“Is she deaf?” “Can you talk?” “Do they pay you for doing that?” And my favorite, “15 1/2 33!”
This summer I did not vacation in an exotic locale–no trips to see the world’s largest ball of twine, the two-headed calf, or any wonders of this world. This summer I was at work in San Francisco. Along with the other office dwellers I chuckled at the shorts-wearing tourists as they froze in their brand new Alcatraz fleeces. As usual I marveled at the huge number of people talking on their cell phones while walking down the street, especially couples holding hands while each was gabbing to someone else on the phone.
This summer I had a lot of time to reflect on what creatures of habit we are. It doesn’t take long to develop a habit and once it’s there, the habit is hard to break. This includes the way we visit museums, and the interactions we expect to have there. And what happens when the interactions we expect don’t go the way we think they should. Does it make us think about the missed interaction? Do we think about the artist’s intent? Maybe.
For technologically savvy museum folks, interactions at a museum usually include some kind of computer application. What about interactions with the artwork which are consciously manual rather than technological? Or expected interactions that continue to be frustrated? How does that mirror daily life?
Ann Hamilton’s installation at SFMOMA, indigo blue, is about the daily grind. It’s a huge mound of 18,000 items of blue cotton work clothing—pants and shirts neatly folded, rising in an oceanic mound nearly to the gallery ceiling.
Every day a different volunteer or staff member sits at an old oak work table in front of the mound of clothing, erasing a book backwards for four hours straight. We attendants had a training session with the artist, where she serenely demonstrated erasing, erasing, erasing—making it look contemplative, soothing, even fun. Our instructions were detailed down to the way we could dress, wear our hair and jewelry, sit on the backless stool, and constantly moisten the eraser with our saliva, incorporating “the mark of the body” into the work. “The mark of the body” is a whole different topic—and it’s as different from what most of us do all day as anything could be.
Attendants must not engage the audience in any way, which frustrates and annoys members of the public. There is no sign saying “don’t feed/goad/bother the employee,” but eventually visitors figure it out. In other museums, a person in the gallery will tell you what you’re looking at or answer your questions about what you see. Many of us are not shy about talking with staff we find in museum galleries, and we expect them to talk to us.
I had no problem cheerfully ignoring the public, erasing, erasing—but it drove some of them nuts. “Are you the artist?” “What are you doing that for?” “What happens when you’re done with the book?” “Is that really a Pink Pearl?” It was a Pink Pearl—the erasers even had serial numbers on them. One man put his elbows on the table and leaned in, his face inches from mine, watching me erasing. People waved things in front of my face, stood and stared, made faces, or whispered quietly next to my ear. Thank goodness for security guards, who hovered discreetly, protecting the art—and me.
You wouldn’t believe how quickly the time goes. Faster than being at the movies or surfing the internet for shoes. Or reading the last Harry Potter again. It was infinitely satisfying to do something physical in front of an audience of strangers, eraser crumbs all over my clothes and in my mouth, neck and shoulders stiff and brain completely benumbed by the end of four hours.
It was about as far from a technology experience as you could get, but it reminded me why we work in museums. It’s the stuff, the art, the artist’s intent, the artist playing with the audience and our reactions to it. When we can’t interact physically, we try to enrich our audience’s experiences technologically. Often we do things virtually we couldn’t do physically, but there’s no substitute for the real in-your-face encounter with art. Maybe that’s the real message–upending expectations, but searching for balance at the same time.
Sure kids, play those video games, but be sure to get outside and climb a tree, too.
