Maeve Day 4

We started Friday working in the library on blog posts and Vlisco research. Dani and I decided that we'd start our observations by doing the naturalistic method of writing down everything each visitor did in the exhibit. The guards told us that people usually didn't start coming in until around 11:30, so we decided to wait until then. We started by following the same visitor--a white woman in her early sixties, basically a member type--just to see what behaviors we each thought were important and how our notes compared.

I took this after I checked my email and realized I should've brought my laptop.

At lunch, I revisited my notes and the map and noticed a few things I found interesting. The visitor we'd followed had completely ignored the hanging figures, which was something Monique had wanted to track. The map of the exhibit Laura gave us is divided into three sections: envisioning, enacting, and interpreting. I wasn't sure what these terms might mean in the context of the exhibit, and from my experience with the prompts, I couldn't think of how they were being employed.

"What do you make of it?" is such a weak question to place at the start of the exhibit

After lunch, I followed more people around. A pattern was beginning to emerge: people were really interested in the "power figures" and the Kota figures. Even visitors who stayed for only a few minutes stopped at these sections of the exhibit. Other common actions were commenting on the facial expressions and gestures of all of the objects resembling humans, mentioning voodoo around the divination kits and power figures, and remarking on the tragedy of elephant deaths when looking at the ivories. When I was waiting for new people to come in so I could fully track them, I wrote down things I overheard from visitors in the exhibit. I tracked five people in total. 

This question seems like it would be the best way to marry all of the sections of the exhibit--it could even introduce discussion on what "function" means for pieces of art!

I have no idea what this question means.

Not a lot of people look up at those figures, even though they seem to read this label.

This is a great question that skirts all the messy details and doesn't fully acknowledge the complicated history. 

Okay, but also how do colonial economic demands influence what is made? These ivories were produced as souvenirs, not just because they were ivory. 

After tracking people for a while, I spent some time reflecting on the exhibit and really reading all of the prompts for myself. At 4, we went over to the main building to meet with Monique and figure out the "key behaviors" we'd want to track. We decided to note beginning and end times, visited v.s. ignored, and a handful of behaviors as a way to find a methodological middle ground between the simplicity of timing and tracking and the overwhelming information provided by naturalistic note-taking. Our key behaviors are:

• P = taking photos
• T = talking (to another visitor about the exhibit)
• R = reading aloud
• RV = revisit
• G = glancing between object and label
• L = reading "tombstone" label
• A = walking around/trying to get different angles
• SG = talking to security guards about exhibit

Why is there no museum snapchat filter at the Perelman building?

We went on an unsuccessful search for clipboards that ended with Monique buying us each a coloring book (yay!). We then all went to the staircase room to enjoy the concert being put on for Art After 5. The concert itself was really nice, though they barely mentioned Creative Africa. My girlfriend enjoyed the hummus platter.