CC BY
16
2018
ВОПРОСЫ МУЗЕОЛОГИИ
Т. 9. Вып. 2
ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЕ ОСНОВЫ МУЗЕОЛОГИИ
UDC 069:01
The Poetics and Geopolitics of Communication and Non-profit vs. Marketing in Museums
Yun Shun Susie Chung
Southern New Hampshire University,
33, South Commercial Street, Manchester, New Hampshire, 03101, USA
For citation: Chung, Yun Shun Susie. 2018. The Poetics and Geopolitics of Communication and Nonprofit vs. Marketing in Museums. The Problems of Museology, 9 (2), 138-153. https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu27.2018.201
The various practices and the theoretical implications of the poetics and geopolitics in museums communicating collections represented by different disciplines are explored. Museo-logical literature has already noted the associations of the structure and contexts that objects have lives through different ownership. In this paper, synchronously applying Jean Baudril-lard's concepts, the theoretical analysis of museum communication's contemporary practices of exhibiting and marketing is conducted. Behind-the-scenes preservation is now displayed as a laboratory exhibition with the conservators as actors and the audience as part and parcel of the function of communication in art museums and natural history museums. Though the practice of integrating art, sound, and technology has been demonstrated in art and anthropology museums, the poetics of display applied in traditional natural history museums are discussed. The contextual identity of musealized objects in theory from conception, creation, provenance, to musealization is interpreted as first-person in a case-study exhibition. Studies show that visitors feel more attracted to objects that they can interconnect with, and using first-person interpretation techniques to communicate the series of contexts helps to produce the attracting power. The twenty-first-century free-range interpretation by visitors through the participatory action of labelling, now empowering museums to voice their arguments about geopolitics and race, is introduced. The function of museum marketing is examined to affirm that the non-profit management museum is a geopolitical supplier of poetical discourse. Museum communication operates through exhibitions and marketing in the making of poetical and geopolitical discourse that is enlightened by Baudrillardian concepts of the poetics of interior space.
Keywords: Baudrillardian concepts, free-range interpretation, geopolitics, museum communication.
© Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет, 2018 138 https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu27.2018.201
1. Introduction
Four decades ago, the concept of signs as signifier and signified had been introduced by Jean Baudrillard in cultural theory as he applied the meaning of objects to interior space, antiquities, restoration of antiquities, advertising, and branding1. Based on these concepts, this paper examines the poetics and geopolitics of museum communication in accord with the 40th International Committee of Museology's annual symposium's theme of 2017, "The Poetics and Politics of Museology." Several museologists have already discussed the capitalist concept of the system of objects within the museum space, such as Clifford, while Dewdney, Dibosa, and Walsh briefly mention Baudrillard's idea of postmodernity and communication of the art museum2. A deeper understanding of the applications of Ba-udrillard's concept in museology four decades later is relevant. Cultural and geopolitical lenses are applied when exploring museum communication through the instrumentality of Jean Baudrillard's The System of Objects3. The case-study museums include Gemeentmu-seum Den Haag, The Field Museum, Chicago History Museum, and The Smithsonian Institution. Each sub-topic will discuss literature review of theories in relation to Baudrillard and the Poetics of Museum Communication, Baudrillardian Concepts and the Geopolitics of Museum Interpretation, and Baudrillardian Concepts and Non-Profit vs. Marketing in Museum Communication. This paper itself is an interpretation of the current exhibitions and marketing to analyze the museum through cultural and political lenses in identifying the poetics and geopolitics of museum communication.
2. Baudrillard and the Poetics of Museum Communication
With respect to Baudrillard's concept of collecting objects and the neo-cultural syndrome of restoration, museums are returning to the poetics and politics of storage-like display and pedagogical rationale as when museums were first founded4. Restoration is a part of the poetics of exhibition for the audience who are now inclusive in the behind-the-scenes functions of museums. The Gemeentemuseum Den Haag in The Hague, The Netherlands, has been a forerunner in the behind-the-scenes poetics of the art of restoration as exhibit space in 2008 showcasing the restoration of Piet Mondrian's paintings:
"As the team finishes off and begins packing up, onlookers on the other side of the glass screens are taking their own photos. This is the first time that the ICN [Netherlands Institute of Cultural Heritage] has been involved in a project in front of the public instead of in its labs, and is a consequence of the Dutch government mandate that Victory Boogie Woogie should never be away from the public eye. Being under the microscope is nothing new for MOLAB, whose 50 or so missions to date have been mostly in galleries and cathedrals" (figure 1)5.
MOLAB is a part of Eu-ARTECH or "Access, Research and Technology for the Conservation of the European Cultural Heritage," which is an interdisciplinary initiative in the form of a consortium; and reports that are available to the public online can be traced
1 Baudrillard, 1968.
2 Clifford, 1994; Dewdney, Dibosa, Walsh, 2013.
3 Baudrillard, 1968.
4 Ibid. P. 78.
5 Palmer, 2008. P. 39.
Fig. 1. Restoration "Exhibition" of Piet Mondrian's Boogie Woogie (Photo: Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, 2008)
back to 2004 at the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie in Besancon, France. Already in 1983, Peter van Mensch explored the vision of the "integrated museum" for natural history museums, also called the "tri-partite model," that includes the "storage, scientific collection (not open to the public)," "open storage, reference collection (open to public)," and "permanent exhibitions"6. This integrated approach is now realized by natural history museums, where the functions of how scientists do science in the conservation of nature is currently also a part of the poetics of public space, for instance the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice DNA Discovery Center at The Field. The laboratory serves as a place not only for the curators at the museum, but as a window for the public to see the practice of molecular biology as an open exhibit displaying international scientists in action. The Center has created a "Talk to the Scientist Hour" and hands-on media and displays of the collections and research, along with a residency program for high school students and teachers7. Applying the theories in agency with material culture, not only is the museum personnel the "significant" agents of poetics of museum space, but the museum visitors are also the agents interacting with that space8. Peter van Mensch consolidated exhibitions, education, and public relations as museum communication, one of the four functions of the museum, administration, preservation, research, and communication (APRC)9. According to Ivo Maroevic museum communication involves three factors, the physical human body, the social, and museum environment10. The poetics, deriving from the word and meaning of "poetry," of museum communication are shared through discourse expressing ideas and feelings (figure 2).
6 Van Mensch, 1983. P. 146.
7 Office of Collections and Research, 2012. P. 140.
8 Boast, 1997.
9 Van Mensch, 1985.
10 Maroevic, 1995.
Fig. 2. Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice DNA Discovery Center at The Field (Photo: Y. S. S. Chung, 2017)
In the past, Carl Akeley was considered to have revolutionized the art and science of taxidermy and exhibition of taxidermized animals11. In the 21st century, the poetics of his works are neither dehanced, defunct, nor completely renovated, which would in this day and age create more costs for museums. We can see the trends in anthropology museums becoming a creative technology with newer forms and juxtapositions of collections with multimedia in connection to older collections and newer renditions of works of art12. The trends can also now be seen in natural history museums. Akeley was not only a naturalist or taxidermist, he created bronze sculptures and was made a member of the American Sculpture Society13. In Brightest Africa, Akeley writes about how museums had been only interested in the scientific information of birds and mammals referring to the lead taxidermist at the time when he was learning under Professor Ward at the Natural Science Establishment. Akeley explicitly states, "The profession I had chosen as the most satisfying and stimulating to a man's soul turned out at that time to have very little science and no art at all."14 Nowadays, natural history museums are providing new approaches to the poetics of display in the midst of the early 20th-century politics of taxidermizing animals and birds as seen in the case of The Field Museum. The specimens are no longer solely interpreted in terms of scientific significance of genus and species or economic symbolism and status. The exhibition now incorporates interweaved looping atmospheric projections and animations on the walls with the sounds of the biomes near the cases created by the Exhibition and Media Department, digital labels featuring maps and videos using iPads, in an area called "Artists' Corner" displaying artists' works whose subject are birds in the updated Ronald and Christina Gidwitz Hall of Birds in 201215. This museum phenomenon in exhibiting can be associated to how Baudrillard notes collecting becomes a "prose of objects," which transforms "into poetry, into a triumphant unconscious discourse"16.
11 Akeley, 1927.
12 Thomas, 2016.
13 Akeley, 1920. P. 178.
14 Ibid. P. 4.
15 The Field Museum, 2012.
16 Baudrillard, 1968. P. 88.
Recent studies on the "theory and analysis of artistic creation" in the museum are mentioned in the introduction to the symposium for call for papers on Altshuler, Kar, and Lavine17. In relation to, again, collecting, Susan Pearce stresses that natural history specimens "create their own contexts which influence the meanings attributed to them"18. Thus, technology and the collection of artworks have been integrated to serve a better understanding of the birds by adding poetical renditions in the cases19. All three strategies, the original collections, technology, and artworks contribute to a poetical discourse of communication (figures 3, 4, 5).
Thomas remarks how ethnographic objects "that were once given meaning in a flow of life and ritual" are stripped of the practice and meaning once in museums:
"Many works in mainstream art museums — once situated in churches, in the country houses of aristocrats or in private or domestic settings — have been no less radically decontextualized, and hence speak of other and past lives, of 'then' as well as 'now', 'there' as well as 'here'. The doubleness of the artefact — which is equally a doubleness of the natural specimen, the pressed plant or fossil — is thus also the paradox of physical immediacy and nebulous identity"20.
There is also the concept of "The Museum as Method," an idea similar to that of Peter van Mensch who demonstrated the documentation of artifacts being layered and having relationships with other artifacts21. This theory is best explained by van Mensch, distinguishing the stages of the biography of artifacts into the conceptual, factual, and then the actual stage:
The first stage is the idea of the maker. This idea is related to the conceptual context of the maker (i.e. his or her culture). This is, in fact, the potential object. The other stages refer to the realized object. The factual stage refers to the object as it was intended by the maker, just after the production process had been completed. The set of data emerging as the sum total of these three levels constitutes the factual identity of the object. During its life history, the object changes. In general it could be said that is information content will grow, although quite often an erosion of information occurs too. The result of the accumulation on all levels constitutes the actual identity: the object as it appears to us now22.
Recently, the poetics of showing how objects have lives in connection with new owners and stages resulting in musealized objects is communicated in an exhibition at the Chicago History Museum. The Secret Lives of Objects (2015-2018) curated by John Rus-sick communicates how objects can be shown to "speak" as in "first person," an interpretive technique that brings the objects alive sharing their "autobiographical" experiences on who made them, how they were used, and why they ended up becoming a museum piece. As mentioned above, this theory was introduced as the processes of the museum object; in addition, in past ICOFOM Study Series the museum object as a document was exam-ined23. The museum object was never explained through the poetics of an exhibition as first-person interpreter. The telephone box becomes a museum piece and the centerpiece
17 Mairesse, 2016.
18 Pearce, 1992. P. 127.
19 The Field Museum, 2012. P. 2.
20 Thomas, 2016. P. 50.
21 Van Mensch, 1990. P. 77-78.
22 Ibid. P. 146-147.
23 Ibid; Maroevic, 1994.
Engaging new media
Fig. 3. Ronald and Christina Gidwitz Hall of Birds (Photo: The Field Museum, 11 July 2012)
Fig. 4. Ronald and Christina Gidwitz Hall of Birds (Photo: The Field Museum, 11 July 2012)
of a film by Manuel Cinema. Although the telephone box may have become redundant as a primary communication apparatus, it now serves a different function ex situ, acting as an educational, amusing, and artistic interpretive "communication" tool (figure 6).
By using technology and innovative methods of the poetics of interpretation, history museums can enhance the visitor experience. In the Annual Report, it explicitly states that "The Museum's vast collection of artifacts, documents, and images tells millions of stories, from sassy to somber, historic to heartfelt, ridiculous to sublime"24. The Garibay Group's study investigated the attracting power of artifacts, the length of time spent on
24 Chicago History Museum, 2015. P. 17.
Fig. 5. Artists' Corner" in the updated Ronald and Christina Gidwitz Hall of Birds in 2012 (Photo: Y. S. S. Chung, 2016)
Fig. 6. The Secret Lives of Objects, 2015-2018, Chicago History Museum (Photo: Y. S. S. Chung, 2016)
each artifact, engagement, objects and meaning-making, object characteristics, and ways families would like to interact with objects. A chart shows the study conducted on how characteristics of objects afford engagement, e.g., relationship to a real person; characteristics of objects impede engagement, e.g., archaic type; select opportunities based on characteristics, e.g., create a feeling of time; and select strategies to overcome impediments, e.g., highlight important parts of the document25. The object speaks in first person interpreting the production context, daily life context, and the collection context, and that those contexts are what contributes to the objects cultural content26. The audience can now understand, through the processes and identities of the museum object, the act as the first-person interpreter communicated through an exhibition.
3. Baudrillardian Concepts
and the Geopolitics of Museum Interpretation
Selected literature on the political and geopolitical nature of museology has been expressed through the discussions on nation-building and national identity, such as in
Museums and the Making of "Ourselves": The Role of Objects in National Identity, Exhibit-
25 Garibay Group, 2012. P. 14.
26 Pearce, 1992. P. 132.
ing Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, and The Politics of Museums.27 The author explored museum buildings as objects of contentional national narrative in "Object of Exhibit: Legitimizing the Building of the National Museum of Korea"28. Gray, in The Politics of Museums, argues that museums are not isolated from the international, national, and local forum concerning changes in public policies29. What Gray is trying to understand are the ideologies behind museums30. Using agency, he investigates the actors and agency of museums and the societal influences, external and internal31. A closer exploration into the themes of museum communication and how Baudrillardian theories can be understood to shed light on interpretive methods is conducted.
In regard to "Man the Interior Designer," Baudrillard does not see humans as consuming objects in the interior space; rather he views humans as dominating, controlling, and ordering them through "manipulation and tactical equilibration of a system"32. At the Chicago History Museum, Facing Freedom in America is an inclusive exhibit at the Chicago History Museum dealing with controversial themes in the history of defining freedom in the U. S. through conflicts: Public Protest, Armed Conflict, Workers' Rights, and Race and Citizenship. This exhibit presents the poetics of open-ended questions to the audience about conflicts and defining freedom in the U. S. Encased in contemporary designs, Facing Freedom in America is produced to clearly visualize the aforementioned topics communicated with keywords presented in large text. This is a museum example of what Baudrillard discusses is a break from "the whole poetic and metaphorical symbolic system that goes with it"33 as the outdated twin exhibitions of the late 1980s and 1990s figurations on We the People and The House Divided heavier in artifacts concentrating on revolutionary to re-construction in American history were displaced with a conceptual exhibit (figures 7, 8).
The Return of Curiosity: What Museums Are Good for in the 21st Century by Nicholas Thomas discusses the significance of museums and how they developed into, that which is actually the "story of a group or community, marginalized or not," and "its sustenance of civil society"34. Thomas' discussions correlate to the function of interpretation according to museum visitor studies, whether it still remains within the social capital, and in more recent studies by ICOFOM entitled Visiting the Visitor: An Enquiry Into the Visitor Business in Museums exploring dialogues, empowerment, and meaning making by visi-tors35. According to Peter Alter, the curator, Freedom in America's primary audience are middle school and high school students, the target audience being seventh and eighth graders who are studying World History36. The focus groups worked with the Chicago Public School District teachers and students asking the main question: "What would you want to know?" The groups mainly responded they did not want a sugar-coated exhibition like reading a textbook. Instead, they wanted a history that was real. The exhibition
27 Kaplan (ed.), 1994; Karp, Lavine (eds), 1991; Gray, 2015.
28 Chung, 2003.
29 Gray, 2015.
30 Ibid. P. 48.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid. P. 27.
33 Ibid. P. 28.
34 Thomas, 2016. P. 56.
35 Falk, Dierking, 2000; 2013; Hood, 1993; Bourdieu et. al., 1997; Davis, Smeds (eds), 2016.
36 Alter, 2017.
Fig. 7. Facing Freedom in America, Chicago History Museum (Photo: Y. S. S. Chung, 2016)
concentrates on eight different stories with no happy endings: drivers of U.S. history conflict over freedom, freedom to organize, labor union perspective, to live slavery, Japanese internment, self-determination, and Native American rights. In connection with the story of Wounded Knee and Dakota access pipeline 1973 confrontation with the government by the Native Americans, community partners also helped with content such as Standing Rock Indian Reservation. The Chicago Japanese-American Historical Society represents the interpretation of Japanese-American internment. Overall, a grant from the Pawnee Foundation made the exhibit possible. Different approaches are applied to each section of the exhibition, which is "not glued to the collection"37. There are also hands-on pillars where the audience can post a photo of themselves. Two programs produced with the exhibit are the website, Facing Freedom.org, and a middle school workshop in a classroom for 20-25 people. During the workshop, students choose from a box of artifacts and create labels in the form of what this paper formulates as free-range interpretation. The temporary display case is situated near the left-hand entrance, where students will see their artifacts (replicas) that they selected and label with props on display. Thus exhibits are no longer "deriving from the hereditary transmission of substances under the jurisdiction of form, the world is experienced as given"38. A history museum is demonstrating the freedom of the poetics of interpretation of visitors of free-range interpretation to pose open-ended questions and programs that invite students as actors to form their own conclusions through labelling of artifacts as agents in the overall exhibition. One of the earliest conferences and publications on "The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display," discussed the importance of "Ultimately poetic images in exhibits function to help us know and to explain ourselves and others," applying Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space39. As Baudrillard states and we witness through museum communication,
"Man is [or humans are] thus bound to the objects around him [or her] by the same visceral intimacy, mutatis mutandis, that binds him to the organs of his own body, and 'ownership' of the object always tends virtually towards the appropriation of its substance by oral annexation and 'assimilation'"40.
The system of objects by Baudrillard is now brought into the light of politics of the community and communicated with more poetic understanding rather than scientific/ systematic object-oriented display.
4. Baudrillardian Concepts and Non-Profit vs. Marketing
in Museum Communication
To examine the notion of the museum as paradox being a non-profit establishment but conducting income operations, marketing, and branding, Baudrillard's concepts will be applied as most publications on museum marketing address a practical framework. As early as 1983, G. D. Adams wrote Museum Public Relations, the closest marketing-related publication for museums41. Currently, the selection of literature goes beyond the nonprofit passive approach to marketing. For example, M. A. Wallace's Museum Branding:
37 Alter, 2017.
38 Baudrillard, 1968. P. 28.
39 Houlihan, 1991. P. 211.
40 Baudrillard, 1968. P. 29.
41 Adams, 1983.
How to Create and Maintain Image, Loyalty, and Support centers on branding in museums as: "Creating and maintaining a body of programs and attitudes that convey a clear promise, Encourage familiarity, Generate ongoing support"42. Through marketing and public relations, museums following the for-profit sector try to maintain their reputation and "influencing opinion and behavior," which is discussed by a number of authors, Runyard and French in Marketing and Public Relations Handbook for Museums, Galleries and Heritage Attractions, Fiona McLean's Marketing the Museum, and R. Rentschler's "Museum and Performing Arts Marketing: The Age of Discovery"43. There is evidence of an overall management discussion on museum ancillary functions, whereas today, they are critical to the main functions of the museum. These topics are discussed by Mansak and Schechter in Complete Guide to Foodservice in Cultural Institutions, The Keys to Success in Restaurants, Catering, & Special Events and Theobald's Museum Store Management44. Nonetheless, the context of these publications is written within the framework of practical management or museography.
In regard to advertising or promotional messages, Baudrillard explains in the "discourse on objects and discourse-as-object," the discourse is not separated from the object, however, he explains that the meaning is only a code in "the objects-cum-advertising system," that which is "complicitious and always opaque"45. Moreover, "the process of consumption," Baudrillard argues, comes from our demand for totality and sign-objects try to replace the reality that is absent in advertising46. What Baudrillard has to say about advertising is also relevant to museum advertising, marketing in general, and income generation operations. The museum functions are a paradox: there is research vs. communication, public access vs. community involvement, and then the non-profit concept vs. income generation. Many of the income operations that include merchandising or museum shops, restaurants, cafés, and kiosks will have to follow the non-profit purposes and goals: for educational purpose, returning the most in monetary to the museum, and to support the museum's marketing goals and objectives47. Income operations should also incorporate the museum's educational goals by limiting the product line to relevant merchandise48. Nowadays, shopping malls and airports have museum shop antennae. Like department stores, museums have mail-order catalogues, sell art works and copies, and branding is an important marketing concept for all museum functions. Mirroring the for-profit sector, museums, too, create "emotional attachment" associated with images accounting as "brand loyalty"49. On the other hand, Baudrillard, in the negative sense, states that branding is merely "more than a conditioned reflex of manipulated emotions"50. For example, in The Field Museum's newsletter, especially directed at the museum members, the branded article does produce an effect of emotions through poetic communication:
"Enter the world of Indian royalty when you visit our Maharaja exhibition store. Delight in the rich history of India through our selection of stunning jewelry, luxurious tex-
42 Wallace, 2006. P. 1.
43 Runyard, French, 1999. P. 147; McLean, 1997; Rentschler, 2002.
44 Mansak, Schechter, 2002; Theobald, 2000.
45 Baudrillard, 1968. P. 165, 197.
46 Ibid. P. 206.
47 Theobald, 2000. P. 10.
48 Ibid. P. 11-15.
49 Baudrillard, 1968. P. 192.
50 Ibid.
tiles, and amazing one-of-a-kind pieces, such as this hand-carved frame and painting. Explore Indian cuisine with an array of spices, cookbooks and kitchen accoutrements. Immerse yourself in the culture with our carefully chosen collection of books, music, and media"51.
To further examine marketing and branding through Baudrillardian concepts, scholars such as Fitchett and Saerin apply the sign value in museum consumption as traditional exchanges in marketing; however, they focus on theories by Heidegger calling it "Dasein Value," (in Hegelianism) existence or determinate being and (in existentialism) human existence52. They explain that there is no such thing as consumption of the museum experience; rather, it is the existence or presence of the museum building and collections as well as the immersive exhibits. Although they lead us to the value concept from Marx, Baudrillard, to Heidegger, there is a disconnection between the three concepts. Dasein Value is about being here and being there and in the museum, a socially constructed "shared value"53. The consumption value of the object as well as the discourse of the sign-use value is semiotic, and signifiers do not have to be "touched, owned, or exchanged"54. However, the critical issue now is that museums began to outsource for profit as Keith Schneider notes in "Adding Profits to the Gift Shop"55. Outsourcing has become the norm in museums as it is at The Field Museum partnering with one of the largest food service providers to cultural attractions and schools throughout the U.S., Aramark. SUE is also a popular logo that The Field Museum produced in the shops and the O'Hare International Airport, with marketing and programming that includes taking a photo with Santa and SUE, in conjunction with The Field Museum Official Online Store http://store.fieldmuseum.org/ and the branded gifts56. This critical element that requires further research is how do we critically assess the balance between outsourcing and maintaining the non-profit image of the museum without selling its very soul? A few methods that this paper suggests would be to closely examine the percentage of profit that generates revenue directly for museum management and the adherence to the museum mission statement with respect to the products and advertising. The latter method which is purely qualitative is assessing the "feeling" of visitors when entering the museum, museum shops, and online. Not to say that the effect of blockbuster types of marketing are going against all non-profit values, but the question that should be posed is how is the mission of the museum reflected in the branding that does not stress the greater importance of purchase items through "neon signs?" Thus the qualitative approach should also be conducted by the outsourcing company and within all aspects of museum communication (figure 9).
As a part of the poetics of branding, museums can view how they influence their audience through online exhibitions. Opening in 2013, The National Museum of American History's (NMAH) online exhibition FOOD: Transforming the American Table 19502000 introduces the diversity of the American table through subtopics on "One Big Table", "The Mexican Food Revolution", "Tortillas at the Supermarket", "Frozen Margaritas", and "Food for the People"57. Based on Paula Johnson's interview on the online exhibition and
51 The Field Museum, 2012. Back Cover.
52 Heidegger, 1962, cited in Fitchett, Saerin, 2011. P. 332.
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid.
55 Schneider, 2006.
56 The Field Museum, 2016. P. 23.
57 The Smithsonian, 2017.
Fig. 9. The Field Museum Bistro (Photo: Y. S. S. Chung, 2017)
the physical exhibition, they connect to have a "dialogue about food and the forces and factors that influenced how and what we eat"58. There are five million visitors who come annually to The Smithsonian Institution and millions online59. When the audience visits the physical exhibit, a subtopic called the "Open Table" is encountered which produces an open narrative effect of the poetics and geopolitics of America's changing experiences with food history and allowing the visitors to sit at a 22-foot-long table created at the
museum60.
"We envisioned visitors taking a seat, speaking with each other, and accessing content that would change on a regular basis — also an opportunity for us to keep the exhibition current. After debating ways of conveying content, we decided on four huge Lazy-Susanlike disks embedded in the table's surface to contain graphic content on topics that would expand the themes and stories in the exhibition"61.
Reflecting on strategies to sustain museum missions and to reach greater audiences as well as how to preserve exhibits in an online format, museums can also make the connection between the online exhibit format and the physical museum to draw more audiences. At the same time, the non-profit nature and marketing can be balanced applying a holistic approach to checking the status of the museum's core values using both qualitative and quantitative measures to assess the balance so that the conceptual value of non-profit does not become "versus" and have to compete with "marketing."
58 Johnson, 2017.
59 Ibid.
60 The Smithsonian, 2012.
61 Johnson, 2017. P. 11-12.
5. Conclusion
Baudrillard examined the interior space of "master[ing], manipulating], inventorying], control[ing]" objects62. Like domestic or commercial interior space, museums, too, produce their environment through the construction of geopolitical and poetics of communication. Natural history specimens are now more assimilated with artistic references in addition to the systematization and classification of specimens. Art museums are opening up the symbolic and physical spaces with more accessible collections and behind-the-scene functions, while history museums are addressing open approaches to producing history that is not sterilized but full of struggles, avoiding the subject of "big" wars, portraying the everyday notion of conflicts. The places of narratives that Baudrillard speaks of in interior space and objects are now experienced in new ways of communication, more access to collections for the public, restoration as exhibition, objects as first person, and the geopolitical interpretation of narratives on socio-political topics such as freedom and conflicts through free-range interpretation. As also noted in the recent meeting in Paris, France, in 2017, on "Defining the Twenty-first Century Museum" [Définir le musée du XXIe siècle Matériaux], Anna Leshchenko presented the museum as activist in the discursive space, which ties in with the concept offree-range interpretation63. Furthermore, this paper questions the notion of the income-generator museum, endeavoring to survive the forecast of funding in an unstable environment, at the same time, preserving the integrity of the non-profit ethical nature of museums, which can further be analyzed through quantitative and qualitative indicators.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to interviews and documents provided by Peter Alter, Curator of Facing Freedom in America exhibition and John Russick, Curator of The Secret Lives of Objects at the Chicago History Museum. At The Field Museum, my deep appreciation goes to Gretchen Rings, Reference & Interlibrary Loan Librarian Gantz Family Collections Center, Science & Education, Matt Matcuk, Exhibition Development Director, and Susan Golland, Exhibition Developer, for the helpful resources they have shared. I am grateful to Paula Johnson at The Smithsonian Institution for the personal communication and article.
References
Adams G. D. 1983. Museum Public Relations. Nashville, TN: The American Association for State and Local History.
Akeley C. E. 1927. Taxidermy and Sculpture: The Work of Carl E. Akeley in Field Museum of Natural History.
Chicago, IL: Field Museum of Natural History. Akeley C. E. 1920. In Brightest Africa. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Co. Baudrillard J. 1968. The System of Objects. London: Athlone Press. Boast R. 1997. A Small Company of Actors. Journal of Material Culture 2(2): 173-198. Chung Y. S. S. 2003. Object of Exhibit: Legitimizing the Building of the National Museum of Korea. International Journal of Heritage Studies 9(3): 229-242. Clifford J. 1994. Collecting Ourselves. In Interpreting Objects and Collections, Susan Pearce, ed., 258-268. London: Routledge.
62 Baudrillard, 1968. P. 29.
63 Leshchenko, 2017.
Davis A., Smeds K. (eds). 2016. Visiting the Visitor: An Enquiry Into the Visitor Business in Museums. Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript.
Dewdney A., Dibosa D., V. Walsh. 2013. The Post Critical Museology: Theory and Practice in the Art Museum. London and New York: Routledge.
Falk J. H., Dierking L. 2000. Learning from Museums: Visitor Experiences and Making of Meaning. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.
Fitchett J., Saren M. 2011. Baudrillard in the Museum: The Value of Daesin. Consumption Markets Culture 2(3): 311-335.
Hood M. G. 1993. After 70 years of audience research, what have we learned? Who comes to museums, who does not, and why? Visitor Studies: Theory, Research, and Practice 5, 16-27.
Houlihan P. T. 1991. "The Poetic Image and Native American Art". In Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, I. Karp, S. Lavine, eds, 205-211. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Johnson P. 2017. Growing Food History on a National Stage: A Case Study from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. In Food and Museums, N. Levent, I. D. Mihalache, eds, 113-129. London: Bloomsbury.
Kaplan F. (ed.). 1994. Museums and the Making of "Ourselves": The Role of Objects in National Identity. London: Leicester University Press.
Karp I., Lavine S. (eds). 1991. Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Leshchenko A. 2017. Musée-activiste : agrandissement du rôle des espaces discursifs des musées. Définir le musée du XXIe siècle Matériaux pour une discussion Dir. François Mairesse Comité éditorial: Julie Botte, Audrey Doyen, Olivia Guiragossian, Zahra Jahan Bakhsh, Lina Uzlyte, 238-241. Paris: ICOFOM.
Mairesse F. 2016. The Politics and Poetics of Museology: Call for Abstracts. Havana, Cuba: 40th Annual ICOFOM Symposium.
Mansak A. T., Schechter M. E. 2002. Complete Guide to Foodservice in Cultural Institutions, The Keys to Success in Restaurants, Catering, & Special Events. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Maroevic I. 1991. The Exhibition as Presentative Communication. ICOFOM Study Series 19: 73-80.
Maroevic I. 1994. The Museum Object as a Document. ICOFOM Study Series 23: 113-120.
McLean F. 1997. Marketing the Museum. London, New York: Routledge.
Palmer J. 2008. Behind the Scenes at the Museum. New Scientist, 39.
Rentschler R. 2002. Museum and Performing Arts Marketing: The Age of Discovery. The Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society 32(1): 7-14.
Runyard S., French Y. 1999. Marketing and Public Relations Handbook for Museums, Galleries and Heritage Attractions. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press and Stationery Office.
The Field Museum. 2012. Shop Like Royalty. In the Field: The Bulletin of the Field Museum of Natural History, 83(3), Back Cover.
The Field Museum. 2016. Rhonda Holy Bear and Chris Pappan. In the Field: The Bulletin of the Field Museum of Natural History. 87(3): 23.
Theobald, M. M. 2000. Museum Store Management. Second Edition. AltaMira Press / American Association for State & Local History.
Thomas, N. 2016. The Return of Curiosity: What Museums are Good For in the Twenty-first Century. Reaktion Books.
van Mensch P. 1996. Towards museums for a new century. In: Museums, Space and Power. ICOFOM Study Series 22: 15-18.
van Mensch P. 1983. Natural History Museums- New Directions. Reinwardt Studies in Museology 1: 55-63.
van Mensch P. 1985. Museological Relevance of Management Techniques, in P. van Mensch, ed., Management Needs of Museum Personnel. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of ICOM International Committee for the Training of Museum Personnel at Leiden, Sept. 24 — Oct. 2, 1984. Leiden: Reinwardt Studies in Museology 5, 9-15 in P. van Mensch ed. 1994). Theoretical Museology [textbook]. Amsterdam: Master's Degree Programme on Museology, Faculty of Museology, Reinwardt Academy.
van Mensch, P. 1990. Methodological Museology; Or, Towards a Theory of Museum Practice. In Objects of Knowledge S.Pearce ed., 141-157. London: The Athlone Press.
Wallace M. A. 2006. Museum Branding: How to Create and Maintain Image, Loyalty, and Support. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.
Received: May 20, 2018 Accepted: June 26, 2018
Author's information:
Yun Shun Susie Chung — PhD, Team Lead & Adjunct Faculty; [email protected]
Поэтика и геополитика общения и некоммерческой деятельности в сравнении с музейным маркетингом
Юнь Шун Сюзи Чунг Университет Южного Нью-Хэмпшира,
США, 03101, Нью-Хэмпшир, Манчестер, Южная торговая улица, 33
Для цитирования: Chung Yun Shun Susie. 2018. The Poetics and Geopolitics of Communication and Non-profit vs. Marketing in Museums. 2018. Вопросы музеологии, 9 (2), 138-153. https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu27.2018.201 (In English)
Научная новизна представленного материала заключается в свежем подходе к музейным концепциям Жана Бодрийяра. В статье производится анализ его воззрений на феномен некоммерческого музея в условиях глобализации и на музейные новшества начала XXI в. Проводится теоретический анализ современных экспозиционных практик и приемов музейного маркетинга. Деятельность по консервации и реставрации, прежде скрытая в лабораториях, ныне демонстрируется публике, становится составной частью выставки или экспозиции. Реставраторы и иные специалисты, ранее остававшиеся за кулисами, выступают их полноправными действующими лицами. Интеграция экспоната, звука и современных технологий наиболее применима в музеях современного искусства и антропологии, однако такой подход к музейной коммуникации может иметь место и в традиционных художественных и естественно-исторических музеях. В рамках тематической выставки контекстуальная идентичность музейных объектов — от замысла до создания, от изысканий в области провенанса до музеализации — раскрывается «от первого лица». Исследования показывают, что посетителей больше привлекают объекты, с которыми они могут взаимодействовать. Использование методов интерпретации от первого лица открывает новые возможности участия в музейной коммуникации, позволяет высказывать аргументы в пользу своих взглядов. Изучение приемов современного музейного маркетинга подтверждает гипотезу о том, что он наравне с выставочной деятельностью служит средством формирования геополитического и поэтического дискурса, связанного с бодрийяровскими концепциями поэтики внутреннего пространства.
Ключевые слова: концепции Бодрийяра, интерпретация свободного пространства, геополитика, музейная коммуникация.
Контактная информация:
Чунг Юнь Шун Сюзи — д-р филос. наук; [email protected]
