I don’t mean to set out to say that technology and heritage don’t go together. Actually, I think they complement each other quite nicely. Most museums and art galleries nowadays have an app of some sort to enhance your experience as a visitor which help you learn more about the exhibits. Likewise, displays and exhibitions are becoming ever more interactive, challenging the ‘do not touch’ dictum of heritage sites.

However, too much technology may be detrimental in some cases. As an undergraduate student studying History of Art, my class did many fieldtrips to different galleries. While on these trips, our professors liked to warn us beforehand about the dangers of flailing selfie sticks and iPads. A great number of prolific museums and galleries in the U.S and Britain have now banned the use of selfie sticks within the site due to safety risks and increased congestion.

 

Image from digitaltrends.com

 

 

Although it may seem like this ban is a little pedantic, too much technology can become a bit of a nuisance in a gallery situation. If you ever visit the Louvre in Paris, an overcrowded gallery at the best of times, you will see smartphones, iPads and cameras in every line of vision. What you see of the Mona Lisa is generally an image of an image seen through the person’s phone of the person’s phone in front of you. A lot of people rush to this particular room to take a picture of the Mona Lisa and then the rest of the gallery is a secondary thought.

Image from cultura.elpais.com
Image from rebrn.com

 

 

To be honest, I don’t believe taking pictures of art serves much purpose at all other than to document the fact you had been there and you have seen that item on your bucket list, whether it be the Mona Lisa, Michelangelo’s David or the Sistine Chapel. Exposure to too many bright lights can also damage paintings which is why many galleries will only allow cameras as long as they have the flash off. Any picture you do take on a camera/phone/ipad will inevitably never live up to the original since your device will slightly change the colours or brightness of the work. In the end, I think it’s worth buying the prints of the works the museum has in the gift shop.

In addition to the fact that selfie sticks are generally pretty cumbersome to those trying to get around one, they have actually caused damage to some priceless works of art. In Lisbon this year a man accidentally knocked over a sculpture of Dom Sebastiao, which stood at the entrance of Rossio train station, because he was trying to take a selfie. Also in Lisbon (not a great year for the city’s arts), an 18th century sculpture of St. Michael was knocked from its plinth in the National Gallery of Ancient Art for the same reason. This fashion for the selfie is reminiscent of the story of Narcissus in Greek mythology who drowned after staring at his reflection for so long, the preoccupation we have with ourselves can be destructive.

It’s a common issue nowadays that we spend so much time glued to our technology. Museums and galleries offer a chance to take a break from this, to sit and contemplate something which isn’t on a screen. I do think apps and websites are an important supplement to your visitor experience but should exist only as a supplement. If a visitor spends most of the time in a gallery looking at the images through a phone or camera, the art in front of them can become redundant. The artist who created the work created it with the intention for it to be looked at and considered. If we didn’t have our phones with us all the time we wouldn’t have the privilege to take a quick snap of something and move on, yet we might actually get more out of what we are looking at.