There are two questions which make connectional relationships between the “Chinavine website” and “Re-configuring Museums.”
The first one is /Welsh describes the domains of museums as materiality, engagement and representation. In your opinion are these domains applicable to ChinaVine.org? If yes, please provide examples from the website for each domain. If no, please support this response through references to the article and the website./
Welsh decribes the domains of musemums as materiality, engagement and representation. I think two of these three catergoriacal and definitional domains to musemus are exactly applicable to the websit ChinaVine. org. They are engagement and representation. The only one catergorial domain which is not very suitable to define website ChinaVine.org is Materiality. In the artical”Re-configuring Museums” by Peter. H Welsh, the author states that “Materiality is the domain that encompasses the human capacity to physically,emotionally and cognitively modify our surroundings to suit our purposes”. It can be said Materiality is a compositive and essential production affected by human beings. It is the final result of human beings’ different kinds of sense which can be visual sense, auditory sense and tactile sense. He also states that ” The museums are repositories for certain categories of thematerial world, it is a physical setting in fundamental aspect of human experience—the way that people extend theirbeings by producing, acquiring and exchanging tangible things” In this sentence, I can easily find that the cental meaning of Materiality is the experience in acquiring and feeling tangiable object which is the best definition to tactile sence. People always can get the deep feeling and recognition after their physical obeservation and motivation. It can be said the object is known after touching it. However, the website ChinaVine. org spread cultural information by texts and pictures which lacks the most important aspects referred in”Re-configuring Museums” : physical obeservation. For example, people will memorize in a long time when they touch and feel a object personally and produce their personally understanding. The effect is different between just watchign Tv and seeing it in their own eyes. Thus it can be said people will share cultural information and idea through the tangiable things which can leave the deep impressive. Certainly, the cultural information transferred by texts and pictures are also very impressive. But ChinaVine. org is still not quite fit in the point : physical obeservation.
I think engagement is a good domain to describe the website ChinaVine. org. From point of view in Museums, Welsh states that” museums establish relationships with publics which the idea of ‘publics’ in here is to encompass categories such as ‘visitors’, ‘school groups’, or ‘donors’.” It is exactly the function of website ChinaVine. org that can provide to our more and more participants to communicate and share idea with each other. There are several sections seperately listed on the website. The whole style is a map of different provinces in China. Different provinces have different cultures, particpants can learn and understand the essence of the culture which is the contributor’s idea. Then, the participants and contributors can communicate and share idea with each other which like a real museum to bring different culture to people. The ChinaVine.org website is a really good expression of reciporcal relationships. The knowledage people share, The culture people learn. The engagment in Welsh’s point of view of Museum is the best description to the function of website ChinaVine.org.
Repretation is also a good domain to define the website ChinaVine.org. From Welsh’ s point of view, he state that ” representation explores the scope of information that emerges from the museum institution.” and the important thing is that “Museum workers frequently hope that visitors are ‘Getting It’. The degree to which the ‘it’ is made explicitby those who create the story is an indication of how deeply embedded in unspokenexpectations are the museum’s approaches to representation.” I think this two points are just the central idea of website ChinaVine. org want to represent. The contributors put lots of pictures and responsible texts to show the historical culture vividly and the visual sence is the best way to express the main meaning directly to the viewers. It is a good way to teach and learn. Museum workers hope visitors can get the central meaning of different displays. Here, the representation of the website is the best method to help viewers and particpants to learn the heritage culture from ChinaVine.org.
The second question is /Welsh describes museums as repositories, educational, celebratory, stewards, learning centers, collaborative, conceptual, and reflexive. Describe how ChinaVine falls into each of these categories. Use at least one example for each supporting your opinion. If you believe that ChinaVine.org is not addressing one of these categories describe how it could do so./
Welsh uses these eight catorgories to decribe museums, I think most of them are applicable to ChinaVine.org expect the conceptual and stewards. The repositories, educational, learning centers reflexive and collaboration are the best five which can reflect the central funtion of the website ChinaVine.org. Define ChinaVine.org as repositories means it has lots of information can be provided to particpants in the activity of Beijing and allow us to have a simple understanding and learning about the heritage culture in China. So it can be a good resource to provide cultural information. For educational and learning center, I think these two should be same. Actually, in my point of view, lots of information platforms can be learning center and educational because it assembles knowledge and newer to be showed for more and more people who want to learn. In the website ChinaVine. org, it gather the knowledge of heritage culture in China and is a good information platform for our participants in this Beijing Heritage field school activity to share the new idea and accumulate more and more new knowledge. It is educational because the culture of a countries or a place has the historical value. The history can be defined as the heritage. The historical website is a valuble place that has the educaitonal meaning. Reflective and collaboration can be two reciporcal descriptions whatever to Museum or ChinaVine.org. Welsh state that “reflective is a relationship between the museum and its subject, and provie a space for visitors to response their own perspectives.” I think this point is very suitable to use on ChinaVine. org. People share the idea and make a valuabe communication about the cultural aspects in this website. The particpants response their perspectives on the Blogstream and have a meaningful free dialogue with each other. This is just a expression of Welsh statement which is relationship between museums and subject also maker and viewer in the Website. This relationship is also just a good understanding in collaboration. Like there is just a maker to the website without viewer, it can not be defined as a successful website. The maker and viewer are two necessary parts to contribute a complete and vivide website which means it needs a good collarboration to each other. I think celebratory and Stewards can be additional catergories to describe Chinavine.org. Welsh state that “celebratory is a positive relationship between museum and subject. ” In ChinaVine. org, participants and contributors teach and learn culture with each other. The good communication makes this realtionship become valuable because it is a kind of behavior to transmitt the cultrual studies. And Stewards is just a good points to show the website brings different people come together from differing backgrounds, cultures and societies with same interests and shared interests with own ideas.As for conceptual, I do not think it is quite fit in describing the website ChinaVine.org. In ChinaVine. org, people focus on Chinese traditional culture and depends on worldwide perspective. It is a global dicussion and dialogue which will have a special and novel understanding of Chinese cultural study. It is a actual and real communication from different coutries after exploring and practice in Chinese traditional cultures. Thus, it can not be classified into conceptual catergory because it is not just the idea on the website, it is the essential result of a real activity.
After reading the article “Re-configuring Museums” by Peter H. Welsh, I get more understanding of the functions and meanings of museums. I am very impressed by some concepts and ideas that he mentioned in this article. The first thing is that “A general model for museum practice should have three fundamental qualities” (p104) which are incorporating “established modes of theory production, with clear philosophical and epistemological roots and relevance for multiple disciplines.”; “attending to museums’ distinctive qualities without simply replicating functional areas.”; and “generating reasonable explanations for persistence and change in institutional structures.”(p104)
Later, Welsh brings out an attractive and important idea about the “two fundamental dimensions of a meseum—domains and circuits” (p104). If I did not read this article, I will be very confused about the word “domains” here. I may thought domain only as a way to present the location of the a museum or what kind of objects this museum will display. However, Welsh describes “domains” as “the museums’ distinctive areas of concern—encompassing museums’ content, communications, and communities.” (p104) And he describes the domains of museums as materiality, engagement and representation.
According to Welsh, “Materiality is the domain that encompasses the human capacity to physically, emotionally and cognitively modify our surroundings to suit our purposes.”(p105). It is also surprised to know that materiality does not only means the basic objects, “it includes all that is recognized by the senses, as well as
that which is affected by our beings.” (p105). Chinavine, as a free and educational website, does have the domain of materiality. Even though we can not physically experiencing the materiality, we can still experience it in different aspects. People can easily go to the website and get the information which they are interested. We can also post images and personal opinions. In some way, Chinavine allows people to “modify our surroundings to suit our purposes”. Welsh then mentioned that “The domain of engagement, then, has to do with reciprocal relationships between the institution and people with an interest in what the museum does. In particular, it pertains to ways that museums establish relationships with publics.”(p106) From my point of view, Chinavine did a good job in setting up the relationships between the website and its viewers. We can actually experience the culture that Chinavine displays on its colorful website. We can use to map to pick up one destination that we prefer to deeply understand. As we all know that China is a big country which contains many provinces, each province will have their unique features. So, the map can help a lot to go over the locations and regional characteristic cultures. Finally, he states the domains of representation-“Where materiality establishes the objective conditions of museum work, representation highlights the processes by which museums create their subject. Representation explores the scope of information that emerges from the museum institution. Museum workers frequently hope that visitors are ‘Getting It’. “(p105). I really think Chinavine was trying hard to display the culture to visitors. And “Viewing representation as a fundamental domain of the institution is not meant to dismiss or deflect the criticism, but aims to re-frame our awareness of the historical and cultural landscape within which museums have created themselves.”(p105). This can also be applied to Chinavine website. Chinavine is just like a online museum and the workers want to and they really did help viewers to learn more culture from the website. The abundant media streams and articles are showing Chinese culture to more and more people in a mature way.
Yutingh, you along with several other respondents raise important issues around materiality and CV. CV and museums have a different relationship with materiality. However, what you and some of the other posters suggest to me is the importance of considering the framework through which culture is interpreted as material as well. In the case of the museum it is the “bricks and mortar” used to house physical objects. With websites it is the hardware and the digitization process used to present and interpret objects and object makers. The other point you make which I appreciate is that the audience for CV is global rather than local. I think the implications of that are profound in the way that experiencing and participating in the interpretive process occurs.
@yutingh I enjoyed your engagement with Welsh’s points and their connection to various aspects of ChinaVine. On the topic of “materiality,” I’m wondering if our (collective) ideas about this concept are changing as the web/Internet affords different kinds of “experiential textures” with regards to tangible objects. What I’m wondering if, just maybe, there might be a kind of audio-visual documentation and presentation effort that pushes the “tangible” closer to the “virtual” such that online audiences can have a relationship with materiality that Welsh discusses…Thanks for your great ideas!
You bring up an important point, that CV is presenting culture to an international audience. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett discusses how difference in culture is performed in her book “Destination Culture.” She notes that performance is useful in studying cultural differences and there are markers of the extent to which a viewer of cultural performance can participate in a performance of traditional culture. When a folk performance of festival is organized it must be determined who holds the authentic culture, and can be displayed, and to what extent viewers can participate (being involved in a parade) in order to include them but without taking agency away from the tradition bearers. She states “while folklife festivals attempt to represent traditions that would otherwise not be exposed, it is also the case that those who perform tend to be represented exclusively in traditional terms.” (76) Since this site is being presented to an international audience and also to an audience that might be more familiar with these traditions do you think the same problems apply to displaying videos, images and stories about folk arts on CV?