History's Real Stuff

Dear readers,

Picking through the Sunday New York Times' huge art and leisure section yesterday I came across the History's Real Stuff article. It's about the multitude of new history museums that utilize multimedia, experiential learning, and immersion to draw in visitors:

"At the National Museum of the Marine Corps, visitors can ride a Higgins Boat toward an assault landing on the island of Iwo Jima, feel the chill on Toktong Pass in Korea as they hear the advancing Chinese soldiers or step off the clanging ramp of a CH-46 helicopter fuselage into the steamy jungle of Vietnam, complete with the sounds of whirring rotors and ricocheting bullets."

Sure, these experiences are akin to playing the latest edition of the Halo franchise on your Xbox, but I don't think it is any secret that people want to take away a singular experience from their museum visit, no matter how in your face or over the top that experience is. People need a memory, action, or emotion to catalyze their learning experience, and this experience is going to need to be more realistic than watching the landing scene from "Saving Private Ryan" or the visitors wouldn't even bother to show up. Well, maybe they'd show up to learn something. For me one of the most moving experiences was to encounter the pile of flattened old shoes in a stark, featureless room of the Holocaust Museum in DC. The pile was nearly over my head and I could smell them. Something I could not experience by watching Schindler's List

I think the NYT article is a little naive when it ponders whether history museums are pandering to the audience in an effort to educate. There's been a movement in the last 25 years in "Science and Technology Centers" (a term that includes children's museums and aquariums) towards hands on, immersing exhibits. So is it any wonder history museums are trying to attract people away from other venues by posing as a Universal Studios theme park rather than a library of artifacts?

And what about the tidbit that the 7 Smithsonian history museums are better attended than the system's 7 art museums? Last I checked history books (biographies included) were STILL outselling art books. I think it may come down to the fact that we want to know more about ourselves, where we came from, who we are as people. So what lessons can art museums learn from these history museums?