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ON THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE MUSEUMS: WHAT DO EXHIBITS VISUALIZE? (A CASE OF THE HALL OF AFRICAN PEOPLES IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY) // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2018. Issue 4 (18). P. 202-221

The paper is devoted to the visuality of exhibits in science museums. The author begins by briefly outlining the specificity of science museums as places of epistemological accumulation and collective empiricism, and a range of problems associated with the museum representation of working objects of science. Problems are divided into two blocks. A case study of the exposition of the Hall of African Peoples of the American Museum of Natural History shows the multidimensionality of the content that could be broadcast by the exhibits. Firstly, it is shown that the scientific accuracy in the reproduction of nature was the key principle in the creation of the dioramas in the Hall. However, this principle was interpreted by the key participants of the production in different ways. There were two incompatible interpretations. According to one, belonging to the founder of the Hall, taxidermist C.E. Akeley, following nature meant recreating its harmony and perfection. This meant that not specific individuals were represented, but a perfect archetype, under which the animals that best met criteria of perfection were carefully selected. This epistemic orientation is close to what L. Daston and P. Galison called truth-to-nature. The oother interpretation belongs to James Perry Wilson, the leading artist of the exposition at a late stage of its production. He strictly followed the materials accumulated during the African expeditions, meticulously reproducing each landscape. This required the suppression of subjective interpretation in order to give the word to nature itself. Such an orientation is closer to mechanical objectivity. The contradiction between these interpretations, however, was rather virtual since they direct different elements of the dioramas. Moreover, the entire exhibition as a whole implements Akeley’s idea. D. Haraway discovers the dual nature of his idea. Analyzing the entrance group of the museum, the design of the exposition of the Hall of African Peoples, as well as the peculiarities of the dioramas and their creation, she shows that although Akeley sought to reveal the virgin world of Africa, he turned the exposition into a screen for his own moral and political notions. The central motive of these ideas is the resistance to the decline of nature by way of its conservation in the Hall and the resistance to the decadence and the disintegration of social ties in a modern industrial city. At the same time, the selection of animals for dioramas and their representation beyond any scientific neutrality expressed patriarchal and organicist ideas about the structure of the social world. The analysis shows that the expositions and exhibits of science museums require a comprehensive analysis that takes into account not only the representation of scientific content, but also a broader context, including ideas about the role and place of science and scientific knowledge and the moral and political conditions of production and functioning of exhibits.

Keywords: science museum, exhibit, visuality, representation, nature, moral, organicism, epistemic virtue, social philosophy

STS AND THE POSSIBLE FUTURE OF THE SCIENCE MUSEUM: TOWARDS A NEW KUNSTKAMMER // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2021. Issue 4 (30). P. 131-185

The article analyzes the representation of science in science and technology museums and centers, and outlines the possible concept of a museum of technoscience that would compensate their limitations and omissions. In contrast, the museum of technoscience is not dedicated to what scientists know about nature, but to how they get this knowledge, how it exists and is applied, that is, to metascientific issues. To meet this challenge, the new museum should be based on the ideas of Science and Technology Studies (STS), and of the History and Philosophy of Science. It is likely that today the path of reason to maturity should pass not only through scientific education, but also through metascientific education, that is, through STS and the History and Philosophy of Science. The first part of the article describes the general logic and context of the representation of science and technology in actual science and technology museums and centers. The main aims of such museums and centers are to contribute to increasing the public understanding of science and the attractiveness of professions in the STEM field. These aims are usually achieved by focusing on pure science at the expense of applied science and engineering. Technology is represented as an unproblematized “application” of knowledge. There is also little talk about the structure of scientific production of knowledge, mainly the scientific method is communicated. This approach is being critically analyzed. Among other issues, the naturalization and idealization of knowledge, double invisibility of authorship (science in relation to knowledge, museum in relation to the exhibition) are criticized. Arguments are given in favor of the desirability of addressing the discussion of the structure of science and technology based on the results of science and technology studies. It involves the creation of a museum or exhibition that would complement existing museums and science centers. Its working name is the museum of technoscience. The second part of the article describes the possible conception of the technoscience museum. Examples of topics are given, some principles of the organization are revealed: double vision, reassembling of the subject, museum position and audience, museum as a bricoleur, museum as a forum. These principles bring the museum of technoscience closer to the kunstkammer in contrast to modern museums of science. The historization of existing forms of science and technology is discussed as one of the possible approaches to the construction of the exposition. Les Immatériaux (1985) by J.-F. Lyotard and Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion and Art (2002) by B. Latour can serve as landmarks from the history of exhibitions. In conclusion, the conception of the museum of technoscience is summarized in a set of values: productive ignorance, criticism, diversity, controversiality.

Keywords: science museum, science and technology center, science and technology studies, history of science, society, practical philosophy, public understanding of science, technoscience, technoscience museum