Although I had visited the Museum of Jurassic Technology website and had been warned (a bit) about what it was before my first visit, I was unprepared for my experience yesterday. It helped that I wasn’t alone: Jenni Powell, Susan Cowan, and Matt Selznick served as my transmedial sherpas.
“While the casual observer may, at first glance, be underwhelmed with the initial appearances of what is surely one of many in the legacy of curation establishments, the subtlety with which a traditional facade has been both produced and preserved should not be discounted without consideration.”
I observed my first clue that the MJT was not what it appeared to be shortly after entering the exhibit area. A young man exiting the exhibit area asked the employee in the small entry lobby/gift shop, “So…what is ‘Jurassic Technology’?”
The employee replied with a smile, “Well, that’s an interesting question. What do you think it is?”
After hearing the patron’s response, the employee then said, “That’s as good a definition as any I’ve heard.” Her smile continued, though it was clear that her explanation of the term would not.
I’m not sure who was shaking their head more: me or the slightly puzzled man stepping back out into the bright light of a sunny Los Angeles afternoon. What kind of place doles out Zen koans to simple questions?
The first exhibit our group stopped at was a video detailing the history behind the museum. Pretty standard fare, but after a few minutes of listening, I started to notice something…not…quite…right.
The words were what you would expect from a scripted video providing basic background on a museum. What was odd was the way the words were used. If you really tried to listen to what you were hearing, you wound up with sensical structures that bordered on the uninformative. Intermittent chuckles from my group during the video helped cement the realization that there was more to this museum than dusty exhibits and hushed conversations. The game was afoot.
“When confronted with what in one and the same moment is a conflicting set of propositions that neither support nor contradict the perceived reality one is soon to experience, it is sometimes helpful to solicit the interpretation of others, particularly when it is unclear whether they share the semi-permeable but persistent feeling that there is no there, there.”
We explored, fairly unscientifically, the exhibits themselves. And the feeling that fancy weighs heavily on fact in this magical circle on Venice Boulevard was soon hard to ignore.
When faced with “Rotten Luck,” an exhibit of decaying dice from Ricky Jay, I’m told by one of my sherpas, “Oh, he’s real. He’s a famous sleight of hand magician.” Okay, maybe that’s real. +1 Fact.
While wandering out of the Delani / Sonnabend Hills exhibit, I overhear someone – as if to drive home either the poignancy or the unlikelihood of the story – comment, “You know, Delani [an opera singer], suffered from memory loss.”
Why is this important? Memory loss was the same condition that Sonnabend, a neurophysiologist, studied his whole live. And though Sonnabend saw Delani sing only once (in Brazil) and never met her, shortly after watching her performance, he had an epiphany regarding his work that led to a breakthrough in his theories on memory and amnesia. And he never knew that Delani died mere days after he heard her sing, the victim of a random and tragic automobile crash.
Was that brief but impactful meeting of lives the entire purpose for this whole exhibit? Was it just an incredibly long set up for a punchline that you weren’t sure was funny?
Upstairs, we stumbled into a small theater (read: it had a dozen seats) cordoned off from the rest of the museum by a simple cloth drape. A sign imploring us to wait until the lights in theater came on before entering was promptly ignored, and we settled into the back, sitting down in the middle of some kind of film. I had no idea what I was watching, but after a few minutes, I pieced together that the film was about a Russian artist, Nikolai Syadristry, who creates microminiature works. It was anything but a typical documentary, which is to say it was very entertaining.
Cut with video of the Soviet space program (was there a connection to the exhibit just outside dedicated to the dogs of the Soviet space program?) and shots of Kiev, the film is spliced with a female narrator facing the camera with an expressionless face, delivering an interweaving tale of Levsha, the Russian folk tale hero hero, and Syadristry in an equally expressionless voice (luckily, there are English subtitles).
The film lacked the commonplace structure and pacing I’m used to, and just as it appeared to approach a narrative climax, it slid away, with the narrator repeating one or two sentences from her previous interlude before marching down another rabbit hole.
At one point, Susan leaned over and whispered (perhaps after noticing me checking my watch), “You know, this film is twenty-four hours long.”
It was several seconds before I suspected she’s lying.
It was several minutes before I believed she was.
It was not until the credits roll ten minutes later that I knew she was.
“The limitless march of the serial impressions one encounters should nonetheless provoke the feeling, the sense, that what is to come has already done so in a parade of preludes and foreshadowing, setting the stage for the next surprise nestled firmly and equally in a haze of obviousness.”
Perhaps the highlight of the museum for me was the Napolean Room, a small rectangular room with a piano, three bookcases, and several pieces of art. For some reason, I picked up a book and started to skim through it (Richard Feynman’s, “QED”). I’d almost replaced it on the bookshelf before I realize that I’ve just touched an exhibit. I avoid the instinct to look for cameras in the corners or flee the scene, and I’m relieved when Jenni walks in and promptly repeats my act of violation.
We soon discovered that some of the books contained notes, cards, messages, and other communications:
“I’m Watching You!” (found in “Human Sacrifice”)
“Sirius Black Lives!” (found in “The Sirius Mystery”)
Giddily, we shared our discovery with other visitors as they entered the room. Finding a note became a game for us, a race to see who could find the next one.
Not all notes had the same level of meta-meaning, but the number of them, and the fact that many were dated, was interesting. More interesting still was that despite searching several titles, none of our group found a defaced book. All notes were written on business cards or paper and slipped inside the books, which seemed to be acting as honored curation vessels to important or valuable to destroy.
“It is, perhaps without significance, that the goals which were initially self-evident became, under the pressure of a parallel scrutiny, less solid, less bounded. In the seeking for clarity, once thought to be easily obtained through the focused intent of a mind forged in strict adherence to process and procedure, it is as likely that one should come face-to-face with the failings of a flawed analysis as it is to fall under the spell of that which has come to represent, for lack of a better word, enlightenment.”
The MJT encourages, if not forces, visitors to construct their own narratives, beginning with the most fundamental question of all: what is real? Many of the exhibits were designed to elicit a sense of awe. In order to have that response, you have to be prepared to question the reality of what you are presented with. It must seem or appear (at first blush, anyway), so fantastical, so extraordinary, so unlikely, or your awe will give rise to a yawn. It must be so at odds with your preconceived ideas of what reality is, can, or should be, that it creates a dissonance in your perception of the world.
The museum’s website states that, “[like] a coat of two colors, the Museum serves dual functions.”
That duality was not lost on me as I stepped outside, making the transition from a darkened museum to blinding sidewalk light.
You may enter by yourself but never alone.