Experiences and Museums

04.11.13:

3D Space

Often science centers and other museums look to engage people about how to understand different aspects of phenomena in three dimensional space on two dimensional displays (screens, graphics etc.).

What we often do not do is represent the three dimensional space in actual 3D space, allowing us to present the phenomena’s behavior in more powerful ways.

But since we are three dimensional creatures possibly this is the best way to understand or appreciate 3d space and what occurs there – seen or unseen.

Here are two examples that certainly one can riff on that made us think about this. The first is FLUIDIC by WHITEvoid.

 

Using 12,000 suspended spheres, a camera that senses the viewer and eight high speed lasers it creates an almost magical experience. We believe that being illuminated by laser light adds something special. Certainly a concept programmed to both enchant but to do so mimicking certain scientific phenomena could be impactful. By the way want to see this in person? Go to the Temporary Museum for New Design in Milan where it will be on display through April 14th.

The second piece that is similar but different is Submergence done by a group known as Squidsoup

 

This piece includes 8,064 spheres and LED lit. It too responds to visitors. This time though it’s possible to enter the space. Imagine explaining crystal structure, data movement or some other unseen movement through 3D space. You can see this at the Gallery ROM for Art and Architecture in Oslo, Norway

Often we fixate the on screens as the visual way to present information. What we may need to do more of is dedicate more space and create 3D spaces to represent 3D phenomena. We feel this creates an experience and opportunity that in fact is more powerful that what we have normally done.

If you know of more examples send them to us here on the blog.

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04.04.13:

Physical Metaphor: Collecting Sounds

Certainly some of the most pleasurable and engaging experiences are when an environment/exhibit can create a physical experience that is a “metaphor” for another experience we engage in. In some ways touch tables experience are version of this (some more refined than others) where we play with “files” or “objects”, passing to others, manipulating them like they were physically there.

Those that can break from a singular location are even more special. One of the more delightful and intriguing that we have run across is the Re: Sound Bottle by by Jun Fujiwara from Tama Art University. Watch to completely understand.

 

The idea of chasing fireflies, tadpoles or other collection experiences but instead collecting sounds is delightful physical metaphor.

Imagine collecting rainbows, or documenting smell, capturing gravity…

It certainly is inspirational to think about how an experience, in our museums and science centers, could we create an experience where you manipulate, capture or collect items that are less physical but no more real. And in doing so discover or become aware of something new while also connecting with some age old or primal experience.

Share you ideas!

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03.28.13:

time views

Something we have been running across has been videos that have been exploring what can be observed  and what becomes apparent of as one looks at a scene/event/through a compressed or extended time period.  For example:

“Departures from San Diego Int Airport Dec 27, 2012” by Cy Kuckenbake

 

The title provides a self-explanatory interpretation of six hours of aircraft departures at the San Diego International Airport. It is powerful way to make a common everyday experience incredibly amazing as well as impart the scale of a technological activity that occurs every day.

Meanwhile the film “Street” showing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art by James Nares

This slows down time while also using time as way to transect geographically the city of New York. It allows one to examine the in “moving” detail the incredible complexity of city life.

These experience point how we as experience developers and designers should at times break out of our “in the moment” experiences.

As we look at content and stories one should think how time can be manipulated to bring a new perspective and aid the impact we wish to create.

Let us know what amazing time “pieces” you know of

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03.21.13:

musical cooperation

 

So, with another snowfall here at the studio yet again our thoughts turned to spring and the upcoming summer. With that in mind, we share with you this simple but evocative experience that could be at home at an art, science, or children’s museum.

21 Swings by daily tous les jours a design studio with a focus on participation. This piece takes what we what have as field have done countless times (musical stairs or giant keyboards) and adds a complexity element (different series of notes) and also adds the element of group participation, which can be sometimes hard in other musical experiences.  It should be pointed out that this experience is part of the “empathiCITY, making our city together” exhibition at the 2013 biennale internationale design saint-etienne.

daily tous les jours has done some other interesting pieces that might be of interest. Check out the these:

The “On The Difficulty of Serving Tea” a piece where we can see a lot of  connections to a variety of cultural as well as science topics

and “Machine à Turlute” which demonstrates another interesting physical musical collaborative experience and cultural exploration.

As always, let us know of other experience of the same ilk, or if we can inspire with you.

By the way, let’s go Spring! Come on, get here soon!

 

photo by Oliver Blouin

 

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03.14.13:

Sound! Water! Camera! – Action!

There are often experiences or demonstrations that just cry out for someone to use them as an inspiration for an interactive exhibit. Here is one that we are experimenting with here At ALCHEMY studio for a local fabricator to bring to a science center near you.

This experiment/demonstration was done by Brusspup. It involves not only making sure the device is constructed correctly but also viewing it with a camera that is in sync with the sound. What is clear is that it’s possible to create a very interesting experience demonstrating several science principles in which one side of the exhibit seems like somewhat chaotic water movement but the other side seems to reveal a “frozen in time” moment.

If you are interested in our investigation of this phenomenon/experience and would like to explore what we are doing and perhaps acquiring some version of what we com up with drop us a line.

A special shout out!

And, as always, if you have something you think we should share, send it to us.We should mention we recently got several submittals from fans of inspiration weeklies. We’ll be rolling these out over the next few weeks with our own examples of things  that are inspiring us and making us think about the experiences we find in our informal learning lives.

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03.07.13:

reshaping our planet

One of the projects we are working on here at the studio is a film that will explore engineering and the amazing achievements we can as a species succeed at, as well as the challenges that we face from what we do and the solutions engineering may provide. As part of our work we are always on the look for great ways to visualize what we now call the Anthropocene epoch. The geologic age of human influence. Here is a dramatic one  ’Welcome to the Anthropocene’

This is the work of Globaia, a organization that attempts to educate people on understanding the modern world and the issues our environment and planet faces. Here are some stills

An image dramatically showing how our civilization networks (transportaion, power, cities)  fade into the norther wilds of Canada.

 

 

The transportation, power and cities of Europe and Asia

 

Flight between North America and Europe

 

A map of energy: pipelines are orange, power lines are white, underwater cables are blue

 

These images present the yin and yang of our civilization.

 

The way we are becoming a networked planet and species and at the same time how we  are impacting every single square mile of the planet. Too often the conversations that seem to revolve around the issues we face are one sided. Rather we look at these amazing images and see on one hand the amazing achievement of how we can connect ourselves both physically and electronically sharing information and materials, building and creating incredible works. We also see the issues and impacts that this endeavor makes on our planet and realize that the price we are paying is at times too much for our world to sustain. Only together with our ingenuity and innovation can we improve on what will always be an eternal dilemma.

Feel free to send us any links that you know of or come across that depict the two sides of the coin that these images show.

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02.27.13:

Mechanical Interactive Walls

Some of the exhibits that have always seemed to suck us into mesmerizing states of fascination have actually been interactive (and at times non-interactive) large-scale wall experiences. Recently, we have become aware of two that should get your brain turning and will no doubt “spin off” countless ideas. (Pardon the pun, which you’ll understand when you see these.) The first is a work by the design group called Humans Since 1982. This is called “A Million Times.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Made with clocks (a subtle time-related experience, connected in this way to the melting piece Calamidad Cósmica), this piece can create messages and depict complex patterns and fields, suggesting many ideas for riffing and evoking many related ideas and aspects. A system like this could be responsive to viewers or to objects such as magnets or other more technological EM transmitters (i.e. cell phones anyone?). This could be a beautiful way to engage people in some complex ideas. On its onw it’s a beautiful, evocative piece.

Another piece we ran across was the experience “Flow 5.0” by Daan Roosegaarde a Dutch artist.

 

 

Here, what interests us is that fact that this interactive piece is different than, say, “Pipe Dream” by Bruce Shapiro    

 

or the work of Daniel Rozin (like this at the Perot Museum).    

 

 

“Flow 5.0” actually sends something physical back to the viewer – moving air. This could open up other ideas about what else could touch the viewer/user that they might explore or appreciate.

Certainly, with both the physical and visual interactive and non-interactive wall experiences, there is ample material and inspiration to evoke some truly immersive and memorable museum visits, not to mention make many buildings more engaging.

Let us know about more if you run across them. What ideas do these spin off?

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02.21.13:

creating a smile with scale

To combat the winter blahs this week our inspiration takes us back to playing with scale but with a little levity.  As we have mentioned before,  playing with scale is both an artist’s as well as a designer’s invaluable tool. While used as a sense of awe, its role in creating humor and fun – a moment of levity in a serious world or serious museum “environment” – should perhaps be explored more often. Here are two favorites that have passed by our desk this week.
The first is the great installation called “Bad Dog” (we need to admit that ALCHEMY studio has two office Labradors).

Yes, that’s yellow paint that get sprayed on the museum wall. Check out the public’ reaction through this local tv story!

This work, done by Richard Jackson, is part of an exhibition called “Ain’t Painting A Pain” at the Orange County Museum of Art, which provides a retrospective of the Los Angeles artist’s work.

The second is the piece “Calamidad Cósmica” by the artist Luciana Rondolini.

 

These giant popsicles are intended to have viewers reflect on the process of time elapsing. Of course, they also evoke the fun and memories that such items have played in one’s life. Surely an exhibit such as this would be great fun in a children’s museum or as a surprise encounter in an outside gallery.

Be sure to send us your fun encounters with scale and look for some upcoming inspirations sparked by ideas about time.

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02.15.13:

Museum Directions

InPark magazine in its latest issue about museums asked ALCHEMY studio, Wayne LaBar to provides some thoughts on the direction of museum interactivity. You can check it out at the following link.

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02.14.13:

3D Projections

Amazing 3D projection projects – Moving from informational to expression.

In the museum and experience context, the idea of projection to convey information  is a common occurrence.  Here at the studio we are looking to explore how the projection itself  - not the content of the projection – can be used to excite, awe, and engage the public in ways maybe no one thought it could. You might say these are “engagement screens.”

On side of the scale, where the projection is “complete” but the screen invites interactivity, is this novel and cool “water” projection by art studio Red Paper Heart.

Wow made us want to dive right in.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, the screen’s inability to express the complete image is the beauty and allure of this experiment that Brian Mafftt did during the recent “Nemo” winter storm. Funny, in reality it also uses “water” like the above example – just in a different form.

 

In fact, you can tell it’s a DLP projector by the red, green and blue “sparkles” – a wonderful way of showing how a projection image is composed of these colors. You can see some of his still images here.

 

Now, of course, we have seen images projected on fog and images made of water, but there is something compelling about both of these and the fact that the “screen” itself can be the power of a projected experience versus the image projected. Obviously, a powerful experience would be to marry both of them. If you have other examples or ideas, please feel free to share them here.

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