全球本土化的博物館展示

Globalization and Museum Exhibits

郭義復

《科技博物》 3卷6期 (1999/11) Pp. 14-20

並列摘要

With the explosive growth of information and communications and the spread of regionalism, museum displays are caught in the pincers of a dual phenomenon-the rise of 'glocalization'. On the one hand, museum exhibits want to be global in their scope in order to offer a 'window on the world' to visitors. This window exposes visitors to knowledge and subjects that they could never experience personally.
On the other hand, exhibits also need to be 'localized' as much as possible, using the integration of science and technology plus local input to present a result that maintains a local memory.
Although globalization and localization overlap in some areas, there are also considerable conflicts between the two concepts. Integration of the two calls for precise handling and careful thought so they can both be adopted and effectively applied.
A long period of hard work by museum staffers is finally yielding some solid results in incorporating the idea of glocalization. Entering the museum takes us to an entirely new world crammed with wonders from both Taiwan and overseas. Here we discover many colorful and exciting cultures from other lands, but we also find a high degree of local and human interest.
The National Science and Technology Museum is working to become a world-class museum, but at the same time we are very much aware of the fact that we are located in a community which we cannot overlook. We have a responsibility to the community around us, and we are focused on both of the goals for growth-globalization and localization. With these two goals in mind we hope to follow a maxim that is widely used in marketing-to ”think globally” and ”act locally”.
Hans MoFavec puts it this way: ”Everything that exists in this century was developed from a concept in the 19th century; now it is time to come up with some new concepts”. Glocalization is a new concept for the 20th century which could become one of the central ideas of the 21st century.
The road to realism begins with an idea-with a clear, basic idea posited deep in the mind. Thus glocalization requires the solution of quantitative problems as well as cleaning up any ways of thinking that may be muddled. The National Science and Technology Museum's experience with exhibits reveals that the cleaning up of thinking includes things like problems of confusion in 'information displays' and 'knowledge displays', or 'educational functions in displays' and 'spiritual functions in displays', as well as uncertaintly about the levels of certain educational functions.
(1) Distinguish between 'information' and 'knowledge' to give exhibition designers a clear choice.
The 20th century has been called the 'century of the information explosion'. The broadcast media now reach practically every corner of the globe, and the latest news is never far away. It has also been called the 'century of the knowledge explosion', largely because of the staggering amount of discoveries that have been made in the past decade or so-more, some say, than have been made throughout the rest of history. Both of these notions are quite correct, but one must always be wary of the risk of confusing 'information' with 'knowledge'. Looking at straight definitions of the terms we find that 'information' denotes superficial data about a thing or matter-for instance its shape, a condition, or a special characteristic, things that tell the viewer what something is. Knowledge, then, is an observation gained through experience, more internal in its nature; it can be disseminated and tested and includes theories and principles.
Knowledge lets the observer know why something is so. In other words the difference between information and knowledge is readily obvious; unprocessed information is not the same thing as knowledge. When working on exhibition for the museum you are far more likely to come across information than knowledge. Actually one could say that only knowledge is a topic for exhibits in the museum, while information is the materials and artifacts that are used in displays.
Descartes notes that we should ”Let others look at something rather than simply looking at it yourself; it is better to examine things in detail.” Museum exhibits are offered up to the public for viewing, and their characteristics and special features should be clearly delineated, which is to say the museum needs to decide whether it wants to communicate information or communicate knowledge. If museum exhibits contain too much information the museum will look as cluttered and disorganized as a newspaper or magazine. Exhibits which include too much knowledge will be lifeless and unfamiliar to visitors, and material which is too sophisticated can easily make visitors feel humiliated. Thus it is essential that the mix of information and knowledge in exhibits be carefully controlled.
Globalization brings exhibits in touch with a great deal of information, and the same applies for localization. All of this information should be transformed into knowledge by the exhibits, keeping in mind that in a consumer society a flood of information is often be mistaken for knowledge, which will affect the educational functions of the museum exhibits.
This museum is a science and technology museum, and education is a critical function in our operations. For this reason we pay close attention to the layers of knowledge that are worked into our exhibits. This knowledge covers both science and technology. The exhibits in the museum could be shown for a long time without any changes, but if the contents are too serious and too deep they will not convey any new information and they will lose their attraction for visitors.
(2)Combine 'educational functions' and 'spiritual functions' in ratios well-suited to displays
Educational functions refers to museum operations that are very educational; all other operations are termed spiritual functions. Some exhibits generate educational functions, which is to say they have educational capabilities. Similarly, other exhibits generate spiritual functions, including recreational capabilities. Practical experience shows that if input is not controlled then output cannot be guaranteed. This means that when a display is being developed it is essential to understand how the exhibit operates and to allocate responisibility to staffers, then wait for them to develop its functions. This museum puts a great deal of emphasis on educational functions in our exhibits. Although most of the exhibit materials in the museum are designed and ready for use and would make the exhibits more visitor friendly, when compared with other exhibits they are not intimate or soft enough. Thus one of the main points in future exhibit planning will be to ensure that the spiritual functions of the exhibits are more obvious.
(3) Emphasize order in educational capabilities, and set up a base for evaluations in the future
The main function of the 20th century museum is education. But there are many different aspects to education including: imparting new information and new knowledge; forming concepts and attitudes; and acquiring movements. Exhibits present knowledge, but their main duty is to instill the 'concept of concepts', and to allow visitors to be able to take action. Evaluations carried out by the museum have uncovered a problem: we failed to define educational objectives early in the design stage of exhibitions. Thus there was no way we could use the evaluation to determine how successful we have been in achieving our educational functions. Thus one of our main points in future planning efforts will be to consider various levels of educational functioning to meet the different needs of museum visitors.
Generally speaking a museum functions as a storehouse of human culture, a cultural icon: a museum serves as a bridge across the ages, transporting people from the past into the here and now, and from the present into the future. The museum is a microcosm of society that presents people, events, history, neighborhoods, cultural items and many other things as well. As the world changes, museums have sought to become more globalized in response to trends. Now, in order to prevent clashes between the forces of globalization and localization we must consider the problems of glocalization and prepare to welcome the approach of a new millennium of glocalization.