TeleVISIONS (January/February 1975)

> ifs ead. VE " TeleVISIONS/page 4 Sees ot eee es Video in museums: gagetry or imagery? Jacques Lipchitz talks back from the screen By Rebecca Moore Clary Video artists are looking more to museums to display their work. Poorly equipped technically, and ill-prepared psychologically, museum administrators find themselves having to decide if they want to invest money and energy into acquiring video. The video question exemplifies the current debate within museum circles as to the role museums should play in the arts. Whether they are mere collections of objects or something more—educational, entertainment, or research institutions—is being considered by each individual museum in the country. TeleVisions is exploring the role video is playing in shaping the future of museums. The use of audio-visual equipment, particularly video, to enhance and amplify exhibits is discussed this issue. Video art display will be discussed in the next issue. The formal presentation: the audience sees Lipchitz on two monitors after the moderator takes written questions “Multi-media exhibit tools are an essential vehicle for ensuring that visitors have sufficient information and background to understand the exhibits which follow.” “Audio visual is in its infancy. So far it has added nothing to museum object presentation except entertainment.” : —Joseph Shannon, museum planner The use of audio-visual techniques in exhibitions is an expected fact of museum life. But the apparent conflict illustrated above says much about the changing role of video presentation within the museum context. Demands for relevancy have challenged museum officials to determine their future function and purpose. Some museum planners, such as Joseph Shannon, argue that museums should only supplement education; they can only teach what the objects in their collections teach. ‘‘A museum is nearly exclusively a place of objects,’ Shannon writes, and conceptual knowledge about the objects should be gleaned elsewhere. Others, such as Thomas Radford, believe museums should be ‘‘the last to restrict information by requiring visitors to read’; it’s impossible to escape the conclusion that museums are in the on-the-spot education business. Audio-visual presentations can expand upon the information conveyed by object displays. For example, an African mask acquires new significance when seen on film in the context of ritual and dance; and the life habits of the bobtailed deer may be seen clearer with a tape recorder in front of the stuffed animal in the glass case. Chandler G. Screven of the University of Wisconsin summarizes the positive value of AVs when he writes that ‘‘the delivery of an exhibit’s message means that the viewer of the exhibit is changed in some way as the result of viewing it. The visitor does something differently after viewing it than he did (or would) before.” For good or ill, however, audio-visuals are now standard museum equipment. The problem is no longer pro or con, but instead, how and how much. There are pitfalls, particularly if a multi-media presentation substitutes for, rather than supplements, an exhibit. Some programs overwhelm the visitor, and overshadow the display, with lights, sounds, buttons and activity. A fear of excessive gadgetry is probably healthy. But gadgetry and display should be technical and design problems, rather than points of debate since audio-visuals are here to stay. We need to learn how to use them effectively. The newest and most interesting use of video as an amplifier to an art exhibit was the interactive program on sculptor Jaques Lipchitz at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D. C. last January. Called ‘“‘A Conversation With Jacques Lipchitz,” it was the first video program of its scope, according to its producer/director Bruce Bassett. A somewhat limited version of the project did appear at New York’s Metropolitan Museum in 1972. At the Corcoran, Lipchitz’ sculptures were displayed in the main gallery, his lithographs lined the walls, and in a room to the side visitors could ‘‘talk’’ with the artist. In the program, Lipchitz appears on two monitors set on a platform which frame a moderator who, takes questions for Lipchitz from the audience. The moderator then explains the program, while the answers are being prepared backstage. In another room, behind the formal facade, people write up a “menu” of answers for the questions the audience has written. Four one-inch video decks have 131 answers stored, about 35 answers per deck. The staff decides which of the available answers most fit the questions, and sort the questions according to the correct decks. An automatic cuing system developed by G. Han Van Oostendorp allows the operator to locate the correct segment of tape instantly. By punching a two-digit code on a small device resembling an adding machine, the operator can call up the tight answer. The tape is coded, and the desired section is found through a series » of successive approximations. For example, if you call up segment 18 the tape goes forward to 19, reverses to 17.5, forward to 18.5, and so forth until 18 is hit precisely. When the moderator out front reads a question the audience has asked, sometimes interpreting a little to fit the answer, the operator out back begins the tape at the correct spot, having located it through the cuing system. Lipchitz appear: and immediately provides an answer, sometimes exact, sometimes less precise. While he’s talking from the tape on one video deck, the operator is finding the cues on another deck so that the next answer will be ready. Bassett, who conceived the Lipchitz program, and others are working on computer-sorted, rather than human-sorted, responses. “I refuse to have a list of questions you check off,’ Bassett declares, saying this would prevent a real interaction. Entering your own question, ‘‘and getting a response you remember,” is what Bassett is striving for. Unfortunately, real interaction is nevertheless limited in this program. Formal, and at times awkward, the distance between the audience and the monitors destroys the intimacy one has when watching TV at home. The delay between questions and response is also aggravating. The object of the presentation was to show what could be done if computers read individual questions and automatically found the response. Bassett’s desire to individualize questions may actually have prevented a real interaction. The wizard of Oz approach -wherein everything is done for the audience behind the scene -is really deceptive. A less glamorous, but perhaps more involving presentation would have been to allow the audience to operate the cuing devices themselves. A visitor could ask a question, locate which deck it was on, and call it up for viewing. , Nevertheless, the program added to the exhibition of Lipchitz’ work while not intruding on the display. Lipchitz’ answers were often startling in their specificity. Many of theanswers, which Bassett primarily edited while shooting, are about particular works of art or people he knew. For example, one answer is about his sculpture, “Joie de Vivre:” “In 1928 my sister was very sick and finally she died. She was very interested in what I’m doing and despite my sadness I was trying to make very gay sculptures, very alive. I made a sculpture which I called ‘‘Joie de Vivre,” Joy of Life, in order to send photographs to my sister and to give her some hopes for life. | was making a happy face having my heart completely broken.” An instantaneous video interaction with Lipchitz, who died in 1973, is still a dream, however. ““This is a pioneer effort,’’ says Bruce Bassett, adding “‘the idea is pregnant now.” Inspired by the potential of computer-video hook-ups, Bassett shot over 60 hours of film on Lipchitz in 1971 in the hopes of eventuaily using segments in a computer-coded conversation.” Bassett is now working with the Department of peri Science and Information at Brooklyn College on Behind the scenes: Technicians cuing tape on one of four videotape decks response. Bassett foresees the development of a retrieval system by the end of the year, noting the arrival of video discs on the market. Video discs should eliminate the necessity for utilizing four bulky video decks, plus tape. Museums’ first use of video in a program of the scope and ambition of “A Conversation With Jaques Lipchitz,”’ has not been a smooth course. As Joseph Shannon’s statement earlier indicates, the path is still not completely clear for the acceptance of video as an exhibit tool. Video had been used in some museum television programming, and in 1972, 100 out of 120 museums, responding to a survey by the American Association of Museums, said they used some form of video. Only nine, at that time,however, used it for exhibition reinforcement or display enhancement. Community relations, security, fund raising and television programs were still considered more important. Tapes on how an exhibit was researched, the artists at work, or tapes of travelling exhibits were not much valued. In the 1972 survey, the Akron Art Institute indicated that it interviewed artists at work in their studios. The tapes then were used with the exhibits of the artists’ works. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art used a continuously paying videotape on how armor is assembled and worn, in its Arms and Armor Gallery. At the California Museum of Science and Industry, a camera attached to a microscope allows visitors to look at live oral bacteria in action. Last year’s exhibit on African art at the National Gallery featured a wall lined with several video monitors displaying a tape of African dancers. As the technology develops and equipment becomes cheaper,’ more museums may decide to plunge into video. History and natural science museums in particular are inclined towards video to explain concepts not evident in simple displays.‘‘A canoe in a case will not tell the visitor about what members of the Indian society were permitted to make it or to sit in it, the division of labor that went into its construction. ..”’ notes Peter Farb, a science fiction writer. Viewing audiences also may well push museums toward more video in their demand for sophistocated, lively and involving exhibits. The introduction of audio-visual equipment into museum programming and design has already altered and affected the consideration of AVs. It seems impossible to return to the days of the typewritten cards describing _ach piece, and the objects themselves collecting dust and neglect in large empty hallways. The problem museums now face is how they can best use the technological tools dumped on them during the past two decades.