#AAM2018, AAM conference 2018

Phoenix, May 2018. Daytime temperature 102F, or about a zillion C. Sunny, heat reflecting off sidewalks and buildings, bright green and flowers, lots of people with name tags being momentarily pushed back when the cool side of the doors in the air conditioned interior comfort open to the wall-like assault of heat outdoors.

Thousands of museum professionals assembling to learn, network and share. It’s a wonderful annual event, too many choices for interesting and stimulating sessions, and so many people to see.

I was lucky enough to be able to present a round table session with two friends. Melissa Smith from the Art Gallery of Ontario and Annie Levy, a grad student in the inclusive design program at OCAD University, where I teach.

We presented some finding from a collaborative graduate course, taught in Toronto last fall. The AGO and OCAD teamed up to offer a course that gave students the opportunity to create a multisensory experience from an artwork in the AGOs collection, in order that other ways of appreciating it can be engaged.

The outcomes were really interesting, lots of sonification and tactility used. Sometimes smells too.

I ran a short smell workshop at our talk and asked people to write down a memory when they smelled something from an anonymous glass vial.

There were lots of thoughtful responses, but I think the most interesting was from someone who cannot smell. He has a syndrome called anosmia where he’s never been able to smell. One of his responses to a smell jar was “Pretending to be able to smell to make my sister happy”, and another “being left out while others enjoyed something”. He commented that although he thought he would not be able to participate, it actually stimulated many feelings and memories when he was partaking in the experience. This is very powerful. And also indicated to me how testing suppositions out gives you many surprises, definitely worth doing and re-doing. This kind of research with actual sentient humans is my favourite….

Bjork

On March 13 2015, I went to the Bjork exhibit at the MOMA in New York. Despite many rather snooty reviews, most of which I would say want museums to be ‘old school’ and stick to art as the reviewers think of art, I really enjoyed the exhibit.

The entry gallery is an immersion into a new song/video installation called Black Lake. It has two large screen opposite each other, with the audience sitting on the floor in between. I noticed that the screens were not projecting exactly the same video, and solved this by using my phone on selfie mode, allowing me to look at one screen and get a projection of the other at the same time. This room had very inventive little felt volcanoes positioned up the side walls, and they proved to be very effective in creating a good sound environment. Anyone who knows me knows how much I think the senses, and effectively crafting the environment in a gallery to be optimal for all senses, is important for an optimal experience.

The next room was a relaxation space to watch any of 14 of Bjork’s very creative music videos. On the floor there were positioned upholstered foam slabs for sitting, lounging, or propping your back against while seated on the floor. It was impossible not to enter a real ‘flow’ state while watching Bjork’s talent in singing, staging and visual dialogue with music and the viewer. Since I had been up since 5:30 to catch my flight from Toronto to New York (and it was now about 4 pm), I lounged on a long foam slab, similar to many others in the room. The sound was strong and powerful, the visual dialogue intense, powerful, and then POW, in barrels a linebacker security guard reprimanding people in a very loud and stern voice to “get up, you can’t lie around in here“…

I fleetingly thought he must be part of a performance art piece instigated by Bjork, but 5 minutes after he entered, in he came again, same message.

I was so removed from my reverie and enjoyment of Bjork’s creativity, I left the room and proceeded to the final area, Songlines,  a maze-like array of costumes on manniquins, and notebooks with scribbled lyrics. Kind of like the Morgan library on steroids. There are audioguides with a soft Icelandic accented narration of poetry and history about Bjork, and of course more music. The costumes are fantastic, some designed by Alexander McQueen, and some looking perhaps like they came off the set of Sponge Bob. It’s not about the costume, it’s about the contrast.

Bjork holds a strong place in my heart, especially now. I wished that there could have been cuts from “Dancer in the Dark’, a great film she was in with Catherine Deneuve, but sadly, that was missing. Bjork’s music is other-worldy with a foundation in classics, and an unique take on rhythm and beauty that is truly limitless. Her raw references to sexuality in her notebooks, and to some degree in her videos may make some uncomfortable, but I found her liberating and honest, with much in the way of humour, and little in the way of spite or meanness.

It was a good mid-career snapshot of a genius from Iceland. The blue lava cascading from the video volcanoes were a great metaphor for her joy and whit, lack of reverence for convention, and a strong role model for individuality in young women.

Washington

We celebrate Thanksgiving in early October in Canada. The colours of leaves, the produce at the farmers’ stalls, the air has a certain dampness and vibrancy- this equals Thanksgiving to Canadians (at least where I live. When I lived in the NWT we went skiing….but I digress).

I went to Washington DC over the Thanksgiving weekend. My partner was already there for another reason so I drove down to meet him. We had two museum-filled days- I could spend about another 60 more.
The Hirschorn had a good collections overview, with a new exhibit to open this week- just two days after I was there. Oh well. Their modern art collection is solid, the navigation of the museum quite simple, and a traditional approach to -painting on wall with label’ or ‘sculpture on pedestal with label’. My background in Fine Arts lets me off the hook- I am happy to review what I studied, or what is new and adds to my understanding.
We also had only 90 minutes in the Museum of the American Indian. Very well laid out, with a broad review of many first nations. The only truly immersive experience for me was the children’s area, which had a few nice options, many of which are similar to the type of experience I have designed before in my career- so naturally I thought they were pretty good. A fun participatory exhibit on skateboarding, and a huge Plains Indian teepee- not as beautiful as the copper mesh one I designed for the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, but a good environment to explore.

The next day, because I am intrigued by Nina Simon and her endless energy and innovation, we went to the Spy Museum.
It was a very strongly curated experience, and being very busy, was slightly oppressive because of this. One chooses a persona to fulfill ‘missions’ for- but there is very little follow up for these personas. The path is fairly linear, with a very fun brighly LED-lit elevator as part of the experience. Because of the subject matter it is quite compelling as a museum, all in all. There are a lot of video opportunities, and a few electronic games to see how effective you might be as a spy. But these are not tied into your persona, which might have made them more engaging. The store was a hit- found a couple of Xmas gifts for young relatives there.

Finally we went to Newseum. It was an amazing place, a very well though out and designed experience. The variety of media and events that it covered was astounding. From early newspapers through to current social media, it had lots of history, and its dissemination via media, covered. There were 5 sections of the Berlin Wall, along with a watch tower. Amazing information and the takeaway was how oppressive the decision to annex Berlin actually was.
A large section, with artifacts, on 911- with an appropriately located box of tissues at the entry/exit. A sweet and discreet story of a photographer who ran home to get his camera when he heard about the twin towers crash, only to be crushed by the falling of tower 2. His digital photography survived, with some amazing shots.
Stories we all know- Watergate, moon landing, floods and hurricanes- all covered by a variety of media options. A good section on women in media. Most of it- with the exception of ‘today’s front page’, which showed a few International newspapers- was US-centric. We are well versed in US media in Canada, along with the biggest news stories, so this was okay, and in fact interesting to see the American perspective on stories we saw from a different point of view.

I think the reason I found Newseum such a good visit was because of the variety of ways that information was conveyed- not just a label beside an image or case. It also engaged humour in some exhibits, which far too few museums do.
It also offered food in the basement- which allows the visitor to refresh, and permits re-entry the next day (great, as it is quite expensive to enter). I wish I had realize ahead of time how much I would have enjoyed more time there, and would have planned a visit on my first day.

I now need to go back to Washington! There are so many incredible options. The food was great, the transit very good and the city in general very walkable. Just let me figure out when I can get the time again soon….!

Portable museum! Kickstarter as a museum conveyance

A smart and articulate guy named Hans Fex has created a ‘portable collection of curiousities’. It includes Apollo 11 Command Module Foil, some fossilized Dinosaur dung, and other authentic fragments of specimens like Titanic coal, a T Rex tooth and a bit of London Bridge. It is a project on Kickstarter, to allow Hans to create a series of small resin-encased objects as conversation starters. You can see it here at Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2054592112/mini-museum

Why did Hans put these together? He was inspired by his early trips to museums with his father. His Dad brought back a specimen from Malta and embedded it in resin, which has clearly inspired his son Hans, a product designer and alumnus of Geek Lab.

It’s a great way to stimulate interest in museums, and to capitalize on the ‘celebrity culture’ that we live in.

 

Social Media and current technology

Findings from Pew Research have recently given new stats on social media usage.

Apparently 71% of adults use Facebook, up 4% since 2012, while 17% use Instagram, up 4%. 63% of Facebook users visit the site at least once a day, with 40% doing so multiple times throughout the day. 42% of online adults use multiple social networking platforms. For those who use only one social networking site, Facebook is generally the one they go to. Among those who only use one major social networking platform, 84% say that Facebook is the single site that they frequent.

It has also stated that  Facebook has increased in usage for older people, with  45 percent of American seniors who use the Internet are on Facebook, up from 35 percent the previous year. Teens, however are flatlining usage at  84 percent. 84% is pretty good, but there may be some disruptors who are jumping on the reasons Facebook is becoming less compelling to the younger audience.

They do not list Snapchat, which is a little surprising. This is an overview of Snapchat, from the source “Snapchat is the fastest way to share a moment with friends. You control how long your friends can view your message – simply set the timer up to ten seconds and send. They’ll have that long to view your message and then it disappears forever.”

The numbers of uses of the app are estimated at 350m per day. Per day. Rounded down to possible users, Techcrunch estimates about 10 million. Now remember that it it a ephemeral type of sharing of photos and short messages- the shared item disappears after 1-10 seconds. Recipients, however, can take a screen shot, so things (sexting, for example) can actually last ‘forever’.

This provokes thinking about the use of smart phone media, and the depth of information that teens require. Maybe we are stressing too much in the world of museums, trying to provide information to an age group who are far more interested in socializing. Or maybe we should embrace a 60 second culture of quick sound bites, and the ability to flick images back and forth!

‘Digital dualism’ was a term positing that digital content as part of a “virtual” world separate from a “real” world found in physical space. However we are now realizing that social media like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are used to connect people both in the virtual world and real worlds. We are seeing a merging of how social media and real life are becoming inextricably intertwined.

Other trends to watch for are the increasing use of augmented reality. Real estate, stargazing, education, books, retail, even Lego is using it- to show kids how their Lego set would look after they’ve finished building it. This demonstration of the placement of your innards, with interactivity and responses to your body as a quiz are really fun (and educational). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQgtqEjAM_M, or this one that is a virtual dressing room http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jbvnk1T4vQ.So what’s this all about?

It looks like more and more younger people are taking smart technology for granted. They may also be on a number of social media sites, and have relationships with people in different ways, according to the nature of the application. Photo exchanges seem to based on instant capture. But with Snapchat we can see that their use is like a quick ‘hello’ on the street. With Instagram or Pinterest there may be sustained life to postings, and Facebook seems to have a very long shelf life. Augmented reality seems to be an interesting disruptor that will affect many industries and types of media.

Much of how I have dealt with designing interactive exhibits was to try to understand motivation. Now, with social media, motivation can be co-opted sideways, with the primary interest in the media, which segues to the topic.

The deeper people’s interests are, the more they can do with the data on their social media sites. Facebook offers so many options, and is a good place to get information on topics you, and your like minded friends, are interested in. Links to videos and news reports, recipes and events are well represented here.

Pinterest offers a chance to curate your interests. I have used it as a way for design students I teach to organize their preferences, and sometimes the obligations they have for class projects. It’s also a fantastic resource for activities, fashion, design  and innovation news.

Sharing is the commonality to all these virtual places. People apparently like to share, and are happy to have their names attached to their choices. Some go for more depth, and some want 10 seconds of use. Apply the thinking of what age group we are dealing with, and this all makes sense.

Next time, I will massage some of what the implications are for these varieties of media usages…

The small museum

Last night my project partner Christine Lockett and I presented a new Strategic Business Plan to the Mayor and Council of King Township, north of Toronto.

We outlined the aspirations that the museum has expressed through it community groups, cultural community and partners. We gave examples of funding, and urged better partnership to spread the museum’s ‘brand’ around a bit, while dovetailing other particular interests into the lure of the ‘cultural hub’ that the museum can be.

What underpinned the report, however, is the pressures felt by this- and most other- small museums.

People are busy these days, commuting, working, taking the kids to soccer, caring for a loved one, walking the dog etc. Time is precious, and much of it is spent living life. Leisure time is at such a premium, that options for what to do in that valuable bit of space from the speed and concerns of crafting all the things that need to get done, as opposed to simply can be done. All museums need to solve this issue. Some have a big catchment area and can market their exhibits and programs, others have a small population and no marketing budget. So, what to do?

Museums can offer a relief from stress, a playground for emotional or intellectual thought, can provide an impetus for curiousity, and depth of answers to quell the questions that arise with true engagement.

If we ask our visiting public what they do when they are not at the museum, and what they like to do in their ‘off’ hours, we may be surprised, but helped by the responses we get.

The use of social media, activities that promote a museums and its offerings, partnerships and bringing the museums outside its doors through attending locales away from the museum with just enough information to intrigue these are all strategies to start.

I don’t believe that we simply ask what they would like to do- we listen, we watch the trends that emerge from some type of analysis of response, we affinity map- we do whatever will give us the results that help us, as museum strategists, will help get people through the doors. Not only through, but engaged and captured activity and thought. We respond and let the visitor be a part of our organization in a new way. Our visitors, like our friends, are valuable, essential, and deep providers of help through thinking questioning and providing.

Museums as incubators

Last night’s 2013 Academy Awards had the usual stuff- jokes, tributes to dead people, speeches from people who were over-the-top excited and in love with everyone in the room.

I personally like the Oscars when the platform is used to speak to societal issues and how the Arts can help contribute to help solve them. But very little of that happened.

The usual red carpet commentary on the dresses,  sometimes very hurtful (but this seems to be a matter of course). As a celebrity you are supposed to be famous for your amazingness, yet restrained to conformity,  fabulous at your ability to immerse yourself in your craft yet not act too over the top, fabulous looking despite the years of hurdle jumping, the long hours of work, the endless promotion, the sleepless nights.

We live in a culture of celebrity. A few years back I heard about a show put on by the High Museum in Atlanta. The High had commissioned some audio labels commenting on the works, and Demi Moore had provided one. Apparently the exhibit was one of their very well attended shows. Why? Did celebrity have anything to do with it?

You bet it did. But I think museums need to ‘get it’ when it comes to celebrity, and their fantastic inherent skills and people.

Which, in a circular way is how we get to museums as incubators. The best Original Score Oscar this year went to Toronto’s Mychael Danna. Mychael used to work at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, way back when I did in the 80s. We were part of a conspiratorial group that created a parody of the staff newsletter. I had designed the original logo, and became a part of a truly silly enterprise that lifted the spirits of staff, poking fun at the stale air inside the museum and its attempts at communication via the newsletter (called ‘Link’).

In getting to know Mychael and the others who put together the parody (called ‘Stink’), we engaged staff in a new way, everyone had a hoot, the barriers came down for a short while, people stopped being worried for a few minutes and had a good laugh. Mychael and all the others who were a part of Stink have all moved on, but we have a common bond we would not have had otherwise. We also all gained immeasurable experience and experiences by working in a museum, and some have graced our lives with their talents in their incredible growth.

Congratulations, Mychael. Keep incubating, ROM.

TIFF Digiplayspace 2013

I just received the PR about TIFFs Digiplayspace 2013. This will be the second year for an intensive family and school digital play arena for kids, accompanied by some film making contests and subscribed ‘hands-on’ activities.

Digiplayspace activity. Courtesy Tiff.net

It looks like it is a great initiative for March break and beyond- TIFF seems to understand that to grab the attention and diversity of youngsters, you give them both kinesthetic and fine motor control activities. Green screen and IR technology looks to be integrated, and there is something that I tried to figure out from the trailer that uses physical objects on a board- I guess I’ll have to wait to see how this works. I will go and assess what is working, in my opinion, and blog the results.

TIFF has greatly increased the time frame and added educational programs pegged to the Ontario curriculum – good on ya TIFF! Last year it was 12 days long- impo

ssibly short to earn the revenue compensation for the work involved (and a little profit..) needed, I imagine. This year it’s about 6 weeks long, which will benefit them financially and help TIFF to extend a greater brand presence about family programming. My general question with Tiff’s exhibits is how they can cycle through them so quickly and make back their costs. Perhaps I’ll ask a little deeper after this one…

The exhibits have been curated from elsewhere and have already been prototyped- but as there are always surprises from end users, hopefully the designers will take note and tweak to create an ongoing experience that the audience loves.

I am very picky about experience design, so I am really interested to see how this renewed

initiative does!

Bilbao effect

While researching for my Masters thesis on new forms of engagement for museums, I interviewed Matthew Teiltebaum, the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Director.

Matthew surprised me with his observation that a new museum building had a halo effect- that is, an uptick in physical visitors- for 8-10 months.This made me wonder why so many museums chose to spend a huge amount of money on starchitects and new facilities. If the evolution of the museum is such that strategic plans call for new areas within the building to provide access to new forms of engagement, then perhaps good renovations based on a clear architectural program are what is needed.

The brand of many museums gets dusty, and Board members often feel that a shiny pretty new building is what it will take to get people through the door.

Museums are built as temples to culture. Historically symbolic of wealth, prestige, may have become such glamour projects, trying so badly to emulate the ‘Bilbao effect’ that they sometimes upstage the contents they house. (Bilbao, Spain had undergone an entire city transformation with new infrastructure, a new seaport and waterfront, performing arts theatre, as well as the Guggenheim Museum. Efforts by the city were under a comprehensive plan to create new jobs and diversity, with income from culture and technology. The city was determined to tackle economic and employment problems through a holistic plan, by creating a diversified economy inclusive of the Arts. To state that a museum created the ‘Bibao effect’ is a misreading of the situation.)

The American Folk Art Museum opened a new museum near MOMA in 2001, and have closed its doors, having to revert to their old location in Manhattan. Part of the plan was to attract shiny new donors to the new space. This story in the New York Times talks about it in more depth: http://tinyurl.com/afjudjy

I wonder about the strategic plan for this museum, the timing, and if the brand alignment was clearly seen. If visitors enjoy folk art, (and their collection is wonderful) are they also wealthy donors who want to support this form of art. The MOMA was being renovated in the years following the AFAM opening, which reduced traffic- admission-wise and literally, as the street was partially closed, too.

And did they change their programs- was there thought to new forms of becoming a ‘part’ of the museum? Create your own something, download a something, add your own craft or other technique to a something online? All possibilities for alternative engagement.

They may need to divest their collection to the Smithsonian- which says it may use the Brooklyn Museum, another troubled location, as a venue for display.

Are there options besides this? Does the Smithsonian have the ‘street’  behind it?

Just wondering…..

 

 

Museum engagement and recognition

Given the resources that museums hold- particularly behind their sealed doors- they have the potential for offering much to their communities. The museum can put their resources into motion to create new ways of looking at artifacts and specimens, can clean up objects ‘real good’, offer interesting sites for events like weddings and product launches, provide film and performance opportunities and a spot for field trips, camps and specialty programming. These are revenue streams that may not fit within their mission, but are a fact of economics. They can underwrite specialty programs, but are often a matter of financial benefit for operations and maintenance.

In their best case, programs must align with the mission for a museum. Mission clarity may be the most difficult aspect of a museum’s definition of their brand, but if they can work through the ‘whys’ of their existence, and the ‘whys’ of their contribution to their community and to society, this becomes clearer and easier.

If a museum has a vision for their community, and their involvement in that community, their mission helps them to achieve that vision. For example, if the creation of a place where families are comfortable in self-guided learning is a vision that a museum holds, then their mission incorporates a statement or plan that shows how the museum moves themselves in sync with this vision. It might read something like “The mission of X museum is to provide opportunities for families of all types to engage with learning through programs, with galleries developed with this in mind. The museum may create partnerships with other organizations to help create synergies for education in their community, particularly if they lack the in-house expertise for specific groups’ engagement.

Many museums have outreach, which, if simply dissected means to reach out. In other words, the museum actively promotes pulling people towards them with offers that will engage, and be of interest. How is interest determined? Asking is one way. Museums can poll their visitors, put some choices up on their Facebook page, have a marketing or programming person sit down with school visitors as they have their lunch and talk to them about what their interests are in, and out of school. This could be facilitated as a fun game-type activity, with data that results, which can then be used to further research. Think Jeopardy…or Pictionary as activities to put together data in a fun way.

Working with outside organizations, using the museum as a venue for workshops or tours that are determined for specific outcomes can also be a way to alternatively use the museum for community benefit. Here’s a quick list of different demographic groups that are benefiting from museums reaching out:

Examples of specialty programming for

Altzheimers: (Montreal Museum of Fine Arts http://www.alzheimermontreal.ca/index_en.php, Museum of Modern Art, Manhattan www.moma.org/meetme/resources/ and others),

Physical and intellectual disabilities (Smithsonian, http://museumsforus.wordpress.com/, Queens Museum of Art http://www.queensmuseum.org/events/special-needs ), special needs of a variety of types have all had programs created at different museums, depending on the Director, the Education people and the volunteers’ specialties and interests.

Need based: Some museums have created specific access for those whom they consider worthy and in need in their communities- eg free access for economic hardship, for seniors at certain times, military personnel or on special events (eg Nuit Blanche). These programs are not profit making, they are bridge building. They may offer the chance for people to socialize, learn and be public about it. The museums shared their space and extend goodwill, the public responds by sharing information through their own type of social network – Facebook for some, bridge club or workout room for others.

Special circumstances: Children whose parents are under court supervision or other restricted access to their children have had the chance to play and learn in a safe environment (eg Families Together program http://www.childrensmuseums.org/programs/providencetoolkit.htm#partner ) where mentoring and role modeling of healthy interactions is given a chance to be seen.

Finally- acknowledgment:

I first encountered the breadth of special programming by attending the Association of Childrens’ Museums conferences. There is an annual presentation from the MetLife Foundation and Association of Children’s Museums Promising Practice Award. The award gives $10,000 to a museum creating a program that is judged to be the most innovative. It not only provides access to community members who may qualify for some type of needs, but it builds up a body of knowledge which can be shared. Sharing is the way in which people benefit others, and organizations can build a brand that shows that they understand and want to fulfill their mandate as community members.

There are a variety of downloads that organizations can use, which some museums and organizations involved in the Met Life Practice Replication award- have a look here: http://www.childrensmuseums.org/programs/awards.htm#metlife

I would love to see a Canadian company create such inspirational recognition for the work that museums do in Canada, and I would love to see more Canadian institutions realize that their relevance may be determined, at least partially, by the company they keep and invite inside.