It was "Fostering Innovation in an Interactive Museum Culture" led by Nina Simon.
Nina Simon is currently the head of a museum in Santa Cruz and the head of Museum 2.0 blog. She is the author of The Participatory Museum.
Simon, an EE grad of WPI, says she is out to change museums. Chiefly by making them more interactive. How? Three key ways, says Simon, changing museums:
--from a destination to a place of everyday use
--from a trusted source of information to a trusted host of social experiences
--from a place of seeing and exploring to that AND being a making and sharing place.
Simon elaborated with examples of how museums typically are static sources of information that people visit only three times in their lives (studenthood, parenthood, and grandparenthood) -- that they need to go from being purely a content provider to being a platform provider, i.e., being a place where people go to do things with stuff and each other. For example, hosting an evening "stitch and bitch" group in the galleries. These shifts would create the participatory museum.
This makes sense to me as, in high school, I took an afternoon modern dance class in the Addison Gallery. I have deep and significant memories of contemplating the art even while I tried to refine a footwork sequence. There is one abstract, almost Cubist, painting of a daffodil that I still want to re-visit as it symbolizes my junior (upper middle) year.
While creating participation could be through digital means, Simon's focus today was in the museum gallery, working directly with objects.
One of Simon's big points was that participation needs to center around objects. In other words, people need an object to discuss. Simply throwing two strangers together may not work. A mediator (usually an object, but could be another person) is necessary. Anyone who has tried to have a conversation with a teenaged boy understands this -- sitting side by side, working on something (playing a video game, repairing a bike, watching TV) will produce a conversation, while staring at each other over a table with the command to "Talk!" will not.
Social objects have these qualities (but not necessarily all at once):
--often very big
--draws one in with their process of creation
--connects to pop culture
--provocative
--requires some figuring out
--has some motion to it.
How do you know when you've got a "social object"? (Or, what are the 'metrics"?) You'll see the people interacting with it and each other produce the following behaviors (again, but not necessarily all at once):
--talking
--pointing
--taking photos
--'reproducing' (mimicking the object, or building something in its image)
--moving around it or with it
--asking others to join them with the object
--interpreting the object for others.
It occurs to me, that the new Chihuly sculpture -- the Lime Green Icicle Tower-- at the MFA Boston is such an object. It's greenness, size, texture, location, newness and importance as a fundraiser all lead to conversations of people clustered around it, even if the comments vary from "ooh, ahh!" to "wtf?!?".
After talking about examples of participatory experience from a variety of museums across the country, we spent the afternoon "walking the talk" [ha!] by going upstairs into the Higgins Armory galleries to determine what exhibits provoked participation and in what ways could we design participatory exhibits/experiences. They group as a whole had some terrific ideas.
Also, the venue and its stuff was awesome. By the nature of the collection and its appeal, the immersive nature of the building and galleries, plus the work done by the education staff to host a variety of events, the Higgins Armory and the workshop group make participation easy.
And, I'll admit, I'm a sucker for a sharp blade...
Thanks to Simon and the other participants for a thought-provoking day!
See you at Saturday's "Festival of Ale"?
Or, better yet, at Higgins Armory in November after they open their Wii-based interactive exhibit Extreme Sport: Jousting Then and Now?!
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