Journals / Journal of American Studies of Turkey / 2020 / Cilt: 2 - Sayı: 53

Crossing the Boundaries, Blurring the Boundaries: The Museum of Jurassic Technology as a Postmodern American Space

Pages
111–135
Publication Date
2022-10-19
DOI
—
🏛️Bibliographic metadata and full text access for this article are provided via DergiPark.
DergiPark Record ↗
✨

AI Summary & Key Takeaways

AI Insight
⚡ TL;DR(Too Long; Didn't Read)

A postmodern space which displays the merging of subjective and objective knowledge, it transforms ephemeral artifacts into valuable sources of American history, science, art, and culture, blurring the line between enlightenment and entertainment as well as constantly 112 crossing the boundaries between reality and fiction/imagination/play/ fantasy, regardless of being unsure of their borders.

📌 3 Key Takeaways

🎯
Objective & Hypothesis:The Museum of Jurassic Technology, located in Los Angeles, California, is one of the weirdest, yet thought provoking, museums in the world.
📊
Key Findings & Data:The museum looks like a typical museum: banners, signs with gilded letters, polite reminders concerning museum etiquette, thematically-curated exhibit halls with subdued lightning, glass and wooden showcases, velvet display cloths, microscopes, explanatory labels, backlit graphics, diagrams or audiovisual presentations, catalogues, apology cards for temporarily missing objects, the labyrinthine architecture, a rest room, and a museum shop.
💡
Conclusion & Impact:A postmodern space which displays the merging of subjective and objective knowledge, it transforms ephemeral artifacts into valuable sources of American history, science, art, and culture, blurring the line between enlightenment and entertainment as well as constantly 112 crossing the boundaries between reality and fiction/imagination/play/ fantasy, regardless of being unsure of their borders.
🔬Design:Research Article
📍Scope:Comprehensive Sample
⚙️Variables:The Museum of Jurassic Technology · David H. Wilson · American Culture

Abstract

The Museum of Jurassic Technology, located in Los Angeles, California, is one of the weirdest, yet thought provoking, museums in the world. Visitors encounter objects mainly taken from nature, science, and art, clearly labeled and explained with Latin terminology and detailed scholarly descriptions, which, at second glance, invite the questioning of reality, actuality, and plausibility, as well as history, science, art, culture, and ultimately, the museum as a concept. The museum looks like a typical museum: banners, signs with gilded letters, polite reminders concerning museum etiquette, thematically-curated exhibit halls with subdued lightning, glass and wooden showcases, velvet display cloths, microscopes, explanatory labels, backlit graphics, diagrams or audiovisual presentations, catalogues, apology cards for temporarily missing objects, the labyrinthine architecture, a rest room, and a museum shop. As this article argues, despite the fact that the Museum of Jurassic Technology satisfies all conventional stylistic expectations, it is subversive, blurry, amusing, and tricky. A postmodern space which displays the merging of subjective and objective knowledge, it transforms ephemeral artifacts into valuable sources of American history, science, art, and culture, blurring the line between enlightenment and entertainment as well as constantly 112 crossing the boundaries between reality and fiction/imagination/play/ fantasy, regardless of being unsure of their borders.

🔖

Cite This Article

SAATÇIOĞLU, E. (2022). Crossing the Boundaries, Blurring the Boundaries: The Museum of Jurassic Technology as a Postmodern American Space. Journal of American Studies of Turkey, Cilt: 2 - Sayı: 53, 111–135. https://ajindex.com/articles/559512

📄 Full Text PDF Viewer

📄

PDF görüntüleyici hazırlanıyor...

References (16)

  1. Barthes, Roland. The Pleasure of the Text. Hill and Wang, 1975.
  2. Bennett, Tony. The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics. Routledge, 1995. “Collections and Exhibitions.” The Museum of Jurassic Technology, mjt.org/exhibits/exhibitsnew.html Crooke, Elizabeth. Museums and Community: Ideas, Issues and Challenges. Routledge, 2007.
  3. Cuno, James. Museums Matter: In Praise of the Encyclopedic Museum. U of Chicago P, 2011.
  4. Dudley, Sandra H. “Encountering a Chinese Horse: Engaging with the Thingness of Things” In Museum Objects: Experiencing the Properties of Things. Ed. Sandra H. Dudley. Routledge, 2012, pp.1-15.
  5. Eagleton, Terry. After Theory. Basic Books, 2003.
  6. Foucault, Michel. “Of Other Spaces.” Diacritics. Vol. 16, no. 1, 1986, pp. 22-27.
  7. Frehill, Lisa M., Marisa Pelczar and Matthew Birnbaum. Data File Documentation: Museum Data Files, FY 2018 Release. Institute of Museum and Library Services, 2018.
  8. Geyh, Paula, Fred G. Leebron, Andrew Levy, Eds. Postmodern American Fiction: A Norton Anthology. W. W. Norton & Company, 1997.
  9. Grande, Lance. Curators: Behind the Scenes of Natural History Museums. U of Chicago P, 2017.
  10. Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity. Blackwell P, 1989.
  11. Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean. Museums and Education: Purpose, Pedagogy, Performance. Routledge, 2007. “Introduction and Background.” The Museum of Jurassic Technology, mjt.org/main2.html Mase, Kenji, Rieko Kadobayashi and Ryohei Nakatsu. “Metamuseum: A Supportive Augmented-Reality Environment for Knowledge Sharing.” ATR Workshop on Social Agents: Humans and Machines, 1996, pp. 107-110.
  12. McClellan, Andrew, Ed. Art and its Public: Museum Studies at the Millennium. Blackwell, 2003.
  13. McKay, Wilson Sara. “The Space Between: Intersubjective Possibilities of Transparency and Vulnerability in Art Education.” The Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, vol. 28-29, 2009, pp. 56-74. “Obliscence, Theories of Forgetting and the Problem of Matter.” The Museum of Jurassic Technology, mjt.org/exhibits/delson/oblisci. html. Patt, Lise. “Horns, Bats, Ideas: Encountering the Fetish at the Museum of Jurassic Technology.” Museum Anthropology, vol. 20, no. 2, 1997, pp. 67-73.
  14. Perrottet, Tony. “Museum of Jurassic Technology.” Smithsonian, vol. 42, no. 3, Jun 2011, pp. 56-57.
  15. Price, Sally. “Book Review of Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder. ” Museum Anthropology, vol. 20, no: 1, 1996, pp. 77-78.
  16. Proust, Marcel. Remembrance of Things Past, Vol 1: Swann’s Way within a Budding Grove. First Vintage Books, 1981.