Event Blog #1

            Last week I went to visit the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City. The museum itself was completely different from what you would typically expect from a museum. The location is not very noticeable and the door itself is not grandiose like what you would expect. The inside of the museum is relatively cramped, dark, and filled with the sounds of audio clips ranging from orchestral compositions to animal noises. The museum introduces itself in a slideshow that the term “museum” in its title refers to the original meaning, “a spot dedicated to the Muses”. The exhibits are not explicitly labeled and the objects on display are what you would expect from an eccentric collector. There are things such as powdered duck bill used to cure diseases, clear jars of preserved embryos, tiny stained glass pictures displayed under a microscope, and video demonstrations of how to perform “cat’s cradle” with a string displayed in glass prisms just to name a few.

Picture of me outside the Museum
of Jurassic Technology

Ticket from the museum

            The exhibits are often more artistic than scientific. They may be based off science but demonstrate the fanciful ideas of people throughout history. One of the most interesting exhibits for me was a section that was dedicated to portraying how medicine and superstition were tied together. One exhibit showed a glass rod meant to collect foul, disease causing fumes, and another showed a model of a child with a duck bill in its mouth meant to cure a sore throat. Other exhibits fused physics with art. These display cases would often feature a miniature landscape without anything else. However, there is a glass prism presented before the model and if looked through, small images of people would be projected onto the landscape. It was a very artistic use of the physics concept of total internal reflection.

Lens on display using total
internal reflection

Me sitting in a small theater
inside the musem

            These displays helped me to better understand how science can be experienced as art. The presentation and atmosphere of the museum aided in that by stimulating multiple senses at the same time and played with lighting and the atmosphere around the exhibits. Unlike more typical museums, where the focus is the display, the Jurassic Technology Museum aims to incorporate the area around the exhibits as well. It is perhaps better to say the entire museum is an exhibit of how science can be experienced as art. I was amazed at the museum and highly recommend others to go as well. Just not that phones and cameras are discouraged in the museum and pictures aren’t allowed in many areas.

References

The Museum of Jurassic Technology. (2009). Mjt.org. Retrieved 23 April 2018, from http://www.mjt.org/main2.html

Weschler, L. (1996). Mr. Wilson's cabinet of wonder. New York: Vintage Books.

Wilson, S. (2000). Myths and Confusions in Thinking about Art/Science/Technology. College Art Association Meetings.