The Social Museum

A. Scrivener
The Social Museum
Designing for Human Interaction through Technology

Title: The Social Museum: Designing for Human Interaction through Technology
Ashley Scrivener
Museum Exhibition Planning + Design
The University of the Arts
Submitted April 2015
A thesis submitted to The University of the Arts in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the master of fine arts degree.
© Ashley Scrivener 2015 All Rights Reserved
No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the
author. All photographs and drawings are the property of Ashley Scrivener unless otherwise
noted. Material owned by other company holders should not be reproduced under any
circumstance. This document is not for publication and was produced in satisfaction of
thesis requirements for the Master Fine Arts in Museum Exhibition Planning and Design in
the Department of Museum Studies, The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
under the directorship of Polly McKenna-Cress.
For more information contact:
Ashley Scrivener
(717) 380.2681
scrivstudios@gmail.com

Ariel Schwartz, Committee Chair
Associate Director of Interactive Technology
at The Philadelphia Museum of Art
Jane Alexander
Chief Information Officer
at The Cleveland Museum of Art
This thesis is made possible through the support of committee members:
Polly McKenna-Cress
Director, Museum Exhibition Planning + Design
at The University of the Arts
And through additional support from:
Neil Kleinman
Director
Corzo Center for the Creative Economy

Aesthetic - concerned with
beauty or the appreciation of
beauty
Behavior - the way in which one
conducts oneself, especially in
relation to others
Emotion - a natural instinctive
state derived from one’s
circumstances. Mood.
Evolutionary - born from the
process of developing
Genetic - of or relating to genes.
Hereditary.
Intellect - the faculty of reasoning
and understanding objectively
Interactive - of two people or
things having an effect on one
another
Social - public displays of
engagement with objects or
individuals
User - a person who uses or
operates something

X
Objects in the art museum
Tools for expressing
aspects of art through
digital interaction
The ‘X’ factor which allows Art
and Interactive Technoogy to
be truly social is public human
engagement in the art mseum
Public displays of
engagement with art
objects or other visitors
through conversation,
movement, looking and
other behaviors that
denote engagement

Human
Art Object Interactive Technology
Engaging with the art museum to
reaffirm one’s own humanity
Engaging with interactive
technology to fulfill social desires
Fulfilling authentic human impulses surrounding
self-identity through socialization
In synthesizing experiences with
art objects and interactive technologies
basic human desires are fulfilled.
Introduction

Through cultivating the visitor’s intellectual
and emotional relationships to objects, interactive
technologies have the potential to promote new
models for social exchange in the art museum:
shifting behavior expectations and shifting social
conventions in the art museum and beyond.
The Social Museum: Designing for Human
Interaction through Technology, seeks to
understand the complex social constructs at play
when visitor’s connect with one another through
art objects. In understanding these systems, art
museums can produce interactive technologies
which further synthesize these systems into
meaningful museum experiences.
Art museums across the world are using
interactive technologies to transform the
expectation of what an art museum can be. As
this expectation evolves, so too does the behavior
of visitors. This thesis examines cases in which art
museums have utilized interactive technology to
transform a historically individualistic museum
experience into a more socially active one and
the benefits within doing so. A new art museum
experience is taking shape, one which not only
encourages socialization and individual expression,
but places value in the visitor’s experience with the
collection.
As interactive technology becomes an integral
part of the way humans communicate, learn,
and play, so too does it become a part of the
experiences designed by museums. Through
interactive technology, museums can offer a
multitude of pathways through which individuals
can form affinities with objects while simultaneously
enlivening the curiosity and self-expression which
connects humans to one another socially.
Expectations of the modern museum visitors
are shifting, and museums across the world
are rising to meet the challenge. Because time
has become one of the visitor’s most valuable
investments, each visit must be fulfilling in order for
the relationship between the art museum and the
visitor to be ongoing. In recognizing that humans
are individuals, each with unique learning styles,
interests, and preconceptions, museums must
design their experiences with a growing awareness
of the emotional and intellectual diversity of their
audience. Through interactive technology, the
museum can create experiences encompassing
varying pathways toward engagement for almost
all individuals.

When an individual acquires an affinity
for an object it means that they associate
a personal meaning with it. In many cases
where affinities to objects are formed, the
object becomes a representation of the
individual. Exceptionally meaningful affinities
can fulfill all three: emotional, intellectual
and social desires, simultaneously. In
evaluating interactive technologies, one can
determine which modes were likely or unlikely
considered in the design process. Often,
interactive designs favor a predominant
mode, using the others as contextual and
structural support mechanisms. In designing
for all three modalities, the museum can
transform the inevitable diversity of their
audience into social exchanges equally rich
in their diversity of thought and approach.
There is little progress made when both
sides feel similarly. However, when they are
asked to deliberately disagree for the sake
of debate, both parties are challenged to
think more deeply about their perspective
and logic. When interaction is designed to
obviously rely upon an individual’s unique
aspects, the individual is more comfortable
acting naturally versus mirroring expectations.
Art museums are inherently social spaces.
Visitors are most likely to come to the
museum in groups. They come to have an
experience with the artwork and with one
another. Further, visitors come to experience
one another’s experience with the objects.
Through observation of an individual’s
emotional and intellectual engagement,
others are more likely to engage. This
type of engagement is a direct product of
socialization in the art museum and a central
aspect in the conversation surrounding the
shifting role of art museums.
Humans can be observed utilizing three
psychological modalities when encountering
art objects. These modes are intellectual,
emotional and social. All three modes are
reliant on the art object and rarely exist
entirely divorced from the remaining modes.
Designing interactive technologies with these
modalities in mind, leads to greater potential
for the visitor to establish psychological
affinities with object(s) and in turn, the art
museum.
WhitneyMuseumofArt,2013.

Social Mode
Emotional Mode
Engaging through human emotion.
Intellectual Mode
Engaging through human intellect.
Engaging publicly or
directly with other
individuals in the art
museum.
Art Object
When utilizing emotional and intellectual modes
inherent in all human beings,
social engagement facilitates affinities with art objects.

Until recently, the intellectual mode was
most commonly favored in most museums
including art museums, as it was seen as
a space for broadening, expressing and
reaffirming one’s knowledge. Interactive
technologies with predominantly intellectual
modes are concerned with presenting
information, clarifying exhibition themes
and/or expressing scholarly research often
conducted by the curator(s). The intellectual
mode has long existed in the art museum
under the autonomy of a curatorial expertise.
An expertise which is unattainable to the
average visitor. Though certainly attractive
to those whose main pathway toward
object affinity is through thought and
comprehension, others can find this mode
alienating and inaccessible. This mode
serves as the driving force between the visitor
and the object. It is through the deepest
understanding of an object that the interactive
can extract a compelling story through which
the visitor can attach themselves. Simply, the
intellectual understanding of the art object
is the foundation upon which emotional and
social interactions can be facilitated in relation
to the object.
When the intellectual mode is not the
predominant one, the role of the curator
remains important because emotional and
social modes are often more impactful
when they contain intellectual stimuli.
Though the role of the curator has certainly
shifted through the use of crowd-sourced
information, folksonomy and other similar
forms of information collection, the
importance of the scholarly research of
objects is regeneratively exercised with each
new narrative discovery, as these discoveries
in an object’s narrative allow for more
meaningful emotional and social accessibility.
[intellectual mode]

[emotional mode]
For some visitors, the emotional mode is
most closely tied to the concept of acquiring
an affinity with an art object. For these
visitors, the art object is representative of
their emotions. Consider a family heirloom.
The object itself, may mean very little,
but its emotional value is constructed by
the affinities which other family members
have attributed to it. It represents specific
emotional facets of their connections to one
another. In utilizing the intellectual mode as
a support mechanism, an art object’s unique
narrative can be the catalyst for a visitor’s
emotional engagement. These visitors are
drawn to objects which act as emotional
conduits and are likely to revisit experiences
which contain emotional stimulations.
This often occurs through the use of
emotional narratives, nostalgia, expression
of their individual voice and/or creativity.
The emotional mode has been favored
moderately by the art museum through
more personalized interpretations of artists
and their art, in asking visitors to connect to
emotionally driven content, acts of individual
expression and interactive experiences.Mother and Child

[social mode]
The social mode has been the least
favored by art museums historically. Yet,
it is potentially the most closely tied to an
individual’s strongest affinity. Because the
social mode requires both intellectual and
emotional modes in order to function,
the experience is meaningful in myriad of
ways simultaneously. However, because the
success of the social mode relies upon many
concurrent factors, high quality interactions in
this mode are also arguably the most difficult
to attain.
Social interaction relies upon the
intellectual mode. When two or more
individuals communicate using a shared
language system, their communication is
based in their shared knowledge of that
language. You would not use the same
vocabulary when speaking with a child as you
would a colleague. It is the shared intelligence
of language which provides a common
ground. Likewise, the intellectual mode is
TheClevelandMuseumofArt,GalleryOne.

responsible for an individual’s understanding of
whatever content a social interaction surrounds.
Consider two individuals on a date at The
Philadelphia Museum of Art. The individuals
discover an interactive which allows them
to hear music recited from notations on an
object. Because they share this experience of
acquiring a specific knowledge, the intellectual
mode has deepened their social and emotional
connection. In the art museum, the content is
related to the art object. The social engagement
surrounding an object’s content should not
assume the individual has a prior understanding
of the content, but rather the ability to apply
their existing and intellectual abilities to it.
Humans are inherently attuned to recognize
systems of information. Human-centered
designs which honor these abilities have a
greater probability of facilitating meaningful
social interaction through the intellectual mode.
Likewise, social interaction also relies upon
the emotional mode. Social interaction relies
upon the emotional mode. When two or more
individuals communicate, their communications
are based in an emotional understanding of
one another. You would not share the same
emotions when speaking with a colleague as
you would a close friend. It is the unconscious
threshold inherent in communicating emotional
aspects which establishes any social interaction.
Likewise, the emotional mode is responsible
for the strength of an individual’s connection to
whatever content a social interaction surrounds.
Consider a family visiting the Cooper-Hewitt
Smithsonian Design Museum. They choose
to participate in an interactive which allows
them to draw designs with a digital pen
that are displayed on the walls in front of
them projected and patterned. It looks
like wallpaper. They all take a turn adding
shapes to a collaborative design. They
learn a bit about wallpaper designers in the
museum’s collection. Because they have
a shared creative moment, the emotional
mode has deepened their social and
intellectual connection. In the art museum,
the content is related to the art object. The
social engagement surrounding an object’s
content should not assume the individual
has a prior understanding of the content, but
rather the ability to apply their emotionally
attuned abilities to it. Humans are inherently
emotional in their desire to recognize
narrative and meaning and express their own
selves. Human-centered designs which honor
these abilities have a greater probability
of facilitating meaningful social interaction
through the emotional mode.
The social mode facilitates experiences
which require public conversation,
exploration, curiosity or expression. Through
public exchanges of interaction, active
participants can facilitate social engagement
for more passive observers. Consider the
interactive at The Cleveland Museum of Art’s
Gallery One, which asks visitors to mimic the
poses depicted by subjects in their collection.
Visitors who are actively engaged in posing
provide a shift in the behavioral expectations
of the space for all who observe the act.

dimensional symbols, logos, etc. The second
order concerns the three-dimensional design
of objects and products. The third order
concerns the design of ideas and planning
as they enlighten actions and organizations.
The fourth order and the one which will
be explored in this book, concerns the
integration and synthesis of complex systems,
infrastructures or environments.
Through approaching the design of
interactive technologies for art museums
from the fourth order, a synthesis of complex
systems can be achieved. This book aims
to analyze the possibility of attaining social
interaction through the human systems of
emotion and intellect. These emotional and
intellectual systems, found in human genetics
and further represented in society, can be
transformed into social opportunities through
the fourth order of design.
Often, in this space, passive observers are
inspired to come back later and try it for
themselves. In this way, the initial participants
inspire a broadened range of behaviors for
onlookers through their interactions.
Within the safety of an experience
designed for social interaction, social
vulnerabilities can be transformed.
Vulnerability can transformed into emotional
and intellectual growth through the social
mode as the art museum empowers
individuals to act outside the museum’s
historically anti-social behavioral expectations.
When individuals are permitted to be openly
engaged, or have the ability to observe
others doing so, they have a much greater
potential to engage.
In this investigation, the ability to
access the social mode through interactive
technologies in the art museum will be
explored through a series of case studies.
These studies will be supported by the
examination of neuropsychology as seen
in intellectual and emotional modes as
they contribute to human interactions with
objects and one another. These cases favor
the social mode to varying degrees and
have observable emotional and intellectual
outcomes. Where data is available, it will be
used to evaluate the failures and successes of
design goals.
Designer Richard Buchanan has
established four orders of design. The
first order concerns the design of two-
Notes,withsketchesanddiagrams,byLeonardodaVinci

“The focus is no longer on material systems—systems of
“things”—but on human systems, the integration of information,
physical artifacts, and interactions in environments of living, working,
playing, and learning. I believe that one of the most significant
developments in systems thinking is the recognition that human
beings can never see or experience a system, yet we know that our
lives are strongly influenced by systems and environments of our own
making and by those that nature provides. By definition, a system is
the totality of all that is contained, has been contained, and may yet
be contained within it. We can never see or experience this totality. We
can only experience our personal pathway through a system. And
in our effort to navigate the systems and environments that affect our
lives, we create symbols or representations that attempt to express the
idea or thought that is the organizing principle. The idea or thought
that organizes a system or environment is the focus of fourth-order
design. Like interaction, a new focus on environments and systems —
which are where interactions take place—has strongly affected design
thinking and design research in the United States and in many other
parts of the world.” Richard Buchanan
“Conflict Kitchen is a restaurant that only serves cuisine from countries with which the United States is in conflict.”
Conflict Kitchen, Jon Rubin

The interactive landscape has shifted
dramatically over the past decade. Logistical
actions such as purchasing bus tickets,
validating parking passes, reserving a table
for dinner, depositing checks, ordering
pizza and paying bills among countless
others have become digital acts. Almost all
of these digital acts are accessible from an
individual’s mobile device. Today’s interactive
landscape is one of accessibility, efficiency
and immediacy. This landscape is also one
with an established language system- heavily
reliant on graphic symbols. As designers of
interactive technologies, it is vital that we
understand the existing interactive landscape
in order to design experiences which allow
the visitor to focus on the content versus
comprehending new systems. When systems
do not functionally integrate within the
existing landscape, they risk the possibility of
not being user-friendly.

Expectations dictate our human experience.
Human satisfaction in intellectual, emotional and
social interactions is rooted in the psychology of
expectation.
Jacqueline Corbelli, Chairman and CEO of
BrightLine, an agency pioneering the capabilities
of interactive technologies advertising.
I “opt in,” I “engage,” I “interact,” I “like,” I
“share,” I “buy now,” and I repeat experiences
I enjoy across all the devices I own. This is the
currency of content, media, and marketing
in this millennium. There has never been a
more favorable or important time to be on
a deliberate path of adaptive change that
acknowledges these realities.”
When individuals choose to interact, their
expectations of other interactions dictate each
following experience. As art museums raise
internal production standards for interactive
technologies, visitor expectations surrounding
interactive technology in the art museum
will continue to rise concurrently. As a field,
it is becoming more important that we learn
from one anther through communicating our
design process, interactive goals, prototyping
iterations, and outcomes through data. Cross-
institutional collaboration has never been more
important for our field than now, as we embark
on a massive cultural shift through interactive
technologies.

The most impactful catalyst for society’s
developing a profound competency
for interactive language has been the
homogenization of the personal interactive
device. The Smartphone. The Smartphone
houses a plethora of interactive access to
satisfy intellectual, emotional and social
desires.
The smartphone revolution, which occurred
in 2007, did not only provide individuals with
an unprecedented ability to access information
but also with a platform on which display their
individualism within a social sphere. Social
media personalized the smartphone into a
social necessity for individuals, groups and
brands. Popular applications such as Facebook,
Snapchat and Instagram draw upon all three
modes to varying degrees and when engaging
with these systems, the user feels satisfied
in a multitude of ways. It can also be clearly
observed that when socialization is occurring
through social media, it is rooted in the
intellectual or emotional modes.
When these modes are utilized out of context,
there is a potential for controversy. Consider a
twitter-war in which two parties are having a
heated debate concerning a political topic. One of
the participants is at a loss and decides to speak
about the other participant in a disrespectful
way that has no relevance to the debate. This
emotional trigger was out of place and is clearly a
deterrent from the intellectual mode. When one
mode is used as a scapegoat, the other mode is
often reflected upon negatively concerning the
abuser. Observers may respond that the emotional
antagonist’s response was “unintelligent”. At
times, emotional and intellectual aspects naturally
contrast one another, but this case is a constructed,
irrelevant opposition. In order to design productive
social encounters, the emotional and intellectual
roles should not only be clear to the participant,
but also without a constructed opposition. This will
allow for natural opposition to emerge which will
help to facilitate relevant social engagements.
This revolution set a standard for all other
encounters with interactive technology. A standard
which not only defines the language systems and
symbology used in interactive technologies, but
also the set of expectations surrounding them.

Interactive technologies have a profound ability
to facilitate creativity. The smartphone allows you
to personalize your mobile experience by curating
the apps you choose to download. Instagram
allows every user to be a photographer, snapchat-
every user an underground filmmaker, twitter- a
poet. Successful applications fuel and fulfill the
desire to be creative through what you produce
and how you are perceived. Interactive technology
provides tools for individuals to personalize their
digital realities through diversely creative pathways,
many of which are based in the social mode.
People like to do things the way they want to
do them, and when they want to do them. People
like autonomy. Rather than hire an expert, people
often want to do things on their own. An example
is App Inventor from Google that helps people
create their own apps (100 Things, pg. 142)

http://www.business2community.com/social-media/14-social-media-marketing-trends-2014-0745445

Humans crave interaction. It is not only what
propels our social existence, but the biological
survival of our species relies upon it. Thus, not
only do humans desire interaction, they require
it. In fact, prisoners kept n solitary confinement
too long, go mad and eventually die, from the
lack of human interaction. (ACLU/Human Rights
Watch (2012). Growing Up Locked Down: Youth
in Solitary Confinement in Jails and Prisons in the
United States. United States of America. pp. 29–35.
ISBN 1-56432-949-6.) As technology continues to
facilitate how humans interact with one another,
our socialization is constructed by the capabilities
of the technology we employ for those purposes.
In modern society, interactive technology often
replaces human interaction. When technology
responds to us, our primal urge to receive feedback
perpetuates further interaction.
Philip Auslander speaks about ‘technological
liveness’, referring to the machine as a human
substitute providing a false sense of the social
interaction we naturally desire. The machine is our
partner in conversation. As we give information to
it (input), it gives back to us (output).
When you go to a Web site or use an online
application, you have assumptions about how the
site will respond to you and what the interaction
http://newsroom.unl.edu/announce/files/file51575.jpg

will be like. And many of these expectations
mirror the expectations that you have for person-
to-person interactions. If the Web site is not
responsive or takes too long to load, it’s like the
person you’re speaking to is not looking at you, or
is ignoring you. (100 Thins pg. 151)
To speak about the quality of output in the field
of computer science the term “GIGO” is used. It
stands for “garbage in, garbage out”. This means
that a computer which is based on sequences of
logic cannot produce meaningful engagement
solely through stagnant output. Quality input
must be the catalyst for quality output. It is the
designer’s job to elicit quality input and then
deliver a quality output which fulfills the users
expectations of quality. Consider a conversation
you would have with a friend. If you give little you
get little, but if you are engaged and thoughtful
you are more likely to receive the same type
of response. Conversely, when we engage with
an individual expecting a quick interaction, but
the exchange becomes long and drawn out, we
become socially frustrated. The same can be said
for expecting depth and instead feeling slighted
by receiving something less. Interactive technology
should support a range of engagements to satisfy
a range of individuals with varying expectations.
Appropriate levels of output should be available to
match the input of varying “conversations”.
Designing for a range of interaction requires
prototyping and usability testing during design
development. These processes lead to well-
informed designs based in the reality of human
desire and competency. The role of testing has
grown exponentially in the field of design, as
designers recognize the importance of qualitative
data pertaining to user experiences.
Human competencies for interacting with
technological devices have grown exponentially
in the modern era. Recall for a moment when
grocery stores first began implementing self-
checkout. These early interactive experiences
seemed exhausting and intimidating, leading
many customers to wait in line for a human-to-
human experience rather than try their luck at
communicating with the machine. In its earlier
form, self-checkout often left the user feeling
inadequate and embarrassed when the machine
failed to communicate correctly. This is a clear
example of inflexible design. A thoughtfully
designed interactive encompasses flexibility inclined
to engage users by mirroring their individual
engagement, leading the user to feel smart and
successful. This type of design considers the
thresholds that exist within the human psyche
and digital landscape and finds unique solutions,
allowing the two to integrate naturally.
As self-checkout technologies grew more
sophisticated in their design, so grew the likelihood
of shoppers to engage with them. As interactive
producers, these examples in the world around
us, however perpendicular to the interpretation of
art objects, are our classroom: the ATM machine,
the text message, the parking ticket. How do
these technologies make us feel? This is the daily
landscape of interactive technology engrained in
our modern society and therefor, this emotional
literacy what designs should aim to facilitate.

2
ARTMuseums
http://petter-freetrips.blogspot.com/2010/07/modern-art-museums-wonder-in-avignon-of.html

Art museums have a unique opportunity
to respond to the social shift through
interactive technology as they work to
facilitate the formation of affinities between
their visitors and their collection.
Art museums all over the world are
utilizing interactive technologies to deepen
the relationship to their visitors by better
interpreting their collections and providing
new platforms for visitors to interact with
this content and with one another. In the
following cases the social mode will be
examined through the observable behavior
of the museum visitors as well as data
sourced from the technologies. In both
cases represented here, the social mode is
predominant while it utilizes realia, or the
system of learning through real objects, to
form affinities for visitors.

Using popular culture as a lens for this
comparison, the behavior expectations of the
museum space have been widely regarded as the
bourgeois, with those who exist outside of the
curtsy/bow system being regarded as unrefined or
altogether socially primitive. However, it is through
the lens of popular absurdism, that we can now
regard the bourgeois outcast as the emotional and
intellectual mastermind. The individual who acts on
impulses based in desire and instinct rather than
societal expectation. At the Cleveland Museum of
Art this behavior is being favored through the use
of interactive technologies which encourage a new
set of social behaviors.
Commonly based in language; the desire to
understand and be understood, social conventions
prevail. When designing for social interaction,
recognition of the range of conventions at play
between individuals in the art museum is necessary.
If a recognition of convention is transparent the
design, the individual is more likely to participate.
Through acknowledging the convention(s), a
foundation is established by the designer versus
being reliant on the individual(s). If the individual(s)
feel as though they must construct their own social
convention, less meaningful participation is to be
expected.

For the first time, museums are encouraging wildly eccentric behaviors as a way to
engage and they are using interactive technologies to communicate the message.
(right) Visitor at The Cleveland Museum of Art mimicking the pose of a sculpture from the
museums collection, as prompted by the interactive she is engaged with.
(left) Character from the movie, The Beginners, who is thought to be ‘crazy’, mimicking a
sculpture through her pose.

CaseNo.1
“The Cleveland Museum
of Art created Gallery
One to build audiences
by providing a fun and
engaging environment for
visitors with all levels of
knowledge about art.”
Social
Emotional
Intellectual

Consider the interactions of visitors at The
Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gallery One, where the
social mode can be observed as a main modality.
Gallery One offers visitors opportunities to sift
through their collection based on colors, shapes
and themes among other pathways. Through
these intellectual and emotional social exchanges,
the individual is enabled to grow in their self-
awareness. In building meaningful relationships
with its patrons, the art museum can design a
space for the visitor to explore the vulnerabilities
which connect them to art objects, others and
themselves. What makes this interaction social
is that it takes place on a massive touch screen
wall for all visitors to see. This interaction utilizes
methods of visual media, mathematics and motion
to appeal to intrapersonal learners- or those who
are concerned with their individual interests.
In addition to the collection wall, several other
interactive stations live throughout the galleries.
These stations prompt visitors to engage with
layers of art content in various ways. One station
invites visitors to mimic facial expressions of those
portrayed by figures in the collection. Another
invites them to mimic body poses found in the
collection, both are kinesthetic learning moments.
These public displays of engagement act as
powerful opportunities for all visitors, both active
participants and observers. Often, people are
observed interacting with these technologies in
groups, encouraging one another to engage. This
method of learning and teaching by example is
called scaffolding.
In these cases, the overarching mode is social
and facilitated largely through exploration and
play. However, these cases utilize intellectual and
emotional modes found in their collection for
contextual support.
The Cleveland Museum of Art embarked
upon the design and development of Gallery
One with a set of goals in mind. The goals which
they established can be seen clearly reflected
in the response from visitors as well as museum
professionals, recognizing these technologies
as a revolutionary approach to how museum’s
communicate with their visitors.
“One of the most transformational aspects of
Gallery One involved the goals for visitors’ ‘take
away’: we aimed for experience rather than specific
content delivery. The team wanted visitors to
1. Have fun with art,
2. Use the interactive games and interpretation as
the spark for understanding and social
experiences with art, and
3. Find transformative moments of discovery that
make art relevant for them today.
Gallery One and ArtLens were designed to honor
visitors’ behavior.”

“The six interactive stations
collectively known as “lenses” feature touch screens
that allow visitors to find out information on related
artworks within the space itself, and enable unique
interactive activities at each station. While each
station shares a similar home screen layout, they all
possess their own theme related to the artwork on
display.
Information is provided in a question
and answer format, and hotspots allow visitors
to find out additional information by touching
specially designated areas to find out more
information. Additionally, the touch capability of
the lenses allows visitors the opportunity to have
interactive viewpoints that would not be possible
in a traditional gallery setting, such as the back
of a bowl or the opportunity to zoom in on a
painting.” (http://www.clevelandart.org/gallery-one/
interactives)
With a mission that is as much about
engagement and enhancing community
connections as it is about looking toward the future
of museums as civic spaces, their approach to
technology is not only cutting edge, but holistic
and mission-driven.
“...the intention of Gallery One was to
transform our visitors into participants rather
than passive observers. The Collection Wall’s
complexity, scale, and visually compelling screens
revolutionized how we perceive user engagement
with our collections in the museum space. Visitors
browse works individually or communally, create
their own tour and download it to an iPad and,
when they share their tours and favorites with the
Wall, they contribute back to the museum and
the experience. The constantly changing, organic
nature of the screens, enhances the creativity of the
museum staff to introduce new themes and filters
for browsing works on view. So each visit delivers a
new view and new discovery for the visitor.”
Gallery One, which has set the bar for
interactive technologies in the art museum,
approached this project with social goals in
mind. After their first year of operation, the
museum released the following data. Through
sharing their data, the museum is embracing a
collaborative trend growing in the museum field.
This collaborative trend suggests that through
sharing our attempts and discoveries, we can
become stronger as a unit, we can help make
our art museum more valuable by helping to
make all other art museums more valuable. The
data released tells us about how visitors are using
Gallery One and why. From the following sets
of information, other art museums can begin to
make better informed decisions pertaining to their
development of interactive technologies.

Aesthetics or “the philosophy of art” as
determined by Hegel in the early 1800s has been
studied as a faction of philosophy since 380 B.C.
Hegel found that the universal elements of beauty
were order, symmetry, and definiteness. Similarly,
these principals exist in other epistemes (or fields)
by which humans categorize and understand their
world. Including linguistics, biology and economics,
to which philosopher Michel Foucault extrapolates
the most predominant correlations. We understand
aesthetics in the same way we understand the
order of things, because aesthetics depict the
basic principals through which we categorize the
natural world. The desire to gain or in having an
understanding of aesthetics can not be divorced
from an understanding of all human systems,
natural and constructed.
Not all aesthetic intellect is learned. Intellect
of aesthetics is also genetic. Naturally human.
Portions of our aesthetic intellect are too, arguably
genetic. If our aesthetic preferences are genetically
intelligent, our interactions with art objects do
not only represent the intellect of the artist, but
the evolutionary ability to intellectually assess
aesthetics as it exists in all individuals.
What does it mean to be genetically
predisposed towards an art object? The genre of
neuro-aesthetics is a relatively new, yet growing
sub-division of empirical aesthetics. Neuro-
aesthetics received its formal definition in 2002 and
seeks a scientific understanding of the human’s
neurological connection to art objects. In speaking
about Art as intellect, this type of human intellect
can not be overlooked.
Hegel

Philosopher Dennis Dutton opens his book, The
Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution,
with an experiment conducted by Vitaly Komar
and Alexander Melamid in 1933 that is relevant
here. The two artists extensively surveyed the
artistic preferences of individuals in ten countries
in order to create paintings ‘most-liked’ and least-
liked’ for each country. In an attempt to depict
cultural differences in aesthetic preference. Vitaly
and Melamid discovered something much larger:
a universally human predisposition to aesthetics
which transcended all cultures. They discovered an
aesthetic preference that was inherently human.
“Melamid remarks: ‘...we’ve talked to hundreds
of people—they have this blue landscape in their
head. It sits there, and it’s not a joke. They can
see it, down to the smallest detail. So I’m wonder-
ing, may be the blue landscape is genetically
imprinted in us... We now completed polls in
many countries—China, Kenya, Iceland, and so
on—and the results are strikingly similar. Can you
believe it? Kenya and Iceland—what can be more
different in the whole fucking world—and both
want blue landscapes.’ (http://www.ias.ac.in/jgenet/
Vol90No3/511.pdf) (show the blue landscape V&M
created in response to this study)(ask if the reader
prefers the blue landscape, does their friend? What
about the stranger sitting next to them?)
In recognizing the presence of biologically
imprinted aesthetics, we can design spaces which
allow individuals to explore these conventions
together. Because the convention is inherently
social, a social investigation among visitors is not
only relevant, but necessary.
In his TED Talk, A Darwinian Theory of Beauty,
Dutton further explains how the evolutionary works
of Darwin can aid our understanding of universal
aesthetic taste. “People agree the paintings or
movies or music are beautiful because their
cultures determine a uniformity of aesthetic taste.
Taste for both natural beauty and for the arts
travel across cultures with great ease. ...There are
many differences among the arts, but there are
also universal, cross-cultural aesthetic pleasures
and values. How can we explain this universality?
...Beauty is an adaptive affect which we extend and
intensify in the creation and enjoyment of works
of art and entertainment. ...Consider briefly, an
important source of pleasure, the magnetic pull
of beautiful landscapes. People in very different
cultures all over the world tend to like a particular
kind of landscape. A landscape that just happens
to be similar to the Pleistocene savannas where
we evolved. This landscape shows up today on
calendars, on postcards, in the design of golf
courses and public parks, and in gold framed
pictures that hang in living rooms from New York
to New Zealand. It’s a kind of Hudson River School
landscape featuring open spaces of low grasses
interspersed with copses of trees (the trees by
the way are often preferred if they fork near the
ground, to say trees you could scramble up if
you were in a tight fix). The landscape shows the
presence of water directly in view. ...indications
of animal or bird life as well as diverse greenery.
And, finally, a path or a road, perhaps a river bank
or a shore line that extends into the distance-
almost inviting you to follow it. This landscape
type is regarded as beautiful even by people from
countries that don’t have it.”

Ask a friend to describe their ideal painting.
Does it match Vitaly and Komar’s ideal?

“We’ve talked to hundreds of people—they have
this blue landscape in their head. It sits there, and
it’s not a joke.
We now completed polls in many countries—
China, Kenya, Iceland, and so on—and the results
are strikingly similar. Can you believe it? Kenya and
Iceland—what can be more different in the whole
fucking world—and both want blue landscapes.”

“The presence and conduct of others
profoundly influences what we see and what we
do and the opportunities that arise for exploration,
investigation and learning. Visitors encounter and
use interactives in interaction with companions
and strangers, and the design and layout of the
interactives impact on the emergence of the forms
of participation and interaction in the exhibition.”
(Heath 14).
Social interaction has its own, unique set of
genetic origins. Human evolution and survival relies
upon the ability to observe in order to learn. In the
scientific study of behaviors, this trait is most clearly
observed through mirror neurons. In the book
100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About
People, author Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D., provides
a comprehensive view at the social implications of
mirror neurons.
“Let’s say you’re holding an ice cream cone. You
notice that the ice cream is dripping, and you think
that maybe you should lick off the dripping part
before it drips on your shirt. If you were hooked
up to an fMRI machine, you would first see the
premotor cortex lighting up while you’re thinking
about licking off the dripping cone, and then you
would see the primary motor cortex light as you
move your arm. Now here comes the interest- ing

part. Let’s say it’s not you that has the dripping ice
cream cone. It’s your friend. You are watching your
friend’s cone start to drip. If you watch your friend
lift his arm and lick the dripping cone, a subset of
the same neurons also fire in your premotor cortex.
Just watching other people take an action causes
some of the same neurons to fire as if you were
actually taking the action yourself. This subset of
neurons has been dubbed mirror neurons.
The latest theories are that mirror neurons are also
the way we empathize with others. We are literally
experiencing what others are experiencing through
these mirror neurons, and that allows us to deeply,
and literally, understand how another person feels.
Don’t underestimate the power of watching
someone else do something. If you want to
influence someone’s behavior, then show someone
else doing the same task. (100 Things, pg. 147 -
148)”
In interviewing The Cleveland Museum of
Art’s Jane Alexander concerning Gallery One,
she mentions the impact of visitors first watching
another visitor interacting. Once we see someone
interact, we feel empowered to interact. In the
example above of the dripping ice cream cone,
our brains anticipate the action of other individuals
in the same way it prepares to act on its own.
But what would happen if two individuals were
sharing the melting ice cream cone? Both holding
it at the same time? In the following studies, you
will see how individuals working together impacts
the quality and social implications of the action
performed collaboratively.
Synchronization is one way individuals take
action collaboratively. Behavioral psychologists
Scott Wiltermuth and Chip Heath examined the
social implications of utilizing synchrony to achieve
cooperation in their 2009 study.
They tested combinations of walking in
step, not walking in step, singing together, and
other movements with groups of participants.
(Wiltermuth, Scott, and Heath, C. 2009. “Synchrony
and cooperation.” Psychological Science 20(1): 1–5.)
Wiltermuth and Heath’s research also showed that
you don’t have to feel good about the group, or
the group activity, in order to be more cooperative.
Just the act of doing the synchronous activity
seems to strengthen social attachment among the
group members. (100 Things pg. 149)
In 2008, Jonathan Haidt published an article titled
Hive Psychology, Happiness, and Public Policy.
The article connects Wiltermuth and Heath’s study
on synchronous activity (based in the function of
mirror neurons) with an evolutionary psychology
that allows us to experience happiness. Susan
Weinschenk notes,
“Essentially his hypothesis is that synchronous
activity promotes bonding and therefore helps
the group survive. Mirror neurons are involved in
synchronous activity, and there is a certain type of
happiness that humans can’t get any other way
than engaging in synchronous activity. (100 Things
pg. 162) (Haidt, Jonathan, Seder, P., and Kesebir,
S. 2008. “Hive psychology, happiness, and public
policy.” Journal of Legal Studies 37.)

In a technological culture which provides
a seemingly endless realm of possibilities to
substitute our social interactions with digital ones,
how can interactive technologies facilitate social
engagements outside of the screen? Weinschecnk
continues,
“Because most online interactions don’t take
place with others in physical proximity, there are
limited opportunities for designers to build in
synchronous activity.” (100 things pg. 163)
What happens when two or more individuals
congregate around technology? As we have seen,
observing another human interacting certainly
triggers mirror neurons, prompting others to
mirror the action. Likewise, observing emotional
expression triggers mirror neurons associated
with emotions. It is difficult to remain optimistic
when surrounded by pessimists. It is hard not to
lose yourself in a particularly emotional scene
in a movie, mirroring the emotions the actors
are portraying. Weinschenk also explores this
emotional mirroring through the research of Nicola
Canessa, Ph.D. of Cognitive Neuroscience who
studied how our social relationships impact the
strength of our emotional mirrors. Consider the
emotional scene in the movie once again. If the
acting is well done, if the emotional reaction is well-
written and believable, if you feel like you know the
character, you are more likely to feel emotionally
attached to their emotions. If you do not know the
character, the strength of emotional mirroring will
be significantly less.

“When you observe someone who is feeling a
certain emotion, the same parts of your brain are
active as in the brain of the person experiencing
the emotion.” (Canessa, Nicola, Motterlini, M.,
Di Dio, C., Perani, D., Scifo, P., Cappa, S. F., and
Rizzolatti, G. 2009. “Understanding others’ regret: A
FMRI study.” PLoS One 4(10): e7402.)
However, not all mirroring is purely reactive. It is
also common to interact, engage or express certain
behaviors in order to trigger another human’s
mirroring. This can be seen clearly in individuals
who successfully assume roles of leadership
by using their actions to garner support from
observers. This can be seen in macro applications
such as political campaigns and advertising as
well as micro applications such as idoscyncrosies
occurring in a conversation between two friends.
Consider laughter; laughter is contagious.
Robert Provine is one of the few neuroscientists
studying laughter. He has concluded that laughter
is an instinctual (not learned) behavior that creates
social bonding.
Laughter is for social communication. People
rarely laugh when they’re alone. They laugh 30
times more often when they’re with others.
The person who is speaking laughs twice as much
as the person who is listening.
Laughter isn’t about humor. Provine studied
over 2,000 cases of naturally occurring laughter
and most of it did not happen as a result of humor
such as telling jokes. Most laughter followed
statements such as “Hey John, where ya been?”
or “Here comes Mary” or “How did you do on the
test?” Laughter after these types of statements
bonds people together socially. Only 20 percent
of laughter is from jokes. (100 Things pg. 159)
(Provine, Robert. 2001. Laughter: A Scientific
Investigation. New York: Viking.)
Laughter is one of the many ways individuals use
a behavior to prescribe the tone with which their
interaction will occur. Nervous laughter occurs
when the individual wants a difficult interaction
to be less difficult but can not identify any other
pathway through which to do so.

CaseNo.2
Social
Emotional
Intellectual
“Cooper Hewitt’s renovation provides the opportunity to
redefine today’s museum experience and inspire each
visitor to play designer before, during and after their
visit. Visitors can explore the museum’s collections and
exhibitions using groundbreaking technologies that inspire
learning and experimentation.”
Through observing the interactions of visitors to the
Cooper-Hewitt museum, certain opportunities are
inherently social. Consider two aspects of this museum
experience, the interactive “pen” and the interactive room
for designing your own wallpaper called “the immersion
room”. Both of these experiences engage the visitor in a
social capacity, each having a different emphasis on the
emotional or intellectual modes.

Primarily intellectual/emotional - collecting content
Emotional moderately - individual choice is hugely
valued / favored
Social slightly - rather isolated, but you can share your
collections with others if you choose, though this is not
necessary to the interaction
“Cooper Hewitt’s renovation provides the opportunity
to redefine today’s museum experience and inspire
each visitor to play designer before, during and after
their visit. Visitors can explore the museum’s collections
and exhibitions using groundbreaking technologies
that inspire learning and experimentation.”
Through observing the interactions of visitors to the
Cooper-Hewitt museum, certain opportunities are
inherently social. Consider two aspects of this museum
experience, the interactive “pen” and the interactive
room for designing your own wallpaper called “the
immersion room”. Both of these experiences engage
the visitor in a social capacity, each having a different
emphasis on the emotional or intellectual modes.

The immersion room utilizes the social mode
of designing publicly or collaboratively. The
secondary, emotional mode is explored through
self-expression. The third, intellectual mode gives
relevance to the interaction by attributing it to the
museum’s collection of wallpaper and providing
text and audio information which allows visitor’s
to learn about wallpaper designers featured in the
collection.
“Using the Pen, you can select wallpapers from
the Museum’s permanent collection and see them
projected on the walls from floor to ceiling—for a
vibrant, impactful, immersive experience. You can
even play designer by creating your own designs,
or just stand back and watch as the wallpapers
unfold across the room.” (http://www.cooperhewitt.
org/events/opening-exhibitions/immersion-room/)
This experience appeals largely to visual-spatial
learners who think in terms of physical space
and are best taught through drawing and three-
dimensional modeling. The technique of priming
is also being utilized in this interaction through the
display of wallpaper designs from the collection,
visitors are primed with ideas of how to achieve
their own design.
Making aesthetic decisions shows emotional
engagement. In the following study, researcher
Christopher Hsee set out to determine the
correlation between levels of happiness as they are
impacted by being busy or being idle. However,
an oversight by Hsee may have been that what he
actually tested was levels of happiness as they are
impacted by the opportunity the be creative or not
having the opportunity to be.
Research by Christopher Hsee (2010) and his
colleagues shows that people are happier when
they’re busy.
Hsee asked students to study a bracelet. Then
he gave them the option of either spending
15 minutes waiting with nothing to do (they
thought they were waiting for the next part of the
experiment), or spending the same time taking the
bracelet apart and then rebuilding it while waiting.
Some of the participants were given the option
of rebuilding it into its original configuration, and
others were given the option to reassemble the
bracelet into a different design.

Participants who had the option of rebuilding
the bracelet as it was before preferred to just
sit idly. But the participants who were told they
could reassemble the bracelet into a new design
preferred to work on the bracelet rather than sit
idle. As before, those who spent the 15 minutes
busy with the bracelet reported feeling happier
than those who sat idle.
Hsee has focussed on the fact that the students
who reassembled the bracelet merely had
something to do- and that this has caused their
levels of happiness to be higher. When in fact,
Hsee himself even distinguishes that the students
who opted to reassemble the bracelet did so more
often when they were permitted to redesign it.
Perhaps it is business that impacts our happiness,
but it was the opportunity to express themselves
creatively that gave the act of being busy with the
task value. In this study, the oversight is certainly
that creative opportunities are a strong catalyst for
engagement.

Although, a somewhat isolated experience
in the museum, the pen allows visitors to share
their experience outside of the museum. This
technology prompts visitors to collect objects
as they make their way through the museum by
touching the pen to the object’s label; promoting
a sense of self-expression as it is seen in curating
ones own collection. Additionally, your collection
can be accessed through a personalized URL after
your visit. The saved collection provides access to
the objects outside of the museum as well as an
opportunity to share your visit.
Stimulation of the emotional mode is largely
understood as mindful and reactionary, but not
necessarily biological. However, in examining
behavior expectations rooted in seeking fulfillment
of social desires, the story of Pavlov’s dogs should
not go unacknowledged. Researchers have recently
discovered that the parts of the brain which
trigger release of dopamine, a chemical which
increases levels of happiness, is not only a reactive
release related to pleasure stimuli such as sex or
laughter, but also a proactive release related to
seeking, searching and having the desire to attain
something.
The dopamine system is especially sensitive to
cues that a reward is coming. If there is a small,
specific cue that signifies that something is going
to happen, that sets off your dopamine system.
This is a Pavlovian response, named for the Russian
scientist Ivan Pavlov who experimented with dogs.
When dogs (and humans) see food, they begin
to salivate. Pavlov paired food with a sound, for
instance, a bell. The bell is a stimulus. Every time
the dogs saw food they would also hear a bell,
and they would salivate at the sight of the food.
After a while the dogs would salivate at the sound
of the bell. The food wasn’t even necessary for
salivation to occur. When a stimulus is paired with
information-seeking behavior, such as a sound
and a message when a text arrives on your phone
(Figure 53.1) or sound or visual cue when an e-mail
arrives in your inbox (Figure 53.2), you have the
same Pavlovian response—dopamine is released
and the information seeking starts all over again.
(100 Things, pg. 123)”
If we are perpetually in a virtual dopamine
loop, what happens when a technology prompts a
Pavlovian response and then fails to deliver?

FerrisBueller’sDayOffBandeAPart(BandofOutsiders)
3
Behavior

ThePhiladelphiaMuseumofArt,Gallery257.,2015.
Humans form affinities with
art objects through emotional
and intellectual pathways. These
pathways are both genetic
and constructed by society.
Humans also form affinities
through other individuals. In
fact, humans are more likely
to engage with emotional and
intellectual pathways through
social engagement.

As we have explored in this investigation
so far, both art and technology appeal to a
human’s intellect and emotion both through
learned behaviors and genetic predispositions.
In an approach to social interaction which
utilizes both art and technology, we encounter
an opportunity to access both intellectual and
emotional modes simultaneously. As we have
seen in the previous sections, our interactions
with art and technology are often residual of our
social desires and behaviors. In recognizing these
psychologies, emphasis can be shifted towards
social engagement through forming intellectual
and emotional affinities in the art museum with
the proper interactive expectations of the visitor in
mind.
When forming an affinity with an art object, the
individual is engaged in many neuropsychological
systems concurrently. Many of which are
emotionally based are thought to be housed within
the limbic system. This is the brain system which
also supports to functioning of isolating certain
stimuli for comprehension.
The limbic system supports a variety of
functions including adrenaline flow, emotion,
behavior, motivation, long-term memory, and
olfaction.[3] Emotional life is largely housed in the
limbic system, and it has a great deal to do with the
formation of memories.
Besides memory, the amygdala also seems
to be an important brain region involved in
attentional and emotional processes. First, to define
attention in cognitive terms, attention is the ability
to home-in on some stimuli while ignoring others.
Thus, the amygdala seems to be an important
structure in this ability. Foremost, however, this
structure was historically thought to be linked to
fear, allowing the individual to take action to rid
that fear in some sort.
However, when the amygdala was initially
thought to be linked to fear, this gave way for
research in the amygdala for emotional processes.
Kheirbek[13] demonstrated research that the
amygdala is involved in emotional processes,
in particular the ventral hippocampus. He
described the ventral hippocampus as having a
role in neurogenesis and the creation of adult-
born granule cells (GC). These cells not only
were a crucial part of neurogenesis and the
strengthening of spatial memory and learning
in the hippocampus but also appear to be an
essential component in the amygdala. A deficit
of these cells, as Pessoa (2009) predicted in his
studies, would result in low emotional functioning,
leading to high retention rate of mental diseases,
such as anxiety disorders. (http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Limbic_system)
Humans have long looked to art to reaffirm
their own humanity. Not only because art is a
product of another human and therefor there is a
shared humanity, but the artwork acts as a mirror
to our own identity as it is illuminated by the
human tendency to project their emotions onto
aesthetics.

“And, indeed, representation undertakes to represent itself
here in all its elements”
[Foucault]

The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the
Human Sciences, was written in 1966 by Michel
Foucault. The work opens with a philosophical
deconstruction of Diego Velazquez’s painting Las
Meninas based on its aesthetic qualities. Through
this deconstruction Foucault establishes a thesis
about epistemes. Las Meninas contains layers of
context. It hides and reveals aspects to the viewer
through an aesthetic which utilizes composition
and light to carry the eye through the work.
Foucault uses these aesthetic principles of hidden
versus revealed to explain his thoughts on the
development of epistemes in society over time.
Particularly, Foucault focuses his attention toward
the systems of linguistics, biology and economics.
Based on shifting visitor expectations (if art is
life), as the epistemes of concurrent fields shift, so
too must the museum whose collections aim to
be engaged in a relevant dialogue with society.
Foucault uses art to talk about the human
perception of life’s systems. In deconstructing Las
Meninas, he is able to reveal the philosophy of
man as he sees himself, his desires and needs,
through the systems which he constructs. This
deconstruction allows these systems to be
projected onto the aesthetic system. In this way,
the aesthetics of composition, light and subject
matter act as projections of the human need to
categorize and systemize the natural world.
Aestheticsreflectthecompositionsfoundinallmatter
Six Geometric Figures (+Two) (Wall Drawings), Sol LeWitt

Circles in a Circle
Wassily Kandinsky, at The Philadelphia Museum of Art
Fibonacci sequence extrapolated in a circle

Nietzsche speaks to the phenomena of
aesthetics as having the ability to reflect human
systems as an emotional reflection of the,
emotionless order that Foucault’s linguistics,
biology and economics fail to capture entirely.
Nietzsche claims that aesthetics contain the
power to illuminate emotional projections of the
human as they exist removed from emotion within
overarching systems which impact daily life.
“Nietzsche states in “Twilight of the Idols”: “In
art man enjoys himself as perfection.” Art is then
the supreme delight of existence; art is the fountain
and source of joy in the world par excellence. And
joy for Nietzsche does not require justification
because joy justifies itself; joy, too, justifies
existence: through joy, life is affirmed. Thus, we
reach another basic role of art: art as the supreme
source of joy.
Art sustains life. Art is what makes life endurable
and thus possible. Art is what makes life worth
living. Nietzsche depicts this through a beautiful
metaphor: “Once again we may see the artistic
buoyancy and creative joy as a luminous cloud
shape reflected upon the dark surface of a lake of
sorrow.” Hence, this is another basic role of art: art
as a metaphysical solace. Nietzsche, analyzing the
Greek tragedy writes: “The metaphysical solace
(with which, I wish to say at once, all true tragedy
sends us away) that despite every phenomenal
change, life is at bottom indestructibly joyful and
powerful.”
The function of art is one of supporting,
maintaining, affirming, and enhancing life. We
may, therefore, identify another one of art’s
roles in Nietzsche’s philosophy: the role of being
a stimulant to life as an expression of the will
to power: “For a stimulant is what propels and
advances, what lifts a thing beyond itself; it is
increase of power.” Art, then, may be understood
as a transfigurer of existence: as an expression
of the will to power in its full plenitude. In the
“Birth of Tragedy”, Nietzsche, referring to music
(the Dionysiac aspect of art), says, “ is the direct
copy of the will itself, and therefore represents the
metaphysical of everything physical in the world.”
(http://jorbon.tripod.com/niet01.html)
It is through an object’s unique story that we
can reach visitors through the emotional mode.
Most people have an easier time connecting to
the characters and themes associated with an
object than to the static object itself. And though
connecting with an object void of narrative is
certainly possible, when a narrative is provided it
almost always deepens the affinity being formed
from the visitor toward the object. Because the
emotional mode triggers the brain to engage in
retaining memory, the affinity formed through the
support of an emotionally narrative is more likely
to impact the visitor for a longer amount of time.
In her book, 100 Things Every Designer Needs To
Know About People, Susan M. Weinschenk, Ph.D.,
speaks about the importance of using anecdotes
versus data to impart information,
“One of the reasons why anecdotes are more
powerful than data is that anecdotes are in story
form. They invoke empathy, which triggers an
emotional reaction. With emotional reactions,
people will process the data and the feelings.
Emotions will also trigger the memory centers.” (100
Things pg. 168)

Socialization requires emotional
and intellectual engagement.
Therefore, when this is done
within relation to an art object, an
affinity with that object is more
likely to be formed. When visitors
are encouraged to prescribe
their own emotions and intellects
onto an art object, they are more
likely to form an affinity with that
object.

It was with the social mode in mind that ArtSeek
was created. ArtSeek is a game to be played in the
art gallery which prompts users to engage with
one another socially. Users do this through relating
works of art to experiences they have shared
together as well as personal anecdotes.
ArtSeek, a digital interactive suite of gallery
games, aims to engage art museum visitors with
one another socially as they interpret artworks
through personal meaning.
Creating ArtSeek on a digital platform was ideal
for two main reasons. First, the use of digital tools
through design development enabled ArtSeek to
be prototyped multiple times and evolve in a short
amount of time. And in using the ArtSeek (digital
application) any museum big or little, can import
their own content and use the app to engage their
visitors with their collection. ArtSeek is a suite of
games which has the flexibility to work in tandem
with any body of artwork.
The ArtSeek team partnered with InLiquid
Art + Design to develop their idea. InLiquid, an
artist collective based in Philadelphia, represents
nearly 300 artists. ArtSeek saw an opportunity
with InLiquid which provided them with access to
a large body of artwork and exhibitions through
which to prototype their ideas and also to provide
InLiquid with a new way to engage their audiences.
A
R
T
e e kS

The goals of ArtSeek are as follows:
Visitors will interact with each other by using
personal stories to describe art works in the gallery
Visitors will enjoy playing the game ArtSeek and
will feel more relaxed in an art gallery setting
Visitors will feel greater ease when accessing the
art work by having a less academic entry point
Provide a tool for art museums to engage their
audiences through ArtSeek
Now that we understand a few of the complex
systems inherent in the visitor’s emotional and
intellectual pathways towards art objects, how
can designers facilitate relevant social spaces
surrounding them?
New media artist Scott Snibe was able to
achieve profound social interaction through his
work, Boundary Functions, 1999. The work invites
participants to explore the evolving boundaries of
personal space on a shared platform.
In Aesthetics of Interaction in Digital Art, Katja
Kwastek writes,
“Interactive art places the action of the recipient
at the heart of its aesthetics, whereas in action
art and happenings the recipient is often invited
to join the action of the artist(s). Interactive art,
by contrast, presents an action proposition that is
generally not modified by the artist while being
exhibited. Interactive work doesn’t manifest its
gestalt in the absence of reception, in interactive
art the recipient becomes a performer” (Kwastek
xvii).
Snibe’s piece addresses a point not to be
ignored: the invitation. In his piece, the visitors were
aware that their interaction was necessary in order
for the concept to exist. They were important and
their interaction was transparently, a major focus of
the work. In designing interactive technology, the
visitor must feel that their engagement is not only
valued and important, but necessary.
The learning objectives of ArtSeek are as
follows:
Visitors will learn to engage socially with one
another in a museum setting
Visitors will learn how to attribute personal
anecdotes to artworks they encounter
Visitors will expand their vocabulary surrounding
artwork by shifting from describing the artwork’s
physical form to connecting with the work’s
concept as it relates to their own experiences
Visitors will expand their set of expectations
surrounding museums and the technologies they
employ

In the development of ArtSeek, several
personas were created for use-case scenarios
which explored why a diverse range of visitors
would use ArtSeek and how.
Two primary audiences for ArtSeek were
established.
Visitors who are highly interested in art and slightly
tech-savvy
Visitors who are highly tech-savvy and slightly
interested in art
ArtSeek can be adapted for use in any art
museum gallery. The app can be stationary or
mobile. However, it is dependent upon which
gallery the visitor is in when they are using the
application, because it utilizes the artworks within
their line of vision as content for the games.
If the art museum utilized ArtSeek as a mobile
application which functioned in multiple galleries,
the museum would need to establish which gallery
the visitor is in when they are using ArtSeek.
This could be done by incorporating a back-end
way-finding which would detect the gallery the
visitor happens to be in at the moment they are
using the app. iBeacon technologies, among other
bluetooth navigation systems could be employed
for this type of approach.
Otherwise, the museum could establish
separate forms of the app for each gallery which is
available to play with ArtSeek and the visitor could
select that gallery’s specific ArtSeek from a list of
options.
If the art museum chooses to utilize the
application on a stationary device in a specific
gallery, the app can be downloaded and
programmed to run without wifi or additional back-
end development.

It is no surprise to the education community
that we learn in different ways. Complex and
evolving compilations of various learning spectrums
are unique to each individual. It is within the
understanding of these spectrums that designers
can choose the most efficient tools through which
to access the most diverse audience as deeply as
possible.
Howard Gardner identified seven intelligences
to be aware of. Visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic,
musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, linguistic and
logical-mathematical. Gardner acknowledges that
attempting to teach all seven styles at once may
seem overwhelming, but that in utilizing mixed
media and multimedia this challenge becomes
attainable.
“It satisfies the many types of learning
preferences that one person embodies or that a
class embodies.”
Gardener suggests a variety of media. Including
visuals, motion, sound, realia and performance
among more traditional modes such as printed
words and instruction. Realia, or the use of real,
tangible objects in order to convey a concept-
is the overarching principal of all museums.
The interpersonal learner is one whom learns
by understanding and interacting with others.
Empathy plays a large role in their learning.
An approach to object-based, social learning
which incorporates interactive technology can
utilize the basic methods inherent in standard
educational scenarios as a framework. These
methods, which can be applied to almost any
learning scenario can be used to ensure that the
educational role of interactive technologies is being
met.
The use of “scripts” allows visitors to have a clear
understanding of the engagement an interaction
requests. Providing the visitor with a clear sequence
of events will allow them to establish expectations
and feel a sense achievement upon meeting
those expectations. It is important when scripting
an interaction that the sequence of events is
meaningful and intuitive.
Through utilizing “priming” techniques,
designers can create experiences rooted in what
the visitor already knows and understands.
“Prior knowledge, interests and beliefs play
a tremendous role in all learning; this is
particularly the case in museums.” (FalkDierking_
ContextLearning pg. 3)

“Gardner is best known for the idea of
multiple intelligences: that people have not
just one kind of intelligence but at least eight:
linguistic, logic-mathematical, musical, spatial,
bodily kinesthetic, naturalist, interpersonal
and intrapersonal.”

Lev Vygotsky
“Society is the field of organized relationships
and interactions between individuals. Only a
small portion of human activity is organized for
utilization by society, so only a small portion of
development potential (of technology, knowledge,
information, skills, systems) is tapped.
Every society possesses a huge reservoir of
potential human energy that is absorbed and
held static in its organized foundations—its
cultural values, physical security, social beliefs and
political structures. At times of transition, crises
and opportunities, those energies are released
and expressed in action. Policies, strategies and
programs that tap this latent energy and channel it
into constructive activities can stir an entire nation
to action and rapid advancement.”
(Payne,M.(1991) “Modern Social Work Theory”

In acknowledging the diverse preconceptions
and dispositions of visitors, not only does the visitor
have a great opportunity to engage naturally, but
the mental capacity to focus on the appropriate
content. The tone of the social interaction
should aim to be one free from anxiety through
a recognition of the user’s human nature which
includes their social anxieties and apprehensions
which should not be mimicked by the nature of the
technology facilitating the social engagement.
Lev Vygotsky, a scientist of social cognition
developed the “Zone of Proximal Development”,
a social construct for learning based on support
from a group of engaged participants, housed
in the education theory of “scaffolding”. When
members of a collaborative team bring varying
aspects of knowledge or skill sets to achieving a
unified goal, a heightened ability to attain that goal
is more probable than the ability to attain said goal
individually.
“Research by Bahador Bahrami. Bahrami (2010)
and his team found that pairs do better than
individuals at making decisions as long as they
freely discuss their disagreements, not only about
what they saw, but also about how confident they
are about what they saw. If they aren’t allowed to
freely discuss, and they just give their decision, then
the pair does not make better decisions than an
individual would. (100 Things, pg. 215)”
“Vygotsky states cognitive development stems from
social interactions from guided learning within the
zone of proximal development as children and
their partners co-construct knowledge. In contrast
Piaget maintains that cognitive development stems
largely from independent explorations in which
children construct knowledge of their own.” (http://
www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html)
“Mediating” the experience through design
is another way to ensure impact through
socialization. “Socially mediated learning in
museums does not occur within an individual’s
own social group; powerful socially mediated
learning can occur with strangers perceived to be
knowledgable. Such learning has long evolutionary
and cultural antecedents, and few other museum
experiences afford as much potential for
significantly affecting visitor learning.” (FalkDierking_
ContextLearning pg. 4)

[ARtSeek UX Overview]
1. User one chooses a mode of interaction:
“describe”, “act” or “match”
2. User one chooses a work of art from the gallery,
without telling their partner which piece they have
chosen
“Describe”
1. User one is prompted to list four words which
they would use to describe the artwork
2. User one is then prompted to help user two
guess which artwork they chose, without using
those four words.
3. User one is prompted to use a shared experience
to help their partner guess correctly.
“Act”
1. User one is prompted to use a body movement
or gesture to help their partner guess correctly
“Match”
1. User one is prompted to use two photos from
their personal mobile device to help their partner
guess correctly
ArtSeek aims to create an engaging, laid-back,
exciting experience for museum visitors. The tone
of which is relaxed and upbeat.
The content requirements for ArtSeek are
determined by the art museum which chooses
to utilize the application. The ArtSeek team
recommends using between five and ten artworks
for each gallery making use of the app. This will
ensure enough variety that visitors are empowered
through making a choice, but not too many
options that they feel overwhelmed.
A museum staff that wishes to utilize this
application, needs to be slightly tech-savvy. The
interface we aim to develop would simply require
the staff to upload photos of the artworks in the
related gallery along with the work’s tombstone
information. Installation of a touch screen in the
gallery or the development of mobile accessibility
and optional way finding systems would be the
most technologically skill-based requirements of
ArtSeek’s implementation.
ArtSeek’s main feature is that it provides
multiple interactive pathways through which visitors
can engage with one another.

Three modes exists which ask visitors to use
different approaches to describe one of the
artworks in the gallery to their partner in order for
their partner to guess the artwork they’ve chosen.
1. User one chooses a mode of interaction:
“describe”, “act” or “match”
2. User one chooses a work of art from the gallery,
without telling their partner which piece they have
chosen
“Describe”
1. User one is prompted to list four words which
they would use to describe the artwork
2. User one is then prompted to help user two
guess which artwork they chose, without using
those four words.
3. User one is prompted to use a shared experience
to help their partner guess correctly.
“Act”
1. User one is prompted to use a body movement
or gesture to help their partner guess correctly
“Match”
1. User one is prompted to use two photos from
their personal mobile device to help their partner
guess correctly

ArtSeek was developed through four rounds of
prototyping. Each prototype was conducted with
specific goals and testing questions in mind. These
goals were evaluated with survey instruments
designed specifically for each prototype. The data
attained from each session, both quantitative and
qualitative, offered feedback which evolved the
application’s design significantly.
Prototype #1
The first test was conducted at an InLiquid
exhibition using paper prototypes. The goals of this
prototype surrounded whether or not visitors had
a general interest in engaging with one another in
this way and if the games were user-friendly.
Our goals for the first prototype were:
1. Promote social interaction between users
2. Intrigue users to learn more about the art
object(s)
3. Broaden the user’s art-related vocabulary to
include their own experiences rather than formal
art language
We tested two games during this round. One
was the “Describe” prompt that still exists in the
final version, the other was a mad-libs game
utilizing the artist statement for content. We
found that visitors responded very well to the
“describe” game, in taking time to make meaningful
connections to one another, but not to the mad-
libs game. They found the game difficult and
without significant reward.

Prototype #2
ArtSeek’s second prototype took place online.
We wanted to test the applications ability to utilize
an online gallery with visitors who were connecting
through group chat online. We conducted two
sessions of testing with sets of visitors in a group
skype.
For this round of testing, we removed the mad-
libs game and pursued a deeper understanding of
the “describe” interaction.
Though the visitors we tested with were
enthusiastic about their interactions, which were
fundamentally successful, the overall sentiment was
that they would have preferred to be engaging
with one another and the works in real space.
This round of prototyping also provided
feedback to incorporate multiple pathways through
which to interact. ArtSeek went back to the drawing
board to develop two additional interactive modes
and a set of evolved goals for the third prototype.

Prototype #3
For this round of prototyping, ArtSeek was
concerned with testing the two additional
interactive modes:
“Act” asks visitors to use their body movements or
gestures
and
“Match” asks visitors to use two photos from their
personal mobile device
As well as an evolved set of goals:
·      Visitors will interact with each other by using
personal stories to describe art works in the gallery
·      Visitors will enjoy playing the game ArtSeek
and will feel more relaxed in an art gallery setting
·      Visitors will feel greater ease when accessing
the art work by having a less academic entry point
This prototype was conducted with visitors in
real space, interacting with another face-to-face
surrounding a digital projection of public sculptures
visible from Dilworth Park in Philadelphia, which
would be the objects utilized in the fourth
prototype to take place at Dilworth Park for Philly
Tech Week.
The outcome of this session caused the concept
of each mode (describe, act and match) to be
solidified, but the flow of the overall interaction
to be reworked. In this approach, we had asked
visitors to select first the artwork and then their
mode of interacting. Feedback from the visitors led
us to understand that they wished to first choose
how they would interact and then with which
artwork.
We adjusted the order of operations for our
final round of testing, the ArtSeek launch at Philly
Tech Week.

“Making you think about art in an abstract way and making
you pay closer attention to it (beyond first impressions)”
Prototype #4: Launch at Philly Tech Week
The final round of testing was conducted in
conjunction with Philly Tech Week’s opening event
at Dilworth Park in center city Philadelphia.
InLiquid artist Gina Michaels installed her
sculpture, Jacob’s Ladder in the center of the
park for this event. Our app content featured
this sculpture as well as the surrounding pubic
sculptures, totaling five art objects for visitors to
choose from.
The ultimate goal in the art museum, is to
establish an affinity between the visitor and the art
object. In this book so far, we have explored how
humans establish affinities through psychological
pathways inherent in emotional, intellectual and
social interactions. So, how do designers synthesize
these modes in an experience anchored by an art
object?
First, the impact of an object on the value of
an experience should be understood. In a study
conducted by Benjamin Bushong, Lindsay M. King,
Colin F. Camerer and Antonio Rangel on Pavlonion
processes in consumer choices, they found that
the physical presence (versus a text description or
image) of an object increased the value individuals
placed on it, by 60 percent.

understanding broad conceptual themes such
as exhibitions, as well as the micro sensibility of
understanding aesthetic principals such as patterns
within an inidividual work of art.
In 1999, V.S. Ramachandran and William Hirstein
published The Science of Art: A Neurological
Theory of Aesthetic Experience in the Journal of
Consciousness Studies. Their article explores many
of the themes we have touched upon so far in
this book, but also aesthetic grouping as a mental
process akin to synchronization. Synchronization,
which we explored earlier as a necessity for
meaningful collaborative action, can be seen
here as the individual’s mind also finds strength in
perceiving smaller pieces as a larger whole. In the
following example, you can see how humans use
synchronous processes to seek objects even when
objects are not present.
The notion that art exploits grouping principles
is of course not new (Gombrich, 1973; Arnheim,
1956; Penrose, 1973), but what is novel here is
our claim that the grouping doesn’t always occur
‘spontaneously’; that out of a temporary binding
a signal sent to the limbic system to reinforce the
binding, and this is one source of the aesthetic
experience. For example, in Fig. 3, there are two
possible stable organizations, one with hourglasses,
“The results have practical implications in a
number of domains. First, consider again the prob-
lem of a restaurateur who has to decide whether to
provide customers with a written menu, a picture-
based menu, or a dessert tray. The results in this
paper suggest that dessert sales should go up
significantly if the restaurant uses the dessert tray
as opposed to the other two options.” (Bushong,
Ben, King, L. M., Camerer, C. F., and Rangel, A.
2010. “Pavlovian processes in consumer choice: The
physical presence of a good increases willingness-
to-pay.” American Economic Review 100: 1–18.)
In applying Bushong’s study to the art museum,
a case can be made for the impact of the social
interaction whose relevance is based in an art
object which is physically present, to heighten the
value the visitor places on the object. When placing
value on the object, the visitor acquires an affinity
with it and the institution which has provided the
opportunity to do so, by proxy.
Now that this can be said for one object, what
happens when the interaction revolves around
the relevance of a larger theme constructed by a
grouping of objects? Again, the notion of grouping
smaller pieces to comprehend a larger whole is
rooted in human psychology both learned and
genetic. Grouping as a means of comprehension
can be seen through the macro sensibility of

THE SCIENCE OF ART 24 (Ramachandran V. S. and
Hirstein W. 1999 The science of art the science of
art: a neurological theory of aesthetic experience. J.
Consciousness Studies 6, 15–51.)
Many artists have utilized these principals in
their work to elicit a neuro-psychological reaction.
Further, aestheticians can use the synchronization
of certain aesthetics to evoke larger emotional
themes. As noted by Ramachandran and Hirstein,
The word ‘rasa’ appears repeatedly in Indian art
manuals and has no literal translation, but roughly
it means ‘the very essence of.’ So a sculptor in
India, for example, might try to portray the rasa
of childhood (Plate 2), or the rasa of romantic
love, or sexual ecstasy (Plate 3), or feminine grace
and perfection (Plate 4). The artist is striving, in
these images, to strongly evoke a direct emotional
response of a specific kind.
Designs which allow individuals to explore
grouping as it is employed through the observation
of an art object or in a larger grouping of objects
or exhibition themes, provide a pathway to
acquiring affinity through an intelligence based in
the individual’s neurological processing.
and one with closure and most people find the
latter organization more pleasing than the former
because the limbic activation is stronger with this
closure-based object-like percept. When artists
speak of composition, or grouping, they are
probably unconsciously tapping into these very
same principles.
In other words, even though the grouping
may be initially based on autonomous process
in each module (Marr, 1981), once a cluster of
features becomes perceptually salient as a ‘chunk’
with boundaries (i.e. an object), it may send a
signal to the limbic centres which in turn causes
you to ‘hold on’ to that chunk to facilitate further
computation. There is physiological evidence that
grouping of features leads to synchronization of
the spikes (action potentials) of neurons that extract
those features (Singer and Gray, 1995; Crick and
Koch, 1998) and perhaps it is this synchrony that
allows the signal to be sent to the limbic pathways.
(This, by the way, may be one reason why musical
consonance often involves harmonics — for
example, a C-major chord — which, for physical
reasons would tend to emerge from a single object,
whereas dissonant notes are likely to emerge from
two or more separate objects.) (http://www.imprint.
co.uk/rama/art.pdf)

[Final Build / Future Steps]
The final version of ArtSeek is currently in
development. This version will exist as a framework
which includes editable modules for museums to
import their own content.
The ArtSeek team is currently exploring how we
can make these experiences sharable between
visitors through social media as well as between
all of the art museums who are utilizing this
application.

Conclusion
4
http://www.allartnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/People-look-on-at-Acrobat-during-a-media-preview-at-the-Seattle-Art-
Museum.jpg

Museums are evolving into spaces for social exchange. They
are redistributing dynamics of trust to the visitor. Asking for the
first time, what the visitor wants from their experience at the
museum- and listening. As museums continue to develop into civic
spaces for societal representation, so will the importance for social
opportunities amongst individuals.
There are many ways through which to interpret the
complexities of object-based and interactive learning. From the
cases represented in this investigation, we can see how social
engagement can be used as a strong pathway toward forming
affinities with objects based in both our emotion and intellect.
And that these affinities engage not only our learned expectations
and systems but also our genetic make-up as human beings
who require socialization in order to function emotionally and
intellectually in all that we do.
The function of art and technology as they exist as systems
in our society, ask us to be both emotionally and intellectually
engaged. Because social engagement requires both emotional
and intellectual modes, when the art museum asks individuals
to socialize through interactive technologies, emotional and
intellectual needs are being met exponentially.

Considerations for facilitating social engagement in
the art museum through interactive technologies
are as follows:
When designing for socialization, utilize the
fourth order of design, which focuses on the
synthesizing of large, complex systems. Social
interaction involves several modes of functioning,
both learned and genetic, all of which should be
taken into consideration.
When designing interactive technologies, consider
how the interactive prompts can enliven the
curiosity of all visitors in the space- not
only those who are directly interacting with the
technology. How does one visitor’s action cause
the behavior expectations of observers to
change?
When possible, ask for group engagement.
Consider how the individual can leave their
mark. Allow for personal expression or an
opportunity to be creative.
Consider how group dynamics can aid interaction.

Can you provide structure for one individual
to teach another individual how to achieve
something? Can you prompt an individual to set
an example through their own engagement?
In facilitating social engagement, museums can
provide individuals with an opportunity to grow
emotionally and intellectually. View socialization
as a tool.
In attempts to engage with visitors, honor the
emotions and intellect inherent in human beings.
Provide multiple pathways for a spectrum of
learning styles to have the opportunity to engage
with the collection.
As art museums embrace the cultural shift through
the homogenization of interactive technologies,
cross-institutional communications have never
been more important. These technologies provide
us the ability to share data which can further
inform the progress of our designs and the
museum field at large.

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