The museum selfie | 博物馆自拍照：不仅是一面镜子

美国华盛顿大学（密苏里州圣路易斯）戏剧系助理教授

近日，自拍成了人们体验展出艺术作品的流行方式，坐拥数百万粉丝的社交网络红人乐此不疲，守护这些价值不菲艺术品的安保人员则是心惊胆战。自拍的人随处可见，可在博物馆里的自拍并非都出于同样的目的。

部分数字化自拍照仅仅用来证明某人近距离接触了一件标志性艺术品。和大多数自拍照一样，这类照片只是为了在社交媒体上向朋友们秀出自己的行踪。当博物馆和馆藏艺术品沦为背景时，这种自拍照的构图与人们在任何其他地点拍摄的照片其实并无太大区别。“博物馆自拍照”就不同了，它以更加直接的方式与展品进行了互动。

自画像

首先需要指出的是，所说的“自拍”不仅是指拍摄者高举智能手机，用俯视角度拍摄的照片。看看社交媒体上的诸多网络红人就明白了，利用自拍杆、三脚架和定时器，可以实现多种距离的自拍。文艺复兴时期的许多画家也可以证明，自画像并非数字时代的专利。简而言之，自拍最显著的特点不在于构图，而是被拍摄的对象（画面中的那个“自己”）在网上分享了这张自拍照。

博物馆自拍照以各种各样活泼有趣的方式重构了那个“自己”，而且所有这些方式都离不开与展品的互动。重构手法之一是参观者用自己的身体摆出姿势，融入到展品中，仿佛成为展品的一部分，例如站在手臂残缺的雕像旁边，摆出一个特别的姿势，用自己的手臂“补充”雕像的残缺部分。

博物馆自拍照的另一种形式是参观者模仿展品。一些参观者亲力亲为，用自己的身体再现展品，实现模仿；有些人恰好与展品有某种相似之处，比如神似某件艺术作品中的形象，于是利用这种巧合实现了模仿。第三种方法是将一部智能手机放在展品前面，用这件道具暗示展品正在自拍。

游戏和纽带

博物馆自拍实际上透露出一点，人们一直以来都幻想着艺术品可以活起来。从奥维德（Ovid）笔下的皮格马利翁（Pygmalion），到好莱坞电影《博物馆奇妙夜》（Night at the Museum），人们从古至今在面对艺术品和文物时，总是想象着某种外部干预能够让静态展品动起来，比如使用水银、古老的咒语或是智能手机。在很多方面来看，博物馆自拍可谓是这种玩转艺术的长久渴望在当今数字时代的表达。

“博物馆自拍透露出一点，人们一直以来都幻想着艺术品可以活起来”

博物馆又该如何帮助民众实现这种愿望呢？博物馆与携带相机的参观者之间的关系一直不太和谐。多家博物馆由于担心强光会损害文物脆弱的材质，禁止参观者在拍照时使用闪光灯。有些博物馆不仅担心可能造成损害，还担心拍照会分散拍摄者和其他参观者的注意力，于是一律禁止拍照。平心而论，一根三英尺长的自拍杆颇具破坏力，禁止拍照也是合情合理的。

然而，要求参观者面对博物馆展品只能待以静默沉思，未免有道德说教和思想管制之嫌。对于可能打扰到其他参观者的游客——比如儿童和旅游团，博物馆已有多种限制方法。用这些现有方法来规范博物馆自拍行为，博物馆方面只需稍作努力，就能让馆藏展品变得生动活泼起来，同时还可以吸引已经习惯于通过互动方式接触文化产品的新受众。

此外，要获得一张博物馆自拍照，其实并不需要走进实体博物馆，这在新冠肺炎疫情期间尤为明显。由于实行“封控”措施，实体展馆关闭，洛杉矶盖蒂博物馆和阿姆斯特丹国立博物馆等博物馆向居家的民众发起挑战，请大家用家居物品作为素材进行二次创作，再现自己最喜爱的艺术品，再拍一张博物馆自拍照。

这些挑战活动收到了数以千计的“参观者”投稿，媒体也做了大量报道，由此可见在实体展馆关闭期间，博物馆自拍照将参观者与不断发展壮大的数字博物馆紧密联系在一起。

人们很容易将新受众、他们的参观方式乃至整个数字时代统统归结为一剂自恋的毒药。不过，自拍现象——无论是在博物馆还是在其他地方，远比这个比喻复杂得多。社会心理学家在2023年首次深入研究了自拍。在题为“拍摄人生：意象视角在个人照片中的作用”（ Picturing Your Life: The Role of Imagery Perspective in Personal Photos）的论文中，研究人员指出，将本人置于画面中不仅仅是出于虚荣，自拍其实还表明了拍摄者渴望捕捉到人生体验的意义。

“自拍表明拍摄者渴望捕捉到人生体验的意义”

第一人称视角下的照片——拍摄的场景或者静物照片，主要记录拍摄者的实际感受，而第三人称视角照片加入了摄影师的参与，为事件增添了更深层次的含义。研究项目的参与者看到自己的第一人称视角照片，只能回想起照片中的场景有哪些外在特征，看到自拍照，则会记起这张照片的情感或心理意义。

《拍摄人生：意象视角在个人照片中的作用》相关链接：https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/19485506231163012

The museum selfie: more than a mirror

The trend of photographing oneself in front of the Mona Lisa or Van Gogh's Starry Night took off with the advent of the digital age. This practice is so prevalent today that it sometimes seems to have become the main reason to visit a museum. A simple manifestation of contemporary vanity? Not only. The museum selfie can also serve as a way of appropriating art and creating more meaningful experiences.

E. B. Hunter

Beloved by influencers with million-follower profiles and feared by guards of valuable artwork, the selfie has recently become a common way of experiencing exhibited works of art. But despite their ubiquity, not all selfies taken at a museum serve the same purpose.

Self-portraits

First, it is worth noting the definition of “selfie” includes more than an off-angle photo dominated by the photographer’s arm as it holds the smartphone at a distance. As many a social media influencer can attest, selfie sticks, tripods, and timers make it possible to take a self-portrait from a range of distances. And as many a Renaissance painter can attest, self-portraiture is hardly unique to the digital age. In short, the defining characteristic of a selfie is not its composition. It is that the person depicted – the “self” in the frame – shares the photo online.

Play and connection

In fact, museum selfies reveal the persistence of the fantasy that a work of art might come to life. From Ovid’s Pygmalion to Hollywood films like Night at the Museum, people have long responded to art and artefacts by imagining that an intervention – quicksilver, an ancient curse, a smartphone – can grant motion to a static object on display. In many ways, museum selfies are a digital-age expression of this longstanding desire to play with the art.

“Museum selfies reveal the persistence of the fantasy that a work of art might come to life”

How can institutions tap into this desire? Historically, the relationship between museums and visitors with cameras has been uneven. Many museums prohibit flash photography for fear that bursts of light will damage delicate materials. Other institutions ban photography altogether, fearing not only damage but the perils of distraction, both for the photographer and the other patrons. In fairness, a three-foot selfie stick contains enough destructive potential to justify its prohibition. 

However, insisting that visitors encounter museum objects exclusively through quiet contemplation runs the risk of moralizing and thought-policing. Museums already have a myriad of strategies for hemming in visitors like children and tour groups that could disturb other visitors. Deploying existing strategies to manage museum selfies would allow institutions to enliven their existing collections with minimal effort and draw in new audiences who are accustomed to interactivity as a way of encountering cultural products. 

Moreover, one does not even need to visit the brick-and-mortar museum to create a museum selfie. This phenomenon was particularly noticeable during the COVID-19 pandemic. With their physical collections shuttered by lockdowns, institutions like the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam challenged people at home to take a museum selfie by recreating their favorite artworks with household objects. 

These challenges generated thousands of “visitor” contributions and reams of media coverage, demonstrating the effectiveness of museum selfies for maintaining connections with visitors and growing an institution’s digital presence when a physical collection is closed. 

Beyond vanity

It is tempting to frame new audiences, their visiting practices, and the digital age in general as a toxic stew of self-obsession. But the phenomenon of selfies, museum or otherwise, is more complex than this trope. In 2023, social psychologists explored the issue in depth for the first time. In the study entitled Picturing Your Life: The Role of Imagery Perspective in Personal Photos, researchers demonstrated that putting oneself in the frame is not only a matter of vanity. Rather, taking a selfie represents the desire to capture the meaning of a lived experience.

“Taking a selfie represents the desire to capture the meaning of a lived experience”

A first-person perspective photo – which captures a scene or an object – mainly documents physical experiences, whereas a third-person perspective photo includes the photographer and adds a deeper level of meaning to the event. While study participants who viewed their own first-person perspective photos were reminded only of the physical features of the scenario in the photograph, viewing their own selfies brought its emotional or psychological meaning to mind. 

Amid the culturally charged environment of artworks and artefacts on display, then, encouraging people to participate in museum selfies can allow them to personalize, deepen, and preserve the meanings they find as they visit the many museums this world has to offer.

Link for Picturing Your Life: The Role of Imagery Perspective in Personal Photos: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/19485506231163012