The final votes are not in on the sxsw panels but one of them caught my eye. It directly relates to Houston because we don’t exactly encourage citizen media in our museums. We don’t even allow photography which of course is why Houston is known for art car parades more than the Menil collection. Anyway, back to the panel….
eMuse Me: Can Web 2.0 Break Down the Walls of Museums?
Is Web 2.0 welcome in museums? Should you be allowed encouraged to tag
objects and share your opinions and discoveries? Or is online museum
design best left to expert curators, art historians and museum
educators? Can rich media, tagging and blogging deepen your connection,
or does it cheapen and distract from the museum experience? Explore
fascinating research into museum technology including tagging,
(steve.museum) online interactives, blogging and delicious handheld
content.
(link to Glenda’s blog)
If you get a chance vote for it on the sxsw panel picker here. And of course please also vote for the one I might (if you vote!) get to moderate called: United We Stand,
Divided We Fall: Alternatives to RSS Alerts During
Crisis
The museum world is used to being neglected or misunderstood by the public. That’s why curators are heroes, foreseeing the value of art that the stupid public can’t understand.
Anyway, apart from the elitism problem, Houston does as well or better than most cities (see Dallas, yuk pooey). We have CAM, devoted to living artists, many of whom live in Houston, the Art Car MUSEUM, where they work very hard to connect public to the artistic life, and Lawndale, which is all about emerging artists.
Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that many museums are very 2.0, or would like to be, if the public will meet them halfway. Anyone who says, “It’s not what I expected” can stay at home!
Posted on August 17, 2006 at 6:57 pm.
Thanks for the comments Theresa. It would be awesome if one of our local more progressive museums would test out some of these theories. This paper
http://www.archimuse.com/papers/steve-nrhm-0605preprint.pdf
suggests simply giving visitors a pad of paper and asking them to write down words that relate to each work of art. The results are fascinating and would definitely increase access to the art!
Posted on August 18, 2006 at 6:53 am.
Good catch – I missed that panel on the sxswi voting ballot. I love seeing what some art communities are doing (like artcasts: http://houston.metblogs.com/archives/2006/01/artcasting_hous.phtml) to embrace the average Joe Blow art lover and their ideas and opinions. To me, art is like music – best when shared, discussed, commented and loved with by every single person within arm’s reach. I hope that even more in the art world learn how much a little participation (including photography, I’m sorry… but I’m sick of getting shut down by museum guards) can mean to their organizational objectives.
Posted on August 26, 2006 at 4:30 pm.