
by communities. This paper plots the issues we as scholars and professionals should be attentive to when studying the organization of knowledge in museums by developing a theoretical standpoint that engages seriously with the ethics and politics of knowledge.
The RRN creates an on-line research community, allowing geographically dispersed users to collaborate while studying cultural objects held in institutions around the world. Museums and other cultural institutions are contributing their data to the RRN in order to facilitate this research. Diverse user groups, including indigenous communities, share their own perspectives and knowledge with the people and institutions that make up the RRN community.
The Reciprocal Research Network was co-developed by three First Nations communities, the Musqueam Indian Band, the Stó:lō Nation/Tribal Council, and the U’mista Cultural Society, along with the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at the University of British Columbia. A dozen museums also participated in the development process.
Keywords: collaboration, multi-institutional, data sharing, user submitted content, research, on-line community
Read more: Archives & Museum Informatics: Museums and the Web 2010: Papers: Rowley, S. et al., Building an On-Line Research Community: The Reciprocal Research Network http://www.museumsandtheweb.com/mw2010/papers/rowley/rowley.html#ixzz1lALvq1oB
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives