The 5 Most Inventive Interactive Museum Exhibits
We’ve entered the age of interactive. Museums are blurring the lines between education and entertainment, developing grand digital experiences for visitors to learn, engage, and play with.
We scoured the web for some of the greatest examples of innovative interactive museum exhibits. Are you ready for the future of museums? Take a look at our top picks!
Time Machine
Wuxi, China is home to the largest immersive installation in the world, located in the Wu Kingdom Helv Relic Museum. Known as the Time Machine, the award-winning exhibit takes visitors through the incredible history and rise of the Kingdom of Wu. In addition to a grand 650 square-meter screen, a network of projectors, computers, and tracking cameras are connected to create an impressive, multi-sensory experience.
- Floor tracking technology for visitors to interact with during the presentation
- 15+ minute film with a variety of interactive elements triggered by different scenes
Time Machine was created by ACCIONA Producciones y Diseño in collaboration with TAMSCHICK MEDIA+SPACE GmbH, BLUWI Music and Sounddesign GbR, Kraftwerk Living Technologies, and Brainsalt Media.
Gallery One
Visitors to the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) are encouraged to engage directly with art through the technological capabilities of Gallery One, a 13,000 sq. foot addition to the museum grounds. The gallery utilizes a variety of digital elements such as multi-touch displays, motion sensors, RFID chips, face recognition, augmented reality, and more to create an immersive digital space for visitors to learn and play in.
- Multiple interactive stations for visitors to connect with museum art
- 40ft multi-touch wall displaying the majority of CMA’s permanent collection
Gallery One was created by CMA in collaboration with Local Projects, Gallagher and Associates, Zenith Systems, Piction Digital Image Systems, Earprint Productions, and Navizon.
Salt Worldwide
Located in a former salt mine, the German Salt Museum ends its facility tour with Salt Worldwide, an interactive map of the world’s largest salt mines, represented by touch-sensitive salt crystals. When museum visitors tap the salt crystals, animated salt particles spill across the display and reunite to form information boxes containing additional content and media.
Salt Worldwide was created by Art+Com Studios.
Campaigns of Courage
Two large, immersive exhibits are encompassed inside the National WWII Museum’s Campaigns of Courage pavilion: Road to Berlin, detailing WWII’s European Theatre, and Road to Tokyo, featuring the history of the Pacific Theatre. Visitors walk through an incredible gallery filled with realistic war torn scenery, interactive kiosks, 360-degree cockpit views, and more for an inside look at the deadliest conflict in human history.
- 25+ interactive experiences spread across 19,000 square feet
- The Dog Tag Experience, an RFID-based system for personalized visitor walkthroughs
Campaigns of Courage was created by UnitedField (New York).
David Attenborough’s Great Barrier Reef Dive
David Attenborough, esteemed British broadcaster and presenter of BBC’s hit “Life” series, takes museum visitors into the deep with the Great Barrier Reef Dive, an immersive undersea experience. As a follow-up to his widely successful First Life exhibit, the Great Barrier Reef Dive features the latest Samsung Gear VR technology to bring users close-up to life below the ocean surface as they “ride” a tiny Triton submarine with Attenborough.
- 360-degree virtual reality film showing Attenborough’s real-life submarine voyage
- Multi-sensory experience with vision, hearing, and touch
David Attenborough’s Great Barrier Reef Dive was created by Atlantic Productions and Alchemy VR.
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