34th CIMUSET Conference in Brazil Rio de Janeiro, 2006

What is a scientic instrument? The use of the video

as an exposition resource
Janaina Lacerda Furtado
Museu de Astronomia e Cincias Ans MAST - Rio de Janeiro Brasil (Museum of Astronomy ans Related Sciences)

Abstract
In the last exhibit at MAST whose theme was the re-signication of science and technology objects when
incorporated to the collection of a museum one of the challenges presented was how to present the different
concepts of science objects at different times and contexts to the public. The purpose of this presentation is to
show how we utilize the animation in video as a resource to translate an academic discourse the historicity of
a concept to the layperson.

The exhibit Science and Technology Objects: trajectory in museums displayed at the Museum of Astronomy and
Related Sciences (from December 5 to May 30) occupied the auditorium of the main building and was divided in 4
modules: the rst one showed the process of incorporation of objects to a museum collection, displaying the different
types of objects found in these institutions. The second module was divided in two sections in the rst there
was a video animation and the second presented some of the science and technology research institutions which
possess instruments, machinery or equipment of historical interest. The third module displayed some possibilities of
interpretation for Science and Technology objects in museums and, nally, the last module displayed an interactive
apparatus the replica of a sextant as a way of interlocution between the science and technology objects and the
public, as well as a video featuring the history of the object and teaching how to use the device.1
The video2 shown in the rst part of the second module entitled What is a scientic instrument? provided the
visitor with the different concepts and denition of science and scientic instruments along the centuries. It started
with the intellectual crisis of the seventeenth century showing to the public how the contention against scientic
theories, the proposition of new methods and a new language to the understanding of the natural world provoked a
change in nomenclature and the use of instruments. The video then moved to the eighteenth century and explained
the difference between philosophical and mathematical instruments, categories which were created in that century
by the natural philosophers. In the nineteenth century it showed how the word scientic was incorporated to the
word instrument, raising the status of not only these objects but also everything related to them owners, users,
builders, scientists, countries and government. The video ended with the changes that took place in the second

34th CIMUSET Conference in Brazil Rio de Janeiro, 2006

half of the twentieth century in the design and the use of the apparatuses, closing with todays nomenclature of
science and technology, used even by the coordination of Museology (LOURENO, 2000).
The purpose of the video was to present complex scientic concepts such as science and scientic object to
the lay public, as well as the way in which these concepts were historically and socially built along the centuries,
and stimulate a discussion about the use of such terms today, since they have been turned into black boxes in
opposition to the beautiful and splendidly detailed and ornamented cabinet instruments (1997, p. 741). It also
aimed at bringing to the public the understanding of science and scientic instruments as concepts endowed with
historicity and having a narrow relationship with the historical, economical, cultural, social as well as political context
of a society. In order words, science is not something universal (as the eighteenth-century Illuminists believed), but
a product of human relations, instead.
Janine Baldock, from the Birmingham Museum of Science and Industry, believes that science in museum exhibits
is commonly interpreted displaying its effects to the society. The exhibits would show the equation: scientic
knowledge + technology = production of artifacts, conveying the message that Science would be interesting only for
what it produces. And rarely do exhibits put science principles and products into their contexts (BALDOCK, 1995, p.
287). Baldocks proposal is an alternative way in which the scientic knowledge is seen as a key component of our
culture, not forgetting that this knowledge, far from being something which soars in mid-air, is apprehended by
the scientist and built through relationships of interests, negotiations and sociability. However, the artifacts should
not be seen as irrelevant and discarded. On the contrary, they must be displayed with a different perspective, not
as a science product or a theory illustration but as objects which in a certain time and place were essential to
the production of scientic knowledge (GALISON, p. 1982). And it is exactly this alternative way of showing the
relationship between scientic knowledge and the different contexts and objects as a participative, integral part of
the process of scientic content production which we aim at achieving.
The results of the experiment could be verified in the visitors survey which was carried out (by the museology
student and PCI scholarship holder from Mast Luciene Pereira da Veiga) during the time the exhibit was open
to the public, through a questionnaire which asked 13 questions altogether ranging from aspects such as
sex, profession, age and living location, etc to questions referring to the exhibit itself. When they were
asked about what called their attention in the exhibit most, only 7% of the visitors 4 answers indicated the
videos; however, when they were asked whether they had watched the video (specially the one about scientific
instruments), 46% said yes, and 34% of them thought the video was informative and instructive, 33% thought
it was a curious thing, and 11% found the video interesting (VEIGA, 2006). From these results we conclude
that the use of this resource was the right thing to do and we considered the results quite satisfactory, specially
concerning a problem which came up during the phase of elaboration of the exhibit project; how to translate 5
an academic language to the lay public, a language which was the result of research done by a historian who
faces the problem of the nature of concepts on a daily basis. And applying a concept in search for precision
does not only means deepening the knowledge over a certain object, but also create new possibilities of study
(VEYNE, apud VERGARA, p. 10, 2003).

34th CIMUSET Conference in Brazil Rio de Janeiro, 2006

That being so, we believe that from the challenge which was posed, we managed, in a satisfactory way, to create
from the presentation of a new concept new possibilities and issues to the public and translate a discourse
apparently of difcult comprehension through images instead of long, dense texts. And at the end, by asking questions
instead of using ready answers, to take the visitor to reect not only upon the construction of a certain scientic
concept/instrument, but also all the concepts in general.

Footnotes
1

Introductory text for the exhibit Science and Technology Objects; trajectories in museums.

The video used images taken from the photo archives of the coordination of museology at the Science Museum of London,through the website http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/,
under permission of Lucy Waitt and also counted with the help from scholarship holder and History student Davi William Ferreira Gomes in the image research and editing
of Thiago Alves.

The survey was carried out with the museums weekend public with 39 visitors.

The difference between divulging and vulgarization is hard to be understood in Portuguese, since vulgar has a derogative connotation and that is why the word translate
is perhaps more adequate to our purposes (VERGARA, p.13).

Bibliography
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BENNETT, Jim. Museums and History of Science. Isis. N.96, 2005, pp.602-608.
BUD, Robert. Science, Meaning and Myth in the museum. Public Understanding of Science. Vol.4, n.1, January, 1995, pp.1-16.
FURTADO, J.L.. O que um instrumento cientco. Roteiro para animao.
GALISON, Peter. Philosophy and the center metaphor. Science in context. N.2, 1988, pp.197-212.
LOURENO, Marta C.C.. Museu de cincia e tcnica: Que objectos. Universidade Noa Lisboa, Lisboa, 2000. Dissertao de Mestrado.
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