New ARTLENS Gallery Presentation at Museums and the Web April 29 2017 by Jane Alexander, CIO, Cleveland Museum of Art and Phillip Tiongson, Principal, Potion

1. Removing The Barriers Of Gallery One:
A New Approach to Integrating Art, Interpretation
and Technology at the Cleveland Museum of Art
Jane Alexander, Cleveland Museum of Art
Phillip Tiongson, Potion
Museums and the Web 2017
April 20, 2017

2. Jane Alexander, Chief Information Officer,
Cleveland Museum of Art
Phillip Tiongson, Principal, Potion
Lori Wienke, Associate Director of Interpretation,
Cleveland Museum of Art

4. Gallery One: “Technology that Serves to
Enhance” (New York Times, 2013)
The original Gallery One has been an unqualified success for the Cleveland Museum
of Art:
• Highlighted in major publications, including The New York Times and The Wall
Street Journal
• Featured as a Deep Dive symposium at a Museums and the Web Conference and
used as a case study in multiple publications, and for museums throughout the
world
• Won two Edison awards, four Museums and the Web awards, four Media and
Technology Muse awards, and multiple major design awards
• After the opening of Gallery One in 2013, individual attendance at the museum
increased by 31%, and the attendance of families increased by 29%

5. …but not everyone gets it.
“Having recently explored the digital prestidigitations
of several pioneering art museums,
I have arrived at one firm conclusion: I have seen the
future and we’re not there yet” (Lee Rosenbaum
“CultureGrrl”, September 7 2015)

6. • Gallery One was always considered a “proof of concept” for
the museum, rather than an endpoint
• Improve and update each component: the past four years
have allowed time to interview visitors, track usage, and
evaluate effectiveness
• Create all components to be modular, scalable and pull live
from the backend
• Utilize a cross-collaborative museum team to re-envision
technology, design, pedagogy, and artwork
• Upgrade Gallery One in stages and united under the same
brand
Why Change Gallery One?

7. comprised of the original 4 components of Gallery One,
upgraded in stages
Gallery OneàARTLENS Gallery:

8. ArtLens Studio: The Testbed for ArtLens Exhibition and Barrier-Free
Technology (June 2016)

9. ArtLens App (September 2016)
• Downloads in less than a minute and
takes up as much space as Snapchat
• Responsive wayfinding using
iBeacons throughout the museum
• Connects to the ArtLens Wall using
Bluetooth, eliminating use of RFIDs
and making synchronization seamless
• All of our systems pull live content,
writing it once and then updating it
everywhere

10. February 2014: CMA invited creative thinkers
to an all day brainstorming session to help
envision the next iteration of Gallery One:
Cleveland creatives, digital colleagues from
seven museums including MET, MOMA, MIA,
and V&A, a cross-collaborative team of CMA
staff that had not been involved in the initial
launch, and a new group of game designers.
Why?
– get new and fresh perspectives on the
current implementation of Gallery One
– learn how the themes and games in the
current Gallery One prepared visitors to
get the most out of their museum
experience
ArtLens Exhibition: Brainstorming

11. “We are Deeply Committed to the Use of
Technology as an Interpretive Tool.”
–William Griswold, Director of the Cleveland Museum of Art,
MW Tour April 2017

12. Reversing the Digital Experience
Original Gallery One

13. Gallery One properàArtLens Exhibition

14. • Serve as a launching point for visitors, whether casual attendees or
lifelong art lovers, to engage with art and connect with the collection
• 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
• No barriers to entry: replace the touchscreen with motion-activated
digital experiences
ArtLens Exhibition Goals

15. • Barrier-Free: remove the touchscreen
interface that divided visitors from the
artwork
• Intertwine rather than divide the art and
digital experience
• Gesture-responsive, expression
recognizing, and gaze-tracking
• New artwork can be cycled in and create
a totally new Exhibition experience every
12-18 months, without any physical
renovation or hardware changes
ArtLens Exhibition Technology

16. • Original Gallery One:
– Interactives organized around a pedagogical theme
– Each artwork was example of single concept, so an artwork could be in the
Lions lens or Globalism lens, but not in both
• ArtLens Exhibition:
– Every artwork is associated with at least two themes (purpose, symbols,
gesture/emotion & composition)
– Interactives are organized to facilitate learning about all concepts relevant to
an artwork, rather than just one
– Now, artworks are investigated in their entirety rather than serving as example
of a single theme
ArtLens Exhibition Pedagogy

17. COMPOSITION
Experience uncovers the
underlying structure of an
artwork. Fun, intuitive full-
body gestures and gaze
tracking games explore the
concepts of geometric, all-
over, and multiple focus
compositions, and provide an
entry point into the more
nuanced pedagogy of image
organization.

18. 18
SYMBOLS
Exploration facilitates
understanding of secular,
religious, and personal symbols.
The games provide satisfying
and simple entry points into the
complex world of encoded
artworks.

19. Gestures and emotions
may be the most
identifiable elements in a
work of art, but they can
also be the most complex
to decipher. These
interactives allow visitors
to learn through
embodying the figural
gestures and emotions in
artworks.
GESTURE &
EMOTION

20. 56
What is this object? How was it used? Are similar
objects used today? Games decode the purpose of
works of art, from functional to symbolic, by
challenging visitors to guess, sort, and even wear
artworks to understand their purpose.
PURPOSE

21. COMPOSITION
SYMBOLS
GESTURE & EMOTION
PURPOSE
Artworks and Themes

22. • 16 games in total; 14 across 6 projections and 2 at monitor stations
• Two high level types of games:
– Playful games: no failure, fun results every time, requires no prior
knowledge
– Brain games: more analytical, requires reflection, and has a right
answer for understanding the artwork
• Common elements:
– use full body and gesture to control the games
– teach art school foundational concepts
– get visitors to look closer at art
• 4 themes: gesture and emotion, symbols, purpose, composition
ArtLens Exhibition Interactives

25. DIGITAL GALLERY WITH ART IN IT

26. DIGITALGALLERY WITHART IN IT

27. Primacy of the Art + The Strength of the Collection

28. Primacy of the Art + The Strength of the Collection

29. Primacy of the Art + The Strength of the Collection

30. ARTLENS Exhibition

31. ARTLENS Exhibition

32. ACTUAL SIZE
Hercules and the Hydra, late 1500s-early 1600s
Artist Unknown, Northern Europe
late 16th-early 17th century
Bronze
See it right here in the ArtLens Exhibition!
YOU
ARE
HERE
ACTUAL SIZE
Hercules and the Hydra, late 1500s-early 1600s
Artist Unknown, Northern Europe
late 16th-early 17th century
Bronze
See it right here in the ArtLens Exhibition!
YOU
ARE
HERE
ACTUAL SIZE
Hercules and the Hydra, late 1500s-early 1600s
Artist Unknown, Northern Europe
late 16th-early 17th century
Bronze
See it right here in the ArtLens Exhibition!
YOU
ARE
HERE
Actual Size

33. 201
YOU
ARE
HERE
ACTUAL SIZE (Detail)
Apollo, God of Light, Eloquence, Poetry
and the Fine Arts with Urania, Muse of Astronomy, 1798
Charles Meynier (French, 1768-1832)
Oil on Canvas
See it now in Gallery 201
French Neoclassical Painting & Sculpture
201
YOU
ARE
HERE
ACTUAL SIZE (Detail)
Apollo, God of Light, Eloquence, Poetry
and the Fine Arts with Urania, Muse of Astronomy, 1798
Charles Meynier (French, 1768-1832)
Oil on Canvas
See it now in Gallery 201
French Neoclassical Painting & Sculpture
YOU
ARE
HERE
201
Actual Size

34. Multiplayer Full Body Real-Time
Syncing
New Tech /
Projection
100%
Updatable
Enhancing the Experience

35. Content Delivered Directly to App

36. Content Tools for Museum

37. Content Tools for Museum

38. Content Tools for Museum

39. Developing the Experience

40. New Game: Gaze Tracker

41. New Game: Gaze Tracker

42. New Game: Gaze Tracker

43. New Game: Express Yourself

44. New Game: Express Yourself

45. New Game: Express Yourself

46. New Game: Express Yourself

48. Looking in a Museum
There have been a number of surveys of how visitors
interact with paintings in museums. One found that an
average viewer goes up to a painting, looks at it for
less than 2 seconds, reads the wall text for another 10
seconds, glances at the painting to verify something in
the text, and moves on. Another survey concluded
people looked for a median time of 17 seconds. The
Louvre found that people looked at the Mona Lisa an
average of 15 seconds, which makes you wonder how
long they spend on the other 35,000 works in the
collection. A survey at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
supposedly found that people look at artworks for an
average of 32.5 seconds each, but they must not have
counted the ones people glance at.
—James Elkins, Art Critic and Historian
School of the Art Institute of Chicago

49. Preliminary Findings
• ~9.5 minutes of play per visitor (Some spent 20!)
• Subjects explore 7+ digital artworks
• 88% reported feeling more comfortable looking
at art
• 70% reported looking at artwork closer
• Subjects want to go see the art in person and
use the tools they have learned

50. Try Our Alpha!
• Friday night party and Saturday at CMA
• Pre-opening Crash Party on June 23rd
• Give us feedback on #ArtLens @ClevelandArt
@janecalexander @philliptiongson