Presentation given at Museums & the Web 2008 in Montreal, April 10, 2008.

1. Peter Samis Associate Curator Interpretation Who has the responsibility for saying what we see? Museums & the Web 2008 • 10 April 2008 Mashing up Museum, Artist, and Visitor Voices on-site and online for the exhibition Take your time: Olafur Eliasson Olafur Eliasson, One-way colour tunnel , 2007

2. Olafur Eliasson: An art of perception … and participation .

3. Work as phenomenon-maker: perceptual stimulator & change agent

4. A Radical Stance:

5. “ Objecthood doesn’t have a place in the world if there’s not an individual person making use of that object.” A Radical Stance: i.e., The Museum’s reality does not trump the visitor’s perspective.

6. “ I of course don’t think my work is about my work. I think my work is about you .”

7. Enter…

8. The Challenge: to encourage visitors in their own critical process of self-observation

9. Inviting visitor voices —& experiences— to complement our own :

12. A sampling:

14. Your mobile expectations got people going…

16. Sometimes the discussion got hot & heavy: (of course interspersed with other random comments in true blog style!)

21. They were the only ones in the room.

22. First generation art museum blog sites in the US were dominated by museum voices.

23. Next came art exhibition blog sites that started with authority voices and then opened the door to visitor comments.

25. In fact, part of what we’re trying to do is bridge a cultural chasm. Where experts & novices have meaningful things to say to each other. And the lion lies down with the lamb? ;-)

26. Look at this perfect storm of pent-up comments:

27. 294 comments within a day. Articulate, considered, impassioned.

28. And two weeks later:

29. On the other hand, is it enough to host a compilation of Me stories or does something else have to be at stake? Some greater collective endeavor , some greater win?

30. The Eliasson project got us part way. Nina Simon’s Hierarchy of Social Participation

31. But maybe it’s not just a blog that gets us there. (cf.SFMOMA’s new Community Producer) Nina Simon’s “Web 2.0 for Museum Professionals”

32. A social interaction that feels meaningful, rich and compelling to people inside and outside the museum. Structured so that even staff want to return to it, learn from it. And just where is “there,” anyway ?

33. Ideas?