The Getty Research Institute: Irresistible Decay

“Irresistible Decay” is a study of ruins taken from materials at the Getty Research Institute. Images of ruins taken from various formats, including etchings, illustrations in books, and photographs, are displayed on the website. An essay which accompanies the images examines the images as symbols of decay and as emblems of continuity over time.

Selection Decisions
The images were taken from multiple collections held at the Getty. They are part of a larger universe of images on this subject that the Getty possesses. The website states that the Institute has tens of thousands of photographs of antiquities from around the world. Only a very small fraction of this total was used to illustrate several themes in the exhibit.

Metadata
The metadata is extensive, though the viewer does not have to see it all if they do not wish to. Small versions of the images appear on several pages within the exhibit, each page devoted to a specific theme. Accompanying each exhibit is brief descriptive data on that particular object; included is the artist’s name (if known), their nationality and dates that they were alive, the object’s title, and Getty catalog number, as well as a very brief description of the ruins that are depicted. By clicking on a link, the viewer is taken to a more detailed narrative description of the object. From this page, one can click on a link to see a somewhat larger digital version of the image. One can also click on a link to see the full catalog record of the item. All of the metadata is about the item that has been digitized; there is no information available about the digital image.

Object Characteristics
The digital images themselves are not very detailed. The largest images that are available allow the viewer to have a pretty good general idea of what is being conveyed, but they do not allow for any in-depth research on the object. The digital objects are present to support the ideas presented in the text, and are really a secondary part of the exhibit.

Intended Audience
The audience will not consist of anyone who wants a detailed look at the objects. Instead, viewers who visit this exhibit will do so because of interest in the subject matter that is discussed. This exhibit (and others like it on the Getty website) are a nice way to provide exposure to materials that may not see the light of day very often. There is no discussion of the sources that the various objects came from, though. While this is a creative way to join materials that would otherwise never be used together (16th century German woodcuts of ancient Roman ruins are combined with postcards depicting the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, for example), each item is divorced from the context of its own creation. Ultimately, we have learned very little about the individual items, and are instead subjected to the musings of the exhibit’s curators.