Taken to an extreme, perhaps museum exhibits of the future will ONLY be QR codes.
Some people prefer ball games. I get that. Huge stadiums, hot dogs, afternoons outdoors among cheering throngs: for lots of people this sounds like fun. With the exception of determining an inevitable winner and loser, going to a ballpark is entirely unlike watching a game on television.
It’s also entirely unlike visiting a museum except for one thing. Trips to a ball park and trips to a museum require visitors to be physically present. In the same way as watching a game on television, seeing a painting on a screen is a wholly different experience from seeing it in real life.
That’s why one particular, rapidly proliferating trend in museum curation causes me to shout at the umpire. In the past few years, and especially following cultural trends that accelerated after the pandemic, museums have turned to QR codes to augment visitor experiences.
Sweetheart, hold my calls.
It’s not that I don’t understand the efficiency of QR codes. With QRs, museum staff can effectively deliver infinite informational resources on demand, at a cost that’s far less to deploy than carefully prepared signage or staff on hand. The problem is that museum guests often find themselves face down in their glowing glass screens rather than being present in the presence of the actual art in the first place. They may come to a gallery, but by having to interact with their phones they might as well be anywhere, or nowhere. It’s bad enough that people feel compelled to upload endless social media posts while in a gallery. With QRs integrated into visitor experiences, people now swipe and scroll just to learn basic information about the artists and the work. Then, inevitably, they check their social media to see if anyone has interacted with their own posts from five minutes ago. And then they see a funny meme and feel compelled to comment. And they get an alert from their group chat and can’t pass up a quick emoji reply. And then, oh wait! They forgot to add a couple of things to their to-do list, so they take care of that too. And, hey, who is this painter dude anyway? “I forgot, but can just Google it later…”
The point of being in an art gallery is to experience art in a place that’s outside normal life and ordinary living spaces. Galleries focus attention in much the same way that movie theaters focus attention on a movie, which is theoretically differently than watching one from your couch. (Don’t get me started…) Going to a museum is a social experience, even as it can also be also a personal, even intimate experience. Reading descriptions on gallery walls helps keep visitors present in the physical space of the work, rather than shifting attention back to the bottomless void of our wireless devices.
I’m sensitive to the economic realities pressing hard against museums. I also fully appreciate the lure of enabling interactivity whenever possible, plus the contemporary desire to feel like we have a smidge of personal agency to steer the path of our days. But in enabling visitors an easy means for having one foot outside exhibits, curators erode their biggest reason for existing in the first place, namely as a destination for people to experience ideas in the real world that they simply can’t get the same way in virtual spaces.
Perhaps that’s one of the key reasons I like spending time with artists, too. No matter the format or activity, artists always know the strength of a creative moment comes from bring fully present in the real world. That’s why QR codes annoy me when I encounter them at a museum. I’d rather be fully present in the space of the work itself, rather than in dialogue with an electronic intermediary who’s content creators are far more interested in holding my attention on their screens.