New Wave Museums

Museums have evolved over the centuries from the mouseion of antiquity to the curiosity cabinets or Wunderkammer of the 17th century, and to the museum as we know it today in it's various incarnations: art, history, general, specialized, science, etc. Museums have gone from their earliest manifestations as spaces dedicated to study and the arts (house of the muses) to being viewed as mere repositories of artifacts. Today this static view of the role that museums must play in society has been exchanged for something more akin to how the Greeks viewed museums. Museums are given the task of intellectual conservation and expected to study, interpret, catalogue, and evaluate cultural objects as well as negotiate with society questioning and modifying the sociological environment. In order to remain relevant museums must continue to utilize and find new ways to use technology.

Anonymous, Cabinet of Curiosities (late seventeenth century)
Oil on canvas, Florence, Opificio delle Pietre Dure
source

Technology + Museums

Technology is being used to “transform museums into more dynamic institutions in the 21st century” (Canos 313). Traditionally, museums have made use of text and labels as a storytelling aid and, while invaluable as a means of conveying background information at once, they are rather static and limited. Technology is now used to augment in-person visits to museums with virtual information designed to enhance the visitor's understanding. With the availability of the public internet and the World Wide Web the amount of people utilizing online resources and the number of resources available as well as contributing providers have increased exponentially. Anyone with internet access can publish information as illustrated by this blog.

TRS-80, Tandy Radio Shack´s first desktop computer
source: Computer History Museum

Online vs In-Person visits

Today libraries and museums evoke a great deal of public trust. They rank higher than other information sources including government, commercial, and private websites, with libraries just barely outranking museums for the title of ultimate trustworthiness. There is some concern that the pervasiveness of the internet as a source of information will lead to the demise of museums in their physical form in exchange for their virtual counterparts. Studies suggest, however, that this public trust readily migrates to an online environment (Johnson). In fact, there are data that suggest the internet is not replacing in-person visits and may actually increase them. A 2006 survey found that about 23% of adults who have only visited museums in-person and not online said they have visited more often in the past year than previously. A slightly higher percentage (29%) said they visited both in-person and online and that they too visited more often in the past year. Internet users have been shown to visit museums in-person 2.6 times more often than non-internet users. The data also revealed that a majority of adults continue to visit museums in-person and a slightly smaller percentage visit both in-person and online. Only a very small percentage (5.1%) said they visited exclusively online (Griffiths 12, 14).

GettyGuide

A good example of a museum that has at least attempted to remain cutting edge by integrating new technology into exhibits is the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. In the mid-1980s they developed a videodisc system to augment their exhibits but by the mid-1990s had realized the limitations of this technology. The content could not be edited to reflect changes within the exhibit and was limited in its mode of presentation. In 1995 they developed GettyGuide, a kiosk-accessible, database-driven access system which included a database of art and artists, along with related images and videos, and ways to search for art by subject and type.


Robin Lilien, Manager of Information and Media Systems at the time, said their primary goal was to enhance the visitor's experience with the art objects themselves: “The technology needs to support what we want visitors to experience, not to interfere with it or distract from it. It should not become the main event” (Marshak 5). The following image represents a timeline of the Gettys' technological evolution since the 80s.

(click image to enlarge)

Online Collections

The GettyGuide kiosks have been translated to the Explore Art section of their website which allows visitors to access the collection in a digital format from home. Online visitors can browse by artist, type of art, or by theme or topic. There is also a Collection Overview that allows visitors to get in-depth information about the various Getty collections and a Video Gallery featuring videos about the museum's collection, techniques, conservation, and exhibitions, and includes many interviews with artists and curators. One of the most interesting features is their Getty Bookmarks. With this users can mark objects as they come across them on the website and later use the bookmarks to create a printable map of the physical museum indicating where all of the items are located. Essentially, users can create their own customized tour to bring with them to the museum. This is a great example of how remote access to collections can actually serve to increase in-person visits to a museum.

(click image to visit the Getty's website)

The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia is another example of a museum that is making use of their website to share their collection and attract visitors. The Virtual Visit section allows online visitors to virtually 'walk' through the museum. Visitors can choose a room on any level of the Winter Palace and experience 360-degree panoramic views. These panoramic views have little more than mere entertainment value. None of the objects in the rooms can be seen very clearly except for two or three which are offered as thumbnails below the video and can be seen on a larger scale with a short description when clicked on. These panoramic views could, however, create enough interest in the museum's collection that the online visitor would feel compelled to visit in person for a first-hand experience.

Pieces from the St George Service, F. Ya. Gardner Factory
Designer G. I. Kozlov, 1778, Porcelain; underglaze painting, polychrome gilt

source

Museums + Web 2.0

The Hermitage has done an excellent job of making some of its 3,000,000+ item collection available online but definitely has some room to grow. Many museums are now making use of recent trends in the use of World Wide Web technology, or what is known as Web 2.0. This new use of existing technology is intended to “enhance creativity, communications, secure information sharing, collaboration, and functionality of the web.” Most people are familiar with Web 2.0 in the form of social-networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, video sharing sites such as YouTube, and blogs. A blog (a portmanteau of the words “web” and “log”) is a website maintained by an individual and regularly updated with entries, or posts, of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as photos or video. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format are an important part of most blogs. Many museums, especially contemporary art museums with a young demographic, have blogs in addition to their websites. The blogs differ from the website in that they use a conversational and personal tone rather than an institutional one and may consist of many contributors' voices. Blogs also evolve with the community that contributes to them and “can create an environment of person to person communication by seeking opinions, ideas, and feedback and by encouraging the visitors to participate and contribute . . . and share experiences” (Beazley). This shows that the museum is listening to its visitors, helps to break barriers, and allows visitors to be more engaged with the museum. Blogs are also an opportunity for smaller museums that may have very little funding to create an online presence for free.

(click image to enlarge)

source: Museum 2.0

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Blogs + Social Networking

Blogs very often incorporate links to other blogs, videos, audio, and slide shows. For instance, the MASS Moca blog has a feature called Flickr Finds. Flickr (one of the first Web 2.0 applications) is a popular image and video hosting website where users are able to upload their digital images and create albums and slide shows to share with others. A contributor to the MASS Moca blog searched Flickr for photos uploaded by users that feature a MASS Moca installation called Tree Logic and posted them on the blog with links back to each person's Flickr profile. In this way blogs personalize the museum and make visitor content an integral part of their online presence. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has created a widget that anyone can easily install on their desktop, website, social networking profiles, or blogs. The widget features a different work of art from the Rijksmuseum collection every day. When the widget is clicked on, it flips to the reverse side to reveal information about the piece and artist. Some may view this as nothing more than a novelty, but it certainly has the potential to keep visitors engaged, allow users to promote the museum, and even create enough interest that viewers are compelled to visit the museum and see a piece in person. Of course, blogs are not used exclusively by art museums that cater to the young and hip. The Children's Museum of Easton, also in Massachusetts, has a blog on which they allow visitors to vote on content and hosted a digital photo contest for parents' photos of their children participating in activities at the museum. They also link to their MySpace and YouTube profiles.

The Rijksmuseum widget is featured on this blog to the right. Click in the middle to enlarge the image or click the lower right corner to see the title and artist.

Directly below the Rijkswidget is the Global Museum widget which feeds information to this blog from globalmuseum.org.

(click image to see this blog post)

On the sidebar of this blog to the right, you can also see an RSS (Rich Site Summary) feed from the MASS Moca blog. It shows links to the five most recent blog posts at any given moment. To subscribe to a feed from New Wave Museums you would use the "Subscribe" tools below the MASS Moca feed.

Folksonomy

Other museums geared toward children such as the Natural History Museum in London have entire sections of their websites dedicated to kids and often feature online games designed to engage and educate children. But other types of museums such as the Brooklyn Museum (which attracts a crowd similar to that of the MASS Moca) have realized that through gaming, the museum and the visitor can enter a mutually beneficial relationship. Folksonomy (referred to here as social tagging) is the practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content. Non-expert users can classify as well as find information (this is how the MASS Moca blogger mentioned above found Flickr photos of that specific installation). Museums can use social tagging to help visitors find what they are looking for in an online collection. The Brooklyn Museum found a way to get people to help tag their collection by combining game mechanics with community membership to create a social tagging experience which they call Posse. After signing up, creating a profile, and becoming a part of the Posse community, users can play a game of, you guessed it, Tag. Posse members accrue points for each tag they assign to an object and are notified when they pass another member's score. The game also integrates videos with messages from the Brooklyn Museum staff that pop up when a Posse member reaches certain levels.

Below this and every other post on this blog you can see a set of tags or labels. For example, if you click on the words "MASS Moca" below, you will be brought to a page displaying all posts tagged with that term.

Podcasts + iPhones

The Brooklyn Museum has done an excellent job of utilizing Web 2.0 in several different ways, including free podcasts for their visitors. A podcast is a series of audio files distributed over the internet by syndicated download to portable media players and personal computers. Podcasts can be subscribed to or downloaded automatically when new content is added. The San Jose Museum of Art is one of the first museums in the world to use Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch to deliver interactive audio and video guides. Visitors are invited to use their own devices or borrow one free of charge from the museum for the duration of their visit. These devices serve a similar function as the GettyGuide kiosks but are wireless, portable, and more personal. Visitors can use the devices as they explore exhibits and augment their experience with commentary from artists as well as interviews with curators, gallery owners, and art insiders. Below is a video demonstration of the iPhone Tour:


Update: iPod Touch/iPhone Museum Tour from Chris Alexander on Vimeo.

Click here to preview the tour from your computer. Or, if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch point your browser to http://www.sjma.mobi/

A 2005 New York Times article describes how a group of college students “hack the gallery experience” by making their own podcasts to accompany exhibits at the Museum of Modern Art which can be downloaded from their website. The podcasts are subversive and sometimes irreverent, which official museum tours are very unlikely to be. Such podcasts can be a means of virtually sharing the physical museum experience with other visitors as well as allowing visitors to see the exhibit from perspectives apart from what the museum offers.

Please Turn Cell Phones ON

The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis has developed a way to use cell phone-based interactive voice response (IVR) technology as an alternative to traditional audio tour systems. Anyone with a cell phone can access Art On Call for free at any time. Audio tour systems have been in use for many years, but Art On Call offers searchable lists and details about current and upcoming events, call transfers to staff and services, and pre-visit information including hours, directions, and ticketing. The material can also be accessed online with digital previews of the objects featured in the physical exhibit as well as in the form of podcasts. The ability for visitors to use their own cell phones also transfers the burden of maintenance to the user. The museum no longer has the responsibility of distributing and collecting devices. Studies show that some visitors are still hesitant to use this technology despite the fact that those who do have a more in-depth experience and tend to stay longer (Haley Goldman). The visitors who use their own phones have a greater feeling of ownership over their experience and are more likely to access content after their visit. Cell phone tours work in much the same way as blogs to break barriers and allow the user to feel more engaged.

(click image for more info)

Future

So, what's next for museums? Since 2005, the Rijksmuseum has been working on a project to personalize the museum experience based on semantic Web technology so that visitors can access collections in a more meaningful way. They are currently using the CHIP demonstrator, "a museum artifacts recommender system and environment for building personalized museum tours" (Aroyo). After signing up, users are presented with various items from the collection and asked to rate them ("I hate it, I do not like it, It's OK, I like it, I like it very much"). They are also able to rate the piece based on other criteria such as creation site, material medium, and themes. The demonstrator then recommends artwork based on the user's preferences. This interactive dialogue quiz helps users find what interests them in the collection. With the demonstrator the Rijksmuseum hopes to achieve complementary integration of the web with a guided experience within the physical museum to motivate regular visits to both spaces and ultimately allow active engagement of users with artwork.