Making the cut: museums and media archaeology

Henning, Michelle ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3798-7227 (2017) Making the cut: museums and media archaeology. In: Shifting Layers. New Perspectives in Media Archaeology Across Digital Media and Audiovisual Arts. Mimesis International. ISBN 9788869770258

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Abstract

What can media archaeology offer to the study of museums or, alternatively, what can museums contribute to an understanding of media archaeology? These may seem odd questions since museums are not, strictly, media. However, this does not necessarily put museums outside the remit of a media-archaeological approach. Changes in museum practice echo changes in media functions and technologies as first photography and film, then video and digital data storage remediate the museum. This chapter proposes that media archaeology can help us think about how museums construct the material objects that they contain, and that conversely, thinking about how museums construct their objects can facilitate a different kind of engagement with media archaeology. In particular, I am interested here in the museum’s transformation of objects into documents. As I will argue, the transformation of the object into document occurs through an act of detachment or “cutting”, through techniques of display and through a training of the senses and the body of the visitor.

Item Type: Book Section
Keywords: museums, media, media archaeology, Foucault
Subjects: Arts > Gallery and museum
Media
Media > New media and new media theory
Arts
Depositing User: Michelle Henning
Date Deposited: 06 Jul 2017 12:49
Last Modified: 28 Aug 2021 07:23
URI: https://repository.uwl.ac.uk/id/eprint/3583

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