Three proposals are presented for museums to become more transformative in the new millennium: 1) Practice listening to better understand visitors' goals and be open to change. This can involve design thinking approaches. 2) Work with artists to bring fresh perspectives through projects engaging visitors in the galleries. 3) Leverage technology for interpretation, providing context, and allowing access to artists, but ensure it does not replace in-gallery experiences. While apps offer engagement, methods of true dialogue need further development.

1. Three Proposals for the New Millennium
…or the next 5 years!
Peter Samis
Associate Curator,
Interpretive Media
San Francisco Museum
of Modern Art
Anthony McCall, U and I
NAEA Museum Div. Pre-Conference New York February 29, 2012

2. No, we will not all be star children.
…but we do aspire to be transformative.

4. But what will it take to get there?
How will we become transformative?

5. Practice #1: LISTENING

6. Who are these people? And what are their goals for their museum
visit? And what about those who come less often?

7. Be uncomfortable.
―The fear of what we might need
to do to be relevant.‖
-Olga Viso, Director, Walker Art Center, at AAMD

8. DESIGN THINKING:
1. Empathize
2. Define
3. Ideate
4. Prototype
5. Test

9. Offering chamber. Withholding chamber.

10. “Design thinking is not pre-determined
by our solution. Don’t just refine the
solution. Refine the problem.‖
-Stanford d.school

11. Object sort activity at the Chicago History Museum.
Families in action.
©2011 Garibay Group. All Rights Reserved

12. The goal of this activity was to
uncover patterns and identify
common characteristics of objects
that fell in each quadrant. This
process allowed us to understand
how families approach and think
about objects. By uncovering these
patterns, findings can be used to help
CHM make decisions about ways to
interpret collections and engage
families. Thus, the purpose of the
matrix is to more easily visualize
groupings. Keep in mind that the
focus is not on the individual objects,
but rather on the patterns that
emerged.
Note that the italicized phrases in the quadrants (e.g., I know what…) were not on
the matrix used by families. These phrases were names we gave the quadrants to
facilitate analysis and discussion.
©2011 Garibay Group. All Rights Reserved

13. Lo-tech and low-fi
are, surprisingly,
fine.

14. (The Oakland Museum of
California ―Art Lab‖
used post-its on a wall.)

15. Along with a chair, a table, and a mirror.

16. They can still lead to results of
remarkable polish.

17. The ―You Are Here‖ activity in the California Portraits gallery.

23. Practice #2: WORKING WITH ARTISTS
How will we become transformative? By
working with artists who have already
done the work to transform themselves.
Some deeply.

24. Photograph: Mary Altaffer/AP

25. [And so they move us deeply.]

26. Some perhaps more superficially…
but nonetheless offering us a fresh perspective…
Machine Project’s Soundings: Bells at The Hammer: http://vimeo.com/14039519

27. Or SFMOMA’s ArtGameLab.
Crowd-sourced games with
missions for the public to act
out in the gallery…
-curated by colleague Erica Gangsei

28. ―Bring a strange object to SFMOMA. Check it in the coat check.
Document.‖

29. ―Create your own version of a work of
art you find at SFMOMA. It can be an
exact copy or an interpretation.‖
-supergoing.com/sfmoma

30. ―Each time you hear, see or think this art word, perform the corresponding
physical action.‖ –instructions for Dialogues In Motion
[This is, not surprisingly, the gesture for ―Line.‖ Other art words include
composition, modernism, metaphor, and scale.]

31. [These six masked friends relax amid the blocks in the Koret Visitor Education
Center’s family area after successfully completing their missions.]

32. Finally, how will we become transformative?
Scenario 3

33. Practice #3: THROUGH TECHNOLOGY
[Here used for interpretation, context-building, exposure to the artists when possible.
In this video, Robert Rauschenberg does what none of us can do: he plays his Trophy
for John Cage in our self-authored multimedia tour, Making Sense of Modern Art
Mobile.]

34. [Tate’s Muybridgizer app. Games clearly have a place here.]

35. What apps offer is the Pleasure of the
KinAesthetic.

36. Univ. of Virginia Art Museum (UVaM) app: 18 objects
[Not to mention the pleasure of real
immersion: they can follow you home, and
you can share them around. Sometimes,
MoMA AbEx: de Kooning you can even turn them around.]

37. Words of Caution re: Seeing Technology as our
Engine of Transformation
―No need to adapt our
exhibition designs to meet
the needs of our visitors
because we’re doing that
through our nifty new mobile
app!‖
It can become a palliative tool, justifying keeping the
status quo modes of address in the physical galleries.

38. On the other hand…
Technology can give us an ear and a
voice to enter into dialogue with our
visitors, and to reach them, on-site and
online.

39. Diversifying our modes of address:
• Physical – in the galleries
• Social – as in social aesthetics
• Emotive

40. But these structures are only just
beginning to be articulated. Our methods
of using technology to create a real
dialogue—and to reach people in non-
pedagogical ways—still need to be
developed.

41. May we be half as successful as Wim
Wenders was in treating Pina Bausch!
Thank you.