This paper is concerned with the way information from museums on the World Wide Web can be used in art and design education. Museums can show us something new, be didactic and make us think, give us an enjoyable time or transport us into the realms of the imagination for (re)creation.(1)
In order to explore the potential of the expanding resource of museums on the web I will describe a project from the University of Brighton, UK, the aim of which has been to develop educational software for art and design history. The project began in 1992 and has included the development of the Virtual Curator software as an experimental authoring and presentation environment. Initially the metaphor of the museum was the inspiration for developing software which would enable the integration of multimedia technologies into the curriculum. Various experimental versions of the Virtual Curator software have been authored, each one adapting to changes in authoring environments, hardware, or as a response to feedback from users. Now, with the development of virtual museums on the Web there is an opportunity to evaluate the transferability and use of these resources through the use of the Virtual Curator, which sets out to 'deconstruct' the process of curatorship and to enable students to be authors rather than passive consumers. In doing so it is possible to engage in a critique of the potential usefulness of resources from virtual museums, from a users point of view, and thus achieve an assessment of the gains and the losses of moving into a virtual world.
This paper will therefore primarily describe the findings of an evaluation of the software which includes the use of Web resources. A second theme will be the way thinking about museums informed the development of the software. Finally, how the experience of using this software can inform our understanding of the virtual museum will be explored.
The Virtual Curator has been the result of a collaborative project within the former Rediffusion Simulation Research Centre, later known as the Centre for Computers and Creative Work, at the University of Brighton. Contributors were Suzette Worden, author of this paper, and Colin Beardon, with assistance from Tian Schellenberg. Students from the School of Historical and Critical Studies, at the University of Brighton, have contributed to evaluations at various stages of the project. A key evaluation phase, reported in this paper was, from September to December 1996. The Virtual Curator has also been evaluated as part of the HaMLET project (Multimedia Learning Environment for Theatre and film) which is part of the European Commission's Leonardo da Vinci programme and coordinated by the Theatre Academy of Finland Continuing Education Centre. (2) The Virtual Curator was a part of that project from December 1995 to November 1996. The HaMLET project is now primarily concerned with the further development of such principles in the context of theatre studies and will also embrace other instructional software for theatre and film directors and producers.
The Virtual Curator is a purpose built application which runs on Apple Macintosh computers. The name was chosen to signify the active, creative role to be played by the user. When using the Virtual Curator students work within the metaphor of curating an exhibition but they are not constrained by the physical setting, or limitations of rarity and preservation. In the virtual world, the fact that 'objects' can be endlessly reproduced and circulated without loss of quality is something to celebrate and use, rather than control with out-dated structures of intellectual and physical access. The power structures of the museum as institution need no longer be replicated.
The Virtual Curator allows a student to place images and text in a 'store' which has a plain blue background. These images are brought into the store using a 'load from file' function. These texts and images can be moved around on this background and links can be created between objects. Texts are represented by a white background within a black rectangle. Annexes may be created which are new screens. Each annexe is represented by a blue rectangle containing its name. (Illustration 1)
The exhibition has a foreground and a background. Images can be taken from the store and placed in the foreground and background. It is possible to manipulate the images placed in the foreground in various ways. Images can be pasted as either outline (lasso), transparent or opaque. They can be moved around, flipped, brought forward or sent backwards, made larger or smaller without loss of resolution. Text objects are pasted directly and appear in the same way as they are in the store but they can be moved around and sent backwards or brought forward. By clicking on the text while in the exhibition it is possible to see the text but not edit it. (Illustration 2)
The background consists of predefined 'intelligent' spaces. A two dimensional flat poster, a room setting and a stage. The poster can be white, light or dark grey or black and images may be pasted as a whole image or as a repeating pattern. The image can be changed and replaced. The room setting shows a facing walls, two side walls, floor and ceiling in perspective. These can individually be made black, white or grey or have an image pasted whole or in pattern on each individual wall. In the stage space the objects have their bottom edge associated with the floor. The images are like cardboard cut-outs and can be viewed from above and from different viewpoints from the front. The Virtual Curator will also be further adapted for the visualisation of stage design, as a new project and under a new name, within the HaMLET project.
The functions can be manipulated by pull-down menus, using the power key or in a limited number of cases by a short-cut (for example: to move an object click and drag object). (3)
Prototypes of the software were built in HyperCard and SuperCard. In 1993 development began on a version in MPW C for the Macintosh. The version,Virtual Curator 0.3, was used in the evaluation described below. The students were also primarily concerned with using the poster and room spaces as this was the natural extension of their main subject area of study. All the key functions described above were available. At the start of the evaluation further refinement was needed technically on the way projects were saved. In the evaluation version a project could be saved, where the save option saves a pointer to the file wherever it is on the computer currently being used or, alternatively, as a complete project in specific folder or on a floppy disk, which involved the duplication of all files. The evaluation version worked with PICT files; so downloaded images had to be converted. Further development is needed to extent the Virtual Curator to handle JPEG or GIF. A version is also available that saves the final project as HTML, for distribution on the Web. The students did not have time to explore this option but it is an exciting technical development. The way that the Virtual Curator saves pointers to files could also be adapted to point to URLs. The possibility of the Virtual Curator having the functionality to run within Netscape or other WWW browsers is imaginable and worthy of further consideration.
Before describing in detail the results of the recent evaluation to show how museums on the Web can be used as a resource, it is relevant to summarise the kind of issues which have been the inspiration for the Virtual Curator , or have arisen out of its development. (4)This includes:
The attraction of the museum as a metaphor was its capacity to create non-linear spaces which were seen as superior to other prevalent metaphors for multimedia such as the filing card or the book. (5) With the growth of the 'new museology' of the late 1980s and early 1990s this was especially topical. Although the new museology was concerned with the value of the material object, recognition that meanings were various, variable and fragile, opened the possibility of including a discussion of the 'immaterial' world of representations. (6) In this sense the theories of Malraux and Benjamin have been extended and are applicable to the world of interactivity and convergence beyond photography and film. The edge given to this argument by the new museology was that of including a discussion of power and agency.
Moving into a virtual world has created the possibility of challenging authority and deconstructing received standard forms of knowledge. The move towards opening the store has been discussed in recent approaches to the display of material artefacts but here it is extended in order to present a new experience. It is necessary to question the 'institution' as this also limits access to the means of communication. (7)The ideas behind the Virtual Curator therefore extends the ideas described by Eilean Hooper-Greenhill. In Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge she states:
Curators are invisible as professionals unless they so declare themselves by playing out a particular ritual that secures specific privileges such as being taken 'behind the scenes'(8) In the modern ageÉ.knowledge is structured through a three-dimensional, holistic experience which is defined through its relationship to peopleÉÉSubject positions are more closely related than in the past; former divisions are now bridged in a number of different ways. Where both the object and the curator are decentred, the visitor/client/customer has new opportunities. (9)
Another issue to be faced was that of the relationship of primary to secondary sources. In many discussions on the use of new media technologies in museums the object is seen as primary to the supporting contextual evidence which could be about materials and techniques, social, economic, political conditions etc. Often it is only these 'secondary' sources that are put into digital form. Such distinctions are no longer the same in the virtual museum although there may be distinctions to be made through the way we differentiate and prioritise image, text, sound or animation.
One initial source of inspiration for the Virtual Curator was the Geffrye museum in London. Here there is a series of rooms set out to show typical interiors from late medieval times to the 1950s. Each display is clearly 'framed' and there are curatorial notes stating that they are typical representations constructed from varying kinds of historical evidence. They can be an effective springboard for the discussions of the domestic environment, of a particular period or for making comparisons between decades or centuries. If, as an observer of these rooms, you consider how to 'imagine' or construct such a representation the immediate 'physical' problem is how, if there are not unlimited supplies of artefacts, to turn any available secondary sources into the objects within a room setting. For example, if carpets and wallpapers exist in the 19th and 20th century trade catalogues, which are also to be found in the Geffrye museum's collection, it would surely be an advantage to place these in the room setting. Although not possible in the physical museum this was the aim in the Virtual Curator, and in doing so, make something new happen.
When working on the Virtual Curator it soon became apparent that 3D space was problematic, both in terms of computing power and as representation. A solution was to explore the potential of making a poster and the use of collage. With these it was possible to achieve results with relatively simple means which were easy to read and understand. Additionally it was a means of breaking with the kind of visual illusion that seeks to overpower the viewer. Extending the ideas of Bertold Brecht - about distanciation (verfrumdung) - using collage was seen as a useful way of creating a visual language that itself 'illustrated' this critical viewpoint. This was closely allied to the use of collage for creating the visual equivalent of a narrative that is interrupted and broken, and that shows the 'constructed-ness' of an exhibition. (10)
This a report of work in progress so part of its 'design' includes the feedback from the evaluation described below. This version was used for the evaluation. Developing the Virtual Curator was a collaboration between people with different skills and was informed by debates about work orientated design developed in Scandinavia. (11)The system was built with the aim of speaking the professional language of the intended users. However this was extended to make sure that the system reflected the need to question assumptions and critically interrogate the notion of 'correct' practice. The computer was seen as a social tool. A comment from Edward Barrett describes this notion:
Instead of attempting to define a hypothetical model of the human mind which we would personify in the computer, we defined the actions that took place when that mind was engaged in a process of creating , analysing and sharing texts. (12)
One of the initial aims underpinning the project was to investigate the kind of issues being highlighted by debates about the postmodern and the idea that to use technology and its underlying structures was part of the very essence of postmodernity. (13)
Another aspect of theory informing the development is the debt to constructivist theories of education. Although these may be qualified by the kind of observations put forward by Diane Laurillard. She argues that:
Academic knowledge is not like other kinds of everyday knowledge. Teaching is essentially a rhetorical activity, seeking to persuade students to change the way they experience the world. It has to create the environment that will enable students to learn the descriptions of the world devised by others. (14)
Another premise was that theory and practice inform each other; the following sections of this paper will examine the Virtual Curator in order to interrogate theory.
The Virtual Curator was used with a group of ten second year BA (Hons) students studying on either a History of Design or a Visual Cultures degree. The majority of the group had experience of using computers for word processing or accessing library catalogues. But for most of them there was a steep learning curve as acquisition of new skills in scanning, manipulating and adapting images was essential. Several students had not previously used the Web. The course ran over ten weeks with a weekly three hour morning session for hands-on computer work and supporting tutorial about content. The students also had some additional access to computers during the rest of the week. Selected reading were suggested for exploring the issues surrounding the role of museums, digital imaging, hypertext and the implications of interface design. Guidance for further reading was also available and attendance at the CHArt Annual conference was suggested. (15) In weeks nine and ten the students had to give a presentation on their work to the rest of the group. In January 1997, at the start of the following term, they submitted a finished exhibition and their personal assessment of the software.
With initial demonstrations and supporting documentation it was possible, but not necessarily easy, to enable the students to acquire sufficient skills in image manipulation. They needed to know how to clean up images in Photoshop, as the preferred format was for an image of an object with a plain background. If images were downloaded from the Web, with Virtual Curator 0.3, they needed to be saved as PICT instead of JPEG or GIF. Although labour intensive, this was an excellent, contextualised, way of learning about digital images. Several students said that they felt more confident when viewing exhibitions of digital prints or looking at computer graphics and that they now had a starting point for investigating and understanding the role of new technologies - even if their starting point was that they knew the 'jargon'.
After two weeks, which included a session using the Virtual Curator , the students made the following comments:
"not sure what you can us it for"
"good ... has potential"
"easy to use, but is that it?"
"it will get more interesting when it has content, it needs more in the store"
"I want to 'walk' around the exhibition room and even study one wall in depth"
"I would like to manipulate fonts, text and images within the virtual curator software"
"I would like to include animation"
At the lowest level the Virtual Curator inspired a shopping list for greater functionality! It also acted as a catalyst for discussing of the issues surrounding the use of virtual worlds. In the store, what do you have to manipulate, control and organise? What is the relationship between image and text? Will a link do? How do you 'write' for the Virtual Curator ? (16) How do you categorise and classify information? After discussing these issues and the possible distinctions to be made between the function of the store and the exhibition space, there were requests for greater clarity between the function of 'authoring' and of 'reading' a finished exhibition. In this version it was only possible to enter the application through the store. A useful suggestion, therefore, was that when an exhibition was finished the application could be set to open up with the exhibition on the screen. The viewer was not shut out of the store but could only enter it by invitation - after going in the front door. The liberating aspect of the Virtual Curator was the opening of the store. The fact that the user could continue to add and manipulate image and text made some students very unhappy; they did not like the reader changing 'their' statement. There was also a request for multiple rooms and posters, so that a time-line could be implemented or that several spaces could each tell different stories. In some ways this was a request to have a similar structure in the exhibition as in the store - to have the equivalent of annexes for the posters, rooms and stage in the exhibition.
Members of the group chose the following subjects: Scandinavian Design, Gaudi, Monty Python, Japanese Prints, the Guggenheim Museum, Alice in Wonderland, Cartoons, Caricature and Modern British Art and Sculpture. These titles reflected interests they were developing in other parts of their course work. In some instances material from the Web was forthcoming. If not, then original work or photographic images had to be scanned. Generally it was difficult to find images on the Web which were of a quality suitable for transferring into this authoring environment. Understandably this is because authors produce images for speed of transfer and often deliberately present material in such a way so that it cannot be used in another context. Even so, the Virtual Curator was not very demanding. The maximum height of image needed was only 10cms. at 72dpi, which gave an image size of under 150k, and most often as low as 25 to 50k. The promise of the technology which does allow transference and manipulation is still controlled.
The group grasped the fundamentals very quickly. The exhibitions the students produced after ten weeks are the most important testimony to the value of the Virtual Curator . Second to this are their own evaluations. An on-line manual, in addition to the available paper version, was requested. Most students found it easier to imagine uses of the exhibition space rather than ways of using for the store. However one or two students spent more time arranging and categorising the store. One student suggested how the use of links, a key feature of the store, might be improved:
"Links can be made between any object in the store, all this facility does is make a visible link between objects in the form of a black line with a small circle in the middle. However, I feel that if this is all the function was used for it would loose its utility value. To combat this I would suggest 'real' links can be made, for instance, by linking two images with a text file, and then explaining the link within that text file. Using this function to make links between images that appear in the exhibition and those that may not - part of the rationale behind allowing the visitor of an exhibition to visit the store - through text files greatly utilises the possibilities of this function".
There may be more to explore in terms of the potential of the Virtual Curator to support differing methods of learning and working with digital material. Educational theorists have distinguished between top-down approaches and the approach of the bricoleur. (17) Phenomenographists have noted that there are two contrasting approaches to the studying of texts: the 'deep approach' where the student looks for meaning in a holistic way, and the 'surface approach' where the student focusses on key words and processes the text in a atomistic way. (18)The Virtual Curator did, to some extent, favour the bricoleur. Research in this area tends to look at the way students gather knowledge from the technology rather than the way they use it as an authoring tool or as the focus for other kinds of discussion.
The students made remarks on their capacity to cope with the technology. The creator of an exhibition on Monty Python asked:
"Is this satisfactory work, and if it does have limitations and faults, is this through my own personal reasons, or more mechanical ones such as the software and hardware I used?"
"I would liked to have had more images within the main exhibition room but space was not available. Although I could also blame this to a mechanical fault with the Virtual Curator , (i.e. not being able to have more than one exhibition room), in a real physical gallery a proper curator is faced with the fact of limited space, and making optimum use of the space that is available to him or herself."
"I found the Virtual Curator on face value a very easy package to use. It was very user friendly, point and click, and with menu bars. After orientating myself with it for a morning it almost seemed a bit limited and crude (sorry for being a bit rude) compared to what I have seen computers doingrecently - amazing walk through virtual reality programs, etc. But as a basis to plan and create a simple exhibition it seemed manageable." (Illustrations 3&4)
There were several requests for an emulation of the 'space' and experience of gallery visiting, such as:
"A gallery with wooden floorboards, white walls, doors to walk from room to room, sculpture on plinths and paintings on walls."
"It would provide a more realistic experience if the museum visitor were able to move forward through the rooms and displays as if on a tour. The visitor could make choices about which collections to view and which to skip as in a real museum visit." (Illustrations 5, 6, 7 & 8)
At least four students requested a similar facility. For example two student mentioned wanting the observer to have an experience that included selecting walls and then zooming in on the 'pictures' for further examination, especially as they knew this was possible from their experience of other software.
"This would further enhance the realism of the experience and provide the visitor with an exciting, and at the same time, high quality educational experience more akin to computer gaming than a conventional computer experience."
Another student had a similar idea:
"The computer game Doom is a 3D, virtual and interactive software package. I have it on good authority that the guns and bad guys could easily be replaced by painting and sculpture. Doors can be opened and new rooms entered and the viewer could turn a full 360 degrees - if this is totally necessary."
But after using the Virtual Curator these expectations began to change. One student who chose the subject of Scandinavian Design and Style described how far she was aware of the need to experiment. Her eventual success was due to being open-minded.
"I found that the available space and room configuration was too small to do justice to the range of objects I had chosen. The next problem concerned the sizing and scale of the objects in relation to each other. My initial belief was that in order to preserve true perspective it would prove crucial for the objects to appear to reduce in size with increasing distance from the viewer. In the event although it proved impossible to modify the size of objects to show 'correct' scale and perspective the result was nevertheless pleasing." (Illustration 2)
A student whose aim was to stage and exhibition on the way different illustrators have interpreted the Lewis Carroll story of Alice in Wonderland found it necessary to think about scale as an aspect of content, to be explored and depicted.
"In this case the images had to summarise the feeling and atmosphere of the story, utilised as a means to create the fantasy world that Lewis Carroll describes. The role of text and illustration were therefore reversed. It was necessary to abandon the scale on which the original vignettes were produced and enlarge them to cover walls and make the characters life size, for effect. The Virtual Curator allowed me to do this. To experiment with scale and placement, each time portraying a realistic view of what the exhibition would look like if assembled in a gallery."
"I hoped as Carroll did that the visitor would identify with Alice and her sudden physical changes and unusual meetings."
The group had to cope with some unreliability in the program - and they did complain. But as they were using it for the final gathering together of information, loss of data was kept to a minimum and could be easily remembered and reconstructed. What was lost was precious time. Another case of computers creating work rather than saving time. Also preparation of images in Photoshop was time consuming. You either have to accept the limitations of 'found' material or spend a lot of time adapting images; manipulation offers a theoretical promise that is actually very limited. One student circumvented this problem:
"The first attempt at scanning resulted in the production of very poor images for the store. I had attempted to scan object straight from the printed page but this had resulted in unacceptable line definition and a different approach was required. The photographs of the objects in the books were then colour photocopied and carefully cut-out for re-scanning. The result was to solve the line problem but introduced a new one of image degradation. It was thus necessary to subject the scanned images to further manipulation including changing the colour, fixing the borders and sharpening the images."
At least three students criticised the lack of text fonts available in the package. Frequent use of work-processing has set a high level of expectation in typographic provision.
"The lack of text fonts on a software package whose usage considers aesthetic as well as practical concerns is detrimental to its effectiveness."
Knowing the practical problems was a good place to start looking at the wider implications of the new delivery mechanisms. Students have to understand and use material structured in hypertext that are non-linear, with images in formats that need careful interpretation as scale texture, and spatial relationships can be manipulated and may have new kinds of possible reference points. For example, the Virtual Curator examines the idea that space is constructed: perspective and modelling is therefore not the only solution.
As Anthony Giddens had noted:
Human agents or actors have as an inherent aspect of what they do, the capacity to understand what they do while they do it. (19)
The Virtual Curator provided a context for experiencing the skills of digital picture-making. Yet this was not restricted to learning the skills. One claim for educational technology to be successful is that it must not occur in isolation from other aspects of the course. (20) In this sense the Virtual Curator was embedded, even if the use of technology itself made it a novel experience. In some respects using technology within teaching immediately creates critical distance in so far as it highlights and makes visible the strategies and methods for teaching and learning that we are using in parallel or leaving behind. The technology can, as using the Virtual Curator shows, make us question traditional means of presentation.
Landow has noted that hypertext is helpful because
Critical thinking relies upon relating many things to one another. Since the essence of hypertext lies in its making connections, it provides an efficient means of accustoming students to making connections among materials they encounter. A major component of critical thinking consists in the habit of seeking the way various causes impinge upon a single phenomenon or event and then evaluating their relative importance, and hypertext encourages this habit. (21)
Earlier in the discussion of theory and practice it was noted that learning the "descriptions of the world" was important - the second-order character of academic learning. Laurillard has suggested this means creating:
artificial environments which afford the learning of 'precepts', i.e. descriptions of the worldÉ.thus teaching is a rhetorical activity: it is mediated learning, allowing students to acquire knowledge of someone else's way of experiencing the world. (22)
By using the metaphor of the museum the Virtual Curator provides this kind of activity. What is interesting in here is the contrast between the initial use of the museum metaphor as a means of creating distance and the students bringing values associated with the technology - the means of delivery - which are those most easily associated with the realm of thepopu lar. Does this matter? Further discussion of the most recent changes of emphasis in the museum world would suggest that this is an accurate "way of experiencing the world". Museums are themselves becoming more popular in their means of displaying goods and opening their stores to the world. (23)
So, how do we cope with the merging of contexts, where entertainment and education merge, in 'edutainment', where authors and readers assume changing, reversing and merging relationships? When discussing the changing nature of museums, Susan Pearce has argued that there is a place for metaphorical activity within a world of critical argument. (24) In aiming to do this the Virtual Curator emphasises the added value that curatorship gives to collecting, namely the value of interpretation. What the Virtual Curator also suggests is that this must be a 'located' experience -from somewhere - of not being spoken for or gazed at. It emphasises the role of the empowered subject, not the object of study. (25)
Deconstructing the workings of the museum provides a critical frame. The Virtual Curator project is therefore a testing of recent museological interrogations. By reporting the reactions of a student group one aim was to test the value of using collage, rather than realistic 3D spaces, as an attempt to give a critical distance within the aesthetics of the exhibition space. The advantage of collage is its reference to both the commercial and 'high art', to modern and postmodern. By taking this as a departure it has been possible to see a future for 're-reading' within the dilemma of postmodernism where reality and hyperreality are deemed to be indistinguishable. While acknowledging the critical analysis of those who speak of making 'a space and life in the hell of images' (26) there is the need to claim spaces for critical activity where treatment of the communications is meaningful and important. (27)
Dale Spender states that we are the only generation which will know both mediums, of electronic and print, and be able to evaluate and transfer our experience from the old forms to the new. (28) The debate can therefore be about adapting the museum, through an understanding of why it exists.
In using the Virtual Curator it has been possible to test a few of the issues surrounding the connections between museum and Web technologies. Larry Friedlander has suggested, when looking at presenting information on the theatre, that interactive systems offer new spaces: a space for work, a space of penetration and a space of community. (29) This discussion has concentrated on the space of work: space of penetration and of community are neither validated or rejected. The Virtual Curator could be a kiosk installation in the museum gallery and a further development has been to make the results of a project authored in the Virtual Curator accessible on the Web. To create a virtual community that examines and presents multiple viewpoints on historical heritage and situates ideas and objects in a cultural context is to take advantage of new possibilities; one in which the Virtual Curator , on the basis of the underlying theory attempts to interrogate and open up within an educational context. These ideas are exciting and stimulating; discovering new ways of presenting knowledge should be critical journey. As the technology encourages us to focus on process, let us enjoy the journey accompanied by the muses who are no longer the only regarded as the inspirers of learning and the arts but are also authors. (30)
With thanks to Colin Beardon,Trish Cashen and the students who collaborated in the evaluation: Mark Collins, Victoria Herman, Susannah Johnson, Desmond Oakes, Mareti Stappard, Katie Taylor, Marco Walker, Rebecca Walshe, Penny Whitehouse and Helen Charlton.
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