Weav­ing togeth­er TV footage from the 1950s and ’60s with clips fea­tur­ing cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal moments, a trav­el­ing art exhib­it that “seeks to start a con­ver­sa­tion around the tele­vi­sion again” was tem­porar­i­ly installed Wednes­day out­side the Jim­my Stew­art Muse­um in down­town Indiana.

With the title of Tune In, the exhib­it is a “mul­ti­di­men­sion­al dio­ra­ma designed to encour­age the audi­ence to ques­tion how we under­stand and expe­ri­ence our his­to­ry, real­i­ty, social equi­ty and per­son­al rela­tion­ships with each oth­er and media tech­nol­o­gy,” accord­ing to the Art Factory.

A group of col­lab­o­ra­tive artists, Art Fac­to­ry fab­ri­cat­ed the out­door instal­la­tion designed by Rick Lazes, accord­ing to a news release.

The exhib­it is made of six vin­tage TV screens that play the video in a 12-minute loop, 24 hours a day.

“These video clips come togeth­er and break away in sequence to cre­at­ed a dig­i­tal col­lage that is meant to cat­alyze thought,” the artists said.

Janie McKir­gan, pres­i­dent and exec­u­tive direc­tor of The Jim­my Stew­art Muse­um, said Wednes­day that the exhib­it is trav­el­ing to muse­ums, art gal­leries and per­for­mance venues to high­light the strug­gle such enti­ties have faced dur­ing the coro­n­avirus pandemic.

“They want­ed to shine a spot­light,” she said.

McKir­gan said orga­niz­ers reached out to her about dis­play­ing the exhib­it, which came at no cost to the museum.

Tune In has vis­it­ed the Mint Muse­um in Char­lotte, N.C., and Martha’s Vine­yard Muse­um in Vine­yard Haven, Mass., and will move on to the Akron Art Muse­um in Ohio and oth­er muse­ums in Texas, New Mex­i­co and Cal­i­for­nia after spend­ing four weeks here.

Next week­end, as part of the instal­la­tion, Lazes and his co-direc­tor, Aaron Atkin­son, will vis­it Indi­ana for the doc­u­men­tary “Artists in Quar­an­tine: Amer­i­can Cre­ativ­i­ty Dur­ing the 2020 Pan­dem­ic” that fol­lows the exhib­it from city to city, and where local, cre­ative indi­vid­u­als are inter­viewed about “how they are using their cre­ativ­i­ty to bring hope and inspi­ra­tion to others.”

The footage played in Tune In blends scenes from tele­vi­sion shows such as “San­ford and Son” and “All in the Fam­i­ly,” musi­cal per­for­mances includ­ing from Wood­stock, speech­es by John F. Kennedy and Mar­tin Luther King Jr., cov­er­age of the moon land­ing and much more.

“Tune In seeks to start a con­ver­sa­tion around the tele­vi­sion again,” accord­ing to the artists.

McKir­gan said the exhib­it “shows how some things have changed and some things have not,” and is meant to “spark con­ver­sa­tion and memories.”

Beyond that, she said, it brings up the ques­tion of “How can we make it a bet­ter world mov­ing forward?”

“Can we cre­ate a bet­ter pic­ture this time?” the artists ask.

“Have we tuned out the inti­ma­cies of per­son­al inter­ac­tion as a result of our pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with an alter­na­tive dig­i­tal real­i­ty?” Lazes says in the news release. “Per­haps it is time to tune out the dis­trac­tion of the sta­t­ic ema­nat­ing from the inter­net and social media. Have we become iso­lat­ed from out neigh­bors and is it time to turn back to our core val­ues and to recon­nect with our fam­i­lies, friends and neigh­bors to cre­ate a soci­ety that is more inclusive?”

McKir­gan said peo­ple are inter­est­ed in the exhib­it and were stop­ping to watch.

She not­ed the out­door exhib­it is com­ple­ment­ed by a tem­po­rary indoor exhib­it, Stew­art on the Small Screen.

McKir­gan said that exhib­it high­lights Stewart’s tele­vi­sion roles, includ­ing appear­ances on talk, game and vari­ety shows, as well as “The Jim­my Stew­art Show” and “Hawkins.”

“It’s a nice tie-in to the out­door exhib­it,” McKir­gan said.

The muse­um is open and oper­at­ing with a 75 per­cent lim­it on capac­i­ty, she said. Masks are required, and with six gal­leries, she said social dis­tanc­ing is eas­i­ly accommodated.

The muse­um under­went a remod­el pri­or to the pan­dem­ic, and McKir­gan said vis­i­tors will find it has an updat­ed look.

“It’s a total­ly new expe­ri­ence to come and see it,” she said. “Be a tourist in your hometown.”

McKir­gan said the muse­um has been able to weath­er the pan­dem­ic through loans and gen­er­ous dona­tions from indi­vid­u­als, busi­ness­es and the Stew­art family.

“We are over­whelmed by the gen­eros­i­ty and love of Jim­my Stew­art,” she said.

The pan­dem­ic derailed plans last year to mark the 25th anniver­sary of the museum’s opening.

In a nor­mal year, she said 6,000 to 7,000 peo­ple vis­it, bring­ing cus­tomers to Indiana’s busi­ness­es at the same time.

“Our muse­um helps our down­town sur­vive,” she said. “It helps us all.”

McKir­gan said Stew­art still res­onates with peo­ple part­ly because of the pop­u­lar­i­ty of “It’s a Won­der­ful Life,” and because of his ser­vice in World War II.

Look­ing for­ward, McKir­gan said the muse­um is mak­ing spe­cial plans to mark the 75th anniver­sary of the release of “It’s a Won­der­ful Life” dur­ing Indiana’s hol­i­day fes­tiv­i­ties dur­ing the Christ­mas season.