Sci-fi exhibit links Star Wars, anthropology
A woman with horns on her head, wearing black and red face paint, greeted visitors walking into USU’s Museum of Anthropology on Saturday.
Jessy Swift, museum program coordinator, dressed as Star Wars villain Darth Maul for “Sci-fi: The Final Frontier,” the latest installment of the “Saturdays at the Museum” event series.
Amanda Arthur, a museum assistant who coordinated the event, said the event was designed to show the impact of Star Wars and Star Trek on people’s lives.
“One thing we’re trying to show is how much our culture has changed because of these two shows,” Arthur said. “The technology that has come from them alone has changed a lot of the way we live.”
Lasers and prosthetic limbs have improved because Star Wars prompted young fans to become researchers, and Star Trek helped people imagine portable communication devices like cellphones and tablets, Arthur said.
“Our lives have been changed because of some nerds who were watching Star Trek and were like, ‘We need to make cellphones,'” Arthur said.
The event included screenings of History Channel episodes “Star Wars Tech” and “Star Trek Tech” from its documentary series “Modern Marvels.” The episodes examine parallels between futuristic devices, such as lightsabers and Darth Vader’s suit, and modern technology.
The event also included a costume contest and exhibits explaining the anthropological elements of science fiction. Children attending the event made puppets of Star Wars characters Admiral Ackbar and Chewbacca.
The costume contest awarded a gallon of Aggie Ice Cream to the winners of the children and adult divisions. Costumed sci-fi fans came from as far as Salt Lake City to visit the event, Arthur said.
Sam Coulson, a graduate student studying instructional technology, won the adult division of the costume contest. Coulson dressed as a rebel trooper from Star Wars. Coulson is a member of Rebel Legion, a costuming organization for fans of Star Wars. Rebel Legion members dress as Star Wars characters for charity and sci-fi events, he said.
After the contest winners were announced, a boy visiting the museum with his family engaged Coulson in conversation.
“You know what it looks like? It looks like you fell in love with Princess Leia and married her,” the boy said to Coulson.
Coulson said interactions like the one between him and the boy happen all the time.
“Obviously, that kid was very engaged in taking something he knows to be imaginary and seeing someone portray it in real life,” Coulson said.
Kids often ask, “Are you really real, or are you not?” Coulson said.
He also enjoyed speaking with museum assistants about the exhibits, Coulson said.
“Being able to talk with people and have an anthropological view on some of these modern American mythos is really enjoyable,” Coulson said.
One exhibit centered around the anthropological basis for Star Wars and Star Trek. Arthur said much of the exhibit’s information was taken from the research of Daryl Frazetti, an independent researcher and former university professor at Lake Tahoe Community College.
Frazetti has taught college courses examining Star Trek from an anthropological standpoint, Arthur said. The sci-fi series poses many serious anthropological questions through its characters and plot lines, according to Frazetti’s research.
Examples of such questions include instances of aliens on board a ship with a mostly human crew, questioning the role of the individual in human society, and an android built to emulate emotion, asking what it means to be human.
Frazetti is far from being the only researcher to link Star Trek and anthropology, Arthur said. USU emeritus professor Richley Crapo sometimes used the sci-fi series in his anthropology of religion course, Arthur said.
A separate exhibit explained the impact of the Star Wars movies on religion. The U.S. and United Kingdom have religions based on the teachings of the Jedi Order, according to the museum exhibit.
“I thought it was interesting that a church was founded based on a movie,” said Jeff Taylor, a senior studying mechanical engineering who attended the event with his wife and 8-month-old son. “I’d never heard of that before. How do you base a religion on a movie that came out in the ‘70s? I saw it more of a moral code than an actual religion.”
Since the museum moved to the second floor of Old Main in 1992, the rooms it occupies have been renovated to increase usable space, according to the museum’s website, but Swift said it has outgrown the space. The museum is raising funds to move from the second floor of Old Main to the Art Barn, located across the street from the HPER Building, Swift said.
“As you can see, we have one room,” Swift said. “Moving to the Barn will give us about triple the space we have now.”
More space means more exhibits, Swift said. With a larger display area, more of the museum’s artifacts could be on display at once, she said. USU students who use the exhibits for research and elementary students on field trips would benefit from more displays, she said.
The move will also increase the space available for the curatorship of artifacts, Swift said. The current curatorial room is about the size of a closet, she said.
“We have thousands of artifacts in this tiny little room, with a desk in the middle where we restore things,” Swift said. “With moving to the Barn, we’d actually have an entire floor that would be dedicated to curation and preserving. That’s a big deal.”
Swift said the proposed renovation for the Art Barn includes a welcome center that would function as a starting point for campus tours and a central location high school students and others could visit to learn more about USU.
Currently, people looking for information about the university might have to visit several offices, which could be intimidating for those unfamiliar with campus, Swift said.
The museum’s new location was originally planned to open in 2011, but fundraising efforts haven’t progressed as rapidly as expected, Swift said. She expects the opening to be in 2013. Private donations and grants will be used to pay for the move, Swift said.
The Barn is currently condemned, and the museum must pay for structural renovations before moving in, Swift said. There is a psychology lab on the first floor, but people aren’t allowed on other floors of the building, she said.
– steve.kent@aggiemail.usu.edu