MUSEUM COMMUNICATION IN THE CONDITIONS OF DIGITALIZATION

The purpose of the article is to investigate the process of qualitative transformation of museum communication at the present stage, which takes place under the influence of digitalization factors. The methodology of the research consists of the application of analytical, system-functional, and culturological methods to identify features of technical and technological influence on changing the ways of museum representation in modern conditions and practical implementation of new forms of museum work mediated by new technological communications. The scientific novelty of the article is expanding and summarizing information on the updating of museums of communication strategies developed in connection with the gradual introduction of digital technologies in museums, and means as well as channels of communication designed to diversify forms of museum activities. Conclusions. As a result of the study, it was found that information and computer technologies occupy an important role within the formation of modern museum space, which can give new representativeness to the museum object and build multifaceted communication with visitors. Museum communication is increasingly mediated by digital technologies and means of communication, which directly affect both the way the museum is represented and the aspects of communicating with visitors, the positioning of museums in terms of the information space. In modern conditions, the visual communication of the museum communication occupies a significant place, which determines both the representation of the museum collection in digital format and the special communication channel that forms the field of museum semantics in the virtual information space. There is no doubt about the role of digital technologies in the process of musealization, which helps to choose the best ways to adapt the necessary objects for museum presentation. Keywords: museum communication, museums, exposition, information space, visual communication, virtual museum space, musealization.

Museum representation of coevolutionary metamorphosis of the environment and behavior

The museum serves as an effective tool for learning and evaluating the latest signs of valorization of natural objects and environmental and social phenomena. Unlike departments and institutes specialized in biological disciplines, the museum has a wide range of cognitive competencies for the public. Social isolation, active transition to remote methods of communication, as well as psychological tensions make clear the socio-natural problems that existed before the pandemic. Along with a clear differentiation of methods of behaviorism and ethology, their nomenclature additions, it is necessary to use important manifestations of the integration of these areas of psychology. To solve this methodological problem by force only by methods of museological interpretations. The paradigm of coevolution provides an opportunity to operate with the concept of evolutionary process in relation to heterogeneous socio-biotic systems. In the Carpathian region, the sociological strategy should integrate the positive aspects of fragmentation. Models of such coevolutionary integration are various complexes – from indigenous soil-detrital complexes of substrates and reducers to coenopopulations of species. It is the soil profiles of succession series that reflect the history of coevolution of secondary ecosystems and act as reliable benchmarks in the diagnosis of probable changes. Behavioral principles of behavioral ecology should become a normative element in the knowledge of coevolutionary changes, and the museum serves as a universal center of analysis and forecast of further coevolutionary development of human-nature relations.

Swings and roundabouts: pluralism and the politics of change in Canada’s national museums

If you are standing on the shores of the Ottawa River looking at the Canadian Museum of History, the national library and archives and other national repositories of Aboriginal heritage, you might well despair at the comprehensive losses of curatorial expertise, programs of research, and will to work collaboratively with Aboriginal people which befell these institutions under the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Looking harder, however, neither the shifting political ideologies nor the era of financial constraint that began with the global financial crisis of 2008 seems to have thrown processes of decolonisation and pluralist representation that began to take root in Canada during the 1990s into reverse. Two exhibition projects that unfolded during that same period provide evidence of that the changes in historical consciousness of settler-indigenous relationships and the acceptance of cultural pluralism have provided a counterweight to the intentions of a right wing government to restore old historical narratives. This chapter discusses them as evidence of this deep and, seemingly, irreversible shift in Canadian public’s expectation s of museum representation. The first involves plans for the new exhibition of Canadian history being developed for the 150th anniversary of Canadian confederation in 2017, specifically a fishing boat named the Nisga’a Girl which was presented by a west coast First Nation to mark the successful resolution of its land claim. The second is the Sakahan exhibition of global indigenous art shown in 2013 at the National Gallery of Canada and which marked a notable departure from its past scope. While utopia has by no means been achieved, neither, surprisingly, was dystopia realised during the years of conservative reaction.

Heritage as theatre: Reconceptualizing heritage-making in urban China

Since China’s signing of UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention in 1985, cultural heritage in China has become a booming industry and a key area of scholarly investigation. The mainstream literature on China’s heritage and urbanization tends to view heritage as a civilizing agent to regulate and improve the urban population. Drawing on Clifford Geertz’s notion of ‘theatre state’ and through a case study of Jiangmen, this article reconceptualizes China’s urban heritage industry as ‘theatre’. It shifts the focus away from neat political rationalities to messy ‘magical assemblages’, such as dramatic museum representation, monumental architecture and expressive ceremonies, in state-led heritage-making processes. It argues that the Chinese government makes heritage by using not only the means of political rationalities but also, and perhaps more importantly, the power of spectacle, sensation and awe. China’s heritage industry is thus as much ‘a technique of enchantment’ as ‘a technique of government’, revealing complicated processes of China’s negotiation with the Western-centred conceptualization of modernity and cultural heritage. Additionally, it draws attention to diasporic resources in urban heritage-making, broadening the existing research that has predominantly focused on the employment of nostalgic and/or exotic appeal for city branding and development.

Public awareness and safeguarding traditional knowledge: challenges and conflicts in preserving and representing kārīz/kănérjĭng in Xinjiang, PR China

Strategies of stimulating public awareness and implementing measures to safeguard traditional knowledge of the water management techniques generally known under the terms qanāt or kārīz involve paths of imbedding the technique into the history of a given society. The present study approaches such strategies in the case of the underground water networks in the arid regions in Xinjiang, North Western China, known there under the terms kārīz or kănérjĭng. There is an on-going debate concerning the beginnings of the construction of kārīz in Xinjiang. A recent revival of this technique started with a movement of kārīz (re)construction in the 1950s–1960s. In recent decades the kārīz/kănérjĭng water network has suffered due to the expansion of deep well drilling. At the same time the issue has become an object of museum representation. The first museum, Turfan Kariz Paradise, opened its gates in 1992; the Karez Folk Custom Garden, with a more pronounced event and commercial character, was inaugurated in 2000. Both exhibitions are near Turfan. They both demonstrate the traditional construction and maintenance techniques, and stress the strong linkage between local society and the specific traditional water technology. This paper argues that preserving the kārīz/kănérjĭng in the area of Turfan has become a delicate instrument in the political balance involving local authorities, the provincial government in Urumuqi and the central government in Beijing.

Using Different Pasts in a Similar Way: Museum Representations of National History in Norway and China

This article explores how national histories are constructed in the museums of Norway. It does so through a comparative perspective, whereby museum displays of national past in Norway are being compared to museum displays of national past in the People’s Republic of China. This will involve comparing narratives, museological approaches, rationale and purposes of museum displays in the two countries. Fieldwork research in museums in Norway and China suggests that if national pasts are obviously unique to the historical trajectories of each country, their museum renditions are structured in an intriguingly similar way. Museum displays of national pasts in Norway develop around a set of themes including myths of ancestry and descent; epics of resistance leading the embryonic nation through a dark era and towards a “Golden Age”; a core of moral and aesthetic values; notions of national modernity; and selective amnesia. I will show how similar topics can be found in museum displays of the past in Chinese museums. The comparative perspective of the analysis enables me to assess the uniqueness of museum representations of the past in Norway and at the same time to explore analogies in the museum construction of national narratives beyond the European context, through the case study of China. This will lead me to put forward the hypothesis of the coagulation, at international level, of a canon for the museum representation of national history.