#11 thoughts (and prayers) for the future of museum visits
With all the research I had done, I had quite a clear picture of what I wanted my final outcome to be like. These are my 2 main HMW statements, included here for my reference.
How might we leverage on interactive digital media to engage visitors’ during their museum visits in order to help them learn, understand and familiarise themselves with the art?
How might we leverage on interactive digital media to elevate visitors’ learning experiences during museum visits in order to help them learn more and retain the knowledge gained from their visit longer?
Overall, this post is just a brain dump to help me envision my product/experience a bit clearer.
#1 The Lens | ACMI
To create a physically engaging experience for visitors during their visits, I wanted to provide them with cards that allowed them to curate the content of the exhibitions they visited, similar to ACMI’s concept of the Lens.
As quoted from their website, the Lens is “a free handheld, take-home device that lets you collect the artworks and objects you discover in their exhibitions”. Additionally, the collection you curate throughout your visit can be accessed online anytime. When you access your collection online, you’ll be shown an overview of all the items collected. Clicking into a specific item, along with more information about it, you’ll be provided with the collection, display dates, credits (artists, production places, production date) and even the date/time that you had collected it.
Reading more about the product, I found that one of the FAQs on their website was “why isn’t the Lens a smartphone app?”. Their response is as follows:
Research has shown that engaging more of your senses during a museum visit helps you better remember it. We feel that the Lens is a part of helping you remember your time with us more effectively than an app.
I feel like this perfectly sums up my reason for wanting to create a similar product. Although the Lens is designed specifically for ACMI, I wanted to expand the experience I create across all museums in Singapore.
When I was thinking about the digital aspect of my product/experience, I was considering a website or an app and I found myself leaning more towards an app. There’s so much we could pack into an app and it would be so easily accessible. Hence, I started thinking deeper into what we could include in the app to engage visitors beyond the museum experience. Here are some inspirations.
#2 The SFMOMA app Audio Tours| SFMOMA, Apple, Detour
This concept revolves around the idea of guided audio tours and SFMOMA has managed to create an intuitive audio tour unlike any other.
The app was designed to keep your phone in your pocket and your eyes on the art. Detour developed the app so that it uses your phone’s location-sensing tech to precisely triangulate your position in the museum based on a hi-res virtual map created for the museum by Apple. That way it knows exactly where you are and where you’re going — and adjusts its audio accordingly.
One of my reasons for wanting to have a physical card like the Lens from ACMI was to keep people off their phones and help them be present during their visits. Hence, I thought this was such a cool concept that also tied in well with my goal. I found it particularly interesting how they made the tour intuitive, allowing visitors to explore at their own pace without the pressure of keeping up with the guide. In this case, you take the lead.
#3 Memory Misprint(); | Alicia Ng
The project combined aspects of design, artificial intelligence and psychology to create an experimental media that explores “the fallible nature of the human memory.”
A reimagination of the artist’s childhood memories, the work utilizes artificial intelligence to visualise memory distortion. The outcome mixes reality with the imagined, creating visuals that speak about the strangeness of the human memory, curated through editorial and digital media. Memory Misprint(); encourages viewers to indulge in a fictional mental space while reflecting on the reliability of their recollection
I’ve always felt the need to photograph everything, even as a photographer I find myself shooting more than I need. I do associate this habit with a fear of not being able to remember a moment as much as I would like to. Even when I go to a museum, I take photos of everything just because I want to remember it. Hence, I found her project to be right down my alley.
In terms of how this concept can be incorporated into my project, I feel like, with the AI being utilised in the same way, visitors could extract their favourite moments or memories from their experience and share them with others OR perhaps from a more educational POV, visitors can share what they learned from their trip or from certain exhibitions.
#4 Unframed AR experience | The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Verizon
This AR experience allows users to take the museum home with them.
The campaign features a wealth of digitally rendered galleries, with additional animated, interactive elements on some of the world’s most famous works of art. Completing the various games found within the experience allows users to unlock or ‘unframe’ their favourite pieces for display in their own spaces through AR technology.
I was inspired by this AR concept mostly for the game and interactive elements. Now you might be wondering, if I can access an AR of the museum from home, then what’s the point of even going there? The video mentions unlocking never before seen galleries, so I was thinking that by turning up for a physical visit, the card you get upon entry would have a code that will allow you to unlock secret galleries through your app. Furthermore, the game and interactive elements are catered to the content you curate during your visit.
Other ideas for the app (carried forward from prev posts)
- Introducing rewards, collecting cards on the app to gain more rewards, and thinking of a fun way to review information.
