Museums can often be thought of as places full of dusty, dry and old things. Technically speaking, museums are buildings where things are stored and exhibited so that they can be viewed and studied. During the Middle Ages and even into the 19th century museums were known as cabinets of curiosities - buildings full of odd and curious collections of things.
Friday I visited San Jose's Museum of Art and it is definitely not dusty or dry...nor are its collections all that old. It is a cabinet of modern and contemporary works of art. Saturday I spent the greatest part of my day at The Tech Museum of Innovation in downtown San Jose [CA]. This is a fascinating, alive and vital place! I wouldn't even call it a museum - or a cabinet. Rather I'd call it a working window into the what could be's.
I admit to carrying with me into the entrance doors a preconception that my day would be only mildly interesting and somewhat - dare I say - dry as I wandered around looking at displays of science-based exhibits. Well, yes on the science, but a HUGE NO on the dry. I found, as I went through the building's galleries, that I experienced a variety of emotions. My artist senses were stirred; my social awareness senses were riled up; my interest in outer space was sharpened; and I gained an answer to something that's been nagging at me for awhile. Let's take this slower and let me share with you my tour of this awesome place.
The Tech Museum's building is itself kind of cool...three levels connected with escalators. The lower level has a great many cool exhibits from the environment to hands-on stuff for kids. The ground level contains the museum's store, cafe and IMAX theater - where I watched the movie "Born to Be Wild;" story of orphaned [and rescued] orangutans and elephants raised and released back into the wild. It was charming.
The upper level is where I spent the greatest part of my day...it had so much to do and see. Many hands-on, interactivity that made the learning parts enjoyable. What? You think I wouldn't ordinarily enjoy learning how a microchip is made? Carved into the front of the building outside is a quote by Intel's Bob Noyce:
Optimism is an essential ingredient for innovation; How else can the individual welcome change over security, adventure over staying in safe places?
As I stood at the top of the up escalator, the big banner pronouncing the Innovation Gallery harkened back to my mind the quote on the building. Indeed, I thought; an eagerness to explore the "what if" question, fueled by the optimism of the possible, must be present for innovation to occur. At least that's my take on it. You see, as a writer, it's that "what if" question that drives the pen - what if a group of people decided to explore the unknown realms of the 5th galaxy? How would they get there? What will happen when they get there? That sort of thing.
So I explored the sounds and colors and how sand is turned into a microchip exhibits; had a great talk with a docent about how totally unintelligible [to my brain] this whole ones and zeroes computer language thing is. I watched a truly interesting film about the international space station [wish I could go up there]. However, it was the Tech Awards Gallery that held my fascination. From the museum's website:
- "Every day there are stories of grinding poverty, virulent disease and famine. But each year through The Tech Awards program, we hear stories that radiate powerful streams of hope...The Tech Awards Gallery, Technology benefiting humanity is the only permanent museum exhibition on the West Coast that links social responsibility with technology in the areas of health, education, equality, economic development and the environment...."
All of the exhibits in this gallery were inspiring, touching and ultimately heartwarming. Inspiring to think that there really are visionary thinkers and inventors who think up the un-thought of; touching that people are helping other people in real, tangible ways to improve their ways of living in often harsh environments; and heartwarming to know that there are people who really do share what they have with those who need it.
The Tech Awards: "...A signature program of The Tech Museum, The Tech Awards is an international awards program that honors innovators from around the world who are applying technology to benefit humanity...." The first awards were given in 2001, so this program isn't very old. In fact the nominations for this year, 2012, are still open - until April 6.
There were two of the exhibits however that, for whatever reason, grabbed my attention the most. One is FogQuest - a way of capturing water from fog using plastic mesh. From their website, "...fog collection system was set up in December 2009 in eastern Nepal and produces, on average, 500 liters of water daily...." That's very impressive. The exhibit had a sample of the plastic mesh and I thought, 'what a simple idea!' I grew up in the Central Valley of California and many times during the winter the valley gets socked in with fog...heavy, wet fog. It's fog so heavy with water you get drenched walking in it. I looked at that plastic mesh and thought how much water a field of mesh could collect in one day in the Central Valley of California.
The other exhibit that really spoke aloud to me was the one for the organization called Witness. I was struck by the graphic [to the left] that was on the display showing in a generalized way which areas of our world a person has the freedom to speak aloud. As a former newspaper reporter I cherish the fact that in the U.S. we have freedom to speak. Do we all need to speak? Should we all say aloud everything we think all the time? Those are not the issues to which I refer. Rather it is the freedom to say, write...point out whatever needs pointing out - both the bad and the good. Witness received its Tech Award in 2003. From their website:
WITNESS is an international nonprofit organization that uses the power of video and storytelling to open the eyes of the world to human rights abuses. It was co-founded in 1992 by musician and human rights advocate Peter Gabriel, Human Rights First and the Reebok Human Rights Foundation....WITNESS empowers human rights defenders to use video to fight injustice, and to transform personal stories of abuse into powerful tools that can pressure those in power or with power to act.
Earlier in my post I said that my visit to The Tech Museum also gained me an answer to something that's been nagging at me for awhile. It was through my exploration of the Tech Award exhibits that the answer came to me. You look at these innovative helpful initiatives, programs - whatever you want to categorize them as - and you can come away with the question of: how can I, within my meager financial [or otherwise] circumstances possibly help others on this planet? It was when I was taking the photo of the 'freedom of the press' graphic with my phone's camera that the answer came to me: I can use my voice. I'm a writer of a blog and I can write. I am a user of social media and I can pass along information. Our so-called modern age was tagged the "information age" to differentiate it from the "industrial age." Well, I'm now changing it to the "wide awake age."
Information is all around us. You don't have to search for it anymore, it is practically inundating. We wade through it constantly whether it is via word-of-mouth, print or electronic. What we need to do now is be awake to it. Passivity should no longer be the response, rather action should be the response.
Take a look at all the information we're all drowning in and wake up to something in it. Take some kind of positive action within the circumstances you've been given or attained. Why do I say this? Because one part of the Tech Awards Gallery was a short film of the 2010 awards gala and the words of Queen Rania Al Abdullah which included these: "...we need the imaginations of our most creative thinkers...we need the unthought of to be thought...the undreamt of to be dreamt...let's use our creativity to spark the next era of human history, one where every child goes to school and everyone has ideas...."
Wow. Listen for yourselves:
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