#mw2013 Notes, 4/18

Museums & The Web
4/18/13

 Nancy Proctor - Mobile is bringing us back to a sense of place.
Museums & The Web ASIA, Dec 2013

"When the Rare Becomes Commonplace"
Opening Keynote, Larry Friedlander
  • "the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone" Psalms 118:22
  • computer in the lobby too radical in 1985
  • now a "teenage crisis" maturing
  • basic task of museums is protection of works of cultural significance now and for future generations
  • "All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned" Karl Marx
  • 3 projects
    • Temple Mount, Jerusalem
      • Flythroughs of religious and ancient places
    • Royal National Theatre
      • Expose the machinery behind the illusion
      • Refine theater aas a process rather than a product
      • Educates the viewers eye
    • Guestbook Project
      • "a travelling communally created exhibit"
      • born out of conflict
      • "geographical place as an interface"
  • Cities, Functions, and Spaces
    • Separation of zones important. Outside the walls, inside the walls, museums are clearly demarcated in the old paradigm
    • Waste system - flea market, ephemera
    • Museums in contrast. Built to suggest timelessness, on the peak of the mountain
      • value from trivial
      • sacred from profane
  • Globalization means boundaries are blurred by cultural intermingling. Museums vulnerability in "digital storm"
  • "How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower?" Sonnet 65, Shakespeare, on aging
  • Are museums now a "society of spectacle?" Merchandise and theater, a consumer model
  • Lagerfeld - "it takes a lot of effort to keep people engaged. they need magic."
  • Quentin Bajac - "we need to educate the eye"
  • "cheapening of information" leads to a loss of a sense of wonder
  • Problems with digital
    • too easy to access, grasp, discard
  • Confront the viewer with complexity and difficulty hidden within information
  • We can hold multiple perspectives about information in our minds
  • Information has a history
  • Information can be contested and appropriated
  • Information has a future, it can be assimilated and used
  • Suggestions for user experience
    • Make it hard
    • Make it risky
    • Don't connect all the dots
    • Less rather than more
    • Build in change
    • Allow lateral connections among audience
    • Explain yourself *your criteria; why users should care
    • Provide multiple master plots or narratives
    • Stress the individual perspectives and the needs of the audience
    • Provice means of continuing, deepening and sharing experience.
Note: Ellie observed someone using an augmented reality app at a museum fall into a flower bed.

 Comments
with Peter Samis, Heather Champ
  • "What are our pimples as we mutate into our mature form?"
  • Museum experience should be similar to theatre experience
    • Orgasmic release, resolution
    • Continuity of experience; as part of an event structured by my interest and energy
      • Resolve in some way that I can take in and use it
  • From representation to confrontation
    • "Get them where they come from."
  • People don't allow images to soak into them anymore.
    • "Slow museum movement"
  • "We're tired of the mediated story." Champ
  • "Problematize the surface." Samis - Gallery host program, conversation/discussion in the gallery, staging the museum as live theatre
  • Shakespeare was very good at judging prejudices. Surprise those prejudices. Black man the victim/soft-hearted; White guy the villain.
    • What are you bringing to this gallery? How can we subvert it?
  • Summon people's cleverness - Friedlander
  • "Be clever at avoiding a pseudo-educational format." Friedlander
+++++++++++

 Web Lab - bridging the divide between the online and in museum experience
- Dave Patten, United Kingdom
  • Physical presence, but also accessible from anywhere
  • 24/7 opening hours
  • Google, Tellarc, Science Museum, Be Real (agency), Universal Design Studio (physical space)
  • Distributed team (UK, Rhode Island, SF, Amsterdam)
    • Google docs/hangout
    • Design docs written collaboratively in real time
  • Opened the exhibition in beta
  • "Google paid for everything." Slightly unsettling.
Design Thinking for Visitor Engagement: Tackling One Museum’s Big Challenge Through Human-Centered Design
- Dana Mitroff Silvers, United States, Maryanna Rogers, United States, Molly Wilson, USA
  • Stanford d-school
  • Design Thinking
    1. Empathize: ehtnographic methods; qualitiatve
    2. Design: which problems should we solve? psychographic data
    3. Ideate: generate as many ideas as possible; flares, no judgement, low-res ideas; potential, not perfection
    4. Prototype: rough; just real enough to learn from. low-res means less attachment
    5. Test
  • Step 1: Talk to real people, hang out in the gallery
  • Outcome of the exercise is to learn the design thinking process
  • "3 weeks from 0 to prototype" Molly Wilson
Transforming the Art Museum Experience: Gallery One
- Jane Alexander, USA, Jake Barton, USA, Caroline Goeser, USA
  • Gallery One
  • Screen porn
  • "Build a gallery experience that would welcome all visitors"
  • Reinterpreted, and reinstalled the entire permanent collection - 55 pieces in Gallery One, in 13-14 installations that work across the galleries in various ways; e.g. "Lion" - "What does a lion look like?"
    • No right answer; artists come at it differently
  • Help people have new experiences around works of art
  • Suggest continuing traditions around works of art - "Something that's in a vitrine is still living, depending on how you look at it, and what you know."
  • Archive is not static, it's literally dynamic - the "Collection Wall"
  • Jake Barton - don't put a screen in front of a Picasso. The traditional gallery works really, really well.
  • "The director hates technology." It's not about reinvention, but augmentation. Direct access to the artwork. All inquiry based.
  • In the presence of the artwork, revelation of the production techniques
  • Search by drawing
  • Dissolve the artwork's current context, and outline it's previous life
  • See Jo Mitchell creating her painting
  • $10M grant :)
  • What does a long-form relationship with a museum look like?
  • Adaptable & responsive timeline