NB: This post is an extended version of a much shorter summary article that recently appeared in Museums Aotearoa.

At Click Suite we specialise in making boutique interactive and digital media for a range of organisations: large and small, public and private, commercial and non-commercial. And often, we work with museums and visitor centres (again, of all shapes and sizes).

Here's a quick summary of some emerging themes in museum and exhibition design:

• OPEN: ‘Decentralisation of’, ‘Participation with’ and ‘Contribution to’ collections by visitors.

• ACTIVE: Curiosity / Play / Creativity by visitors is being fostered and encouraged.

• FLEXIBLE: A better use of the physical environment and flexible interior design (spaces) that can easily be repurposed for events / workshops / exhibitions and community use.

• NETWORKED: Use of networks (community / digital / outreach) to spread an exhibition and experience.

• UNIQUE: Information aesthetics and data visualisation are being used (to enhance the display of items from within a collection and / or visitor response).

Above: This is an excellent example of data visualisation to create an exhibition about "a search for love and identity online" by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar for the Museum of Modern Art in New York, 2008 (unfortunately, the video has recently been removed from YouTube and the still images don't really do it justice). However, I really recommend you read about the project or view some of the project's highlights.

• PLIABLE: Reframing conventional taxonomies (and disciplines) to include non-traditional ways to access and interact with collections, e.g. emotion, anecdote, personal vignettes etc.

• COLLABORATIVE: Institutions are working together more to try and create exhibitions that are greater than a sum of their individuals parts (via combined collections, personnel etc).

• EXPERIENTIAL INTERPRETATION: Learning by doing (as opposed to learning by seeing and being told) is an increasing trend.
  

First, a little background (before some really interesting examples)…

“New Zealand museums and galleries care for more than 40 million items relating to our history and contribute to our national identity. Generating in excess of 1000 public exhibitions and publications and attracting over 8 million visits each year, museums and galleries are currently ranked as the top attraction for New Zealand's overseas visitors.”

Source: http://www.museums-aotearoa.org.nz/Site/about/about.aspx

Wow. That’s quite an amazing fact. I’m ashamed to say I (naively) thought that tourists came to New Zealand mainly for scenery, ‘hospitality’ and extreme sports. However, I’m also pleasantly surprised. As someone who works on the periphery of the cultural sector, it’s a sector that’s clearly booming and that makes it an exciting time to be involved.

 

100% Pure English. Who knew they came here for more than The Sevens? 

We love working with public and cultural institutions such as museums, libraries and galleries because the content we encounter is always rich, diverse and interesting. Also, the people we work with in these institutions are generally very passionate about their work. They care deeply about what they do. They understand the importance of their organisations, but also, they are increasingly enthusiastic about how to expand and broaden their reach to a wider constituency of people (both New Zealanders and tourists). Digital technology is obviously a great way to do this.

Over our fifteen year history we have been fortunate enough to work with Te Papa, the National Library of New Zealand, Puke Ariki, Petone Settlers Museum, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, the Auckland Museum, the New Zealand Portrait Gallery, New Zealand On Air, the Film Commission, The New Dowse and other cultural institutions throughout Australasia.

So we’ve learned some things along the way. We’ve seen that the way museums position themselves in the 21st century has changed dramatically since the last century, and of course, the centuries before.

Today, museums (like everyone) are operating in a noisier, more crowded (market) space where the lines between cultural and commercial entities are becoming increasingly blurred. Public-private partnerships are frequently forged to fund exhibitions and spaces that would otherwise never happen. And it seems that the challenge to create a genuinely unique offering does seem to be getting harder and harder.

Museums are often lambasted by the academic community for pandering to the ‘lowest common denominator’ and trying to turn ‘serious institutions into theme parks’, yet at the same time, museums need visitors to justify their existence (and funding) and maintain relevance in a world where attention is increasingly fragmented and diffuse.

You may argue that museums have never and should never be purely about ‘bums on seats’ or ‘attention factories’, but rather, quality of experience, and I’d agree with you; but it doesn’t mean that popularity, ‘visitation rates’ and customer satisfaction surveys necessarily come at the expense of intelligence and integrity.

Anyway, from where we sit, as people who work alongside cultural institutions, it’s relatively easy to make comments from the outside, where we’re free from the political machinations and complex needs of the modern museum. But for what it’s worth, here are some observations (from the outside, looking in – and in no particular order) about the issues that we believe could be improved or reconsidered (especially with regard to the use of digital media) to improve the museum offering.

1. Your website is part of your exhibition

A simple and effective example. Auckland Museum uses Facebook to promote its exhibitions. Visitors to the recent ‘Wonderland: The Mystery of the Orchid’ exhibition could make their own (digital) hybrid orchid and distribute it across the web. 

Of course, it’s a bit of a clumsy generalisation (and given the amount of work it takes to simply arrive at ‘opening day’, it’s understandable), but museum websites often feel like a bit of an afterthought. In some cases, however, they are a missed opportunity for the continuity or extension of an exhibition. Once visitors have attended an exhibition, they will almost always have some thoughts, impressions, feelings and opinions about what they saw.

But frequently, visitors are out the front door and never seen or heard from again. Why not try and turn your ‘visitors’ into fans or advocates (or critics)? If they liked the exhibition, shouldn’t there be an opportunity for them to extend their interest and tell their friends, families and networks? Similarly, if they had a problem or issue, is there an online forum where these can be aired, debated or resolved?

Websites (be they those of the museum, the exhibition or any of the many social media platforms available today) allow museums to turn their exhibition into an ongoing experience. As history tells us, if we take any topic such as Parihaka, Van Gogh or Westie culture and turn it into an exhibition – the 2009 interpretation and the 2059 interpretation won’t be the same. With digital media, we needn’t consign such events to the ‘previous exhibitions’ silo (if one even exists), but we can (and should) store and compare these competing viewpoints over time.

A visitor is not a just passive recipient of an exhibition’s content. Museums and galleries have encouraged lectures, discussions, debates and tutorials for centuries since the first Library of Alexandria (and many continue to do so today ‘in the real world’). However, it’s easy to use digital media to extend and broaden the scope of these conversations. Obviously, when you discuss any cultural artefact (such as a film, book or exhibition) with a group of friends afterwards, you frequently get a lot more out of it. Museums have an opportunity to use technology to extend the reach of their exhibition, but this trend is something that we haven’t seen a lot of (to date).

Apollo vs Dionysus. No it's not the latest club anthem from The Ministry of Sound Annual. But the ancient Greeks and Egyptians could party almost as well as they built libraries.

I sometimes sense that museums and galleries (especially) are reluctant to ‘give too much away’ online – perhaps the fear is that if all the exhibition content is freely and readily available online, nobody will actually bother to walk through the front door. I haven’t found any studies to prove or disprove this assumption (please let us know if you have one), but we know (anecdotally) that having Monet’s work freely viewable online doesn’t stop people from flocking to see his actual work in record numbers.

I think the bigger issue is that institutions have an opportunity to form a relationship with visitors (online, especially, is an easy way to do this) beyond the occasional email newsletter. And it’s not simply about growing their customer database (that will please some people, not all) – but it’s actually about helping and motivating those who are inclined to find, create and disseminate new knowledge because the exhibition got them started. Surely, this outcome is one that is both ‘culturally sound’ (I’m not even going to try and define that in the current widget-centric economic environment) and a measure of a ‘successful exhibition’ (for those needing to tick the ‘bums on seats’ box).

2. Your building can be a display area

Projecting onto a surface is not a new idea. It’s been with us since the creation of the projector. In the museum context, however, exterior spaces could be used a lot more (and not simply as blatant and ill-conceived billboards). Projections can be used to great effect on building exteriors and walls to extend exhibitions, promote enquiry and create debate.

One very interesting example is the 'Gravity' installation from France that allowed people to send real-time text messages onto the surface of a building that cascade down the exterior like tumbling fridge magnets. The best way to appreciate this work is to look at the (70 second) video below:

Gravity - Interactive installation @ Utopia, Bordeaux from 2Roqs on Vimeo.

This from the creators:

“Gravity is a collaborative application using buildings’ architecture as a projection surface.

This real time interactive animation allows people to send sms text messages to the installation. The words are then embedded into geometric shapes, and are dropped from the top of the projection. The fall as well as their collisions with the building’s environment are physics-driven, making interactions happen between the different sent messages, creating an open participative “exquisite corpse” scene where spectators can react to each other’s sentences.”

There are also hundreds of examples of ‘reactive and interactive’ buildings online – not necessarily all connected to exhibitions. It’s a new area that blends architecture, interactivity, participation, art, live performance, sound design, physics, software development, projection and so forth and we’re going to see a lot more of it.

I think a lot of the current examples are interesting starts. People are trying something different – often with mixed results. Some of outcomes end up being average projections wrapped onto a building; sometimes the building surface is actually kinesthetic; and sometimes it’s a fully interactive surface (we’ll do a separate blog post on this in the near future – please me know in the comments below if you have any examples you’d like to see featured).

Anyway, here’s an example from Singapore (3 minutes, 35 seconds):

CRYSTAL MESH from autokolor on Vimeo.

It’s an interesting aesthetic, but ultimately, once you’ve seen it, would you look out for it again and again? Maybe you would. I’m not sure that it’s something I’d go back to?

Also, check out Te Papa’s upcoming exhibition on reactive architecture and related blog post.

3. It’s not a battle between ‘physical versus digital’

Digital media should be an integrated part of your exhibition. We are moving on from the days of the ‘touchscreen in the corner’ or ‘now you’ve seen the exhibition, here it is again on a kiosk’. But it’s easier said than done. As someone who’s watched many users and visitors from all walks of life respond to digital media over the years, it’s true that as soon as people see a screen, the ‘rules of engagement’ are (predictably) point and click,  stop and watch, (or more recently) the use motion or gesture to interact.

But a well considered combination of media types (digital and physical) can create a more coherent and compelling experience than an exhibition that is unintentionally ‘siloed’ by media type. Think about how you can use interaction, digital resources, physical objects and projection within a space, and encourage people to interact with each other.

A good example is ‘I-Land, The Interactive City’ from The Children’s Interactive Library in Denmark. It’s a simple idea (the good ones often are). Children use real balloons and figurines to navigate around a table (together) to cue audiovisual responses and effects on the table itself. It’s kinesthetic, collaborative, exploratory, playful and it appeals to children. Plus, it’s relatively easy to refresh and change the content as required.



Source: http://www.aakb.dk/graphics/portal/bibliotekerne/prototypesforthefuture-web.pdf

4. Simplicity is not a synonym for stupidity

A short paragraph for a short point. Simplicity, accessibility and ease-of-use need not be synonyms for ‘dumbing down’. Sometimes, museums and galleries do simple (but really effective) things like letting visitors leave a comment or picture on a post-it note (or similar) to somehow capture the collective impressions of the visitors.



Visitors to an exhibition at the Tate Modern in England leaving their mark. Image courtesy of Geraldine Howell and Elizabeth Jones.

Why are these compelling? Why are they worthwhile? Why would a visitor bother? Because it allows you to have an uncensored opinion. It’s allowing you to participate. And you can experience something by doing (as opposed to being told from the plaque on the wall what you’re supposed to know or feel).

And here’s an (anonymous) online project that is the simplest of ideas – with incredibly powerful results. PostSecrets is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard. If you visit the website, you'll find it hard not to read them all.



Image source: http://postsecret.blogspot.com/index.html#8411623332105753665

5. Involve people (everyone has a story to tell)

Using the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ is a hot topic today (not just within the museum world), but in any sphere where knowledge is contestable. With the proliferation of digital and social tools to quickly, easily and meaningfully aggregate opinion, ‘crowd sourcing’ (sorry to use the buzzword du jour) is here to stay.

And it’s not some earnestly liberal post-modern fantasy where ‘anything goes, anything is valid and anything is possible’. It just means that museums don’t know everything there is to know on any given topic and visitors can actually be used to augment an exhibition’s content with their own intelligence, wisdom and experiences.

This is where the role of curation and moderation is important in sorting out the best, most interesting, most timely content and so on. Not to mention giving it some historical context. However you feel about the role of the ‘general public’ operating as de facto curators for some or all of your exhibition, concepts like ‘visitor-generated metadata’ (letting people ‘tag’ or name what they see in ways that are meaningful to them) and the recent idea of the ‘Open Source museum’ (a collection of artefacts that is either partially or fully curated by public opinion) are trends that are not going to go away.

Here is an example of a crowdsourced exhibition from The Brooklyn Museum (The Black List project). They installed laptops in their exhibit space to encourage visitor engagement. They then used YouTube quick capture to solicit responses to the question “What does race mean to you?”

 

You can watch some of the clips on the exhibition's YouTube channel. 

6. Consider playing games

Finally, museums have been experimenting more and more with the idea of gameplay to engage visitors and extend the learning experience. One such example is WolfQuest – a 3D wildlife simulation game developed by Eduweb and the Minnesota Zoo, and freely distributed online. Was the game any good? I don’t know. Was it successful? The game clearly found an audience (with over 250,000 game downloads and 30,000 multiplayer game sessions per month).

Were players learning what the creators had intended?

 

The results are encouraging: “Summative evaluation found that players do indeed report knowledge gain, stronger emotional attachment to wolves, and significant behavioral outcomes, with large percentages of players following their game sessions with other wolf-related activities, including such further explorations of wolves on the Internet, in books and on television.”

In another example, The Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago) has a great little website that is fully game-based. It uses problem solving, great animation, delightful characterisation and superb sound design (the highlight) to explain simple physics concepts (e.g. how to make an inclined plane, lever, wheel and axel etc). It’s carefully thought through and beautifully executed. If you want to see how to make science concepts integrated into an attractive game environment, and especially if you don't think you're a big fan of online games, you should definitely check it out.



And finally, for a real combination of the online and the offline experiences, it’s worth reading about ‘Ghosts of a Chance’ (an Alternate Reality Game created by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and their multimedia partners).

The game was designed to offer new and existing audiences a different way to engage with the collection in its Luce Foundation Centre for American Art (a facility of over 3,300 artworks in floor-to-ceiling glass cases). Game participants were encouraged to decipher codes, follow treasure maps, send text messages, and uncover hidden objects in this multimedia scavenger hunt.



Participants in the multimedia scavenger hunt, ‘Ghosts of a chance’.
Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28403511@N07/3834757399/in/pool-ghostsofachance

And finally...

There's just so much happening in the museum, gallery, exhibition and visitor experience space that it's hard to know where to start. This post is really a very brief overview of just some of the emerging trends with a handful of examples from the many that cross our screens each day. We'll be blogging a lot more about it in the weeks and months ahead. Please let us know if you have any interesting examples you'd like to share. 

About Click Suite:

We have been merrily making international award-winning interactive media since 1994. We are completely ‘technology agnostic’ in our approach, and use the most appropriate media for your audience(s) and the stories you wish to tell. Have a look at some of the work we’ve done for museums and cultural institutions.

Further reading:

“Are screens killing museums?”

“Screens” Aren’t Killing Museums

The work of American conceptual artist, Jenny Holzer, who uses text, typography and projection (in public spaces) (this one is really great) in very powerful and interesting ways.

The Black List Project – Brooklyn Museum

Wolfquest effectiveness study

Strategies and Prototypes for the Future – Abstract from the Children’s Interactive Library Project 2004-2006

Stephanie Kelly, one of our senior designers, has blogged more extensively about data visualisation.

An interesting article from the Guardian referencing 'two titans of the British museum world': Museums’ future lies on the internet, say Serota and McGregor