A Cinematic Musée Imaginaire of Spatial Cultural Differences [CineMuseSpace]

Now that cinematic representations of every part of the globe are available to us, the Cinematic Musée Imaginaire of Spatial Cultural Differences [CineMuseSpace] proposes to enlarge Malraux' idea of the Musée Imaginaire [Museum without Walls] to display, compare, contrast and communicate spatial constructs across cultures in order to generate a novel understanding of spatial cultural differences, arguing that Cinematic Archive and Musée Imaginaire in turn will expand the physical museum experience of today. The CineMuseSpace will deliver the first cross-cultural interdisciplinary study of space by unlocking architectural records previously embedded in cinematic media. By releasing this knowledge, CineMuseSpace will make it accessible to scholars but also architects, planners and policy-makers, as well as the general public, drawing great societal benefit from the new critical resources that are proposed.

Our first hypothesis is that the study of space has become increasingly prominent, making it a good interpreter of societies and cultures; space is an expression of our culture and history materialised in stone, concrete and glass in which our everyday lives unfold. Ultimately understanding spatial constructs from other societies may give us a unique insight into other cultures.

The second hypothesis is that of all cultural forms, cinema operates and is best understood in terms of the organization of space. The filmic image shows the visible side of a society and an epoch that image makers try to grasp in order to transmit it. Films record and communicate with unique immediacy how people in different cultures and cities live their lives in domestic buildings and communal spaces.

The third hypothesis is that Malraux's Musée Imaginaire provides us with a novel and appropriate paradigm. Malraux assembled photographs of world sculptures according to Eisenstein's montage principles, comparing and contrasting them across the pages. Our proposal is to start from Malraux's concept but use films instead of photographs and complement it with Descola's anthropological approach to images from other cultures (La Fabrique des Images 2010) in order to gather a deeper understanding across cultures.

Informed by Malraux's concept and Descola's ontologies, the research will work towards the creation of a Cinematic Musée Imaginaire of Spatial Cultural Differences where moving images will be the integrating medium for communicating the key points of the project. Central to the research is the construction of a cinematic ontology of spatial cultural differences that will more specifically focus on films representative from both the Western 'naturalism' tradition [Europe/USA] and from the Eastern 'analogism' tradition [China/Japan], after Descola's ontologies.

Following from that, our cross-cultural cinematic ontologies will be screened inside innovative installations at our partner museum sites: The Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Manchester, National Museums Liverpool and The Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts, China. Through a novel exhibition development process which utilises leading-edge approaches in museum studies and draws academics and curators together in a research-led design process, CineMuseSpace will also make a significant contribution to on-going developments in the cultural sector which seek to transform the physical museum experience.

Finally, catalyzing a conceptual paradigm-shift in the understanding of other cultures commensurate with the latest advances in digital technologies, we will implement an innovative online virtual version of CineMuseSpace, leaving a sustainable methodology and framework capable of replication across other cultures, a lasting resource that can be expanded over time.

Four non-academic groups will benefit from the CineMuseSpace project: design practitioners & policy makers, filmmakers & time-based practitioners, the cultural organisations involved in the research and their wider museum network, and the general public.

Architects, urbanists, designers, policy makers, filmmakers and time-based practitioners involved in global transcultural projects would hugely benefit from gaining a deeper understanding of spatial and image representations in other cultures. It would help each of these groups' practice to move away from pre-conceived ideas and thus avoid potential misunderstanding. By equipping a new generation of creative practitioners and policy-makers with a greater understanding of other cultures, they would gain a substantial advantage for developing projects and securing new contracts. This would apply for Western professionals working for example in China and Japan and it would also benefit Chinese and Japanese design professionals gain a better understanding of the West.

The museum project partners, The Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Manchester, National Museums Liverpool and The Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts, China, will be greatly enriched by the expertise of the respective partners. This collaboration will offer curators new insights into exhibition practices conveyed by the idea of a museum without walls. For the three cultural organisations, all of which set out to generate cross cultural understanding at some level amongst their visitors, the insights gained by working through the ontology of spatial cultural differences will expand their understanding of both collections (representations on Chinese porcelain at National Museums Liverpool, for example) and of visitor experience.

The dissemination of the research progress throughout the project and the project outputs will ensure that this learning and impact is shared widely across the cultural sector. The host museums will actively disseminate the research findings within the museums profession and offer very direct routes to sharing the learning from the research.
In terms of the general public, this project is developed in order to generate new insights into spatial cultural differences through the museum installations, the exhibition catalogue and the online version of the Musée Imaginaire. Through a collaborative process and the generation of visitor-centred outputs, including three exhibitions, the project will reach a diverse public.

The primary role played by new media in communicating the intentions of the research via the proposed real and virtual exhibitions will encourage the viewing public to interact with these exhibits in a new way and acquire new knowledge about cultures, about collections and about themselves by directly engaging with digital technologies. As such, resultant studies produced on the reception of the exhibition and viewer interactions can be highly informative to the partner museums, the wider museums profession and the commercial design community, especially those who are involved in new media practices, exhibition curation and experience design. The School of Museum Studies hosts a network (Design for Change in Museums) which includes a strong representation of international museum design studios who will be engaged in the research through the ongoing activities of the network and the design practitioners will be directly targeted to attend conferences and workshops.

The way design practitioners, museum professionals, filmmakers & time-based practitioners and the general public will benefit from this research, will be by directly visiting the three exhibitions and by consulting the exhibition catalogues and the catalogue raisonné. All the material and findings will be made available through our innovative online virtual version of the Musée Imaginaire, providing framework and a lasting resource that can be expanded over time.