Experiences and Museums

03.26.14:

Musings Over a Belgium Pint: The Science Centre World Summit

 

So, last week over 400 people attended the Science Centre World Summit in Mechlen, Belgium. The conference was hosted primarily by Technopolis with a pre-workshop and reception at the Natural History Museum of Belgium in Brussels. Both institutions did a wonderful job. ALCHEMY studio exhibited in the tradeshow (see the picture of the King of Belgium signing the Technopolis guest book in front of the ALCHEMY studio booth)

and participated in the CEO Forum before the conference as well as attended many sessions – along with drinking a lot of Belgian beer.

Over those beers, there was a lot of conversation, discussion and thinking on science centres and science museums. Here are a few of the interesting conversation threads we were part of or observed.

 

What Are We About?

The conference planners worked hard to bring in outside experts in the areas of active scientific research, technologists, media and forward-looking educators to engage with the attendees about the role and direction of science centers in the future. Ideas floated included that science centers need to become more involved in presenting actual research and engaging with technology as a part of (not a replacement for) more phenomenological experiences and break down the age personification that we are only for the young.

 

But Can We?

Joined with this discussion, though, is how will this pay the bills? While certain countries‘ governments might support their centers and thus free up resources to explore new modes/content or processes more easily, the organizations in some countries are heavily connected to earned revenue and/or directly connected to a learning curriculum. In these cases, focusing experiences on things such as the latest discovery and research such as the remnants of the big bang (research that was announced during the summit) might not bring in the audience or connect as easily with what schools want and need.

 

The Evolving State of Revenue

Meanwhile, in countries that have a history of philanthropic giving to institutions such as science centers, dramatic shifts are occurring. Younger funders are moving away from cultural gifts and moving toward social movements and efforts. Funders want to be far more hands on, at times wanting to be a part of the team. Meanwhile, organizations such as NSF in the United States are moving entirely to research support – removing a source of capital for just getting programming done.

 

Future Content

There was good discussion on topics and areas that might see more concentrations of programming. One is the area of data, big data, and what data can tell us. Increasingly, this will be information that the public will need to understand. Another discussion of coming focus is on the outdoors – meaning that, as we move into the future, we’ll need to shift more attention toward the connection we have with planet and the crises we seem to inevitably face in areas of food, energy, and climate change. This focus on the planet, its health, and human survival will only deepen.

 

Speciation

Finally with enlightening and varied philosophical approaches from the Wild Center in the Adirondacks in New York to the Continium – Discovery Centre in the Netherlands, it seems that science centers may be undergoing an evolution of “speciation” and fundamental changes that even more match the institutions to the communities they find themselves in. In our past, and to some extent in countries where science centers are merging, there has been a focus on just copying experiences and also duplicating operations and approaches. However, it’s clear that whether its changing opening hours in the winter, including culturally traditional non-Western approaches to science subjects, running community businesses, or having pubs and nightclubs within your institution, the direction is to becomes a more fully functional part of one’s community. BUT at the same time, this means that what a science center is may be dramatically different from one community to another.

Perhaps in the not so distant future there will no longer be a summit of “science centres” but rather a summit of science “community centres.”

 

Which of these trends rings true for you? What other forces do you see shaping the future of our field?

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03.06.14:

sound, light, and image – new concepts

As we all know, there are constant technological and creative leaps being taken that impact and add to the palette of materials, techniques and approaches that can be applied to experience planning and design. This week we have run across three examples that have gotten us thinking and brainstorming how they might be applied.

 

The first is an installation called Contact, created by Felix Faire as a research project at the Interactive Architecture Lab – Bartlett School of Architecture and now on display at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in the exhibition Sensing Spaces.

 

 

 

What Felix has done is create a way to make any hard surface into an interface. Certainly this piece will find its way into more museums but perhaps even more interesting is the idea of using this technique to make any surface a controller. In a museum setting, this might be a graphic panel, a piece of exhibition armature, or a vitrine. What is interesting is thinking about removing the need or ubiquity of the physical “interactive” control or screen.

You can watch a vidoe of how Contact was made here.

The second example is a new lighting system from Codha called Crypsis. Take a look.

 

 

 

Using a system like this would certainly alter significantly the way we may light artifacts and other items in display cases. In fact, this is the first way this system will be tested. In addition, this offers a unique opportunity for museums to have visitors experiment with light and could also be incorporated into physics exhibits or even maker spaces.

The final interesting piece is the mirror fence concept by  Alyson Shotz.

 

 

 

Simple in its execution and an interesting work of art, the concept of the mirror fence seems like it could be useful in any situation where you need to create a separation of space but you don’t want that operation to be detectible from a visitor’s perspective. For us, zoo enclosures came to mind immediately. Where could use imagine using a mirror fence?

We’d love to hear from you about what ideas these examples sparked for you.

 

 

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02.27.14:

maker museum/maker collection

Following last week’s thread about visitors experimenting and tinkering, we thought it would be interesting to discuss the idea of people making their own “exhibits” or even their own museums. This idea was sparked after we came across an interesting project called the MiniMusuem.

 

 

 

There’s something enchanting about this project, and here at the studio, it got us thinking about childhood memories like the little boxed rock collections from places like the Skyline Drive in Virginia

 

 

or old printing typeset drawers filled with well-organized marble collections, seed pods, or fishing lures.

The MiniMuseum also reminded us of the work of Theodore Gray who has developed The “Wooden Periodic Table” Table (yes, two “tables”).

 

 

 

 

An amazing piece of furniture (an actual, physical table) and celebration of chemistry (periodic table) – a homemade exhibit and maker exhibit.

 

 

Theodore Gray (who’s also a co-founder of Wolfram Research) has developed a rather extensive website not associated with his table.

 

These examples suggest another type of activity that could be included in the maker/tinkering spaces than are now springing up in many places. Certainly, there is the possibility of letting visitors “curate” or “categorize” samples, bring in their own collections, or work to find and organize samples.

 

All of these efforts invite visitors to explore and actually do some of the work that scientists and researchers do – as well as our fellow museum professionals.

 

We think this is a rather untapped area that could developed further. What examples like these have you come across? And, by the way, what did you collect when you were a kid?

 

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02.21.14:

maker music

Recently, ALCHEMY studio was engaged to begin the design and implementation of a new space for an emerging science center in Virginia. As part of the Museum’s plan, they are being offered the opportunity to experiment and test program and exhibit ideas in a small space in a local shopping area. We call it The Lab – a space where visitors will get to experiment, experience and tinker while the emerging science center will do the same through prototypes.

As part of our work, we are exploring all kinds of new and different experiences that offer something unique but also meet the desired experiential and impact goals.  One interesting example that caught our eye is the OTOTO by Dentaku and developed with Near Now. Take a look.

 

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This experience certainly shows promise as an activity that could be part of many tinkering and making spaces. This is certainly an opportunity to allow visitors to express creativity – one driver for these spaces. But, as importantly for us here at the studio,

it offers the opportunity to explore and provide interpretive scaffolding for visitors to learn about science concepts and technological operations – something sometimes lacking in maker space activities.

Meanwhile, music offers a wonderful way to engage audiences who might be disinclined to explore these subjects.

Another example to explore would be having visitors experiment with sampling and learn musical and sound concepts while creating. This idea came to us through this experience by johnnyrandom who created a musical symphony from bicycle components. Here it is.

 

 

We would love to “hear” your ideas on this (pardon the pun!) and learn about similar experiences you might have seen.

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02.13.14:

The wonderfulness of the unexpected

So, we missed our inspiration last week due to the double –storm whammy, and lo and behold, it looks like we will get to experience that again this week at the studio.  In fact, right now it looks like we are getting 2 inches of snow an hour.Therefore, we are offering four fun inspiration examples that, for us, illustrate the “wonderfulness of the unexpected” and its potential to take the ordinary and make it into the memorable.

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The first is an installation by Alois Kronschlaeger at the Mammal Hall of the former Grand Rapids Public Museum last year.

 

 

 

 

 

Here, Alois created several experiences that take the expected diorama and breaks down the barrier between visitor and exhibit. It’s as if he invites visitors into the other dimension – the one that lives just behind the glass and the museum’s walls.

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The second example is one that challenges the expected non-interactive nature of the street poster. This was the promotion for the new book, Marilyn: Intimate Exposures, that celebrates the photographs of Marilyn Monroe by Bernard of Hollywood (most famous being the “skirt” photo). Campaign by Preuss und Preuss

 

 

 

Certainly unexpected, this interactive needs no explanation on how to use and is almost impossible not to use. Interesting is how it places the visitor in the slightly uncomfortable position of deciding to interact or not. Our guess is that makes the interaction even more memorable.

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Example three is a visit to childhood for adults by a McDonalds in Peru, conceived of by Fahrenheit DDB.

 

 

 

This example of the unexpected in an ordinary setting builds on the power of scale that we have blogged about before.

 

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Finally, what would it be like if the zombie phenomenon was real? Well, New Yorkers recently got an unexpected look at that. Here is the surprise from cable channel AMC.

 

 

 

All of these unexpected experiences are designed to move people out of the ordinary to the extraordinary. Thinking about how to do this in an exhibition is extremely important. It is easy for visitors who enter an exhibition to get into the “exhibition mode” and then behavior, learning and impact become somewhat muted.

Finding ways to create experiences of “unexpectedness” is one way an exhibition can create a greater impact.

Now, of course, one doesn’t want to create a heart attack, but unexpectedness can come from content as well as experience and design.

Share with us what kind of unexpected experiences you have encountered in a museum or other setting.

 

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01.31.14:

Visitor-Created Work

As part of some research for a recent project here at ALCHEMY studio, we have become especially interested in exhibits that encourage visitors’ artistic expression and then invite visitors to share and document these expressions or creations in a meaningful way.

A very interesting example of this is the piece “Your Line or Mine,” created by the firm Moniker for the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

 

 

 

 

 

What we see as strong elements of this piece include the simplicity and the low threshold for visitors to actually engage in the creative work. In addition, it’s not just a blank piece of paper. The creative opportunity has some definition, thus providing a “skeleton” to spark and structure one’s creativity. Sometimes a blank piece of paper can be intimidating and confusing, while a “seed” or “scaffold” can get the process flowing.

Technologically, it’s very easy, simple, and straightforward to insert one’s part of the animation into the collective public-sourced piece.

Finally, what is incredibly powerful is that the collective piece is as much the focus of the experience as is the act of adding one’s creative addition to the animation.

We believe this experience has some important lessons as we all explore experiences where the raison d’être is crowd-sourced, visitor-created content rather than experiences created by museum staff or curators.

We are excited to adapt some aspects of this experience to subjects other than animation.

How does the experience inspire you? We look forward to hearing your thoughts about other experiences that reflect important points about visitor-generated pieces.

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01.16.14:

Your world upside down

“Ames Rooms” are found in many children’s museums and science centers. These spaces are physically distorted to create an optical illusion that makes people appear as giants on one side of the room or incredibly small on the other side of the room.

Well, while not an optical illusion but certainly as much fun, this tourist attraction at the VVT’s All-Russia Exhibition Center in Moscow piqued our interest and made us smile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The experience is powerful and fun – and totally changes your perspective. Literally turning your world upside down is a great way to get people to observe and think differently.

As one begins to develop and design an exhibition, a strong design and development step is to do what this house does: take the subject and turn it on its head.

This way of thinking could suggest new and innovative ways to explore and present any subject.

Have you seen other “upside-down” worlds? What kinds of experiences have turned your world on its head?

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01.09.14:

immersive color and sound

To start our new year, we became enthralled over the holidays with the latest installation by Team Lab called Distilling Senses: A Journey through Art and Technology in Asian Contemporary Art located at the Hong Kong Arts Centre.

 

 

 

In this world of giant orbs, the visitor’s touch changes the color, but the color also changes when the orbs run into something or are affected by the behavior of other spheres around it. Watching the video, the experience appears to be truly mesmerizing.

While a cynical person might describe this as just an over-scaled techno ball room, the experience creators wanted it to communicate how the web allows for interconnectivity and information dissemination. At the same time, a space like this could provide an experiential opportunity to engage with subjects where scale or location would make it impossible to visit.

What is certainly clear is how different and how totally inviting this experience is. It’s a great example of how both scale and immersiveness create a space that draws you in more than any “literal” interpretation of the internet. While, admittedly, it is not very interpretive, it could couple with more interpretive experiences and allow museums to be more impactful.

Over the holidays, did you run across anything mesmerizing?

 

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12.20.13:

special time

It’s that special time of the year, with holidays, family, and reflections back over the past year and looking forward to the next. As a celebration, we invite you to enjoy these three videos, each of which in its own way examines a special time, from beautiful to funny. Happy Holidays to all.

Beautiful – Into the Atmosphere by Michael Shainblu.  This is a tribute to California that took a whole year to make.

 

 

 

Evocative – Midday Traffic Time Collapsed by Cy Kuckenbaker.  A photographer whose work we’ve discussed before shows us the changing “color palette” of traffic over four minutes in San Diego.

 

 

Humor – A commercial for Haynes food products by Cinesite  Sometimes you can have really bad timing.

 

 

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12.12.13:

Electronic Fun: Small to Large

This week we’ve run across both large-scale and small-scale electronic experiences that inspired us to think about how we might apply these in future projects. You might have seen one or both before, but we thought considering them together would spark some interesting ideas and connections. These two certainly showcase the small to large ends of the spectrum for electronic interactives.

The Small

On the small scale is the new project by electroninks called Circuit Scribe.

 

 

Using a special conductive ink, it will allow users to physically draw circuits.

For those with “Maker” or “Tinkering” spaces, this product will be something to experiment with and may even lower the barriers for visitors to engage with circuitry. It might even be possible to put this out in a public space in a less supervised environment – possibly even in schools

 

As new developments make it even easier to engage in “Maker” experiences at home and school, when will a “Maker” space at a museum not be unique or distinct from what visitors are doing elsewhere?

 

The Large

 

On the large scale, here is a dynamic idea done for British Airways.

 

 

 

 

Created by Ogilvy 12th Floor, these billboards use surveillance technology along with flight info to create this engaging experience. It is a large-scale example of using real-time data, a subject that our blog has explored before. See others posts here.

Imagine an experience that does this with clouds, traffic, animals or other elements for which real-time data would be interesting and dynamic. Certainly a museum could riff on this idea to create something really cool and memorable.

What are your thoughts about these experiences? What else do they remind you of? How would you adapt them in a way that connects to something you’re working on or thinking about?


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