Some comments to the opening of the Wieland Museum on June 25th

By: Hatto Fischer, Athens

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Christoph Martin Wieland

(1733-1813)

- "Completely indifferent to religion. In politics only pure observer; at best a careful commentator. In philosophy avoids not merely Kant, but altogether any kind of metaphysics. A bright intellectual who bowls down with powerful words the sometimes very stiff ideals. In practical things he is an enemy of catastrophes: the typical, all spiritual, less physical, grown homo sapien“.

(Arno Schmidt: Wieland or the Prosaforms)

 

As presented by Prof. Jens Geelhaar at the recent HERMES workshop on museums held in Volos, June 13/14, 2005, the technical information design for the museum means an i-podster system of gathering and obtaining information. Visitors can go through the museum and be informed, click to get additional information and collect it for a later print-out at the computer terminal in the last room.

A similar system has been installed recently at MOMA in New York. I-podster will mean visual contact mediated by virtual reality in order to make possible experiences over and beyond immediate objects. With this kind of information system the museum wishes to provide insights into the works and life of the poet Wieland. It is clear that this will be made possible without any interference of a museum guides (there will be only one person sitting at the front desk to hand out the i-podsters). People can go through the chronological ordered rooms and acquaint themselves with the poet in his own estate where he lived more than 14 years.

The system has been tested already once and was considered to be a success. But as shown by the MOMA system, there are still some technical difficulties to be resolved. For instance, the Wieland system will have for the moment no video since it would require too big a broad band for the transmission of information, especially if there are many users at the same time. Difficulties may also be in the automatic system providing information according to location but only in a sequence with the visitor going forward and not back.

From an information system point of view much depends on the data bank and how it can be accessed. There are three stereotypes of visitors conceptualized: tourist, interested visitor and expert. The original text to be read in full is always at the bottom of the hierarchy of information (some asked if it should not be the other way around: first the original, then the contextualization and finally interpretations + discussions).

There is also the broader perspective linked to the location of the Wieland museum, namely outside of Weimar and therefore unlikely that many visitors will find their way to it. Unless something else is organized: scientists gathering for meetings (at ground level there is a conference room) or other kinds of study groups (see the concept mentioned by Burkhardt Kolbmueller), the place will not be easily accessible.

Moreover, the Wieland museum comes about due to the benefactor Jan Philipp Reetsma who has been ‘editing’ in particular the political writings of Wieland. Most likely the museum would not have come about without his kind donations. It means, however, that the benefactor had a great deal to say on how the information system was conceived and implanted in the museum by means of the i-podster system.

Mr. Seemann, President of the Foundation Weimar Classic said at the very beginning of the HERMES project attentive to the role of museums when it comes to preserving and promoting cultural heritage by using the new media, that the opening of the museum means a conscious shift away in terms of cultural heritage based on the concept of the Classics. Until now this period has been defined by leading figures such as Goethe and Schiller. In view of European integration, there is a need to give more emphasis to the European dimension as exemplified already by Wieland whose outlooks and writing convey such a tendency. Naturally this shift in cultural heritage policy was made prior to the no-vote in France and Holland to the Constitutional Treaty of Europe.

Still, the information system made available at the Wieland museum seems to suggest from a first impression to have but a very limited horizontal and vertical linkage to poetry, philosophy and political ideas in Europe. Of interest is, however, that there appear contemporaries of Wieland who were either house guests such as Kleist or else they were lecturing at the nearby university like Jacobi in Erfurt. The significance of Jacobi is that he was attacked by Hegel for giving the validity of truth to ‘sinnliche Gewissheit’: the certainty of the senses.

In a way, the Wieland museum could link up to discussions of equal importance to museums and the general public, namely how to face up to the new media world entering more readily and faster virtual reality than what can be imagined vis a vis such management systems of information. To those interested in reflecting the possible validity of Hegel’s denial of Jacobi as the senses not being a source of truth, here the Wieland museum may become a new place of contemplation about the role of our senses in modern life. There is a need for that before things, and in particular due to over emphasis of technical solutions compared with spirited poetic encounters like Guenter Grass described in ‘Meeting in Telgte’, would lead again (Hegel’s influence upon political life a case in point) to a wrong development but this time not merely in Germany, but in Europe.

 

 

 

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