Technikatörténeti szemle 22. (1996)

TANULMÁNYOK - MacLeod, Roy: Modern Times and the Sciene Museum: Museum Knowledge and its Management

There is no reason, of course, why we should fear science museums trying to be sources of entertainment. It is true that few museum curators are bred in the entertainment industry, but why should we find movements between these sectors embarrassing or subversive? Certainly, for the professional curator, having to make one set of justifications to a paymaster parliament, and another to a certificating profession does not make matters easier. While museums may be bounded by their objects, they cannot be fettered by them. The Australian Museum, for example, by juxtaposing department store mannequins next to human skeletons drawn from anatomical cupboards, has made powerful statements about evolution, at once appealing, entertaining and provocative. Such statements and style may draw fire from conservative cousins. But they take information and debate outside the museum, and into the mainstream of public life. If we are going for anything more than Disneyland indicators of entry fees and concession sales, then we must learn from the "theatre", and learn how such statements and styles shape visitors attitudes and experience. I offer the word "experience" advisedly. Arguably, in museums - of all places - education should not stand in the way of experience. And in their emphasis on experience, science centres and interactive sections have held a commanding position. At "Questacon", the most popular exhibits have to do with physical sensation - the effect of "riding" a centrifugal force machine, for example, or the effect of placing a hand on a plasma ball containing ionised neon and argon. The use of computer systems to reenact historical experiments offers an unintended but collateral benefit of virtual learning. If science centres do not have history, they certainly have fun. In their advertising, they adopt a holiday mode. "Hands on Science", boasts the "Investigator" in Adelaide, "Hands on Science for all the family", says "Supernova" in Newcastle - "Fun, Insight and Discovery". Are these the new secular trinity for the weekending Australian bored with sun and surf, or the American looking for something other than football and television? Or have they already become a refuge for the single parent, the unemployed worker? Given a changing social context in which curators and managers wel

: come any reasonable alternative to Disneyland, museums and science centres are to be embraced at all costs. Indeed they already are, by municipal improvers and local councils just as the civic leaders of Amsterdam or Dijon, Manchester or Liverpool vied for the establishment of mechanics' institutes, art museums and libraries. Science centres have a growing subculture. Most have the same inventory and the latest arcade gear. Some may soon specialise in overnight stays, blending science with tourism. Showmanship, not scholarship, may be the wave of the future. Of so, science