Presentation by Jane Alexander (CIO, Cleveland Museum of Art) for the NEO Emerging Tech Symposium on CMA's Gallery One, Studio Play, ArtLens App, and upcoming ArtLens Exhibition.

1. Free to Move, Create and Engage:
Designing Meaningful and Barrier-Free Digital
Experiences with Museum Collections
Jane Alexander
Chief Information/Digital Officer
The Cleveland Museum of Art
April 4, 2017
Northeast Ohio Regional Library System
Emerging Tech Symposium

2. Jane Alexander
Chief Information/Digital Officer

3. Technology and the Art Museum, 1967

5. Cataloguing in 2010…

6. Audio tours then and now…

7. Technology Integration In Museums and Beyond:
Cuyahoga County Public Library Parma Branch

8. Gallery One
opened 12/12/12
“People come to museums for
storytelling and engagement…
and technology needs to facilitate that”
The New York Times (2013)

9. The First Iteration of
Gallery One
4 Components:
- Gallery One proper,
- Studio Play,
- Collection Wall,
- ArtLens App

10. • Build audiences: including families, teens,
school groups, and occasional visitors
• Provide a fun and engaging environment
for visitors with all levels of knowledge
about art
• Highlight featured artworks to the Greater
Cleveland community and the world
• Propel visitors into the primary galleries
with greater enthusiasm, understanding,
and excitement about the collection
• Develop and galvanized visitor interest,
bringing visitors back to the museum
again and again
Original Goals for Gallery One

11. Gallery One Proper

12. Studio Play

13. Collection Wall

14. ArtLens App

15. Why Are We Changing Gallery One?
• The museum considered the original Gallery One to a
“proof of concept” rather than endpoint
• The last four years have provided an excellent opportunity
to gather information: to interview visitors, track usage
and evaluate the effectiveness of each component
• Using that feedback, successful new redesigns have
already been completed for the ArtLens Studio (opened
June 2016) and the ArtLens App (launched September
2016)
• The next step is an update of the exhibition portion of
ArtLens

16. Gallery OneARTLENS Gallery

17. ArtLens App 2.0 (September 2016)
• Downloads in less than a minute,
takes up less memory than the
Facebook app, available on
Android and iOS devices
• Improved and responsive
wayfinding map with iBeacons
throughout the museum
• Save artworks on the app or by
connecting to the ArtLens Wall

18. • Search any object on view in the
museum and map your way there
• Scan select objects using augmented
reality technology to access additional
information
• Go on museum-created tours or create
your own
• Content updates automatically from the
backend
ArtLens App 2.0

19. Studio Play: What Did and Didn’t Work

20. “[CMA Visitors] have high expectations of what
the museum will offer them… and want an
experience that they cannot find elsewhere”
Elizabeth Bolander, CMA Director of Research and Evaluation

21. New Goals for
ArtLens Studio
• Barrier-free technology
that allows for virtually
touch-free interaction
• A space for
intergenerational learning,
ages 5 and up rather than
5 and below
• Inspire gallery exploration
with greater understanding
and enthusiasm
• Connect what visitors do in
Studio Play with what they
see in the museum

22. INTRODUCING…
ARTLENS STUDIO

23. Studio Play
Cleveland Museum of Art on YouTube

24. Collage Maker
and Portrait
Maker

25. Memory, Matching and
Sorting Interactives

26. Line and Shape

27. Paint Play

28. Pottery Wheel

29. Reveal

30. Zoom

31. Summative Research on New Studio Play, 2016
Overall Experience: 66% rated excellent (5/5),
87% rated 4/5 or 5/5
Elizabeth Bolander

32. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?:
ARTLENS EXHIBITION (opening June 2017)

33. Audience Goals
• Each component of the ARTLENS
Gallery (Studio, App, Wall, and
Exhibition) serves as a launching point
for visitors, whether casual attendees
or lifelong art lovers, to engage with art
and connect with the collection
• The ArtLens Exhibition will attract non-
traditional museum visitors by taking
away the intimidation of the art
museum and giving visitors the toolset
to look closer, dive deeper, and begin a
relationship with the collection

34. Reversing the Digital Experience
Gallery One
ArtLens Exhibition Rendering

35. Intertwining Art and Technology
• Art in the Foreground: Instead of
touchscreens positioned in front of
the artwork, artworks are positioned
in the foreground
• Featuring a new group of 20
artworks, including masterworks by
Edgar Degas and Frank Stella
• Barrier-free: building on the
success of the barrier-free ArtLens
Studio interactives, projections that
respond seamlessly to body
movement will replace
touchscreens

36. Pedagogy and Games
• The projection interactive
games are centered around
themes of: composition,
symbols, gestures and emotion,
and purpose, developed by a
cross-collaborative museum
team
• 16 new games, including an
innovative eye-tracking
interactive that will reveal the
visitor’s areas of focus on an
artwork and compare their view
to the artistic intention

37. Symbols: Decode
Symbols
Identify what symbol
belongs in the
blurred space and
its meaning

38. Purpose:
What Am I?
Guess the purpose of
an object using
modern clues

39. Gesture and
Emotion: Body
Language
Match the gestures in
an artwork to learn
about the meaning

40. Composition: Become an
Artist
Create original compositions
using the color, pattern, and
rhythm of abstract works in
CMA’s collection

41. Express Yourself: Happy, Sad, Surprised, Confused, Disgust, Neutral

42. ArtLens App Integration
ArtLens is the Glue:
visitors will be able to
dock their device at
each interactive and
save all artworks they
interact with to then find
in the galleries, as well
as save their user-
generated images—no
more typing in your
email address!

43. Join us for the opening of the ArtLens Exhibition at
Solstice, June 2017

44. Thank You
@janecalexander