Fetiš návštěvnost

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• Passivity was a characteristic feature of museums in the past,00:00:03.497
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• they set opening hours, sold tickets, provided museum security guards00:00:06.615
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• and by imposing lots of bans and prohibitions00:00:12.921
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• they made the visitors feel as if they were intruders00:00:16.611
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• bothering the museum in its grandness, ceremoniousness and loneliness.00:00:20.659
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• FETISH VISITOR RATES00:00:42.378
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• According to the results of a research00:00:52.878
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• about 20% of the population regularly visit museums00:00:55.670
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• that is perhaps the maximum.00:01:03.155
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• And then there are people who will never come,00:01:08.535
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• despite a British survey from the early 1990s00:01:14.246
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• according to which every inhabitant of Europe00:01:19.210
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• visited a museum at least once in his life.00:01:21.857
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• CHAPTER 1 Statistics of visitor rates: Conception and History00:01:26.602
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• Visitor numbers are monitored very carefully,00:01:34.449
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• and I must say "unfortunately"00:01:37.889
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• because all those statistical data are just a quantity indicator00:01:39.274
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• and says nothing about the quality.00:01:46.348
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• It doesn´t mean that high visitor numbers00:01:49.130
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• reflect high quality.00:01:58.517
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• What I find sad is the fact that these numbers00:02:02.577
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• reflect institutions which hand in the paper with statistical data,00:02:06.922
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• because it´s not based on anything else,00:02:15.033
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• The National Information and Consulting Centre for Culture (NIPOS)00:02:18.510
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• has the right to demand this questionnaire00:02:23.232
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• from museums established by the state or regional authorities,00:02:25.363
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• and the rest of the museums, including private ones,00:02:29.148
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• are also obliged to hand in the questionnaire,00:02:38.604
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• but if they don´t they cannot be penalized.00:02:42.376
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• So only those who want to fill in this questionnaire,00:02:52.381
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• and those institutions which declare themselves as museums.00:02:55.830
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• Now I must say what we mean by the word museum.00:02:57.968
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• This doesn´t mean that every institution called a museum is in fact a museum00:03:00.651
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• because a number of institutions use the word "museum" or "gallery"00:03:05.635
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• for commercial reasons, that´s why I said that unfortunately the visitor-numbers00:03:10.564
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• are monitored and the results are misleading.00:03:17.285
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• Monitoring visitor-numbers started in 1965 by the Central Museological Cabinet,00:03:20.760
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• I´ve been working in museums since 1968 so I remember well filling them in.00:03:26.763
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• Until the revolution it was done by the Central Museological Cabinet,00:03:35.166
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• and I think the statistical data haven´t been shredded.00:03:40.327
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• and they are still sitting in boxes in the archive of the National Museum.00:03:46.135
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• After the revolution, from 1992 or 93, monitoring visitor-numbers became the duty of NIPOS00:03:52.185
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• they took over the original forms and added some minor changes,00:04:00.065
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• and later on a group of people began to delve into the issue.00:04:05.153
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• In comparison with the time after the revolution,00:04:15.280
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• the visitor numbers started to rise dramatically.00:04:18.049
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• Then there was a really sharp fall,00:04:21.104
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• and then the numbers began to gradually rise again.00:04:23.639
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• But even the ten or eleven million we have now00:04:27.523
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• is nothing in comparison with the high numbers in the past.00:04:29.987
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• But what was really behind those high visitor numbers.00:04:33.548
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• In the past political exhibitions were a great success because of number of visitors.00:04:41.837
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• Museum directors did not cheat, the high numbers of tickets were really sold00:04:46.937
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• because schools were forced to go and see such exhibitions,00:04:54.018
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• even today teachers, who remember this,00:04:58.819
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• don´t like taking their students to museums.00:05:02.983
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• Tickets were also sold to factory workers through the Trade Unions,00:05:07.101
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• and nobody cared if they actually went or not.00:05:13.158
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• The important thing was that all the numbered tickets were sold.00:05:16.958
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• That´s where the millions of visitors came from.00:05:19.861
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• I think statistic data are used as a political propaganda,00:05:22.970
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• look at what our government achieved,00:05:30.164
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• or similarly look at what our region achieved...00:05:33.606
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• With view to financial politics I don´t think somebody would use this argument,00:05:40.671
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• and certainly not with view to budgets by regional authorities.00:05:52.113
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• There they ask: How much money did you have last year?00:05:57.162
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• And either you get less or the same amount.00:06:00.189
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• Museums keep track of visitor numbers but not many know who their visitors really are.00:06:06.074
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• When judging the educational effect of visits to museums00:06:18.728
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• we cannot take into account only quantitative indicators in statistical forms,00:06:21.768
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• in which we count heterogenous individuals00:06:26.635
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• to get an abstract picture of an average visitor.00:06:32.420
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• We need to apply also quality criteria00:06:36.243
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• which can show us how effective a visit to a museum really was.00:06:39.262
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• There is no doubt that the final effect of a visit to a museum00:06:44.578
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• to a certain degree depends on the ability of the visitor00:06:50.092
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• to perceive the exhibited objects,00:06:54.354
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• how well he understands the language of objects,00:06:55.999
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• if he is able to take advantage of the offered stimuli.00:06:58.720
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• In this respect, there are great differences among people,00:07:01.732
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• which should not be underestimated.00:07:04.085
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• That is why we speak about different types of visitors.00:07:06.784
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• CHAPTER 2 Statistics of visitor numbers and selected institutions00:07:13.442
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• Visit figures are in a way a quantified success of a gallery.00:07:19.619
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• But of course we know this is not right.00:07:25.517
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• We should be interested in the content regardless of of visitor-rates.00:07:27.708
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• This is just one criterion,00:07:30.336
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• and it does not mean that the higher numbers of visitors00:07:31.778
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• the better the quality of the exhibition.00:07:36.503
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• It´s not that simple.00:07:39.423
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• It surely is a criterion which should be taken into account,00:07:42.511
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• and to a certain extent it does tell us how popular the actual institution is.00:07:46.368
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• Visitor rates are an important criterion for sponsors.00:07:53.150
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• It was quite interesting that when I mentioned last year´s visit figures00:07:57.133
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• - which was 380 000 -00:08:04.505
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• everybody was surprised because they all expected a much lower number.00:08:07.653
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• Of course, we would like the visitor numbers to at least double.00:08:11.566
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• Especially when we compare our museums and galleries with those abroad.00:08:16.544
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• We keep track of the visitor numbers,00:08:22.457
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• but I cannot judge how sponsors assess these figures.00:08:28.603
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• For them it is just a piece of information without context.00:08:36.558
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• All statistics need to be seen in context00:08:40.779
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• because, to be honest, numbers can be easily changed.00:08:46.060
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• I keep comparing and even that can have an effect on the statistics.00:08:48.870
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• Either I compare myself with the better ones or the worse ones.00:08:57.317
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• And this itself brings some kind of results.00:09:00.638
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• Visitor numbers certainly have an influence on financing of the National Gallery.00:09:05.578
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• Visitors generate the income from admission.00:09:09.836
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• Naturally, our target is free admission,00:09:15.552
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• which we have achieved at least in case of youth under 26.00:09:18.772
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• But it does not influence the financing of the National Gallery from the Ministry of Culture00:09:22.349
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• because the Ministry wants us to gain profit from admission,00:09:29.074
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• but it doesn´t have an influence on the money we get from the Ministry.00:09:33.756
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• We deal with the data ourselves,00:09:39.216
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• and we are obliged to provide our organizer00:09:43.112
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• with these data for processing.00:09:48.133
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• However, this does not have much of an effect on our following work.00:09:51.014
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• We do not prepare exhibitions to attract hundreds of thousand viewers,00:09:58.839
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• there are many themes that only a limited number of people are interested in,00:10:04.955
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• but the theme deserves our attention,00:10:09.692
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• so we are trying to find the right balance00:10:13.123
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• between themes attractive for the general public00:10:21.633
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• and themes that the general public doesn´t find so appealing.00:10:27.614
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• It is mostly our favorite theme that is less popular with the general public.00:10:35.020
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• But I still think it is the duty of the institution to prepare specialized exhibitions.00:10:47.181
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• We try to work with statistical data as much as we can,00:10:53.295
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• and this perhaps led to the fact that if there are too many exhibitions00:11:00.780
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• we fail to inform about them effectively.00:11:10.488
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• It´s as if you kept producing something and had no purchasers,00:11:13.162
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• or in our case visitors to exhibitions.00:11:19.398
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• So the processing of statistical data leads to certain management decisions -00:11:21.608
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• we´d like to cut down on the number of exhibitions,00:11:31.827
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• and devote more attention to details and advertising.00:11:33.791
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• We want to spend more money on programs and events accompanying exhibitions,00:11:39.599
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• and on promotion of our exhibitions.00:11:47.386
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• Our decision to enable free admission to the permanent collection was like a kind of awakening00:11:49.038
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• because suddenly we realized that many things don´t work right.00:11:55.367
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• During this experiment, which lasted three months,00:12:00.399
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• we found out that the public was interested in the permanent collections,00:12:05.666
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• and the visitor numbers in the given months increased manifold00:12:10.718
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• in comparison with the previous period.00:12:15.452
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• We also tried to eliminate everything from the statistic data that made the figures look better.00:12:17.951
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• The institutions are under pressure in relation to grants or cultural politics,00:12:27.197
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• or the fact that they receive for instance public funding,00:12:33.877
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• or that the international trend is changing somehow.00:12:38.489
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• Of course, this is not a completely new discussion,00:12:42.293
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• related to the public and that we should work with the public.00:12:45.220
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• Naturally, this has been dealt with in a different context a long time ago00:12:49.257
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• and in our context it was a different story again, in the era of socialism.00:12:54.369
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• So there is a certain pressure on the one hand,00:13:03.440
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• which, I think, the representatives of the institutions are not really interested in,00:13:09.874
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• it isn´t really connected with their work, to communicate with the viewer..00:13:15.753
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• I think that for most curators, it shouldn´t be this way,00:13:21.876
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• and many people try to think in a different way,00:13:28.815
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• in fact it comes last... it´s similar with artists,00:13:31.648
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• they come up with a project, tune it up00:13:39.976
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• with view to place, space and content,00:13:45.558
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• everything has been solved,00:13:47.421
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• and a number of other steps taken,00:13:49.936
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• and mostly at the very end you feel that somebody should come there and see what it´s like.00:13:53.400
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• On the other hand, you can´t think of everything from the very start,00:14:03.268
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• this is not a matter of supply and demand.00:14:08.536
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• it can´t be done this way.00:14:16.498
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• I think that it´s an extreme situation here,00:14:19.236
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• because the viewer is taken into account only when we apply for a grant00:14:25.734
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• we have to fill in a form and state the visitor numbers00:14:30.657
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• and we find out that nobody really saw it.00:14:33.827
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• This kind of pressure doesn´t cause a proper dialogue with the viewer.00:14:35.750
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• It is perhaps more about a shift in thinking.00:14:39.994
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• Opening hours in museums are the same as usual working hours.00:14:47.922
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• So in fact museums are available only for those who are not at work.00:14:51.231
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• For retired people, tourists, holiday makers and groups of school children.00:14:57.215
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• This logically increases concentration of people at weekends and holidays,00:15:02.512
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• while during weekdays exhibition rooms are nearly empty.00:15:07.772
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• Extended opening hours, which might attract people00:15:10.515
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• to go to museums after work, do not exist.00:15:14.980
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• In that case museums would have to offer programs00:15:18.344
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• comparable with a theater or concert hall,00:15:21.358
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• something more attractive than just viewing an exhibition or collection00:15:23.962
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• and to ensure an effective promotion of such a novelty.00:15:29.748
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• CHAPTER 3 Problems in communication00:15:38.554
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• In general, I think, a gallery has to function as one organism.00:15:44.902
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• I understand that everybody has his own role,00:15:51.326
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• but in order to work well, the gallery´s departments have to be connected better.00:15:56.569
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• I can even imagine a kind of open-space00:16:16.500
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• where the people constantly talk together00:16:21.728
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• and I think it makes sense00:16:28.204
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• because now everybody works on his own thing00:16:31.052
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• and then he presents his work and looks for connections.00:16:34.780
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• This can be avoided, we are not a factory.00:16:38.047
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• Those guys are creative, a public relations person can say something interesting,00:16:45.221
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• that can be used in the educational and exhibition department,00:16:51.082
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• leading to an integrated approach, which is the only way to do it.00:16:58.640
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• And this isn´t happening here, because it´s inconvenient,00:17:09.559
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• you have to be "there" all the time,00:17:13.528
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• the people can clearly say what they are working on,00:17:16.834
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• but they should work for the gallery as a whole.00:17:24.212
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• This is also related to the basic question:00:17:28.326
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• What should an exhibition look like and who is it intended for?00:17:32.288
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• According to me this question has to be completely relooked.00:17:35.421
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• This is the way it works nowadays:00:17:39.534
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• a whole team works on an exhibition - an architect,00:17:43.367
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• a curator, a graphic designer, an installation group -00:17:47.501
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• and then they leave it there and people are expected to come and see it00:17:53.963
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• but the people don´t come or just a few.00:18:00.300
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• So all those people put in the work, it´s on show for four months,00:18:05.115
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• other people are sent in to guard the exhibition.00:18:13.288
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• Is that the result of the work?00:18:17.228
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• No, I don´t think so.00:18:21.208
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• We are only half way through the work.00:18:22.895
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• And the institution has to see it this way.00:18:25.480
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• We have done half the work,00:18:30.170
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• the exhibition is ready and now we want to talk about it.00:18:31.502
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• Exhibitions provoke questions, an exhibition is a live thing, not a dead body,00:18:36.606
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• but they tend to embalm it like a dead body00:18:45.915
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• and we are supposed to look at it but we want to talk to it.00:18:48.643
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• Ok, there are guided tours of exhibitions, workshops in galleries,00:18:52.799
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• those are common things nowadays,00:19:01.405
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• but I think even this is becoming a bit outdated,00:19:05.899
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• everybody must feel it, and this will not solve the situation.00:19:12.066
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• I think that an exhibition has to be designed in a completely different way from the start00:19:18.915
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• and it has to set more ambitious goals,00:19:27.207
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• not a show for the sake of a show.00:19:29.746
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• I did a research for my dissertation, in which I asked visitors to galleries00:19:33.345
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• of contemporary art what things influenced them.00:19:41.996
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• The main drawback they mentioned was the fact00:19:48.185
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• that they are either overestimated, they are expected to know everything,00:19:54.165
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• but they can´t get the information and they feel stupid,00:19:58.759
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• or they are underestimated and they feel as if they were back at school00:20:05.045
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• and feel uncomfortable again.00:20:10.215
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• You rarely get a dialogue between equal partners.00:20:11.857
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• Here we have the exhibition, the artist and his work,00:20:17.793
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• and here is the viewer, who isn´t an abstract entity,00:20:21.393
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• without education, who has no opinion and nothing to say.00:20:26.209
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• The viewer is sometimes treated either as if he knows everything or nothing.00:20:30.545
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• This is of course a big challenge for me too,00:20:36.594
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• trying to find ways for a dialogue to work properly.00:20:41.584
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• The general public doesn´t know what they can see in museums,00:20:48.880
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• museums don´t articulate this clearly.00:20:52.505
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• There are technical problems I don´t want to speak about,00:20:56.075
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• and it´s also the fault of the Ministry,00:21:01.876
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• because unlike in other European countries, there aren´t any standards,00:21:05.477
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• but despite all this the museums must try harder.00:21:08.691
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• I even believe that if the public knew what is on show in a particular museum,00:21:13.487
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• they would start going to museums not only to see the collections00:21:23.784
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• but also to libraries and study rooms, if they became interested.00:21:27.795
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• But ordinary people don´t go to museums mainly because they don´t know what is inside.00:21:33.290
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• Unfortunately, some museum workers don´t know either.00:21:40.514
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• I must say in a way it´s the fault of the museum workers00:21:46.571
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• because, and this applies also to galleries,00:21:52.949
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• because they remain subject to the pressure of visitor numbers.00:21:57.823
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• We must provide three main public services and exhibitions are just one of them.00:22:10.613
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• It´s an important and irreplaceable role, but it´s just one of the functions,00:22:18.492
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• an equally important function is conservation,00:22:23.990
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• because if we let mold and woodworms eat the collections00:22:27.338
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• we won´t have anything to show,00:22:30.677
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• and museums also create the memory of the nation through artifacts,00:22:33.199
• 00:22:33.199
• only museums can do this as a service to the public.00:22:35.658
• 00:22:35.658
• About fifteen years ago when I was writing a book on Art Museums in the Digital Era,00:22:42.804
• 00:22:42.804
• I tried to present a museum as a space for visual perception00:22:47.604
• 00:22:47.604
• and I wrote that the patterns of perception we are exposed to,00:22:52.114
• 00:22:52.114
• especially members of the young generation, playing computer games and surfing the Internet,00:23:02.284
• 00:23:02.284
• have no experience with static images,00:23:10.668
• 00:23:10.668
• this visual experience changes the patterns of visual perception00:23:13.747
• 00:23:13.747
• on the cognitive level and even the neural level,00:23:18.343
• 00:23:18.343
• and makes the perception of art difficult.00:23:21.874
• 00:23:21.874
• I wrote that this was perhaps one of the main reasons00:23:24.313
• 00:23:24.313
• why people today are not interested too much in art,00:23:28.625
• 00:23:28.625
• or, if you like, why there are crowds of people in museums00:23:32.250
• 00:23:32.250
• but they are mostly tourists who usually just run through an exhibition,00:23:35.748
• 00:23:35.748
• and a profound experience of an art work is rare.00:23:40.016
• 00:23:40.016
• In the meantime my ideas, which were speculative at that time,00:23:44.475
• 00:23:44.475
• turned out to be true.00:23:50.907
• 00:23:50.907
• Today we have interesting data showing that the perception of00:23:52.351
• 00:23:52.351
• the generation that plays computer games00:23:54.937
• 00:23:54.937
• has really changed. This is supported by measurable parameters00:23:57.721
• 00:23:57.721
• on the neural-cognitive level,00:24:03.498
• 00:24:03.498
• and this is exactly what we want to continue in.00:24:05.617
• 00:24:05.617
• We want to study how our tuning by contemporary visual culture00:24:11.001
• 00:24:11.001
• to which we are all exposed to, whether we like it or not,00:24:18.561
• 00:24:18.561
• and certain groups of people even more, especially young people,00:24:21.896
• 00:24:21.896
• to what extent they influence or determine the patterns of perception00:24:29.144
• 00:24:29.144
• and make the perception of art in museums difficult00:24:35.940
• 00:24:35.940
• and then the museum´s marketing department can do very little about it.00:24:40.847
• 00:24:40.847
• We should point out something that isn´t new in fact,00:24:50.723
• 00:24:50.723
• and what I think is still a debt of the art world,00:24:55.947
• 00:24:55.947
• that is the fact that a number of exhibitions, expositions,00:25:02.504
• 00:25:02.504
• are still too absorbed in themselves,00:25:08.247
• 00:25:08.247
• corresponding to the small percentage of the inner art world,00:25:13.300
• 00:25:13.300
• or the interest of the art world,00:25:21.554
• 00:25:21.554
• and inadequately tries to make the perception for the wider public easier.00:25:23.917
• 00:25:23.917
• Visual art in its present complicated form,00:25:33.467
• 00:25:33.467
• because it has many different faces,00:25:36.896
• 00:25:36.896
• has become a sort of indigestible mouthful.00:25:41.039
• 00:25:41.039
• I think that this is the result of the discontinuation of development,00:25:46.368
• 00:25:46.368
• in 1990 suddenly all that art streamed in00:25:50.647
• 00:25:50.647
• but we forgot we have to talk about it,00:25:53.704
• 00:25:53.704
• the society is the same, we grew up in a certain system of education,00:25:56.827
• 00:25:56.827
• and nobody was ready for what stormed into the country.00:26:02.445
• 00:26:02.445
• It took really long, even for people working in the field,00:26:08.583
• 00:26:08.583
• to know what is what.00:26:12.930
• 00:26:12.930
• And so a huge part of the society did not find their way through.00:26:14.249
• 00:26:14.249
• First the public was interested in the new things,00:26:18.461
• 00:26:18.461
• but gradually their interest faded00:26:24.222
• 00:26:24.222
• because the things were new and also complicated in a new way,00:26:26.966
• 00:26:26.966
• and this led to a misunderstanding,00:26:29.809
• 00:26:29.809
• the people suddenly lost the reason00:26:32.084
• 00:26:32.084
• why they should be interested in art.00:26:36.379
• 00:26:36.379
• I think we have reached the stage00:26:38.297
• 00:26:38.297
• when it unfortunately not only doesn´t end00:26:40.437
• 00:26:40.437
• but the system of education and families constantly fail00:26:44.172
• 00:26:44.172
• because they still cannot find a way00:26:53.009
• 00:26:53.009
• how to embody art in their everyday lives,00:26:55.200
• 00:26:55.200
• how to incorporate it.00:26:59.344
• 00:26:59.344
• That´s where the mistake is, we have to put it right,00:27:00.688
• 00:27:00.688
• none of the institutions that are involved work well00:27:03.995
• 00:27:03.995
• because after 25 years the results are pretty pathetic.00:27:07.733
• 00:27:07.733
• We try to speak about a turn in visitor numbers.00:27:11.661
• 00:27:11.661
• The museum´s role is to preserve cultural heritage,00:27:14.460
• 00:27:14.460
• and also to present the heritage to the public,00:27:23.963
• 00:27:23.963
• it´s logical but these two roles are in a way antagonistic,00:27:27.543
• 00:27:27.543
• the more often you present an artifact, the more it is threatened.00:27:35.159
• 00:27:35.159
• And the more you protect it, the less you present it,00:27:38.344
• 00:27:38.344
• so it´s a kind of never-ending negotiation.00:27:41.065
• 00:27:41.065
• And I feel that in our country00:27:43.867
• 00:27:43.867
• we tend to overemphasize the role of protection00:27:47.112
• 00:27:47.112
• and the presentation becomes marginalized00:27:53.096
• 00:27:53.096
• or not so important, something extra.00:27:58.700
• 00:27:58.700
• That´s why I try to present the artifacts as much as possible00:28:01.480
• 00:28:01.480
• while logically respecting all the rules and restrictions.00:28:08.666
• 00:28:08.666
• At the same time we have to think about the present00:28:18.422
• 00:28:18.422
• although you work with historical objects you have to think what they mean today.00:28:21.992
• 00:28:21.992
• The growing amount of leisure time enables cultural institutions00:28:30.752
• 00:28:30.752
• to expand their activities00:28:34.469
• 00:28:34.469
• and to participate more intensively00:28:36.349
• 00:28:36.349
• in the cultural life of the socialist society.00:28:39.301
• 00:28:39.301
• Research of free time has not taken into account the role of museums yet00:28:42.301
• 00:28:42.301
• research focused only on exhibitions in general.00:28:47.079
• 00:28:47.079
• In a way the role of museums has been underestimated.00:28:50.135
• 00:28:50.135
• In order to enhance the educational role of museums,00:28:54.377
• 00:28:54.377
• museums will use their own means,00:28:57.932
• 00:28:57.932
• so they will not change into different institutions,00:29:00.844
• 00:29:00.844
• nor use the means of other institutions,00:29:04.430
• 00:29:04.430
• nor other ways of affecting the public.00:29:06.742
• 00:29:06.742
• Increasing demands on the extent and quality of educational services00:29:09.453
• 00:29:09.453
• will lead not only to the need of creating planning and conceptual preconditions00:29:14.713
• 00:29:14.713
• with view to the management of museums00:29:19.649
• 00:29:19.649
• but also to put into practice consistently and intensively00:29:21.643
• 00:29:21.643
• museological knowledge as a qualitatively higher basis of educational services.00:29:25.620
• 00:29:25.620
• A considerable part of the new things00:29:30.927
• 00:29:30.927
• that museums will contribute to the development of society00:29:33.526
• 00:29:33.526
• will depend on how these new things will be used.00:29:37.103
• 00:29:37.103
• CHAPTER 4 Free time and the future of museums00:29:41.239
• 00:29:41.239
• The time will come when we´ll find ourselves00:29:48.436
• 00:29:48.436
• on a rough competitive market of leisure time.00:29:51.112
• 00:29:51.112
• Firstly, the population is growing old,00:29:53.976
• 00:29:53.976
• leisure time capacity will stop increasing,00:29:57.077
• 00:29:57.077
• those times are gone, when after World War II00:30:02.608
• 00:30:02.608
• working hours were cut.00:30:07.267
• 00:30:07.267
• It will be a hard job for the productive population00:30:09.090
• 00:30:09.090
• to sustain the senior population.00:30:11.749
• 00:30:11.749
• But, on the contrary, forecasters say00:30:15.131
• 00:30:15.131
• that leisure time capacity will go down00:30:17.600
• 00:30:17.600
• and the competition on the leisure time market will increase,00:30:21.813
• 00:30:21.813
• because the number of subjects on the narrowing leisure time market00:30:26.538
• 00:30:26.538
• will increase, it will include lifelong education,00:30:30.878
• 00:30:30.878
• the growing number of TV channels,00:30:34.359
• 00:30:34.359
• computer games, the Internet and whatever.00:30:36.999
• 00:30:36.999
• So, only those who are irreplaceable can survive.00:30:40.518
• 00:30:40.518
• And those who produce top performance.00:30:44.593
• 00:30:44.593
• In what way are museums irreplaceable?00:30:47.819
• 00:30:47.819
• Each of them has to find an answer, in its own territory,00:30:50.181
• 00:30:50.181
• they should not try to be the same,00:30:55.992
• 00:30:55.992
• or better in a field they do not excel at.00:30:57.593
• 00:30:57.593
• What are we irreplaceable in?00:31:00.238
• 00:31:00.238
• Once again, we are irreplaceable because we provide public service,00:31:01.550
• 00:31:01.550
• we create the objective memory of people, society,00:31:06.999
• 00:31:06.999
• the memory of the nation, region and so on.00:31:13.320
• 00:31:13.320
• Nobody does this, so in this respect we are irreplaceable.00:31:17.209
• 00:31:17.209
• We should try to present this objective memory00:31:22.033
• 00:31:22.033
• in the most original form possible,00:31:25.938
• 00:31:25.938
• in an authentic way.00:31:30.236
• 00:31:30.236
• All the others make copies, replicas,00:31:31.724
• 00:31:31.724
• ok, on the Internet things move,00:31:34.417
• 00:31:34.417
• but it must be a means to bring the best out of the original,00:31:38.306
• 00:31:38.306
• the artifact, the authentic value.00:31:40.833
• 00:31:40.833
• This is the only way which, provided you have a meaningful PR,00:31:43.115
• 00:31:43.115
• I don´t mean only bombastic advertisements,00:31:49.362
• 00:31:49.362
• but if we incorporate it into reasonable marketing,00:31:55.133
• 00:31:55.133
• so then such museums have a chance to survive00:31:58.057
• 00:31:58.057
• unlike the others which cannot.00:32:01.313
• 00:32:01.313
• This must logically come within the next two or three decades.00:32:03.208
• 00:32:03.208
• People invest their limited free time into activities,00:32:07.004
• 00:32:07.004
• which they find beneficial or which bring them pleasure.00:32:12.049
• 00:32:12.049
• If the overwhelming majority of the population,00:32:18.309
• 00:32:18.309
• according to sociological studies00:32:20.689
• 00:32:20.689
• 00:32:20.689
• do not expect to enjoy themselves visiting an exhibition or a museum,00:32:26.584
• 00:32:26.584
• then it is very difficult to change their attitude.00:32:34.656
• 00:32:34.656
• In the Czech Republic visitor numbers in museums are permanently falling,00:32:40.559
• 00:32:40.559
• I think that society has changed but museums have not.00:32:44.130
• 00:32:44.130
• People´s behavior has changed, technologies and so on,00:32:49.449
• 00:32:49.449
• so the attitude must change, too.00:32:55.363
• 00:32:55.363
• This of course takes away certain elitist privileges,00:32:58.601
• 00:32:58.601
• in the past this environment enjoyed natural respect,00:33:07.401
• 00:33:07.401
• and I´m afraid that nowadays it has lost its esteem00:33:11.894
• 00:33:11.894
• the same as people lost interest.00:33:16.550
• 00:33:16.550
• Museums are marginalized, because people lost interest in them,00:33:19.396
• 00:33:19.396
• their voice is also marginalized, which has political consequences.00:33:24.252
• 00:33:24.252
• If people are not interested in museums, politicians naturally won´t support them.00:33:28.296
• 00:33:28.296
• So it has serious consequences.00:33:35.921
• 00:33:35.921
• If people don´t go to museums, that means voters don´t go to museums,00:33:37.908
• 00:33:37.908
• so politicians feel there´s no need to send more money there00:33:43.710
• 00:33:43.710
• or give them priority.00:33:47.008
• 00:33:47.008
• Czech museums will never become a means of social changes.00:33:48.190
• 00:33:48.190
• It´s us who would have to come up and push ahead such an agenda.00:33:57.537
• 00:33:57.537
• There are fantastic ideas how to make a visit to a museum more pleasant.00:34:09.319
• 00:34:09.319
• With no need to move.00:34:12.840
• 00:34:12.840
• Collections are going to move instead of people.00:34:14.957
• 00:34:14.957
• Collections will be placed in large open lifts00:34:18.897
• 00:34:18.897
• which will stop for a certain time so that visitors,00:34:21.554
• 00:34:21.554
• sitting comfortably like in a theatre,00:34:26.033
• 00:34:26.033
• could all at once watch one part of the collection after another.00:34:29.071
• 00:34:29.071
• The following videos were used in the film:00:34:41.699
• 00:34:41.699
• Video by Eva Koťátková "Under Supervision".00:34:43.222
• 00:34:43.222
• (I hired a professional security guard from a gallery in Prague to guard my flat for a day.)00:34:44.502
• 00:34:44.502
• Fragments from the video by Francis Alÿs "The Nightwatch".00:34:46.524
• 00:34:46.524
• Texts from the book The Museum and Education, author Josef Beneš, published in 1980,00:34:48.547
• 00:34:48.547
• read by Saskia Burešová00:34:52.030
• 00:34:52.030
• Cast in order of appearance:00:34:52.456
• 00:34:52.456
• Concept, directed by:00:35:02.875
• 00:35:02.875
• Photography:00:35:04.512
• 00:35:04.512
• Edited by:00:35:08.423
• 00:35:08.423
• Animation:00:35:10.314
• 00:35:10.314
• Post-production sound:00:35:14.026
• 00:35:14.026
• Acknowledgements:00:35:16.937

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