0C_IN_maquinas&almas:Maquetación 1
26/6/08
16:19
Página 30
and multicultural. Although the world may be turning into a global village, as Marshall McLuhan famously predicted, local habits persist. And as the writings by Edward T. Hall already demonstrated in the 1950s and 1960s, behavioral differences are not easily erased, particularly when they are defined along deeply rooted cultural and ideological lines.2 In today’s world, global phenomena like the ubiquitous use of mobile phones are mixed with local customs and practices in intricate ways. The tensions this creates can be inspiring, but they can also create anxiety. It could be argued that the art museum simply does not cope with the situation any longer without posting instructions, warnings and apologies on the walls. Too much is at stake; artworks damaged by a visitor’s seemingly innocuous touch is a museum director’s nightmare; being sued by an injured or insulted visitor may be even worse; scandals easily “echo” in the media, damaging the institution’s reputation. But is everything correct when notices begin to accumulate to such an extent that they start competing with the artworks themselves for attention? In the United States, in particular, this is often the case. At the most recent Whitney Biennial (2006) there were no interactive works on display, and numerous guards were standing in the halls “pre-empting” even the possibility of misguided behaviour. Still, the works on display had been provided with detailed explanations about their subject matter and their social, philosophical and cultural significance. One might expect these issues to be something the visitor him/herself should decipher from the work; of course, theoretically one can still enjoy the works without reading the descriptions. Unfortunately, many of the works on display at the Whitney Museum were so introverted or blunt that they only seemed to reveal their “depths” through the metalanguage of the notices, probably written by the curators acting as “secondary creators.” While there was little to persuade the visitors to touch, there were many reasons for bewilderment. Bewilderment could be a source of discovery and learning as well, but it may also lead to coldness and indifference. Slippages Most contemporary art museums and exhibitions identify themselves as “touchfree” zones, although slippages have begun to take place. A good example of this was Game On, an exhibition on video games shown at London’s Barbican Gallery (Barbican Centre), The Helsinki City Art Museum and elsewhere (2002-03). The majority of the exhibits consisted of commercially released video games, flanked by a few game-inspired interactive artworks, such as Thomson & Craighead’s Trigger Happy (1999). While the youthful audience wholeheartedly enjoyed playing classic arcade games like Space Invaders (without having to add coins in the slot), the artworks were nearly ignored by them. Compared to the games, they probably seemed dull, over-theoretical and alien. Indeed, their main raison d’être in this context may have been to convince sceptics that games do inspire artists, they are culture, and that the exhibition therefore belonged in the art gallery. Exhibitions like Game On can be justified by the need for the art institutions to “keep abreast of times”, but in an era of shrinking public support it would be naive to ignore the economic interests underlying such endeavors. Profit, and in some cases survival, has motivated prestigious institutions like the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia to 30