N Proctor Mobile Interp9 Dec08

Outside in the Agora Presentation to the 2008 DEN (Digital Heritage Netherlands) Conference Nancy Proctor, Smithsonian American Art Museum [email_address] 9 December 2008 Mobile Interpretation and Socratic Dialogue in the 21 st Century Museum

It’s NOT about the Technology ‘ Teaser’ from the Soundbytes audio tour of the Science Museum, London, by Antenna Audio

Nancy Proctor, ProctorN@si.edu FIAMP 16 October 2008 Fraunhofer Institute, Kunstmuseum Bonn: ‘Beat Zoderer’ exhibition (Listen project) 2003 Fraunhofer Institute, Kunstmuseum Bonn: ‘Beat Zoderer’ exhibition (Listen project) 2003

Interpretation is as essential to the Museum as cutlery is to a banquet Beth Lipman, Bancketje (Banquet) 2003 

Some visitors may bring their own,

Some may eat only the finger food,

Some may choose another restaurant,

Many will go away hungry,

feeling uninvited and unwelcome .

If the Museum doesn’t provide it:

But what is the Museum in this Web 2.0 world of information on demand?

The American Art Museum

The Museums…

The Museum has become a Distributed Network

Photo by Mike Lee, 2007; from SAAM Flickr Group Our audiences now access American Art through a wide range of platforms beyond the museum’s walls and website

The Museum is transforming from Acropolis…

… into Agora

Nancy Proctor, [email_address] 9 December 2008

A Community

A Mash-up

A Site for Socratic Dialogue

Fun!

The Museum as Agora is:

1. The Museum as Community

Nikki de Saint Phalle, Tirage, 1961

Voting & Polling

MyCollection

Bookmarking

Tate Modern Study 4-25 June 2005

43% of visitors bookmarked

3.53 pages bookmarked on average

44% of visitors clicked through to the Tate website from their emails

19% of visitors taking the multimedia tour went to Tate’s website after their visit as a result of their bookmarks

Tate Txt

2. The Museum as Mash-up

“ Meet them where they are,

and take them some place new.”

Michael Edson,

Head of Digital & Web Strategy, Smithsonian Institution

Save Outdoor Sculpture!

The Museum Shuffle

EyeLevel.si.edu

April 4, 2008

Blog post by

Howard Kaplan

on

“ Merce C”

By Franz Klein

3. The Museum as Site of Socratic Dialogue

SmartHistory.org

Curators in Dialogue: American Art Podcast

Learning through Teaching

AmericanArt.si.edu/podcasts

User-Generated Content

4. The Museum is Fun! Nancy Proctor, [email_address] 9 December 2008

Ghosts of a Chance: A Case Study in the Museum as Agora Nancy Proctor, ProctorN@si.edu 12 November 2008

What is an ARG?

Alternate Reality Game

A kind of ‘scavenger hunt’ for the 21st century

Played across both ‘real world’ and digital spaces, including web, phone & text message

Involves collaboration among large and disparate communities to ‘solve’ the game

Unfolds through stories that change and are developed dialectically by the game’s designers in response to the players

Nancy Proctor, ProctorN@si.edu 12 November 2008

Ghosts of a Chance is:

1. The mystery of the haunting of two Luce Center ‘curators’, Daisy and Daniel

2. The story-within-a-story of four, 19th century characters who are haunting the American Art Museum

3. A hunt for clues to the identity of the ghosts

4. A one-day exhibition in the Luce Center of objects related to the story, made by players in response to four ‘challenges’

5. A series of events and tours of sites where the game’s story unfolds

An ARG festival

The Natural History Museum

The National Cemetery

The American Art Museum

6. Six scavenger hunts at SAAM

on October 25, 2008

Where GOAC was played:

In the ‘Real World’

An ARG fest for ‘hard-core’ players in Boston

The basement and forensic labs of the Natural History Museum

The Congressional Cemetery

In the American Art Museum, including the Luce Center and GOAC exhibition

Over 250 players at the Museum on October 25, 2008.

Where GOAC was played:

Online

The GOAC website: GhostsofaChance.com

The Argers’ forum (a blog): http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=26261

The SAAM website: AmericanArt.si.edu

SAAM’s blog: Eyelevel.si.edu

Facebook

Smithsonian Magazine website: www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/atm-game-200810.html

More than 6000 players participated online over 2 months.

Clues by text message Nancy Proctor, ProctorN@si.edu 12 November 2008

A clue from a mystery caller Nancy Proctor, ProctorN@si.edu 12 November 2008

A clue seen through a window Nancy Proctor, ProctorN@si.edu 12 November 2008

An Art Demonstrator? Nancy Proctor, ProctorN@si.edu 12 November 2008

A chef in the galleries? Nancy Proctor, ProctorN@si.edu 12 November 2008

Let them eat cake! Nancy Proctor, ProctorN@si.edu 12 November 2008

And dance! Nancy Proctor, ProctorN@si.edu 12 November 2008

Getting Creative Nancy Proctor, ProctorN@si.edu 12 November 2008

Everyone’s a winner! Nancy Proctor, ProctorN@si.edu 12 November 2008

Player Feedback

I just first want to emphasize how fun Ghosts of a Chance was. My husband and I had a really fun time doing it.

… We also like the integration of text messaging and cell phones -- both of those things made it more than just a 'regular' scavenger hunt.

I think it did make me look at art museums, in particular SAAM, in a different way. We certainly spent more time in the museum than we would have otherwise…

Even though we were 'exposed' to the whole museum, I also liked that there were a couple of pieces of art that we actually had to sit and ponder… I never would have spent the time staring into the painting and trying to understand it if it weren't part of a task.

I think it would be great to turn this into a shorter, user-centered, on-demand version. In fact, I think something like this would be a LOT more fun than some of the passive audio tours that you get in a lot of museums, and would allow for more user-generated content.

Player Feedback

My 8 year old (3rd grade) daughter and I had a FANTASTIC time, and … she wants to bring her friends with her next time.

We definitely went to parts of the museum that we would not have gone to previously. It definitely made art more interactive.

I LOVED INTERACTING WITH THE MUSEUM & OBJECTS INSTEAD OF JUST LOOKING AT THINGS AND OBSERVING AND JUDGING - IT WAS TONS OF FUN TO FEEL A PART OF IT ALL! … ALSO MADE IT FEEL LESS PRECIOUS … ALL FELT A LITTLE MORE PERSONALLY CONNECTED …

I liked the game because normally at art museums I get bored after a while but this gave me something to do. I would definitely do it again or recommend it to someone else.

I have spent quite some time in art museums and this is probably the first time that it felt like the museum was meant to be fun and interactive rather than more somber and pensive. It was really refreshing and definitely gave me a sense of community with the people who were coordinating the event and the other people participating in it.

Three Principles for the 21st Century Museum