Jack Burgeman was standing inside the Inca House of the since-departed “Machu Picchu” exhibit at the Field Museum and pantomiming a mannerism not of 15th Century Peru but of 21st Century Museum Campus Chicago. With one hand cupped to his ear, he walked to and fro, a human antenna roaming for cellular telephone reception.
“I just walk around until I get an area,” said Burgeman, a longtime volunteer docent at the Field. “Sometimes I have to go outside, sometimes to the bathrooms on the lower levels to make a call.”
The Field building, which opened on the lakefront in 1921, is thick-walled and sturdy, as formidable in design as the museum is in reputation. Like its similarly solid and nearly as old neighbors, the Shedd Aquarium and Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, the Field allows only spotty cell phone reception — indeed, the surrounding Museum Campus is considered a wireless “dead zone.”
“All three of the buildings are essentially bomb shelters,” explained Lisa Boulden Williams, the campus’ director, about the poor cell phone reception.
As a result, visitors to the Field may find themselves temporarily incommunicado, cut off from the incessant chatter of modern life, their attention commanded by wonders of the ancient and natural worlds. The museum’s very walls enforce silence and respect for the privacy of others in the galleries.
But all that may soon change.
Field President John McCarter Jr. has announced that a new wireless infrastructure will be installed sometime this year that will make the Field, he wrote in a recent issue of the museum’s members magazine, “the first museum in the United States completely enabled for wireless radio, voice and data services.”
Improvements to come, said McCarter, include quality cell phone service throughout the museum and better service on the neighboring parkland. Also installed will be a wireless network, or Wi-Fi, allowing Internet access to Field employees, researchers and visitors.
Making connections
William Barnett, Field vice president and chief information officer, said the museum could not ignore the prevalence of cell phones or their utility to the people who stream through the museum. Aside from connecting with the outside, they can be used inside by families, school groups or other parties who split up and need to determine when and where to rejoin.
Barnett acknowledged concerns about some visitors making or receiving calls in galleries and disturbing others. But he said clear reception throughout the museum “should prove more of a boon than a problem for visitors.”
As for Wi-Fi, Barnett said among its bigger beneficiaries will be the employees and researchers who will be able to roam the Field’s vast expanse and have wireless access to the main database or Internet.
Asked about the use of camera phones, Barnett said the Field, like most museums of all types, generally does not allow photography by any means in touring exhibits, for which reproduction rights to the displayed works often are held by the show’s mounter.
Camera ban
Field visitors who try to use cameras of any sort in such shows are reminded of the ban by security guards and could be asked to leave if they don’t comply. Burgeman said during his “Machu Picchu” docenting he saw “a kid with a cell phone up against his stomach trying to take a picture. I told him he wasn’t supposed to do it.”
On a recent Friday afternoon in the Field, some cell phone users could be observed making or taking calls in the more public spaces, such as the main concourse, Stanley Field Hall, or the dining area on the northeast corner of the first floor.
Whitney Russell, a 15-year-old from Atlanta here with a traveling volleyball club, received a call while walking with two friends in the otherwise empty “Traveling in the Pacific” gallery on the second floor.
“I didn’t feel bad taking the call because there weren’t any other people there,” she said. But she noted she had the ringer off on her phone, adding, “I think ringing is obnoxious.”
Other Field visitors interviewed that day also had reservations about or were against using cell phones in a museum.
“I’m not a big fan of cell phone use, except in emergencies,” said Fred Pomper, a Highland Park septuagenarian, while in one of the galleries. “I don’t like it on trains, in restaurants and theaters, and I am not sure it’s going to be an improvement if they incorporate it in a museum complex.”
Dave Williams, a middle-age Cleveland purchasing-system consultant, was in the dining area monitoring voice mail on his cell phone. He said he had his phone on “silence/vibrate” when he had been in the “Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years” exhibit and knew messages were coming in, but he waited to find a quiet corner to review them.
Tech intrusion
“Everything in our world is not so urgent,” he explained. “I’m not one of those laid-back people, but it’s bad the way this technology intrudes. There’s a certain respect for others when you’re in a shared space and trying to enjoy a work of art.”
Cathy McKee, 38, of Chicago was with her young child in the galleries, an area she felt should be off-limits to cell phone calls. “I think they are a distraction to people who do not wish to hear the conversations,” she said.
As for the family members who call each other to keep tabs on their respective progress through the Field, she said, “I think I can survive without a cell phone for an hour or so and arrange a time to meet beforehand.”
Brian West, 25, of Villa Park was in “Ancient North America and Mesoamerica” when he called his girlfriend in “Machu Picchu.”
“I find it half as interesting as she does,” he said of the Incan exhibit.
“I need to pick her up so we can go on and find something more enjoyable for me.
“But I had the ringer off my phone if she called, so I wouldn’t interfere with anyone’s adventure here.”
cstorch@tribune.com
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Few museums turn up volume on cell phones
Muriel Newman, at 91 the doyenne of art collectors in Chicago, was asked recently what she thought of people using cell phones in museum galleries.
“It’s horrible. Can you imagine people talking on a phone when you’re trying to look? It’s insane,” she said.
Told that cell phones are so much a part of daily life that some people feel a need to use them even in museum galleries, she remarked, “That’s what’s wrong with daily life.”
But such decorous museum-goers may be surprised, even appalled, to know that few museums in the country have hard and fast rules against cell phone use in their galleries.
Art museums tend to be stricter in policing the quiet and contemplative mood in their galleries than do more-bustling science and history museums.
Like movie houses, legitimate stages and concert halls, most art museums discourage cell phone use in any but their most public areas — entryways, atriums, dining spots and the like. Most take a stand against picture-taking by camera phones, but only in areas where general photography is prohibited — usually space allocated for touring shows for which they do not have reproduction rights.
Since 2003, New York City has had a law prohibiting the use of mobile phones in places of public performance, such as concerts, movies, plays, lectures, dance performances, libraries, art galleries and museums. Their use in lobbies and during intermissions is allowed. Violators are subject to a $50 fine.
But the law is little enforced. A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Museum of Art wasn’t aware of its existence, but she said museum policy nonetheless bars cell phone use in the galleries, and security guards will ask violators to take their calls outside. The spokeswoman, Elyse Topalian, said making or taking calls in galleries is considered “disturbing to other visitors.”
It couldn’t be determined whether other cities have similar bans on cell phone calling in museums. Chicago does not.
The Art Institute of Chicago’s policy is that cell phones and pagers should be turned off in the galleries. Their use, said institute spokesman John Hindman, “can be inconsiderate to other patrons.” But he added, “We try to be firm but not hard-nosed about it.”
Hindman said gallery guards will approach people talking on phones and discreetly give them small cards listing the policy. He said the cards are used because “it’s considered a politer way to get people’s attention than having a guard verbally interrupting them.”
— Charles Storch
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We’re talking cell phone policies
The Field Museum (left) wants visitors to feel free to use cell phones in its galleries. Here is a sample of other Chicago museums’ cell phone policies for visitors.
– The Art Institute of Chicago prohibits their use in galleries only.
– The Museum of Contemporary Art prohibits their use in galleries only.
– The Shedd Aquarium permits their use wherever reception allows.
– The Museum of Science and Industry permits their use wherever reception allows.
– The Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum permits their use, except during planetarium theater shows.
– The Chicago Historical Society permits their use except in its research center, on guided tours and during performances.
– The Oriental Institute permits their use. “We don’t ask people to turn phones off, and guards won’t approach [callers] unless they get obnoxious,” a spokesman said.
