Leveraging the visitor’s narrative of the museum experience to create metaphorical data

Leveraging the visitor’s narrative
of the museum experience to
create metaphorical data
Shreyanka Basu

Different types of data
Tangible & Intangible components

Different approaches to data
Emic – Etic

• An 'emic' account is a description of behavior or a belief in terms
meaningful (consciously or unconsciously) to the actor;
– that is, an emic account comes from a person within the culture. Almost
anything from within a culture can provide an emic account.
• An 'etic' account is a description of a behavior or belief by a social analyst
or scientific observer (a student or scholar of anthropology or sociology, for
example),
– in terms that can be applied across cultures; that is, an etic account attempts to
be 'culturally neutral', limiting any ethnocentric, political, and/or cultural bias
or alienation by the observer.
Emic VS Etic

Thus the data context is emic and
the data content is metaphors.
In this instance we have the visitor sharing his/ her
experience of the museum visit through metaphors.

Metaphor
a thing regarded as representative or
symbolic of something else.
Meaning Making is CONTEXT INFLUENCED
Shared Meaning System (SMS)

Metaphor
a figure of speech in which a word or
phrase is applied to an object or action
to which it is not literally applicable.
Meaning Making is PERSONAL

Inner Data Structure –
Personal
Outer data structure –
context influenced

Which of these 3 images best fit –
My childhood was a …….

Various reasons for your answers

Attention & Remembering
happens via association
Meaning Making is PERSONAL
Meaning Making is CONTEXT INFLUENCED
Why metaphor based data
METAPHORS

Metaphor based data tends to
be sensory enriched data
Point to note – As it is association based data
Sensory processing (sometimes called "sensory
integration" or SI) is a term that refers to the
way the nervous system receives messages
from the senses and turns them into appropriate
motor and behavioral responses.

Metaphor based data tends to
be visual led data
Point to note

So how do we generate this metaphorical data?
As the visitor wraps up a visit to the Museum we give the
individual a post card asking just one question – which was
your favorite gallery/ object and how did you feel like as you
experienced this gallery.
The metaphorical twist – the visitor has to compare this
feeling to a “Name- Place- Animal- Thing-Feeling” in order
to metaphorically articulate his/ her thoughts and feelings.
And whatever the visitor says must be said in drawings/
scribbles/ visual symbols.
Once the visual representation is done the visitor can use
words to explain if he/ she so desires.
Coming to museum context

• Swami Shantiratananda aged 33 from Ramkrishna Mission, Mysore, Karnataka
• Haciastek Johan aged 29 from France
• Lobsang aged 27 from Tibet
• In the class we understood little which steadily grew during the work assigned in the museum
gallery. Swami ji was the first to come in our contact. We introduced ourselves and explained our
objectives. He selected an ivory throne and drew a picture out of his metaphor. His further
explanation revealed that he viewed this object as his home shrine and to our surprise he drew
cactus around. Whether he wanted to glorify the shrine or to show the divine peace the shrine has
in such a typical environment, remained obscure for our understanding. Moving our attention to
the object we conclude that the object IVORY THRONE unleashed a positive impact in the mind of
Swamiji.
• Mr. Haciastek Johan right after our interaction began to search an object from amongst the
miniature paintings retaining in mind special metaphoric things. Eventually he paused before a
painting depicting a mythical tree. This mythical tree in his view is from a French Landscape in Alps.
If a painting comes as a natural scene or nature object in one’s metaphor then that can be
construed as a ‘taken positively’.
• Mr. Lobsang, a shy visitor looking to an exhibit “a glass jar”, finally drew sketch of special offering
Lamp Bowl used by his forefathers. He wrote inter-alia – “..this special bowl brings back me to the
memory of my life in Tibet..” Thus the exhibit ably became a high valued object in the mindset of
the visitor.
•

All picture based data not same
as metaphor based data
Important to make the distinction

Leveraging the visitor’s narrative of the museum experience to create metaphorical data

Leveraging the visitor’s narrative of the museum experience to create metaphorical data

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Leveraging the visitor’s narrative of the museum experience to create metaphorical data

Similar to Leveraging the visitor’s narrative of the museum experience to create metaphorical data (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Leveraging the visitor’s narrative of the museum experience to create metaphorical data