10 min
3. Museum Authority in a World of User-Generated Content with Seb Chan Museum Archipelago
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- Places & Travel
As one of the nation's most-trusted category of institutions, museums project an enormous amount of authority over their subject matter. In this episode, Seb Chan, Director of Digital & Emerging Technologies at Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, talks about the ways that museums can share that authority with museum visitors comfortable with a less top-down approach to authority.
For discussions on how museum's got to amass so much authority, stay tuned to Museum Archipelago.
Museum Archipelago is a tiny show guiding you through the rocky landscape of museums. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, or even email to never miss an episode.
Unlock Club Archipelago 🏖️
If you like episodes like this one, you’ll love Club Archipelago. It offers exclusive access to Museum Archipelago extras. It’s also a great way to support the show directly.
Join the Club for just $2/month.
Your Club Archipelago membership includes:
Access to a private podcast that guides you further behind the scenes of museums. Hear interviews, observations, and reviews that don’t make it into the main show;
Archipelago at the Movies 🎟️, a bonus bad-movie podcast exclusively featuring movies that take place at museums;
Logo stickers, pins and other extras, mailed straight to your door;
A warm feeling knowing you’re supporting the podcast.
Transcript
Below is a transcript of Museum Archipelago episode 3. Museum Archipelago is produced for the ear, and only the audio of the episode is canonical. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, refer to the links above.
View Transcript
[Intro]
When we walk into a museum, we trust that the objects laid out across the table are done so with some expertise. Who gets to decide where those objects go? In a school, the teacher is the authority. In a household, the parent might be the authority. And sometimes the museum can lend the parent some authority.
Seb Chan: When I was working in a science museum, we would always talk about making sure that the labels had enough nuggets for the parents to feel smart.
This is Seb Chan, Director of Digital and Emerging Media at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.
Seb Chan: The kid would ask, "What is that, mom? What is that, dad?"
Seb Chan: And mom or dad would look at the label and they would need to be able to glean, in a second or two, two or three main points about that thing and one that would make them seem really smart to their kid.
That's delightful.
Seb Chan: And it was a tactic that you know you employ in museums because you're not designing it for the kid to read, you're designing it for the parent to read, and the parent needs to feel that they are smart in conveying this information to their child. They also need to feel that they can trust that.
Our topic today is museum authority, specifically museum authority in a world increasingly comfortable with user generated content. Our story begins in 1994 at the National Air and Space Museum. The museum plans and exhibit on the Enola Gay to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Critics of the planned exhibit, particularly U.S. Veterans Groups charge that the exhibit focused too much attention on the Japanese casualties inflicted by the atomic bomb rather than on the motivations of the bombing or the discussion of the bomb's role in ending the conflict with Japan. Who gets to decide? In the earlier age, this decision is simple, it's the authority of the state. The official reason for dropping the bomb was what would be reflected in the museum. In 1994, you had the debate over the moral and military reasons for dropping the bomb play out in the context of an exhibit that hadn't opened yet. The Smithsonian canceled the exhibit and the Director of the National Air and Space Museum resigned.
Seb Chan: I mean, the E
As one of the nation's most-trusted category of institutions, museums project an enormous amount of authority over their subject matter. In this episode, Seb Chan, Director of Digital & Emerging Technologies at Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, talks about the ways that museums can share that authority with museum visitors comfortable with a less top-down approach to authority.
For discussions on how museum's got to amass so much authority, stay tuned to Museum Archipelago.
Museum Archipelago is a tiny show guiding you through the rocky landscape of museums. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, or even email to never miss an episode.
Unlock Club Archipelago 🏖️
If you like episodes like this one, you’ll love Club Archipelago. It offers exclusive access to Museum Archipelago extras. It’s also a great way to support the show directly.
Join the Club for just $2/month.
Your Club Archipelago membership includes:
Access to a private podcast that guides you further behind the scenes of museums. Hear interviews, observations, and reviews that don’t make it into the main show;
Archipelago at the Movies 🎟️, a bonus bad-movie podcast exclusively featuring movies that take place at museums;
Logo stickers, pins and other extras, mailed straight to your door;
A warm feeling knowing you’re supporting the podcast.
Transcript
Below is a transcript of Museum Archipelago episode 3. Museum Archipelago is produced for the ear, and only the audio of the episode is canonical. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, refer to the links above.
View Transcript
[Intro]
When we walk into a museum, we trust that the objects laid out across the table are done so with some expertise. Who gets to decide where those objects go? In a school, the teacher is the authority. In a household, the parent might be the authority. And sometimes the museum can lend the parent some authority.
Seb Chan: When I was working in a science museum, we would always talk about making sure that the labels had enough nuggets for the parents to feel smart.
This is Seb Chan, Director of Digital and Emerging Media at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.
Seb Chan: The kid would ask, "What is that, mom? What is that, dad?"
Seb Chan: And mom or dad would look at the label and they would need to be able to glean, in a second or two, two or three main points about that thing and one that would make them seem really smart to their kid.
That's delightful.
Seb Chan: And it was a tactic that you know you employ in museums because you're not designing it for the kid to read, you're designing it for the parent to read, and the parent needs to feel that they are smart in conveying this information to their child. They also need to feel that they can trust that.
Our topic today is museum authority, specifically museum authority in a world increasingly comfortable with user generated content. Our story begins in 1994 at the National Air and Space Museum. The museum plans and exhibit on the Enola Gay to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Critics of the planned exhibit, particularly U.S. Veterans Groups charge that the exhibit focused too much attention on the Japanese casualties inflicted by the atomic bomb rather than on the motivations of the bombing or the discussion of the bomb's role in ending the conflict with Japan. Who gets to decide? In the earlier age, this decision is simple, it's the authority of the state. The official reason for dropping the bomb was what would be reflected in the museum. In 1994, you had the debate over the moral and military reasons for dropping the bomb play out in the context of an exhibit that hadn't opened yet. The Smithsonian canceled the exhibit and the Director of the National Air and Space Museum resigned.
Seb Chan: I mean, the E
10 min