In Contemporary Culture
In Los Angeles, the modern-day Museum of Jurassic Technology anachronistically seeks to recreate the sense of wonder that the old cabinets of curiosity once aroused. In Spring Green, Wisconsin, the home and museum of Alex Jordan, known as House on the Rock, can also be interpreted as a modern day curiosity cabinet, especially in the collection and display of automatons. The idea of a cabinet of curiosities has also appeared in recent publications and performances: Cabinet magazine is a quarterly magazine that juxtaposes apparently unrelated cultural artifacts and phenomena in order to show their interconnectedness in ways that encourage curiosity about the world. The Italian cultural association Wunderkammern uses the theme of historical cabinets of curiosities to explore how such "amazement" is manifested within today's artistic discourse. The May 2008 The University of Leeds Fine Art BA programme entitled 'Wunder Kammer'—the culmination of research and practice from the students of Leeds University's Fine Art programme—allows viewers to encounter work from across all disciplines; ranging from intimate installation to thought-provoking video and highly skilled drawing, punctuated with live performances.
Several internet bloggers describe their sites as a wunderkammer, either because they are primarily made up of links to things that are interesting, or because they inspire wonder in a similar manner to the original wunderkammer (see External Links, below). Robert Gehl describes internet video sites like YouTube as modern-day Wunderkammern, although in danger of being refined into capitalist institutions, "just as professionalized curators refined Wunderkammers into the modern museum in the 18th century."
Read more about this topic: Cabinet Of Curiosities
Famous quotes containing the words contemporary and/or culture:
“That nameless and infinitely delicate aroma of inexpressible tenderness and attentiveness which, in every refined and honorable attachment, is contemporary with the courtship, and precedes the final banns and the rite; but which, like the bouquet of the costliest German wines, too often evaporates upon pouring love out to drink, in the disenchanting glasses of the matrimonial days and nights.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“If you’re anxious for to shine in the high esthetic line as a man
of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant
them everywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your
complicated state of mind,
The meaning doesn’t matter if it’s only idle chatter of a
transcendental kind.”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)