Living In A Box

A blueprint has been approved. Don't get too excited. It's not a blueprint for the rescue of the tourism season or the future of the island's tourism, or anything quite as dramatic. It is the blueprint for the new museum in Alcúdia, the one that's due to be built on the land off the Calle Pollentia opposite the school. It is some 20 months since this was first brought up, 27 August 2007 to be precise. The press were then saying that the Pollentia Museum of the town's Roman heritage would provide a "great impulse to cultural tourism in the north of Mallorca". Much though I would like to believe that it will do, I can only think that it will prove to be an impulse if the museum is something more than the here-are-a-few-bits-of-old-rock approach that is the downfall of many a museum.

Heritage, culture, history need, as much as possible, to be living, moving and entertaining. Worthy books and worthy exhibitions of tatty old utensils that had been underground for centuries are, in truth, boring. Boring, at any rate, to the great majority. I have never quite got it with people traipsing around a museum and studying some broken glass with quite the fascination they have. Actually, I don't think they are fascinated. They pretend to be, because that's how you should behave in a museum. Most I fancy would rather be in a bar. I'm all in favour of history stuff. Of course I am, I studied history at university, but museums have invariably always left me cold unless they have something seriously impressive, like, for example, the Imperial War Museum. Bits of iron or bronze? Couldn't give a damn frankly. It's good stuff for archaeologists and history pros, but for everyone else?

With a bit of luck, someone will decide to make the museum an interactive experience for the modern day. However, the initial reports about the museum suggest that we might just be getting something of the same. The museum that is already in Alcúdia really is a disappointment.

Heritage and culture do not have to be earnestly presented. They can be dynamic, interactive and entertainments. To do so is to think in terms of how the punter thinks nowadays. It's no longer enough to believe that history can be made to "live" by putting it in a box behind a glass screen or to prop a piece of rock on a plinth with a plaque and expect the masses to flock in or to be turned on. They won't be. We are a PlayStation, a red-button, a stimulated-through-computing-simulation generation, all of us. We want action, lights, touching, doing, experiencing. Let's just hope they do some of this. Otherwise, that impulse will be a pulse beating dangerously slowly.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Madonna (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjaQjaGYmqM). Today's title - eponymously titled song from?

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Index for April 2009

Alcúdia is like ... - 11 April 2009
Alcúdia's beach - 4 April 2009
Boat and sepia fairs - 5 April 2009
Book day - 25 April 2009
Café Bony - 9 April 2009
Cala San Vicente - 3 April 2009
Car-hire shortage - 14 April 2009
Catalan - 2 April 2009, 6 April 2009, 9 April 2009
Children's playgrounds - 29 April 2009
Chill-out - 18 April 2009
Concepto Magazine - 23 April 2009
Death of a tourist - 8 April 2009, 9 April 2009
Driving - 13 April 2009, 24 April 2009
El Cuate Restaurant - 24 April 2009
Frogs - 12 April 2009
Fusion food - 18 April 2009, 20 April 2009
Gastronomy - 17 April 2009, 27 April 2009
Germans - 7 April 2009, 20 April 2009
Golf - 16 April 2009
Hotels - 3 April 2009
International folk dance festival - 16 April 2009
Jeremy Clarkson - 1 April 2009
Litter - 29 April 2009
Medical staff - 2 April 2009
Mostra de Cuina Mallorquina - 17 April 2009, 27 April 2009
Pedestrianisation in Puerto Pollensa abandoned - 5 April 2009, 6 April 2009, 8 April 2009
Pedestrians - 14 April 2009
Personality - 28 April 2009
Pollensa Wine Fair 2009 - 21 April 2009
Pollentia Museum - 30 April 2009
Protest demonstrations - 18 April 2009, 19 April 2009
Road works - 22 April 2009
Roundabout sculptures - 26 April 2009
Sa Pobla-Alcúdia railway - 25 April 2009
Season 2009 - 15 April 2009
Seasonal workers - 24 April 2009
Son Bosc golf development - 10 April 2009
Street drinking - 13 April 2009
Talk Of The North - 10 April 2009
Tourism promotion - 8 April 2009
Tourist season 2009 - 10 April 2009
Violence - 18 April 2009, 25 April 2009