Around the Web
Video Games as a Cultural Force
The view on video games in museums has changed since the Museum of Modern Art in New York first acquired Pacman in 2012. Video games are being included in exhibitions at design museums and are even the main focus of an upcoming show at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The exhibition, “Videogames: Design, Play, Disrupt”, will present the history of the medium starting in the mid-2000s, unlike many exhibitions that have tried to fit the entire 50-year history into one show.— link to The Art Newspaper.
Heritage in Museum Collections
Earlier this week, a fire destroyed the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro. The museum’s collection consisted of 20 million artifacts that represented Brazil’s biological, geological, archeological, and historical heritage. The museum did not have a fire suppression system and suffered from decades of neglect which led to the major loss. This fire not only destroyed a collection of knowledge for Brazil but is a loss to the whole world. Some collections are so vast that they contain more knowledge than curators are able to study and record. A study shows that there are 23 times more fossils in recorded in museum collections than published literature about those objects. Less funding and understaffed museums leaves these objects without descriptions by curators, deeming them “dark data.” Without adequate descriptions and records of these objects, physical harm can mean losing their story forever. — link to Medium.
An App to Help People Understand Modern Art
Musea is a prototype app that aims to help users gain a deeper understanding of art through conversations with other people also interested in art. The project idea sparked between two roommates, one with an interest in art and the other with interest in technology. They decided to develop the idea of this app for their capstone project to be able to improve the museum experience through the application of technology. — link to Medium.
#MusMeme Survey Results
@CultureThemes runs a monthly hashtag on Twitter and August’s hashtag was #MusMeme. The hashtag was very popular and trending in the UK by 11AM on the day it was announced. This write up presents the results of the survey that was released to “capture some of the significance for the hashtag.”— link to Medium.
Focusing on Visitor Experience Over Crowd Size
Glenstone, an art museum in Potomac, Maryland, is set to open its new facility next month. This museum aims to make the museum experience more about engaging with the art instead of drawing in large crowds. In some cases, overwhelming crowds have negatively affected visitor experience, like visiting the Mona Lisa, and art lovers are avoiding those locations. Glenstone wants each visitor to be able to maximize the experience so they are limiting the capacity to 400 people per day.— link to The Washington Post.
IMLS Awards Grants to Fund 160 Projects
IMLS has announced the grants awarding $22,899,000 funding 160 projects across the nation to help museums better serve their communities. The institutions that have been awarded these grants have matched the funding with non-federal funds totaling $31,180,215. — link to Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Websites and Museum Accessibility
“A major barrier to disabled people visiting museums is the lack of advance information.” Websites are an important resource for planning a trip to the museum. Without necessary information about accessibility, people with disabilities may be unable to visit. The State of Museum Access 2018 was published by VocalEyes to present a set of guidelines for cultural organizations to follow in order to become more accessible and increase inclusivity.— link to Medium.
The Impact of Museums
The purpose for visiting museums have developed into more than just a space to learn something new. People are visiting museums to feel more positive and connect to something that has an impact. “The solely fact of making the choice to go to the museum is already allowing yourself to change your mind or body state.” Many museums are considering impact to be a measurement of success.— link to Medium.
A Science Museum’s Controversial Sponsorship
Shell, the oil company, is the sponsor of an upcoming exhibition about electricity at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. Thousands of people have called for the museum to drop the sponsorship because of the contradiction between the oil company and the museum’s mission. “A museum dedicated to science education should not be helping promote any company that is actively exacerbating this planetary emergency until they show a serious proactive drive to switch to renewables.” Recently, the Van Gogh Museum and two other Dutch museums have dropped Shell as a sponsor because of the local petition efforts. — link to Independent.
Hashtags we’re following…
#COMPASSconference
COMPASS (Conference on Mobile Position Awareness Systems and Solutions) was held in San Francisco this. The conference brought together museum professionals, researcher, creative technologists, and developers to collaborate and share expertise from the fields.
#ImmersionInMuseums
AAM’s Immersion in Museums: AR, VR or Just Plain R? took place this week at the Detroit Institute of Arts. The event brought together members of the museum community to discuss the future of immersive experiences, both digital and physical, in the museum.
See you next week!
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