In his Utopia of Rules, David Graeber cannily coins bureaucracy as the water in which we swim. The gradual societal and governmental slippage into a neoliberal economy and open market system requires on army of administrators to keep such a system afloat, leaving a collapsing contradiction at its core. Any notion of a completely ‘open market’ willfully ignores that globalized markets do not simply emerge as some autonomous domain independent of the hands of state authorities–they are in fact complex, and knotty. David Graeber, The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidiy, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy (2015) Melville House Publishing.
As conjured by Mark Wigley, the ubiquity of the internet in public life creates a museum system that has “already been condensed into a cell phone,” with the institution designed and laid out to “reduce your role as viewer.” Mark Wigley, “Discursive versus Immersive: The Museum is the Massage,” Stedelijk Studies 4 (Spring 2016), ➝.
So-called “research-led” exhibitions traditionally foreground the fixed site from which the experience sits: the fabric of the building, including gallery space and display mechanisms, is used to elevate objects in space. Yet the immersive exhibition pushes this frame out of our perception; despite the tools used to deliver on the experience, they become almost like a “sensory deprivation tank.” Ibid.
In 2018, then Rolling Stone journalist Corey Seymour reviewed David Bowie Is for Vogue, writing, “The headphones essentially isolate visitors from one another; there’s little or no chatting or discussion among friends. The upside of this, of course: Everyone has their own experience, at their own pace.” Seymour Corey, “‘David Bowie Is,’ A Feast For the Senses (and the Bowie Obsessive), Arrives at the Brooklyn Museum.” Vogue (March 1, 2018), ➝.
Henry Urbach, “Exhibition as Atmosphere,” Log 20 (2010): 11–17, ➝.