Fieldtrip to Churchill Museum 8 April, 2009
Posted by mdzoon in digital strategies, exhibitions, interactivity, week 6.add a comment
Hello everyone, and sorry for the delay.
As you can see, instead of wasting time on a nice walk in the park and the first sunbathe of the year I am using the Eastern break to play catch up with writing and laboriously forge texts for the profit of the others and myself.
In the beginning, I will remind you all the aim of this post: almost a month ago we visited Churchill Museum and, by the chance, adjacent Cabinet War Rooms. Thus, I would like to share some of my personal feelings, and if you will find below something deserving any notice, to spark further discussion.
The first observation relating to the museum came to my head just in front of the main entrance. 3 years ago, during my first visit to London, I had stood at the same place totally oblivious to the fact that 3 meters below me exist the heritage treasure employing cutting-edge technology and multimedia displays for the entertainment and learning of common folk. This significant fact shows my shameful lack of knowledge (2006) about leading institutions in the British heritage sector, as well as sheds some light on audience of the Churchill Museum. The exhibition rather aims to attract visitors interested in WWII, churchillians, and citizens of USA, then occasional passers-by looking for easy pleasures.
Indeed, the complex maze of rooms hidden under the vaults of the Treasury does not bring any light-hearted joy. Burden of concrete and steel separating War Rooms from the outside world, dim light, austere conditions of subterranean dwelling offers claustrophobic feeling. The evidence of deadly struggle with Nazis has been materialised in a shape of fully restored private and official chambers sheltering Winston Churchill and his staff during the London Blitz. To provide a sense of wartime oppression there is lacking nothing but the cigarette smoke from omnipresent ashtrays.
In contrast to Cabinet War Rooms, the impression given by Churchill Museum seems to be far more compound. I would say that, the complexness of evoked emotions is comparable to the multifaceted personality of the main actor of the exhibition. By the careful arrangement of artefacts, documents, photographs and interactives there was constructed a kind of theatre; kaleidoscope of words and sounds bringing into life a multilayered picture of Churchill as a controversial politician, statesman, artist and family man.
The fact worth of mention is that limited quantity of ‘real’ objects has been used in design, especially in comparison to narrative richness of the exhibition as a whole. The visitor engagement is maintained mainly by various multimedia devices, stimulating almost all senses. Moreover, the equipment work, surprisingly (?), seamlessly and collaborate very well with each other in order to give a variety of information. The transmitted messages have not been reduced to single-lined narrative but are able to unfold diverse treads. As was stressed by the director of museum – Phil Reed – the display does not aim to imprint on audience any particular vision about the famous Prime Minister. According to his statement, the museum ambition is to provide an environment for learning and encourage making investigations on its own. (Though simultaneously, he has imposed a role of Churchill Museum as ‘centre of excellence’ in terms of the knowledge about the subject).
I must admit, that I was a bit disappointed with Lifeline, advertised as state-of-the-art interactive table charting Winston Churchill’s life almost day by day. The interactive chronicle of facts and deeds turned out to be literally a wooden board. Despite of it, I am more concerned about usability of this media than some technical ‘underperformance’. The Lifeline has been created to resemble a conventional archive and seems to be of little use for people used to immediate access to information linked in an intuitive manner. To retrieve information from table, there is demanded a good knowledge of dates, otherwise investigation resembles random roaming on a surface of events. Although most of interactives used in exhibition seem to be user friendly, potential of this one remains unlocked.
The issue become more noteworthy if we consider it in the terms of planned design and received outcomes. Despite of very rich content, Lifeline is not able to keep a visitors attention for longer time. According to evaluation report, the average time spent in this section counts for 6 min. – that is about 10% of visit. In the course of the meeting with the head of museum, he mentioned that the table helps to increase the level of engagement within the museum and to turn the visitor into ‘researcher’ (i.e. a person with the specific and focused sections of interest, requiring expert and in-depth knowledge). I must agree with him to some extent – the Lifeline is useful to extend knowledge on a specific subject area. Nevertheless, I doubt that it is able to convert people into zealous investigators due to the specific of museum visit (lack of time, lack of comfortable space). The logical consequence would be placing the Lifeline on the internet to make this precious archive more accessible.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the visit. With no doubts, exhibition in Churchill Museum is a decent project and a highly interesting manifestation of multimedia capabilities.
And thank you all for the cooperation on our Egyptian project.
Michael
Week 8: The Onsite Museum II – The Churchill Museum 19 April, 2008
Posted by philippal in exhibitions, interactivity, learning, week 8.add a comment
Hello everyone, sorry for the delay….
There is so much to discuss that Joleen and I thought that we would raise some of our observations and key issues in order to prompt further discussion on the blog.
Philippa; After wandering round the Cabinet War Rooms, the Churchill Museum seemed to provide a complete contrast in terms of space and technology. It is packed with technology and it felt quite different to anything I had previously experienced in a museum setting. Plus, everything appeared to be in working order – even more impressive!! I was particularly interested in the parallel with the War Rooms as both spaces seem to complement each other really well, yet still maintain different identities.
Joleen; I too found quite a contrast between the two Museums and before entering (from the map) and found the placement of the Churchill Museum quite intriguing. First I wondered around the Cabinet War Rooms and left the Churchill museum to be discovered last. The war rooms pride themselves on being quite authentic and staged the exhibits according to photographs often referring to dates in which the room looked a certain way. About a quarter of the way through the authentic WW2 maze, the Churchill museum gave an extreme change of pace with dramatic lights, sounds, computers, video and top of the line interactives. I found it quite easy to get sucked into the space and the transition was surprisingly easy (think that had a lot to do with the well maintained machines!!!). At the time it didn’t occur to me to ask Sarah but I now wonder if the transition was taken into account and if they had any comments from visitors?
Philippa; The museum itself is split into six sections although I didn’t follow any particular path through. In fact, there didn’t seem to be much of a path to follow but this wasn’t a problem as it encouraged me to explore the space and engage with what it had to offer. After exploring the museum ourselves, we then met with Sarah Clarke, the Exhibitions Manager, who explained some of the research and processes that went into the design of the Museum. This turned into a more general discussion where we shared our experiences and comments.
One of the first points raised was whether the museum had too much technology. It is a relatively small space and I could see how this could be quite daunting for some visitors. I was encouraged by watching people of all ages interacting with the technology and found the timeline to be one of the highlights. I loved the rewards (what a great way to test your knowledge of significant dates!) and the way in which this created a shared social experience over the table. Sarah pointed out that there were 26 workstations at the table and so it could be used by an entire class. During the group discussion, the idea of enabling visitors to change information within the timeline was raised. If it can be updated from an office in a short amount of time (or even from America!) then the possibilities for lesson plans are endless.
Joleen; Did the visitor engage with the systems or was the learning curve too steep? I found most of the interactives to be quite user friendly and observed that visitors from every age group seemed to engaged at one time or another. I followed a senior citizen who particularly was touched by the video of Churchill’s funeral and later observed her at the painting interactive in the house section. A class of 10-13 years olds couldn’t tear themselves from the timeline table. Once I did observe three girls from the class who found the video’s to be quite boring and used their silhouette on the screen to comb the frizz from their hair. The only hesitation or confusion I observed was my own and Chris’s at the chess piece interactive. We tried to figure it out, but didn’t seem to have the right touch. Sarah later told us that the sensor connecting the piece to the machine is placed at the top of the chess piece (where we had placed our hand) was a common mistake, and was being remedied soon
Philippa; I’m sure everybody had a favourite section/interactive – I personally loved the fish in the pond – although I must admit I didn’t realise that they could be enticed with food! I did think that the fact that there was no text pointing this out was a good thing – again, this encourages exploration. I also liked the way that video screens were integrated within display cabinets. I felt that you could walk round the museum a few times and notice something different each time.
Sarah pointed out that the golden egg interactive wasn’t one of the most successful due to the fact that visitors weren’t looking in the case, to the right of the interactive, for the answers. It was really interesting to hear her discuss these issues and possible ways of resolving them. The same goes for the issue of space – the small amount of display space is addressed by using options like directional speakers, which help save space.
Joleen; I did notice that the lack of space did create an intimate environment to engage with the interactives but I can foresee a problem during a particular busy day. Sarah mentioned this briefly and said that layout pattern addressed this issue by creating an open path (unlike the war rooms) was particularly designed to avoid the bottle necking effect.
Overall, we both thought the museum provided a really stimulating environment which helps put Churchill’s life into context. We also feel that the next time we look at any museum interactives they now have a lot to live up to! We would love to hear your comments, as I’m sure we have missed lots out! I think we all enjoyed the trip and must say a big thank you to Sarah for talking to us all.
Philippa and Joleen
Week 9 19 April, 2007
Posted by naomikashiwagi in digital strategies, interactivity, mobile media, week 9.2 comments
In June 2007, the Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester will be opening a Communications Gallery. In order to offer visitors a more personal interpretive tool, a handheld multimedia guide, Mi-Guide will be trialled. Researchers at The University of Salford are developing the Mi-Guide with funding from the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council.
On Tuesday, our group met at the Science and Industry Museum to use the Mi-Guide and discuss issues including navigation, usability, social interaction, content and interpretation. We met with Pauline Webb, The Collections Manager at The Museum of Science and Industry and were given a tour of the exhibition space. At this stage of development the spaces were empty. Pauline Webb talked about the concept and envisioned content of the Communications Gallery. The Gallery will chronologically explore the development of communications in the locality of Manchester. Areas that will be covered in the gallery include, body language, written forms of communication, oral traditions, printing methods, photography, telephony, telegraphy, computer technology and other digital technologies. Objects from the museum’s collection will be exhibited together with descriptive labels and interpretive text. Visitors also have the option of using the Mi-Guide.
We were introduced to Professor Nigel Linge and Research Fellow, Duncan Bates from The University of Salford who are developing the Mi-Guide. They gave an overview of the features of the Mi-Guide and how it can present digital museological interpretations. The Mi-Guide takes the form of a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). The content is transferred from a PC to the PDAs. This enables information to be updated efficiently. Mi-Guide has a passive tag on the back that enables the location to be detected by scanning a device by the museum object. This process reveals the interpretive text, audio description, other images and video footage. We were then given the opportunity to use the Mi-Guide in relation to a range of objects that had interpretive content uploaded onto the Mi-Guide.
Succeeding this, we discussed some of the critical issues that arose from using the Mi-Guide including:
• Limited social interaction
• Potential for multiple interpretations
• Ease of updating or adding information
• Visitors are recipients of information and are unable to contribute information, ideas or opinions
• Focusing on the Mi-Guide and not the objects,
• Ambiguous navigational tools
• The novelty factor of using this new technology.
Rather than expanding on these issues, I want to discuss some of the issues and questions that the Mi-Guide catalysed when I started to critically reflect upon this experience.
Everyday technologies are commonly used in museological contexts, including computers, mobile phones and PDAs. They enable interpretive information to be accessed and consumed by visitors. In this Information Society, are we witnessing and also catalyzing the demise of intuitive curiosity, aesthetic contemplation and liminal experience in museums?
In Sounding Out the City: Personal Stereos and the Management of Everyday Life, Michael Bull discusses how the use of personal stereos are tools of resistance against the mundane routines of everyday life and give an aura of invisibility and superiority in public space. This could be applied to the use of PDAs in museological contexts. Are PDAs being used liminally in museums to catalyse information consumption by using this everyday technology in a novel and creative way? Carol Duncan discusses in Civilising Rituals the role of architecture in catalyzing rituals and liminality in museums. Mi-Guide is a virtual architectural space that prescriptively and paradoxically guides the user through the grand entrance of the homepage with iconic images of institutional logos, corridors of menus, leading to grand rooms of images and information to contemplate and consume.
Professor Nigel Linge revealed that in the future, the Mi-Guide will be tagged with an active tag. This means that it can be tracked at all times without having to scan a device to activate it. It was also mentioned that in the near future, most people would have PDAs that could be used in museums. Will museums add the active tag, or will we have reached a point where we are not only watched on CCTV, located by GPS, but also radio tagged? Are personal technologies primarily for the benefit of everyday users or for institutions and Big Brother?
The Churchill Museum 16 March, 2007
Posted by Anna in interactivity, week 7.3 comments
On Tuesday our class enjoyed a trip to sunny London and the Churchill Museum. Having heard and read much about the digital interactives installed within the museum, we were excited to have the opportunity to experience them first hand. Following a rigorous testing/playing with the multiple digital applications, we were fortunate enough to engage in a discussion regarding the Museum and its use of new media, with Sarah Clarke and Jonathan Tappin of the Museum. Sarah and Jonathan were incredibly honest with us about the successes and problems that have accompanied the extensive use of multimedia.
Prior to this discussion we, ourselves, had recognised some of the positives and drawbacks of the digital applications. Elodie and I are writing a joint blog this week (sorry for the length!), and we agreed it would make sense for us to take the position of ‘pros’ or ‘cons’ each in terms of the use of digital interactives at the Churchill Museum.
Pros
- The traditional displays with objects and text panels are complemented with videos, touch-screens and other interactives, which help to convey the message and to present the extensive amount of information.
- The use of interactives was also a response to the lack of space in the site, which is obviously used in the best manner.
- Sounds are an integral part of the experience and add to the effect of entertainment and surprise.
- In a way, the interactives become the exhibition.
- Some of the interactives might be a bit tricky to use, but as Sarah said, the museum wanted the visitors to find out how stuff works. This can trigger social contact.
- The lifeline allows group interactions and is definitely the main attraction in the museum.
- On a technological point of view, the lifeline is really innovative, but still easy to update. The other interactives, in spite of few failures, are not disruptive, easy to use, and easy to maintain.
- Accessibility has been taken into account: most of the videos combine images, subtitles and sound, and for non-English speakers, least the audio guides offer a summary of many sections
- Even if the website of the Churchill Museum does not offer so much opportunity to enhance learning after or before the visit, I very much appreciated the leaflets to take away “Want to know more?” that were available at the end of the tour
- A lot of the visitors I observed seemed to enjoy their visit and to be interested and satisfied
Cons
- Due to so many interactives, one might feel there is sensory overload, with moving images and sounds everywhere
- Some of the applications were not particularly ‘interactive,’ but more ‘reactive’ in the sense that the visitor could not so much contribute, but simply act as a stimulus for the delivery of information.
- Many of the interactives only accommodated a single visitor at a time, thus precluding any social interaction amongst visitors, which can enhance enjoyment and learning.
- It may be argued that the link between the objects and interactives was not always clear, or that the interactives overshadowed the objects.
- It can be frustrating not to go at your own pace: some applications moved too slowly, some too fast.
- In terms of Parry and Sawyer’s phases of integration studied last week, the Churchill Museum is a tricky one: with its extensive use of on-site applications it is very much in the 6th ‘innate’ phase. However, due to a lack of any web based applications, the Museum falls back to phase 3 where digital interactivity is ‘contained.’
Maybe readers can think of more pros and cons to contribute to this list?
We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and thank Sarah and Jonathan very much for talking to us. We look forward to seeing how the Churchill Museum accommodates new technologies to keep it at the forefront of digital museums.
BETT Awards 15 March, 2007
Posted by Kostas in interactivity, learning, news, week 7.add a comment
The winners of the prestigious BETT Awards 2007 were announced on January 10, 2007 at the BETT Awards Dinner held at The Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London.
The annual BETT Awards represent a partnership between Becta, the Government’s lead agency for ICT in education, BESA, the trade association representing the educational supply industry and Emap Education, the organisers of BETT – the largest educational technology show in the world.
The awards also recognise outstanding education sector products and learning solutions. Judges review the entries based on criteria including design, cost-effectiveness, support of higher order skills and effective learning and teaching styles. The technical criteria against which the awards were judged focused on the robustness and resilience of each product, and its accessibility for those with specific needs.
Check out the film clips of the winning products
Two of the projects, ArtisanCam and SoundJunction were commissioned by Culture Online
Digital Interactives: Interactivity and the exhibition space. 7 March, 2007
Posted by ruth1983 in interactivity, learning, week 6.2 comments
Our class this week focused on examining the roles that multimedia interactives play as exhibition and interpretative media in galleries. In doing so we looked at both the notion of interactivity as well as Ross Parry and Andrew Sawyer’s article, ‘Space and the machine: Adaptive museums, pervasive technology and the new gallery environment.’ In short, Parry and Sawyer (p.44), explore the idea that museums have always been influenced by ICT ‘a phrase that ought not be the privilege of the digital age’. They then go on to discuss the evolution of new media (multimedia/digital interactivity) in the gallery/museum, outlining six phases:
1. OUTSIDE (1950s-1960s)
2. SELECTIVELY INSIDE (1970s)
3. CONTAINED (1980s-1990s)
4. DISCRETE (1990s)
5. INTEGRATED (today)
6. INNATE (emerging)
The multimedia interactives in Manchester Art Gallery very much seem to reinforce Parry and Sawyer’s concept of the six phases of integration and suggest a shift in attitudes in the gallery regarding the roles interactives should play in line with this model:
Ø We identified the Clore Interactive Gallery to highlight the 3rd phase. It exemplifies the idea of large-scale yet partial infiltration, the new media is contained in a separate gallery.
Ø The multimedia in the design galley served to highlight the 4th phase (it is present in the gallery itself yet set away from the exhibits and thus discrete) whilst further multimedia revealed integrated interactives which highlight the 5th phase.
Ø There was also evidence in the portrait gallery of the 6th phase, innate. Where a multimedia interactive is a part of the narrative.
This 6th phase is particularly interesting to me as last week, I visited the ‘Crimes Against Humanity’ exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, London. Parry and Sawyer give this as an example of the 6th phase. It really does serve to highlight the increased potential for immersion that Parry and Sawyer suggest is a trait of this 6th phase.
It is an exhibition in which the visitor becomes very much immersed in a film that focuses on genocide. The gallery is very sparse, it is all white, and the screen on which the film is displayed completely takes over your vision. Thus there are no distractions and I found that I became totally immersed in the film being shown. As, there is no distraction you must confront the ideas being presented to you, as difficult as they are. As Parry and Sawyer indicate(p.47) , ‘…the exhibit was literally shaped as a digital medium.’I found this use of multimedia to be very compelling.
Kostas
helenreesleahy
julianhartley
Robk
