Is this the way museumgoers now look at art?

[otc]

Originally Posted by Douglas

it could also be that they're using google goggles to research info about the painting.

If I had a smartphone I might play with this more for the novelty effect of "can it tell me what painting this is? how about this one?"

It probably has more to do with people being confused about what they are supposed to do in a museum...ooh maybe I will take pictures to show how cultured I am.

One thing I like about being a member of the art institute (beyond not having to pay $18 for a 30 minute lunchtime visit since they stopped pay-as-you-can donations) is that I don't feel any pressure to see everything in a visit to "get my money's worth". I can cruise through galleries, stopping when something catches my eye, and not worry about missing what was around the back corner since I can see it later.

Always nice to blow by one of the crowd pleaser paintings like I don't even give a ****.

 

[Harold falcon]

Pretty soon we will have cameras installed into our brains Robin Williams Final Cut style, and then it won't be any different from remembering what we've just seen or pulling it up on our hard-wired electronic brains.

 

[Kyoung05]

Well, this is really no different that the morons snapping pictures of their food in restaurants. As someone pointed out earlier, for these people, it's more about capturing the memory rather than living/experiencing it. I also agree that it seems Asians are the worst offenders.

In the past, the only people that might see your vacation pictures are those unfortunate few who came to visit you shortly after you returned from said vacation, in the form of a slide show, etc (btw, those people probably didn't give a **** about what you did on vacation). Today, we have
blogs/social networking/photo-sharing websites, etc. that make it too easy to share your ****** photos with online friends (who still don't give a **** about what you did/do). It's more about impressing others with what you did/saw/ate, rather than enjoying it for yourself.

 

[otc]

Food is different though (though you are totally right that people go overboard on this...like wasting time taking lots of pictures of temperature sensitive dishes)

You can't go find your food in an art book...it is gone as soon as you bite into it. Maybe it is because my dad does it for a living but I think you can take interesting photos of food that turn into art--you have all of the angle and staging options with candles, guests, silverware, etc. Taking blurry (no flash and no sunlight remember) photos of art hung on white walls doesn't get you interesting photos...it gives you snapshots of a wall.

EDIT: I should say: If someone has pictures of awesome food, I will look at them happily...this is not true for snapshots of paintings.

 

[Kyoung05]

Just out of curiosity, isn't this kind of the same thing as "right-click + save" on the Great Back Doors thread?

 

[Humperdink]

Why can't people live the experience and capture the memory in the same visit? Why do they have to be mutually exclusive, simply because the OP has a hard-on for pretension?

I know, this is another 'mocking the moron masses' thread, but why are your behaviors in a museum any more valid than the behaviors of those you're condescending? I could say you're a plebe for even going to a museum, so who cares whether you stare at a room full of Warhol prints for an hour or if you take a bunch of cellphone shots in a two minute pass through.

 

[StephenHero]

They do it so they can look at it on the train, while they shuffle between cities every 24 hours . 8 countries! 9 days! They're cultured! Lives are enriched!