I really want to understand the perspective of the other side of this case. Why did this museum care so much about this issue? They appear to have put an enormous legal effort into preventing the release of these point cloud scans. Why?
I have a friend in museum management and I socialize with their museum friends.
A frequent topic of discussion is how hard it can be to get things on display. Many people in museum related roles view their job first as protecting and preserving the displays at all costs, with presenting them to the public as an unfortunate necessity that they’re forced to do to get funding. There are some epic fights from people who don’t want the best or most valuable works to be put on display or loan because that risks damaging them.
I would have thought that high resolution copies and archives of art would be a dream come true for these people, but from what I’ve observed many of them oppose that as well. They feel it provides an inauthentic or incomplete sense of their valued works, while also diminishing their profession of preserving these items. When you view yourself as the gatekeeper for a special, irreplaceable treasure, anything that produces a facsimile of that treasure is an abomination that must be resisted.
It’s not a totally crazy idea to insist that certain artworks should only be viewed in certain ways. I’m reminded of David Lynch saying something similar about watching movies on your phone:
Off the top of my head, I can think of at least a few artists whose works are somewhat belittled by being digitized and viewed on a screen: Monet and Rothko. Both have monumental size paintings that really don’t work if you aren’t there in person. But since the only way most people interact with them is via a screen, they are often criticized (Rothko specifically.)
So in other words, some art necessarily has a physical dimension which cannot be appreciated in a non-physical way.
I mean, the museum setting is an arbitrary middle ground between the initial intended presentation (a 19th century salon or 20th century gallery showing, in specific physical spaces, likely to be attended by specific people) and wherever and at whatever fidelity that initial presentation is reproduced. What's impure enough to be verboten? No thumbnails in museum brochures or online? Do we restrict entrance to the demographic that was initially present? Are we allowed to light them with modern fixtures? Must the air in the gallery be a reproduction of Paris or New York's historical smog?
An artist's intent should be respected, sure, but I do wonder how much of it is that, and how much of it is a sort of elitism and gatekeeping from people who are not the artist.
simonw · · focus · HN ↗
Aurornis · · focus · HN ↗
A frequent topic of discussion is how hard it can be to get things on display. Many people in museum related roles view their job first as protecting and preserving the displays at all costs, with presenting them to the public as an unfortunate necessity that they’re forced to do to get funding. There are some epic fights from people who don’t want the best or most valuable works to be put on display or loan because that risks damaging them.
I would have thought that high resolution copies and archives of art would be a dream come true for these people, but from what I’ve observed many of them oppose that as well. They feel it provides an inauthentic or incomplete sense of their valued works, while also diminishing their profession of preserving these items. When you view yourself as the gatekeeper for a special, irreplaceable treasure, anything that produces a facsimile of that treasure is an abomination that must be resisted.
keiferski · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://youtu.be/OQiQk8AJ0YI?is=Wiwxeok0Hg4jMdJu" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/OQiQk8AJ0YI?is=Wiwxeok0Hg4jMdJu
Off the top of my head, I can think of at least a few artists whose works are somewhat belittled by being digitized and viewed on a screen: Monet and Rothko. Both have monumental size paintings that really don’t work if you aren’t there in person. But since the only way most people interact with them is via a screen, they are often criticized (Rothko specifically.)
So in other words, some art necessarily has a physical dimension which cannot be appreciated in a non-physical way.
underlipton · · focus · HN ↗
I mean, the museum setting is an arbitrary middle ground between the initial intended presentation (a 19th century salon or 20th century gallery showing, in specific physical spaces, likely to be attended by specific people) and wherever and at whatever fidelity that initial presentation is reproduced. What's impure enough to be verboten? No thumbnails in museum brochures or online? Do we restrict entrance to the demographic that was initially present? Are we allowed to light them with modern fixtures? Must the air in the gallery be a reproduction of Paris or New York's historical smog?
An artist's intent should be respected, sure, but I do wonder how much of it is that, and how much of it is a sort of elitism and gatekeeping from people who are not the artist.
keiferski · · focus · HN ↗
The rest of what you wrote is unnecessarily pedantic.
underlipton · · focus · HN ↗