STS AND THE POSSIBLE FUTURE OF THE SCIENCE MUSEUM: TOWARDS A NEW KUNSTKAMMER
DOI: 10.23951/2312-7899-2021-4-131-185
The article analyzes the representation of science in science and technology museums and centers, and outlines the possible concept of a museum of technoscience that would compensate their limitations and omissions. In contrast, the museum of technoscience is not dedicated to what scientists know about nature, but to how they get this knowledge, how it exists and is applied, that is, to metascientific issues. To meet this challenge, the new museum should be based on the ideas of Science and Technology Studies (STS), and of the History and Philosophy of Science. It is likely that today the path of reason to maturity should pass not only through scientific education, but also through metascientific education, that is, through STS and the History and Philosophy of Science. The first part of the article describes the general logic and context of the representation of science and technology in actual science and technology museums and centers. The main aims of such museums and centers are to contribute to increasing the public understanding of science and the attractiveness of professions in the STEM field. These aims are usually achieved by focusing on pure science at the expense of applied science and engineering. Technology is represented as an unproblematized “application” of knowledge. There is also little talk about the structure of scientific production of knowledge, mainly the scientific method is communicated. This approach is being critically analyzed. Among other issues, the naturalization and idealization of knowledge, double invisibility of authorship (science in relation to knowledge, museum in relation to the exhibition) are criticized. Arguments are given in favor of the desirability of addressing the discussion of the structure of science and technology based on the results of science and technology studies. It involves the creation of a museum or exhibition that would complement existing museums and science centers. Its working name is the museum of technoscience. The second part of the article describes the possible conception of the technoscience museum. Examples of topics are given, some principles of the organization are revealed: double vision, reassembling of the subject, museum position and audience, museum as a bricoleur, museum as a forum. These principles bring the museum of technoscience closer to the kunstkammer in contrast to modern museums of science. The historization of existing forms of science and technology is discussed as one of the possible approaches to the construction of the exposition. Les Immatériaux (1985) by J.-F. Lyotard and Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion and Art (2002) by B. Latour can serve as landmarks from the history of exhibitions. In conclusion, the conception of the museum of technoscience is summarized in a set of values: productive ignorance, criticism, diversity, controversiality.
Keywords: science museum, science and technology center, science and technology studies, history of science, society, practical philosophy, public understanding of science, technoscience, technoscience museum
References:
Bloor, D. (2002). The strong programme in the sociology of knowledge. Logos, 5–6(35), 1–24. (In Russian).
Bourdieu, P. (1996). Contre les divisions scolastiques. In Socio–Logos’97. Almanac of the Russian–French Center for Sociological Research of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (pp. 8–31). Socio–Logos. (In Russian).
Callon, M. (2017). Some elements of a sociology of translation; Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St. Brieuc Bay. Logos, 1, 49–94. (In Russian).
Cameron, D. F. (1971). The museum, a temple or the forum. Curator: The Museum Journal, 1 (14), 11–24.
Daston, L. (Ed.) (2000). Biographies of scientific objects. The University of Chicago Press.
Daston, L. (2019). Against nature. MIT Press.
Daston, L. (2020). History of science and the history of knowledge. Logos, 1, 63–90. (In Russian).
Daston, L., & Galison, P. (2018). Obyektivnost’ [Objectivity]. Translated from English by T. Varkhotov, S. Gavrilenko, & A. Pisarev. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie.
Dean, M. (2016). Pravitel’nost’: vlast’ i pravlenie v sovremennykh obshchestvakh [Governmentality. Power and rule in modern society]. Translated from English. Delo.
Dear, P. (2020). What is the history of science the history of? Early modern roots of the ideology of modern science. Logos, 1, 29–62. (In Russian).
Feldman, A. (2015). STEAM vs STEM: Why we need to put the arts into STEM education. June 16, 2015. Slate.com. https://slate.com/technology/2015/06/steam–vs–stem–why–we–need–to–put–the–arts–into–stem–education.html
Gordin, M. (2012). The pseudoscience wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the birth of the modern fringe. University of Chicago Press.
Gorman, M. J. (2020). Idea colliders: The future of science museums. The MIT Press.
Hamlin, C. (2016). The pedagogical roots of the history of science: Revisiting the vision of James Bryant Conant. Isis, 107, 282–308.
Haraway, D. (1984–1985). Teddy bear patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, New York City, 1908–1936. Social Text, 11, 20–64.
Johnson, M. (2019). STEM programs key to winning ‘the new Cold War’. 13 February 2019. NonDoc. https://nondoc.com/2019/02/13/stem-programs-help-win-new-cold-war/
Kuhn, T. (1975). Struktura nauchnykh revolyutsiy [The structure of scientific revolutions]. Translated from English. Progress.
Kuhn, T. (2014). Posle “Struktury nauchnykh revolyutsiy” [After “The structure of scientific revolutions”] (pp. 19–44). Translated from English. AST.
Latour, B. (2000). On the partial existence of existing and nonexisting objects. In L. Daston (Ed.), Biographies of scientific objects (pp. 247–269). The University of Chicago Press.
Latour, B. (2006). Nous n’avons jamais été modernes. Essai d’anthropologie symétrique. European University at St. Petersburg. (In Russian).
Latour, B. (2014). Can we get our materialism back, please? Logos, 4, 265–274. (In Russian).
Latour, B., & Weibel, P. (Eds.) (2002). Iconoclash, Beyond the image-wars in science, religion and art. The MIT Press.
Law, J. (2018). Technology and heterogeneous engineering: The case of Portuguese expansion. Logos, 5, 169–202. (In Russian).
Lyotard, J.-F., & Blistène, B. (1985). Les Immatériaux: A Conversation with Jean-François Lyotard and Bernard Blistène. Flash Art, 121, 32–39.
Macdonald, S. (1998). Exhibitions of Power and Powers of Exhibition. An Introduction to the Politics of Display. In S. Macdonald (Ed.), The Politics of Display. Museums, Science, Culture. Routledge.
Mol, A., & de Laet, M. (2017). The Zimbabwe bush pump: Mechanics of a fluid technology. Logos, 2, 171–232. (In Russian).
Panchin, A. (2017). Rasskaz o tom, kak izbili solomennoe chuchelo populyarizatora [The story of how the popularizer’s strawman was beaten. Planetarium. https://scinquisitor.livejournal.com/123402.html
Pisarev, A. (2020). Imagery of taxidermy in science museums: From systematics of species to systematicity of violence and posthumanist nature. ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Problemy vizual’noy semiotiki – ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics, 2(24), 91–130. (In Russian). http://dx.doi.org/10.23951/2312-7899-2020-2-91-130
Pisarev, A., & Gavrilenko, S. (2020). In search of an evanescent object: science and its history. Logos, 1, 1–19. (In Russian).
Porter, T. (2020). How science became technical. Logos, 1, 91–130. (In Russian).
Rajchman 2009 — Rajchman J. Les Immatériaux or How to Construct the History of Exhibitions. Tate Papers. 2009. Vol. 12. URL: https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate–papers/12/les–immateriaux–or–how–to–construct–the–history–of–exhibitions (accessed: 20.08. 2021).
Segarra, V. A., et al. (2018). STEAM: Using the Arts to Train Well–Rounded and Creative Scientists. Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, 19(1). 19.1.53.
Smolyanskaya, N. V. (2009). The sublime in the interpretation of postmodern art: J.-F. Lyotard’s conception for the art exhibition The Immaterial. Philosophy Journal, 1(2), 127–140. (In Russian).
Shapin, S. (1992). Why the public ought to understand science-in-the-making. Public Understanding of Science, 1(1), 27–30.
Shapin, S. (2016). Invisible science. The Hedgehog Review, 3. http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/shapin/files/invisible_science_final.pdf
Shapin, S. (2020). How to be antiscientific. Logos, 1, 159–185. (In Russian).
Vakhshtayn, V. (2017a). Reassembling the everyday: drones, elevators, and the MT-1 project. Logos, 2, 1–48. (In Russian).
Vakhshtayn, V. (2017b). Eksperimental’noe oskvernenie. Kosmogoniya i morfologiya prosvetitel’skikh soobshchestv [Experimental desecration. Cosmogony and morphology of public awareness communities]. Indicator.ru. https://indicator.ru/humanitarian–science/viktor–vakhshtayn–slyot–prosvetiteley–2017.html
Issue: 4, 2021
Series of issue: Issue 4
Rubric: ARTICLES
Pages: 131 — 185
Downloads: 1082