Practice Makes Perfect

Cabinets of Wonder, Final Project

The American Museum of Natural History and partners developed the exhibit “Water H2O = Life” exhibit to raise awareness of water quality and quantity issues around the globe. The attached slide show and supplementary documents present a concept for a Internet-connected road show based on the exhibit’s 10-year international travel schedule. The road show is built around principles of hyperlocalism (global issues presented within the context of local agendas and needs), community arts movement (eco-arts, community building and empowerment, partnerships), and institutional branding (growing AMNH membership, making AMNH’s contributions to content and programming visible and secure).

PowerPoint Presentation
Program Overview
Web Page Mock-up

Week5, Cabinets of Wonder

Click here for the latest version. This is a starting point. Much work to be done still.

Week 6, Cabinets of Wonder

Click here for record of group discussion and my own thoughts gathered during initial development of installation proposal to NY Hall of Science.

Week 6, Cabinets of Wonder

March 1, 2008

I have always known that I prefer fewer objects than more in an exhibit — mostly because I have the space to savor each one and presence to take in the emotional impact, contemplate the technical aspects; and consider the meanings. I have become aware of how all too often, curators pack too much into an exhibit. Design and the Elastic Mind at the MOMA was no exception. Rather than unconsciously mingling with others, I maneuvered through the exhibit as people crowded around pieces too closely spaced. The “box canyon” themed floor plan only exacerbated the situation.

Emotionally, this was the crowning blow. The exhibit layout was not the only thing distracting me. The unwelcoming spirit was evident the moment I arrived at the Museum. I was agitated before I even got to the exhibit.

Security personnel had directed the single line that had been in queue for the next available agent at the ticket station into many lines at each agent in order to clear the barrier the line had become to people passing through the lobby. First in line at that point, I fell to the end of one of those small lines as everyone made a beeline for the agents. When I responded to the guards’ witless instructions with a suggestion that the museum should be able to figure out a way to combine the civility of the single line queue and an open path through the lobby, he just looked at me like the thought would never have occurred to him to take such initiative.

See Charles Amis’ Field Journal for a report on the coat check experience. Ditto. When I returned to pick up my things after leaving the exhibit, I noticed staff strategically placed to herd the coat check customers according to the ill-advised operations plan. I turned to one and asked her if she dealt with a lot of aggravated people day in, day out. She nodded. I asked if this first floor situation worked for her. She stared ahead. When I suggested that the organization needed to take a really close look at all the first floor operations for the sake of its employees as well as its visitors, she agreed whole-heartedly.

I would have taken pictures of this experience to post here, but in the process of juggling my things in coat check line — separating items they wouldn’t let me check so I could carry them with me into the exhibit — I dropped my new, really expensive Nikon digital camera and put it out of commission.

Oh, did I mention that I reluctantly, but necessarily, left the exhibit after 15 frustrating minutes? The really annoying thing is that I REALLY want to see the exhibit, even more now that I got a taste. I will probably pay another $20 that I don’t have and spend time that I barely can spare from my studies to go early one weekday to avoid the crowds. MOMA, from its entrance layout and operations to its curatorial approach, seems to be blind to the fact that it is a popular museum. (Boy, is it lucky or what?) If the organization woke up, I am sure it would think about correcting the problems faced by those of us who must visit during the 80% of the time crowds dominate the scene.

Argh…..I am still aggravated a day later. And, oh yeah, I have to call my camera shop in Virginia to figure out if/how I can get the camera repaired in time to document my project work and for international travel over spring break.

Week 5, Cabinets of Wonder
Original post on Cabinets of Wonder Blog, 2/26/08

Short on time, I compiled this incomplete list of my raw thoughts I’ve been mulling over in anticipation of writing a design manifesto for museum exhibits and programs. I have been looking forward to this assignment. I will try to get over my disappointment at not having more time to finish this list and to begin a first draft of a manifesto. I’ll continue this work after class tonight. I wonder if my Manifesto will have a beginning or end. Certainly, it will always remain dynamic.

Orientation

1. Get off on the right foot. Get orientation out of the way with a bang.
Visitor can’t really experience a museum without first getting comfortable. This is a practical and logistical matter. ______ _________. [learning, messing] Architecture and aesthetic.

2.

Experience (……a word that is not “learning”…..)

1. “Play” (things, objects, work) = Imagination (ideas, images) = Connection (prior knowledge) = Experience (increased knowledge, changed perspective, enlivened awareness, sense of fun, sense of humor, sense of seriousness)
Children and, likewise, adults with child-like glee, make connections through imagination sparked by play. [Messing, p69] Element of surprise and wonder should underly everything; from the outright to sublime (gracious teasers printed on cafe napkins; use to integrate disparate parts of institutional program — GIS the way finding paths to understand opportunities and distractions, etc. etc. etc.).

2. Build exhibits as if collecting rather than giving information.
Like servers at top-rate restaurants, staff is instrumental in making a visit what it is, but the visitor is at the heart of the experience rather than the collection or message. [Messing, p69]

3. Engage visitors in a dialog.
Think here of dialog in the broadest, most creative sense. In many cases, meaning cannot gel without a social interaction. [Memory of History, p23] Present the exhibit as if it was another visitor. Replace voice, image and video depicting the experts with those of the visitors. Let visitors depicted in exhibits interview the experts. Be sincere rather than authoritative.

4. Orient visitors of varying readiness to a topic by offering multiple access points in an exhibit and its enveloping program.
Get their attention, then use advance organizers to lead from the familiar to unknown using multiple gates and paths. [Evidence, p38] Maintain the spirit of discovery and exploration by accommodating various levels of previous exposure to the topic. Keep in mind the many ways people learn. [Messing…] Use most labels to orient rather than to advance a didactic agenda.

5. Think of reading narrative as telling one’s own story, creating one’s own theatre.
People “listen” to narrative by relating it to their own story and experience. Telling it back or relating it to someone else, the listener takes ownership of the story. Get over trying to control a visitor’s experience. [Schwarz, Jenkins, HistMem, Work of M]

6. Work at the edge.
The edge sustains a sense of discovery and exploration. Edge is where patterns, connections and relationships reside. Complexities, ambiguities, conflicts (the real story) are clear only at the edge. Paradox of remembering resides here. Compare, contrast; create resonance and personal interpretation. Be messy, but clear.

7. Insert technological elements seamlessly.
Allow (do not inhibit), without the slightest interference, even the most subtle and nuanced gesture of the visitor.

8.

Evaluation

1. Executive committees and museum management are able to clearly articulate theory behind the evaluation approach to one another.
If a goal were didactic learning, outcomes and indicators of success would be envisioned differently than if meaning-making were the goal. The intention behind using indicators of success could be to show direction rather than target met. [Evidence, p149-150]

2.

Still to process:
Visits: blog and notes. MJT. Readings: Everyone, Exploratorium, Ed Theory, ConstructMuseum, and more thorough pass through others. Hennes (see Panama summary), Mau.

Week 4, Cabinet of Wonders

New York Hall of Science
A group of teenagers

Mom and Dad wanted us to get out of the house after playing video games most of the holiday. I told them John was willing to go to the Hall of Science with me. We wanted a ride instead of going on the subway, because it was too cold to walk from the station to the place. Even though we’d been there just a few weeks ago on a class field trip, I wanted to see the Connections exhibit again. We had gone to the light exhibit for school. If we hadn’t talked about light and refraction and stuff beforehand, that field trip would have been worthless. A couple of friends and I read some of stuff in the exhibit and it made no sense at all. What a joke.

I like the Connections exhibit because there’s a batting cage there. One of my friends is an Explainer in that exhibit. He tries to get us interested in other parts of the exhibit if he’s there. Sometime that works. At first, when we went on the dance floor, we didn’t understand what those arched arrows were supposed to mean. He had to explain it to us. The labels didn’t make any sense — something about connections between us. We didn’t really care, in the end, we just thought the light was cool.

We were bummed when we found out the Science Playground was closed. I guess they thought it was too cold out, too. We hung out at the Internet stations until my parents came to pick us up.

New York Hall of Science
A family group

I could have spent all day in the PreSchool Place. My 2 year old had plenty to do and I could hang out with her or sit and commiserate with the other parents while she ran untethered.

Out in the exhibits, I always feel like I am missing something chasing her from interactive to interactive. She can’t reach very many so I am always picking her up and putting her down – that’s exhausting. The minute she’s up and I begin to explain, she plays with the buttons or knobs for a second then wriggles out of my arms, bored by material and functions that are beyond her comprehension. I foolishly linger, trying to read some of the material, but am interrupted when she is ready to move on. I am glad to see her excited and intrigued, but don’t know if she is getting anything out of this experience. I am surely beat by the end of the ordeal.

In the meantime, I’ve dropped off my twin 10 year olds in the Connections exhibit after introducing them to the Explainers and the Lab attendant and letting them know I’ll be back in an hour to pick up the girls. I’ve been with the girls on a field trip to this exhibit, so I am comfortable that they will be able to understand the interactives and play safely without bothering anyone. The other exhibits would be over their heads or they’d get bored within 15 or 20 minutes once they’d played with the few interactives that were “accessible” and operating as intended.

The Children’s Museum of Arts
Someone who speaks no English

Today a friend took me and my 4 year old, along with another mother friend of hers, to the Children’s Museum of Arts. She was right. Here was a museum, in NYC, finally, where it didn’t matter that I didn’t speak English. My daughter gravitated right away to the activity areas that focused on painting. Then later, once she was comfortable, she tried things that she never had. She is very shy, so I was surprised. She acted in front of the Green Screen. I had never realized that she was such a performer.

It didn’t matter that she couldn’t speak English, she made great friends in the ball tumble. Before long one little girl took her by the hand and they both went over to act out in front of the Green Screen. I was able to laugh a lot with the other parents just watching the kids play and make things. I even got to point out to my daughter about Frida Kahlo, a famous Mexican painter, because there was a reference to her on one of the walls. Before leaving, I realized there were wonderful artworks hanging high on the walls. They looked nice, but I couldn’t quite see them and I wondered who made them. But when my daughter went to find her painting, someone had stepped on it while it was drying. She was sad, but told me she would still like to come back.

Week 4, Cabinets of Wonder

New York Hall of Science
Photo: Doing Things — Did the Mars Rover Do What I Told it To Do?
Children’s Museum of the Arts
Photo: Making Things — Comfortable in Confusion
February 17, 2008

While the Hall of Science seemed to be analyzing wondrous things through the spectacle of the interactive, CMA seemed to be instilling a sense of wonder through the spectacle of personal uncertainty, imagination and adaptability.

The CMA was about MAKING according to each kid’s own inspiration and imagination. In my mind, I contrasted this with other museum experiences. National Gallery of Art, as a child, was about listening to the docents and “behaving ourselves,” speaking in hushed whispers, following two-by-two in line. The NY Hall of Science was about diffusing excited energy, often running or loping from one interactive station to another, and DOING whatever the buttons and mechanical knobs allowed.

The CMA was about EXPRESSING. The only didactic presence was brief, step-wise instructions for making a self-portrait; for playing with the green screen; and for stating the mission, which gave permission to all who entered to make this their own experience. Spontaneity and serendipity seemed to be the flavors of the day. I could see myself return, as a child, feeling safe to make whatever I liked without judgment. In contrast, the Hall of Science, while entertaining, was predictable.

These excerpts from a extended journal entry were prompted by four intense weeks of field trips and critical analysis of museums culminating in visits to the NY Hall of Science and Children’s Museum of Arts. This journal entry goes beyond the required gestalt and observation to document what had become a rather personal reflection of museums and my experience of them. This topic goes to larger questions I am asking because of the reason I came to ITP and the work I hope to do afterwards. As such, it became longer than I’d expected. I apologize to anyone who finds this entry indulgent, but time does not permit editing before putting it on the blog.

Week 3, Cabinets of Wonder
February 9, 2008

My friends Dave and Kathy and I visited the great NYC Public Library to see the Kerouac exhibit currently showing. Click here for my impressions and reviews.

Cabinets of Wonder, Week 2
February 1, 2008

A Rainy Garden
Perspective: An Adult (35 years+)

What a steal! Free weekday admission to Brooklyn Botanical Garden in the winter. On this misty, rainy day, with the place practically all to myself, I delight in scanning the landscape without the summer foliage intruding. Lovely, peaceful and revitalizing.

Expect an experience of texture and panorama. The plants’ autumn glory is preserved in winter interest as the ground crew refrained from too much fall cleanup, thank goodness. Hooked by snippets of information posted in the gardens, a visitor is apt to take up the invitation posted on attractive signage to “ask-an-expert” for more information when they reach the visitor’s center.

Keeping the BBG current and relevant, the designers have included a garden path honoring Brooklyn artists and leaders. Gazing down at the bronze tributes embedded into the path stepping stones, visitors’ conversations might turn to memories of each of these individuals from performances they have seen or news they have watched. The Shakespeare garden, which features plants mentioned in his work, offers an outdoor classroom for eccentric teachers guiding students to an understanding of the bard’s ways.

You might say BBG curators have it easy since plants and well-designed gardens present a visitor experience almost without lifting a finger. However, a gardener myself, I can feel and see the detailed care and attention given to this gem of a museum in the heart of Brooklyn.

Gardens Galore
Perspective: A kid under 12

Finding the Brooklyn Botanical Garden wasn’t easy from the subway, but once we got there I was glad Mom and Dad hadn’t given up. If you are a kid like me, you will love all the space to roam. While Mom and Dad ambled along, I had fun getting “lost” in the small gardens located to the sides.

Be sure to get there with enough time to see inside the buildings. We didn’t realize the buildings closed a half hour before the grounds, so our time there was cut short. Plants that eat insects. Now that makes my imagination wander. I had heard about these before, but seeing them is believing. Seeing the story of evolution in plants at the Trail of Evolution was a lot more fun than when we were taught about evolution in class.

I had never heard of gardens like this in the city, so I was surprised when I got to BBG. Now, I am going to tell all my friends to go. I will be back.

A Secret Garden: The BBG Library
Perspective: A Student (15-25)

I didn’t go to Brooklyn Botanical Gardens for insight into a budding art project, but in hindsight I should not have been surprised I would find it. Visiting the gardens on a cold, rainy February day, my first stop was the visitor’s center to get a map and my bearings.

Maybe because I was only one of a few visitors that day, the staff manning the information booth offered me a pass into the staff area to visit the BBG library. This turned out to be a secret garden. Sitting down at the big, well-lit table at the center of the small, intimate Victorian-era library, I turned my attention to a book I’d grabbed about landscapes and site design. Soon my attention wandered to the oversized book displayed like a centerpiece in front of me. Botanical drawings from another era gazed back at me. Reaching forward, I gingerly turned the pages. Before long, I saw in the plant renderings, the design framework for puppets I will be making for an art project.

If surprise is what you are looking for in a museum visit, the BBG will not let you down. The building exhibits tell stories using plants (from evolution to other horticultural diversions) and the grounds leave you in a mental space to be inspired.

Cabinets of Wonder, Week 2
Febrary 2, 2008

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Looking for the sanctuary of a garden space, I know I have reached my destination as I approach the Info Booth and see the garden gate just beyond. Senses are satisfyingly awakened. Entering through the gate, I let go of tensions as I walk into a world of my own, meeting no other visitors along the path on this cold rainy day. Everything is neat and tidy. Around a bend in the path and beyond the Japanese garden, the buildings stand at perfect scale. Signage easily directs me to the restrooms, visitor’s center and gift shops. Signage on the grounds offers up just enough information in unobtrusive ways. Using illustration rather than schematic design, the map of the grounds, posted both on the grounds and in a brochure, is a pleasure. Friendly and knowledgeable volunteer staff help me get my bearings.

OBSERVER

EMOTIONAL
Like: A garden’s immersive experience prevails over all other aspects of what essentially is a museum visit: the informational and social. The garden’s “winter interest” unpruned at autumn’s end.
Dislike: Nothing. Maybe the curtailed winter hours?
Do Differently: Nothing.

INFORMATIONAL
Like: What a great map. Using illustrations that distinguish the gardens, the map both educates and guides navigation. Pleasant to look at and easy to navigate. The garden signage shared just enough information with the right blend of images and text with text in a legible font. Plant labels were where I expected. The content emphasized the relationships between people and horticulture, so it was satisfyingly story-like. Excellent library (Not open to general public on a routine basis. Special pass required. That’s good; necessary to preserve small, well kept space.)
Dislike: Information regarding hours. Didn’t get the chance to evaluate the place fully since I unexpectedly ran short of time when, to my surprise, the buildings closed ½-hour earlier than the grounds. Confusing or no signage from Franklin Ave stop on the No.2 subway to the place.
Do Differently: Post hours more clearly and existing signage. Coordinate with city to post simple signage using an appropriate aesthetic – it would only take signage at 2 locations: the top of the stairs at the Botanical Gardens, S-line station and at Clausson and Eastern Pkwy.

SOCIAL
Like: I visited BBG alone and with so few visitors, it is hard for me to say much here. Friendly staff, of course.
Dislike: Nothing
Do Differently: In context of my visit, nothing. If I’d been with a group of people or there had been more visitors, maybe I would have something to say here.