Not just object-centered or object-driven but also object-oriented

Mia Ridge wrote a very nice blog post recently on object-centered and object-driven approaches in the context of online exhibitions. Mia asks whether the object-driven exhibition format that most museums employ might clash with the object-centered practices that most often drive online exhibition.
I won’t comment directly on Mia’s interesting question of whether there is “a potential mismatch between the object-driven approach that exhibitions have trained museum audiences to expect and the object-centred approach they encounter in museum collections online” but rather examine the distinction between object-centered and object-driven approaches itself.
An object-centered approach, following art historian Bernard Herman is one in which the focus of study is on the object itself, specifically its physical attributes and its provenance; this is the kind of descriptive, check-list approach that forms most museums catalogues of their collections. An object-driven approach, on the other hand, emphasizes how objects relate to people and the cultures that make them.  It is the kind of culturally contextualizing approach that drives most exhibition making.
This distinction is useful in that it captures a great deal of what goes on in museum practice. But it also, I think, points to the narrow space that some of the most interesting qualities of objects are afforded.
The distinction reminded me of a critique that philosopher Graham Harman and others from what is called objec...

Source: Biomedicine on Display - August 5, 2013 Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Adam Bencard Tags: aesthetics Source Type: blogs