The museums in the country seem to be undergoing a bit of a crisis.
My conversations with museum curators always end up in the discussion of the same universal issue —
The government funding to these museums has waned on account of lesser and lesser people opting to visit museums.
The only people who are frequent visitors belong to the museum community and students who come through school visits and expeditions.
Being an engineer, this made me curious.
What can be done to assuage this issue and garner more public interest and appreciation?
Some digital innovation currently happening in museums
Some online research into what’s already being done in this area led me to the following examples —
- Virtual Tour of the Museum via Google Arts & Culture
A lot of museums around the country have signed up with the search engine giant’s arts and culture division, to create an online virtual tour of the museum. Check it out here.
This brings the museum to you. Not bad!
2. Mausoleo Di Augusto
The Mausoleum of Augustus website aims at creating a compelling narrative around the story of Augustus using beautiful and interactive animations and sound effects.
Although most content still has to be read, it compels even the non-readers to read through because of the sheer beauty of it!
3. Histography.io
Histography, a project by interactive designer Matan Stauber, animates historical events from Wikipedia on a fun timeline. It also offers a lot of shortlisting options (literature, inventions, disasters, discoveries), limiting results by time period, and even allows you to select two events and view them on a comparative timeline.
Pretty cool.
4. American War for Independence — Interactive Map
This interactive map follows the campaigns of the American revolution from Lexington and Concord to Yorktown, and beyond to the Treaty of Paris.
Great for visualizing the whole expedition.
5. A mandatory TED Talk!
Ahh, TED. Where would we find all these interesting ideas and work otherwise?
Professor Sarah Kenderdine of UNSW Art & Design in Sydney, has done some amazing work in bringing the digital revolution to museums around the world. In her TEDx Talk, she discusses the use of advanced imaging techniques and animation, to bring art pieces to life. Check it out below —
6. Museum of Science and Technology of Islam in Saudi Arabia
The museum has installed interactive AV productions displaying various aspects of the technical and scientific advances of the Muslim world. They have touch tables, touch screens and other cutting edge interactive installations.
This really does look sci-fi!
7. And finally…
I thought I’ll just end with this.
It is spectacular.
Also, a lot of museums around the world have now opted to put fully copyright free high-res images of their objects online, for all to use.
In the next blog, I will share some of my own ideas about how we can really improve history education using digital media, and some ways in which we can make it more interactive, so that students can really understand history instead of just memorizing it.
Let’s put the technological advancement to good use!
Stay tuned for more!
