Blog 12: Museum of Jurassic Technology

Blog 12

Museum of Jurassic Technology

The Museum of Jurassic Technology was certainly an experience. I visited the museum’s Web site before I left to try and get a better understanding of what we were going to be seeing though the “About us” section was more dense than a novel it seemed. Trying to sift through the Web site turned up few leads as to what lay ahead. As I walked into the museum I realized I had no idea what I was getting into. It almost seemed like I was walking into a parallel universe as I ventured off the street corner into the low profile building that threw me back to some not so far off time. The dimly lit exhibits were like walking through a relic of ancient ruins. The various collections seemed to have minimal similarities to one another as they wandered from bizarre topic to bizarre topic. From shape shifting light and magnets to a history of medicine full of stuffed animal remains and dead mice, to a study on bats, the nature of the subject matter was truly all over the board. There was the seemingly normal though almost pointless x-rayed flower room. And lets not forget about the history of Cats Cradle room. Why the museum need a tearoom however is beyond me. Now don’t get me wrong, as strange as some of the exhibits may have been over all it was a fun trip. I can’t say I necessarily learned a lot that I can take away and apply later in life though it was decidedly a history experiment – almost as if I was recycling an old museum.

One area of the museum that I particularly enjoyed was the miniature area. Both the microscopic butterfly wing shaving painting and the pinheads. This has a more timeless appeal, I think, over other areas of the museum. I find the more artistic base of these two exhibits were intrinsically more appealing in nature. For me it stood out as I simply could not imagine the patience it must have taken the respective artists to make either the butterfly slides or the pin heads. In the case of the butterfly scale slides, where the artist arranged individual scales of butterfly wings together to make microscopic pictures, usually of floral arrangements, I don’t think I would even have a steady enough had to handle a single scale yet along arrange them in any sort of pattern. What I was even more amazed by was the difference of how the scales looked when you viewed them with ones own eye in visible distance and when viewed underneath the microscope. It was like looking at two different images entirely.

In relation to the class I can see the museum fitting into a very loose web like narrative sturucture we have talked about. You can go about the museum and any number of ways as you make your way around the building though at some point you have to come back to the entrance to ultimately exit. For me this meant passing by the “About us” movie, an exact audio and video replacement to Web site’s “About us” section. I thought perhaps if I listened to it the second time I would understand more having just actually been through the museum. Needless to say I was still confused as to exactly what I saw as I returned to my car.