Museum presence. An attempt to map what cannot be mapped

Forfattere

  • Theis Vallø Madsen Faaborg Museum The University of Southern Denmark

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5617/nm.6336

Emneord (Nøkkelord):

presence, atmosphere, mapping, milieu, museum map, counterintuitive method, materiality, phenomenology, meshwork

Sammendrag

Presence has become a new object of study within architecture, literature,
art, anthropology, and museology. Theorists have described presence as a state of
being lost in focused intensity, an attitude towards history as an ongoing process,
and as a newfound interest in the materiality of collections and the museum
space. In this article, the work on mapping a small historical museum in Denmark
makes use of presence theory in a(n) (futile) attempt to represent the embodied
experience of museum space including time, movements, atmosphere, and presence
effects. This article introduces a provisional counterintuitive method – in this case
mapping presence – in order to point to those qualities of the museum which are
often overlooked. The cumbersome presence is here considered to be a logical,
predictable and static object of study. In this specific case, the counterintuitive
method will attempt to get a hold of presence using one of the most uncreative
and conventional parts of the museum institution: the museum map. The article’s
map draws on Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze and Guattari’s mapping, Gumbrecht’s
descriptions of presence, Böhme’s distinction between Realität and Wirklichkeit,
and Ingold’s meshwork, lines, and knots in order to point to potential zones of
presence in the museum.

Forfatterbiografi

Theis Vallø Madsen, Faaborg Museum The University of Southern Denmark

Ph.D., postdoc

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