20160412 digital heritage guest lecture: the museum visit: on and off
TRANSCRIPT
Digital HeritageThe Museum Visit – On and off
Merel van der Vaart - @MerelVaartAmsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture
Allard Pierson Museum
Today’s session
Part 1: The Museum Visit (Disrupted)
Part 2: Smartphones as gamechangers
Part 3: Extending the visit online
What is a Museum?
A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of
society and its development, open to the public, which acquires,
conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible
and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the
purposes of education, study and enjoyment.
ICOM International Council of Museums
What is a Museum Visit?
John H. Falk & Lynn D. Dierking‘The Museum Experience’ (Whaleback Books: 1992)
The Interactive Experience Model
Physical context
Social Context
Personal Context
Interactive
Experience
Aside:
According to Falk and Dierking, the museum visit is being created as it happens as an interplay of physical context, personal context and social context. The museum visit is created as a collaboration between museum and visitor, where the museum can usually only ‘control’ the physical context.
“Visitors are under no obligation to engage with free-choice exhibition environments…
… and yet they do.”
Tiina Roppola‘Designing for the Museum Visitor Experience’ (Routledge: 2012)
Aside:
Tiina Roppola als emphasises the importance of the bodily experience. The museum visit is a physical activity.
“attention is selective(…)attention has focusing power (…)the capacity of attention is limited.”
Stephen Bitgood‘The role of attention in designing effective interpretive labels’ in Journal of Interpretation Research 5/2 (National Association for Interpretation: 2000)
Visitors decide when and how they want to visit the museum.
Visitors have their own agenda when visiting the museum.
Visitors decide how to engage with exhibits & displays.
Some visitors like being guided, some don’t.
Visiting museums is exhausting & people know it.
Smartphones as gamechangers
Technology & Museums
Ross Parry & Nadia ArbachIn: Cameron & Kenderine (eds.) ‘Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage’ (MIT Press: 2007)
online offline
off-site
on-site
Technology & Museums
Ross Parry & Nadia ArbachIn: Cameron & Kenderine (eds.) ‘Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage’ (MIT Press: 2007)
websites 'outreach'
in-gallery internet connections / live
labels
traditional museum visit
online offline
off-site
on-site
Technology & Museums
Ross Parry & Nadia ArbachIn: Cameron & Kenderine (eds.) ‘Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage’ (MIT Press: 2007)
Responsive websites
'outreach'
in-gallery internet connections / live
labels
traditional museum visit
Apps / social media
online offline
off-site
on-site
Visitors decide when and how they want to visit the museum.
Visitors have their own agenda when visiting the museum.
Visitors decide how to engage with exhibits & displays.
Some visitors like being guided, some don’t.
Visiting museums is exhausting & people know it.
Smartphones changed everything!
What is the role of smartphonesduring the museum visit?
The results of the Smartphone exercise
Extending the visit
Museon: More info: http://mesch-project.eu/after-the-visit/
Openluchtmuseum: Video: http://www.koffietijd.nl/winter-in-het-openluchtmuseum
More and more museums want to build up a long term
relationship with their visitors.
They want people to return.
And they want to connect the online and the on-site.
However, encouraging people to extend the visit, after they left
the physical building can be challenging.
Challenge
You work at the Allard Pierson Museum (or museum of choice).
Develop a proposal for an extended museum visit:
- Who’s your target audience?
- What does the experience look/feel like?
- What is your call to action/bridge between on-site and off-site?
- How will you measure success?
Challenge
Present your proposal:
- Who’s your target audience?
- What does the experience look/feel like?
- What is your call to action/bridge between on-site and off-site?
- How will you measure success?
Feedback: “Yes, but” – “Yes, and”