About Paul
Learn more about Paul Olson on LinkedIn or by reading this blog.
Don't miss a thing. Connect:
YIKES! Paul quit his job and has gone gypsy:
Driving InertiaBitch, It’s a Series of Tubes!
Learn more about Paul Olson on LinkedIn or by reading this blog.
Don't miss a thing. Connect:
YIKES! Paul quit his job and has gone gypsy:
Driving Inertia
It’s Time We Banned Cameras From Museums
Edward Abbey had some great ideas on how the national parks should be run — basically ban cars and make people walk or bike or take shuttles. He believed the cars we drove hindered our experience of the natural beauty in our parks. I believe he was right — let’s ban cars from parks … and let’s ban cameras from museums. Stick with me:
Maybe I’m idealizing the past I wasn’t part of, but I believe people used to go to museums to look at art. They looked at the Mona Lisa … LOOKED at it … and took it in … experienced it (Dean Moriarty would have dug the Mona Lisa). But that was the point — look at the thing and take it in … maybe talk to those experiencing it with you (… Dude, why doesn’t she have eyebrows?). That’s not the case anymore. Our cameras now hinder our ability to experience the beauty of our art. Now, instead of LOOKING at the thing, we want to get a picture of it. We whip out our iPhones and our CoolPix and our Rebels and we click-click-click our way through museums. Click-click-click … pictures that have already been taken. Click-click-click … pictures for Facebook we’ll never look at. Click-click-click and bump-bump-bump those around us … the others getting in the way of our perfect picture … click-click-click … I don’t want to talk to anybody about this art, I just want to … click-click-click! Are my eyes open in that one? Take another … click-click-click! Hey, we’re trying to take a picture here, buddy … click-click-CLICK! Enough.
Here’s what we should do: ban cameras. Ban cell phones too. No electronics allowed in museums. Instead, the museum takes your picture when you enter, and if you want a picture of your body in front of Winged Victory, they Photoshop you together. You get three free prints with your admission and unlimited downloads for the next two months from the museum website. You can have your shit pictures, but you don’t get to ruin your experience trying to take them. This can work. We don’t have to take this.