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The Microchip in the Museum
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19593 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1991 |
1,340 Words |
| Author
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Eric Gibson
Eric Gibson, art critic for the Washington Times, last wrote
on Henry Ossewa Tanner in the September 1991 issue of The
World & I. |
How are we to tell the story of the computer? The invention that arguably has done more to transform day-to-day existence since the invention of the printing press is an obvious, if difficult, subject for an exhibition. Its impact has been so pervasive as to seem beyond the scope of the kind of handy compression a museum exhibition represents. At the same time it is something of an elusive subject. One can see only its products; its workings remain hidden from the eye, indeed are often invisible without the aid of a magnifying glass or a microscope. It is a far cry from something like steam engines or grandfather clocks, whose components and processes are readily manifest to anyone who cares to look.
The question arises because of two recent exhibitions, both ongoing, which have in one way or another attempted to come to some assessment of the computer's pervasiveness and impact on our lives. One, the first one to open, is the Smithsonian Institution's Information Age: People, Information & Technology, which began an indefinite run at the National Museum of American History last year. The other is the Museum of Modern Art's Information Art: Diagramming Microchips. It opened last fall and is currently on a nationwide tour.
Of the two, MoMA's is to be preferred. For one thing, it is narrower in focus, concentrating on the "soul" of the computer, the microchip. The Smithsonian's effort isn't so much an exhibition as a theme park--a sprawling affair with mannequins and a heavy emphasis on "interactive" (participatory) displays that winds up not so much analyzing the impact of the computer as mindlessly celebrating it.
Information Age includes a bit of everything--artifacts, period displays, hands-on demonstrations, sound tracks, video and film footage, and wall texts. The whole atmosphere is that of an amusement park, one slightly out of control, however, since the visitor can hardly concentrate on one exhibit without being distracted by several others.
More seriously, at nearly every turn, when the opportunity presents itself to make a serious point, the organizers turn it into a frivolous one--including clips from Charlie Chaplin movies and Abbott and Costello programs in a history of information technology. This kind of thing represents a crass attempt to disguise pure entertainment as education.
But even laying aside the debilitating problem of fun house atmospherics, Information Age is a real dud. From the moment one enters, the
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