In the 1930s a man called Walter predicted that as technologies of reproduction would expand, the aura of art would wither. So much so that with everyone owning a version of the Mona Lisa, art (as a Bourgeois elitist enterprise) would not longer exist. Walter was a marxist with big ideals. And obviously in today's context of Picassos selling for billions and every cellphone including lenses, he could very easily be discarded as have been heavily mistaken. Yet he's cited by everyone everywhere, and it is not only his terms that are used and quoted but his actual motivations and beliefs - as Google has shown with their new Art Project.
It's a website where Google has scanned in very very high resolution amazingness with high tech machines greatness some important museums' collections and spaces. This is how the employees of Google describe their aspirations with the Art Project: "It started when a small group of us who were passionate about art got together to think about how we might use our technology to help museums make their art more accessible—not just to regular museum-goers or those fortunate to have great galleries on their doorsteps, but to a whole new set of people who might otherwise never get to see the real thing up close."
Isn't the trust of Walter and of Google employees in visual reproductive technology and imagery not only as enabling larger access to more people but also better access to more people stunning? And I don't disagree. I myself enjoyed going through the halls of the Prado (that I've never been there) - although got fed up quickly - and I've never seen a Van Gogh brushstroke quite like that before. But who cares? The people who don't have access to museums, those mentioned by Google's art loving employees? There's a cultural capital to quote Bourdieu in wanting to see art which I fear will exclude many. However in the cultural capital there is also a behavioral protocol in experiencing art, that the Art Project dissolves entirely. Indeed if one thing is for sure is that the Art Project versus the Museum experience is like facebook or porn versus stalking an ex-boyfriend's house or the actual sexual act - there's not pressure to perform a proper social behavior. Although, honestly museums have done a great job at making record entries, and adding restaurants, stores and lounge-like areas to make their spaces more accessible in recent years. So was it necessary? Some even complain about the dumbing down, the infotainment of contemporary museums and exhibitions.
Furthermore seeing art frontally isn't what art is all about, truthfully. Zooming on the skull of the Ambassadors is one thing, but unable to position oneself differently to ultimately see the perspectival trick that made the painting famous is another. Furthermore excluding all the other senses that are at play in the museum space and that are so fundamental to their 'artness' again seems like reducing art quite dramatically. The anthropologist Contance Classen might even say that the Art Project is the latest in Modernity's plan to make everything appear most real when rationally organized in an ocular-centric way (versus multi-sensorially experienced). For example, how about the clinical cleanliness of the Louvre, the decaying ceilings of the Hermitage (that clash with the Matisses so wonderfully), the over heating and noise of the MoMA and the Tate Modern's unique smell of humidity that are such fantastic ways to think about objects and their agency over people's actions.
This might sound elitst, but the Art Project seems to be far from a generous act but rather a marketing coup for Google to gain cultural (capital) credit.
It's a website where Google has scanned in very very high resolution amazingness with high tech machines greatness some important museums' collections and spaces. This is how the employees of Google describe their aspirations with the Art Project: "It started when a small group of us who were passionate about art got together to think about how we might use our technology to help museums make their art more accessible—not just to regular museum-goers or those fortunate to have great galleries on their doorsteps, but to a whole new set of people who might otherwise never get to see the real thing up close."
Isn't the trust of Walter and of Google employees in visual reproductive technology and imagery not only as enabling larger access to more people but also better access to more people stunning? And I don't disagree. I myself enjoyed going through the halls of the Prado (that I've never been there) - although got fed up quickly - and I've never seen a Van Gogh brushstroke quite like that before. But who cares? The people who don't have access to museums, those mentioned by Google's art loving employees? There's a cultural capital to quote Bourdieu in wanting to see art which I fear will exclude many. However in the cultural capital there is also a behavioral protocol in experiencing art, that the Art Project dissolves entirely. Indeed if one thing is for sure is that the Art Project versus the Museum experience is like facebook or porn versus stalking an ex-boyfriend's house or the actual sexual act - there's not pressure to perform a proper social behavior. Although, honestly museums have done a great job at making record entries, and adding restaurants, stores and lounge-like areas to make their spaces more accessible in recent years. So was it necessary? Some even complain about the dumbing down, the infotainment of contemporary museums and exhibitions.
Furthermore seeing art frontally isn't what art is all about, truthfully. Zooming on the skull of the Ambassadors is one thing, but unable to position oneself differently to ultimately see the perspectival trick that made the painting famous is another. Furthermore excluding all the other senses that are at play in the museum space and that are so fundamental to their 'artness' again seems like reducing art quite dramatically. The anthropologist Contance Classen might even say that the Art Project is the latest in Modernity's plan to make everything appear most real when rationally organized in an ocular-centric way (versus multi-sensorially experienced). For example, how about the clinical cleanliness of the Louvre, the decaying ceilings of the Hermitage (that clash with the Matisses so wonderfully), the over heating and noise of the MoMA and the Tate Modern's unique smell of humidity that are such fantastic ways to think about objects and their agency over people's actions.
This might sound elitst, but the Art Project seems to be far from a generous act but rather a marketing coup for Google to gain cultural (capital) credit.
