Looking Inside a Museum

Each person that goes inside a museum will look at the collects in a different fashion. I believe that the greatest influence on how we perceive collections in a museum is how they are presented. The presentation affects the way that each person will look at objects. For instance, putting something in a glass case that is in the middle of a room and having lights shining on it, will obtain the focus of the viewer more so than an object that is poorly lit and put in a corner of a room. If all of the exhibits were in the same condition with no variation on light or placement in a room, then it would be truly up to the viewer to decide what they like the most. Because of the people that create the exhibits there will always be a bias towards what they believe is the most important to show off or present. This bias will change how a person will see inside a museum.
When I enter a museum I honestly try to take in account all of the factors that are influencing me to look at one thing or another and attempt to look past these obstacles for viewing. For instance when I went to the Conner Museum last Thursday, one of the first objects that I noticed was a Kangaroo. This Kangaroo was one of the largest objects in the room and clearly visible, it drew my attention right away. I believed this to be my favorite thing until I looked around a little bit closer to see that in the corner that there was a Mexican bird collection and that some of the birds had greater detail and more information. This collection was far more fascinating than the kangaroo that I had looked at. I then realized that because of an objects placement I had tended to focus on it more and was oblivious to my surroundings until I forced myself to look around more. This goes to show that the placement of a collection can have a profound effect on the viewer.

Spiral Jetty of the Great Salt Lake

One of the great questions about museums is, what does it take to be one? Most people have a view that a museum is an entity that is completely controlled by man and is made up of exhibits and collections. If this is the definition of a museum, could a museum exist in nature? I believe that a museum can not exist in nature, a museum is a something that is built by man and shows objects at one period in time. Nature is constantly changing which is the opposite of the main objective of a museum. This leads me into the Spiral Jetty in the Great Salt Lake; even though it is a piece of art that is making a statement about the relationship of the environment and art, it is not a piece of art in a museum. It is a long stretch to consider the Great Salt Lake a museum and the Spiral Jetty an exhibit. As I had said previously one of the key ideas of a museum is to preserve its collections so that they can not change, the Great Salt Lake cannot be a museum because the Spiral Jetty is constantly undergoing changes caused by the forces of nature. The Spiral Jetty was not even visible for many years because the water had risen in the lake. I believe that the creator of the Spiral Jetty would have not called the lake a museum, he said that “Nature does not proceed in a straight line” and also “Nature is never finished” which leads me to believe that he thought that his art work would not remain in the condition that he finished with. He knew that nature would have its way with it and later what he had done. His piece was to keep changing as time goes on which is opposite to the nature of a museum.