Page 101 - Museums, Media and Cultural Theory In Cultural and Media Studies

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As a physicist Oppenheimer was aware that modern science was far removed
from the ‘naked eye science’ espoused by the early trustees of the AMNH (see
Chapter 2, section 2). One of the central functions of the Exploratorium was to
render perceptible the imperceptible. The interactive devices developed in the
Exploratorium shifted the focus of the museum away from objects and toward
the demonstration of scientific principles, processes and phenomena. The
exhibits were no longer artefacts to be admired or looked at, but display sup-
ports intended to exhibit something other than themselves (Hein 1986: 36). In
this sense the science centre contributes to the move away from the object
centred museum.
This attempt to make perceptible the imperceptible was enabled by the use of
Richard Gregory’s work on perception as an organizing principle. Gregory is a
British psychologist of perception whose work was used in the Exploratorium,
and who later established the Exploratory in Bristol along similar lines to the
Exploratorium. He was also involved in the design of the Perception Gallery in
the 1977 Human Biology exhibition, produced under the New Exhibition
Scheme at the Natural History Museum, London. In all these exhibitions, vis-
itors were given centre-stage: in many exhibits the visitor’s own body was both
the subject and the means by which the visitor was invited to engage with the
exhibit. For example, at the Exploratory, exhibits (which were called ‘plores’)
could be divided into those which explored the physical world and those which
explored the visitor’s own perceptual experiences: ‘Exploring Ourselves’ and
‘Exploring the World’. ‘Plores’ included colour blindness and hearing tests, an
ECG which visitors could use to measure the electricity from their own hearts,
and exhibits that tested reaction times as well as optical and other illusions (see
www.exploratory.org.uk). Gregory saw illusions as a means to demonstrate
how knowledge and sensation interrelate, specifically how a person’s expect-
ations and knowledge contradict or override the information provided by their
senses. His theories of perception emphasize interaction and creativity – the
mind interacts with the world in the process of perception, drawing on stored
knowledge and hypotheses as well as immediate sensation, so that perception is
essentially a creative act (Gregory 1990).
Using Gregory’s theories, exhibits could be constructed that enabled visitors
to have fun exploring their own sensory and cognitive responses. The Victorian
glass case exhibits had placed the visitor as an observer, and the 1930s mechan-
ical and chemical displays had positioned the visitor as an operator or user. But
the Exploratorium incorporated the visitor into the exhibition, so that the
visitor’s body and mind become the subject and content. The emphasis on the
visitor’s own bodily experiences is connected to the view that the process of
disseminating scientific knowledge should start with people’s own everyday
experience (Hein 1986: 6–7). Like Otto Neurath’s concept of the ‘humanization