Computer Art

I am a docent, or soon to be, with a rather reputable museum on the east coast.  I like it so far and hope to be effective once I can lead tours.  Like most museums, this one uses technology to assist the processes of running the joint and administering a variety of programs.  Fair enough; technology is everywhere and to deny it is futile, though none of us is obligated to follow each new technology just because it is available.


We're getting iPads to assist with tours.  I find the idea exceptionally intrusive.  I wonder if there is potential debate among the docents about the usefulness of it but I don't really care all that much if there is.  One imagines for those with limited knowledge in art or art history, or even the art on exhibition, it could help to have quick access to easy information available during the tour.  I imagine even I could benefit from it as I am not so well versed in specific instances and moments in art's chronology. 


But the irony for me is this museum's docents use VTS, Visual Thinking Strategies, an inquiry based model of looking at and thinking about art.  So it's my job to ask "What do you see" and encourage you to make connections with other ideas and issues in society.  We don't do the rote lecture -- or, from my understanding, not often as the mission is more about facilitating conversation and thought than telling you what to think.  The idea being that the "authoritative voice" discourages you from engaging and pursuing your own ideas around the stuff you're looking at.  True enough.


So why am I spending time now looking up the right answers to questions?  Why am I doing the work of connecting the dots for the audience? 


Beyond this, I am firm in my belief that there comes a point when technology interferes with the art experience.  I know the other docents; I can see some of them obsessing over a problem with the iPad and neglecting the point of a tour, becoming determined to make the iPad work in order to find the one piece of requested information. 


There is a lot of tech based art work out there and getting over fear of interacting with tech is good -- it's necessary if any of us want to understand where this tech art comes from.  Just getting over the tech hang-up enough so more of us use the docent blog for conversation and resources would help.  But making ourselves dependent on technology to talk about any and all art is an obstacle to real interaction from where I see it.  Why should the audience trust themselves when I hold the key to all the correct information in my hand?  People believe the information they get from a computer -- they take it as an authoritative truth.  It's a very common human tendency.  So having the iPad at the ready is no different from me spouting a bunch of crap, telling the audience what the art is and I see the potential for this to undermine the museum experience and the VTS process.

Prejudice

I'm not going to argue laws or work place policies.  What I am pondering is the accepted social prejudice in the US toward atheism.  I am an atheist and can be vocal about that at times.  It boils down to this -- I don't need made up stories to justify why I am alive, why my life sucks, why good or bad things happen, why we can't explain everything ever to occur in the whole huge, unknowable universe.  Nor am I so pretentious or self-righteous as to think I deserve an explanation for all those things as if my mere existence obligates that kind of response.  Kind of arrogant to think I am entitled to that kind of stroking.


But here's what I'm pissed about:  If my believing friends say something to the effect that god has a reason, or they can take solace in god's plan... and so on... that's perfectly fine in polite society.  They're just sharing what they  believe and are doing me a favor by enlightening me to their sacred knowledge, even if I choose to ignore it in the end.  But if I vocalize the fact that god is false and belief in anything supernatural is irrational and wrong then I am considered subversive and anti-social.  I'm pretty sure this is what is called a double standard. 


This is the First Amendment to the US Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.


We have no official religion in the US and I take issue with the very premise that this is a Christian nation, or any kind of god following nation.  For anyone to insist it is is a dismissal of my rights as a citizen and, in fact, a denial of the Constitution itself.  And let me say, where  Christians or other zealots may have rights to share their beliefs with me, even if I don't want to hear them, I have the same rights.


And in terms of my private life, I have the right to talk as I will.  Sure, there are accepted rules within personal relationships regarding the manner in which parties communicate, but I still reject the notion that censoring of one's self or ideas even in that context is unacceptable.  I can accept it if a person says "I'd rather not discuss it."   But that person owes me the same respect.  And it's a practice most believers I know can't seem to grasp.  A double standard they refuse to admit.