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Archive for the ‘From the Editor’ Category

Interpretation on the Airwaves

01 Nov

By Paul Caputo

We are in the midst of a second Age of Enlightenment. Just as industry and education made possible the creation, mass distribution, and consumption of printed materials in the 17th and 18th centuries, digital technology and the Internet today make possible the creation, mass distribution, and consumption of  a variety of media. (It makes you wonder what René Descartes would have posted on YouTube.) At interpretive sites, digital media are becoming more and more integral to the visitor experience, and interpreters are becoming more tech-savvy. (At the 2010 NAI National Workshop, a preworkshop session on podcasting was the first to fill and had a long waiting list.)

Some digital media—podcasts, interactive kiosks, etc.—are perfect complements to the first-person interpretation one finds at many sites. Some media, like television and radio, are meant for an entirely different audience—individuals who are not onsite and may never visit the site being interpreted. There are challenges and benefits that make mass-media interpretation different from the program an interpreter delivers onsite, but the goal remains the same—to create intellectual and emotional connections.

And as always, interpreters are a resourceful lot. Creating a radio program or a television show might sound like an expensive proposition, and getting it on the air in the first place seems like it would be a formidable challenge. These are obstacles that can be overcome through increasingly affordable, high-tech equipment and partnerships with local radio and television stations.

This issue of Legacy tells the stories of interpreters who have taken their stories to the airwaves. The feature articles in the following pages detail the challenges of interpreting for a large, anonymous audience, the technical issues involved with creating television and radio programs, and where to go to find a home for your program.

Most importantly, this issue discusses how mass media make it possible for interpreters to document their important messages for posterity, and to get those messages out into the world on a large scale. As this second Age of Enlightenment puts the ability to disseminate information into the hands of the many, interpreters are taking advantage.

NAI Art and Publications Director Paul Caputo can be reached at pcaputo@interpnet.com. Send letters to the editor for publication to legacy@interpnet.com.

 
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Posted in From the Editor, Interpreting through Mass Media

 

A Place to Learn

01 Sep

By Paul Caputo

I consider it one of my most important responsibilities as a parent to provide a broad world view and expose my children to different cultures—not just in terms of language, food, and dress, but as a way of looking at the world. To that end, my wife and two children went with me when I attended NAI’s International Conference in Townsville, Australia, earlier this year. Before the trip, we anticipated kangaroos, koalas, beaches, and tropics, but it was an event at the Townsville Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Centre that provided one of the most memorable moments. The site features interpretive exhibits, a thoroughly thematic gift shop, and musical and dance performances by aboriginal people in traditional garb.

Our children watched the dancers and musicians with rapt attention. Joel, age 6, bobbed his head to the beat of the drums. Three-year-old Maya laughed and tried to emulate a traditional dance that mimicked the motions of a kangaroo. Then Joel’s and Maya’s eyes widened when the performers stepped off the stage to interact with visitors. After an initial hesitation—not just on the part of my children but of everyone in the audience—visitors crowded around to converse and take photos together. The seal had been broken, and the performer-audience relationship quickly shifted to one of human beings talking about everyday things like clothes and food. One group of performers was a family that included children only marginally older than Joel. Both sets of parents watched and smiled as the aboriginal children and Joel (barely) interacted. I snapped the photo here—one of my favorites—and encouraged Joel to ask questions, but he was overcome with shyness, perhaps because of the growing group of onlookers.

After the visit, Joel and Maya found their voices and peppered my wife and me with questions about the aboriginal culture. We certainly didn’t have every answer (who does?), but the fact that our kids were asking the questions told me that the site had achieved its goals. As my children grow up, I hope that there will continue to be places where they can go to ask questions and learn about cultures other than their own, not just abroad but at the many that exist here in the United States.

 
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Posted in From the Editor, Interpreting Indigenous Cultures

 

When This Building is Not This Building

01 Jul

By Paul Caputo

Nikko National Park in Japan plays host to striking natural beauty and fascinating cultural heritage, including the 17th-century Toshogu Shrine. I took a day trip to Nikko in 2008, and stood in awe of the ornate, magnificent buildings like the five-story pagoda pictured here.

“This” pagoda was built in 1650. I put the word “this” in quotes because I’m not sure that there’s another grammatical construct that encapsulates the way the history of this building was explained on site. The actual, physical pagoda in this image is an 1818 reconstruction built after the 1650 original was destroyed by fire. In fact, many of the historic buildings we saw in Japan were either partially restored or completely reconstructed, but interpretive materials made little distinction between the originals and newer, restored versions. I frequently had to dig to learn that some “historic” buildings we visited were actually replicas from as recently as the 1970s.

I learned through conversations with park staff that this was not an attempt at deception, but a reflection of a cultural belief that the essence of a building is in its original purpose—that this reconstruction and the original 1650 building are in fact one and the same. I couldn’t help but wonder whether the current iteration featured slight (or not-so-slight) “improvements” over the original, and I felt a mild sense of disappointment knowing that the construction in front of me was not actually built in the 17th century, but I was aware that these thoughts were born of cultural differences. Ultimately, I was glad to have the opportunity to witness a significant cultural artifact first-hand.

This issue of Legacy explores the sometimes-sticky issue of restoration—natural and cultural—at interpretive sites. What are the challenges of restoring resources and of interpreting those restored resources? Where do you draw the line between restoration and maintenance? What is the difference between restoration and conservation? And can the authors in this issue discuss the topic without using as many quotation marks as I did?

 
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Posted in From the Editor, Restoration in Interpretation

 

Life, the Universe, and Everything

01 May

There was an article in the March 26, 2010, issue of the news magazine The Week titled “Captain—you killed the crew.” It summarizes a study by Johns Hopkins University physicist William Edelstein that finds that humans could never travel at the speed of light, Star Trek warp-speed style, because radiation would kill us. My favorite part of the story is that “Star Trek fans have protested his conclusion, saying that the Enterprise’s electromagnetic ‘shields’ could block such radiation.”

At first, I chuckled at the image of a bunch of nerds wearing Spock ears and speaking Klingon arguing the finer points of particle physics with a Johns Hopkins University physicist. But as I read the article, I realized that I was feeling a sense of disappointment myself. I understand that, even if humans ultimately develop the capacity for interstellar travel, I’m probably not on the short list of who gets to make the trip. But I’ve always imagined that long after my time on Earth, our species would find a way to explore the universe and maybe even find other life out there, so, to me, it’s terrible news that travel at light speed may simply not be physically possible.

One of my all-time favorite reads is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy by Douglas Adams. Growing up, at night before going to sleep, I used to open one of the books to a random page and start reading. In the third book, Life, the Universe, and Everything, the protagonist, a helpless, overwhelmed earthling named Arthur Dent thrust unwillingly into exploring the universe with his alien friend, reads this passage in The Guide:

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

This issue of Legacy addresses the interstellar dreamer in all of us. We may never know “what the universe is for and why it is here,” but who better than interpreters to talk about that wonder we feel when we look up at the night sky?

NAI Art and Publications director Paul Caputo can be reached at pcaputo@interpnet.com. Send letters to the editor for publication to legacy@interpnet.com.

 
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Posted in From the Editor, Interpreting the Universe

 

Take Me Out to the Interpretive Program

01 Mar

Legacy-21-2by Paul Caputo

When the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series in 2008, I felt like I had accomplished the feat myself. After a lifetime of rooting for a team that had experienced what can politely be described as minimal success, I surprised even myself with the intensity of my reaction to their claiming the ultimate prize. Watching the last few outs in my living room in Colorado, I cringed, sweated, and ultimately cheered along with close to 50,000 fans in Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, 1,800 miles away. Here was my favorite team in my favorite sport—a team that had heretofore won the World Series only once in its 125-year history—accomplishing something I never thought I would see in my adult life.

My wife, who is completely baffled by my affinity for team sports, stopped asking long ago why I allow myself to be affected so deeply by millionaire strangers playing a game in their pajamas. This is a good thing, because there’s no rational way to explain it. But when the final out was recorded, I thought of my father, who raised us on baseball in what is largely a football town; my sister, a lifelong fan; and my brother, who was actually in the stands when it happened. I thought of my friends in what I still think of as “back home”—as well as countless strangers in the stadium or elsewhere in the greater Philadelphia area—hugging, high-fiving, and crying tears of joy.

I thought, too, of the place itself. Citizens Bank Park debuted in 2004 and has been home to relatively good teams since its inception—unlike now-defunct Veterans Stadium, where I suffered through countless losses throughout my youth and young adulthood. As with most new ballparks, it’s a beautiful place in terms of aesthetics and architecture, whether you care about the game or not. But if you’re a fan, stadiums are like cathedrals, and standing in their shadows evokes memories of deeply emotional experiences shared with thousands of like-minded individuals.

In August 2008, just two months before the Phillies won the World Series, I took a guided tour of Citizens Bank Park. Obviously, many of the people who take tours of stadiums already have emotional and intellectual connections to the place, so the guide’s challenge is more to facilitate a meaningful experience than to create those connections.

Of course, much of the thrill of the pregame tour was being on the field while larger-than-life superstars took batting practice, but even empty rooms in the depths of the stadium brought a thrill. At each stop on the tour, our guide gave us minimal information and let us simply soak it in.

Two months later, when fireworks popped and the players celebrated their championship on the field, I watched on TV, remembering what the stadium looked like when I saw it from home plate during that tour. Whenever players and managers take questions during interviews in the media room, I remember the brief moment I stood behind that podium, trying to imagine flash bulbs popping and reporters shouting questions.

When Harry Kalas, Phillies announcer for literally my entire lifetime, passed away suddenly in 2009, one of my first thoughts was of visiting the broadcast booth where he worked his magic. I’ll forever remember a headset labeled “Harry” and our guide’s simple statement, “Harry Kalas sits here.”

In the field of interpretation, it’s easy to think of traditional natural and cultural resources like parks, museums, and historical sites when we talk about creating emotional and intellectual connections. But sports are a huge part of our heritage, not just in the United States but worldwide.

Many of us have some connection to something related to sports, whether we play or spectate, whether it’s professional, college, amateur, or just an informal game played by children in a neighborhood. This issue of Legacy addresses the interpretation of sports, from a Mesoamerican ballgame with origins more than 3,500 years ago to contemporary youth baseball leagues, from the marshes of a New Jersey-based birdwatching event to the skies over New Mexico interpreted in the Anderson Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum. 

NAI Art and Publications director Paul Caputo can be reached at pcaputo@interpnet.com. Send letters to the editor for publication to legacy@interpnet.com.

Note about the cover: Visit www.interpretationbydesign for a discussion on the ethics of the Photoshop techniques used on the cover of this issue.

 
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Posted in From the Editor, Interpreting Sports

 
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