the way of seeing

I don't know about the rest of you out there, but when I walk into a museum, I am in awe of the collections. Everything in the building I just entered has some significance to someone, whether it's to a culture or individual, it doesn't matter; the point is that for some reason, someone has selected it to be put on display. I then examine each object with an educational view, trying to imagine how it was used, or possibly how it lived it's life (depending on the object itself). However, in the "real world", I would say that I don't look at everything in such a critical view. Sure, when walking in nature I might think about the animals' lives, or if I stumble upon something from the recent past I might wonder how it was used, and try to compare it to what I use in my daily life. But I wouldn't say I do this hypothesizing in such a detailed, in-depth way as I do in a museum. This could partly be because I'm going to a museum with the intent of learning something, or it could be partly because of the way the museum sets up its displays, highlighting objects (as Svetlana Alpers in her article The museum as a way of seeing) and eliminating their natural surroundings. So call it the museum effect opposed to a personal view, but the way I see objects in museums is both similar and different to how I view the world around me every day.

Does the Spiral Jetty make the Great Salt Lake a museum?

A widely debated topic in the museum world is whether or not the Spiral Jetty in the Great Salt Lake makes the Great Salt Lake a museum. In my opinion, it does not. True, the Spiral Jetty is a work of art and can be used to teach others about subjects such as marine construction, the artist, and the Great Salt Lake, and the Spiral Jetty is found in the Great Salt Lake, but one way the word "museum" can be defined is as a building (or area) that puts many different exhibits on display. If the Great Salt Lake is examined with this definition in mind, it most definitely falls short. The Spiral Jetty is just one exhibit, one display of artwork, available for viewing, thus leaving the lake just a lake, not a museum. Thus, the Great Salt Lake can not be a museum, but rather just a lake that houses a piece of work. This is not to say that museums must be a constructed building. In contrast, this definition only mandates that a museum must include many different works of "art" or exhibits for inspection. And so, my opinion on the matter, is that the Great Salt Lake, even with the Spiral Jetty included in it's boundaries, should not be considered to be a museum.

test run

testing...testing...1, 2, 3. this is the first time i have ever blogged so...here goes. this blog is mainly going to be about museums (since it is being created as a requirement for a class), but...who knows? i may like this blogging thing and decide to blog about other things as well. so just stay tuned and we will see what happens :)