5 Designer Resolutions For 2010

Not to rush the New Year, but here are the "Designer Resolutions" I want to focus on in 2010.

I've included a link to one related ExhibiTricks posting (that really stirred people up!) from this past year with each resolution:

1) Check the Tech
Try to be more mindful of the reasons for using technology effectively, and not as "electronic wallpaper."

2) Think Small(er)
Celebrate the opportunities to employ smaller, subtler touches in design projects.

3) Cheaper and Faster and Edgier
Prototype early and often --- let ideas fly without over analyzing them in mindless meetings.

4) Use the Underutilized
Look for ways to stretch budgets (and minds) by using existing resources to better advantage.

5) Don't Start with Hype
Focus on the heart of the idea, the story, not the marketing campaign.

What are your "Designer Resolutions" for 2010? Let us know in the Comments Section below.

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Exploring The World: An Interview With Dan Spock

Dan Spock is the Director of the Minnesota History Center Museum (MHS). Over the course of his 26-year museum career, Dan has worked as an exhibit designer, an exhibit developer and a program administrator.

Exhibits developed by Dan and his team at MHS have ranged from multidisciplinary, high immersion, interactive and media-rich approaches designed for a general family audience, to intensive community-based collaborations, to site specific interpretive centers and trails, to art or photography shows.

Dan was kind enough to share some of his thoughts about exhibits and museums in this interview.



What’s your educational background?

I have a BA in art from Antioch College. I set out to be a painter and printmaker, though I was a dabbler in many other interests as well. My point of entry into the museum world was doing exhibit and marketing graphic design, which I imagined would be a way to support my art making. It took me four years to discover that I preferred working in creative exhibit teams to the solitude art required of me. I was learning so much from other people, more than I thought I could learn from any introspective artistic process.

I’m an administrator now, but I think one thing I’ve retained from art making is that sense that when you encounter something that makes you anxious, instead of avoiding it, you deal with it by engaging with it creatively. I want to be responsible, but I try not to make decisions based on fear.



What got you interested in Museums?

Well, I’m kind of dyed in the wool on this. My father was a museum professional of some repute, having been the director of the Boston Children’s Museum during its transformational time in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s. I was a witness to that as a child and experienced very directly the excitement of each new development as that process was unfolding.

As a family we spent a fair proportion of our leisure time visiting museums, zoos, city, national and state parks, all sorts of cultural events and places. Virtually all of our family vacations included this kind of tourism. There was Sturbridge Village and Plimoth Plantation. We went to the 1964 New York World’s Fair and Expo ’67 in Montreal which were very memorable and had a profound impact on me. My grandparents were New Yorkers, so we did all of the biggies there. There were mind-blowing visits to the Exploratorium and the Ontario Science Center when those places were new. We weren’t too snobby either, we also went to Disneyland, Sea World, Universal Studios, wax museums, amusement parks and tourist traps.

The ethos was to get out and experience the world. I was encouraged to explore things on my own too, so I did a lot of stuff by taking public transportation with my posse and just knocking around the city, exploring the museums, sites and libraries. I liked old graveyards and abandoned industrial sites, all the little nooks and crannies around the Boston area. I began to develop a sense of pride of ownership for these places and the skills I’d developed by using them in my own ways. I also retained a sense of how pleasingly tantalizing and surprising the museum exploration and discovery process can be, but also how that isn’t that different from our experience of exploring the outside world.



Is your approach to exhibition development different in a Historical Museum context?

Yes and no. I got my early training at the Boston Children’s Museum and the mentors I had there had a huge impact on how I saw exhibit development as a process. For one thing, there was a highly participatory team approach and participation was not limited by seniority or roles in any strict sense, so everyone could contribute. The exhibit developer role was really being created there at the time. Designers, production and content people all worked closely together. It could be messy and contentious, but it was very instructive for someone with limited experience, a real apprenticeship. We did a tremendous volume of new exhibit work while I was there too, so the challenges came quickly which was good practice.

The other thing was how there was a culture of respect for our audience that was deeply suffused through everything we did. This wasn’t some kind of idealized kumbaya notion either, but a hard-headed pragmatism about what kids are really like, what they’re liable to attend to and how, what they’d do that you’d wish they wouldn’t, anticipating those things, but also checking your work through experiments, prototyping and the like. We lived with our work and learned from our failures and successes quickly because in a children’s museum these things become obvious right away. There was an acceptance of risk, but also a commitment to making things really good. Part of my job was to repair stuff, so you could see which things were “well-loved,” as we used to say. I learned the value of persistence and a tolerance for ambiguity. So I came out of BCM as an exhibit designer/developer with those values pretty deeply ingrained.

I was lucky to wind up at a history museum, the Minnesota History Center (MHC) which was already pretty far down the same road through the leadership of my predecessors Paul Martin, Barbara Franco and Maureen Otwell. In fact, that’s really why I wanted to come here. Though MHC didn’t have developers yet, it did have curators who were dedicated exclusively to exhibit development, not to collection specializations, and some of them came from the living history sites, not from museums. This tradition gave MHC a certain flexibility in thinking about the museum as an experience that could go beyond words and objects. MHC had a track record of prototyping interactive and media rich exhibit elements and already had a rep for innovation when I arrived. So I have to say that the process has been more similar than not, in spite of the discipline difference.

I think the one big difference I perceive with history as opposed to other subjects, is how powerful a story-driven approach can become. Because history is so much a matter of people and their stories, you can really use narrative in ways that are super engaging to the public. You can even let narrative form the backbone of the interpretive approach entirely. This is not to say that you can’t do that with science or natural history, I think this is something those disciplines should look at more seriously. But stories are history’s inherent superpower and history museums still don’t flex that muscle nearly enough in my view. History museums are often the victims of self-imposed limitations, assumptions about how history museums are supposed to be. I see that changing in many places now, but we’re still behind the curve, which is what makes working in history so much fun, there’s so much you can do that’s still fresh.

A last thought on this is to say that I think history museums, since so many of them are localized in subject matter, may be especially well suited to work with community groups in collaborative partnerships. We’ve made a practice of this at MHC, taking different approaches depending on the project. History will have to work especially hard in the future to be more inclusive and responsive, because it’s the right thing to do, but also because the public demographics are so fluid and dynamic right now. New populations will need to recognize themselves in what we do and to do this our processes will have to include them in ways that aren’t merely symbolic, but show the voice, the hand of their involvement in meaningful ways in the products we create together.



What advice would you have for fellow museum professionals, especially those from smaller museums, in developing better stories for their exhibitions?

I say go with authentic stories. Resist the temptation to make stuff up. Primary sources are where it’s at. Dig out diaries, letters, newspapers for material if it’s not possible to get living people who are always the best possible thing. I think even the most prosaic objects are always more interesting if there’s a first-person voice attached to them. The authoritative, third-person curatorial voice, especially if it’s too preachy or academic sounding, is part of what gives history museum visitors the hives, if they ever even make it in the door.

If you can figure out a way to say some of the same things with a real and illustrative story, people find it much more engrossing. Dilemmas and conflicts of one sort or another are interesting. Learning is an emotional process, not merely a logical one. More than the why, when and the how, people really want to imagine what it was like. The closer you can bring them to that feeling, the more interesting it is. Authentic voices help make that come across. With design, try to work with theater people. Their trade makes them accustomed to being flexible, they can scale according to budget and they are comfortable communicating stories visually. They’re also often underemployed.

Another tip is not to be too daunted by the cost of things. The idea is not to spend a lot, but to make what you do spend really count. Sometimes you can create a compelling effect with just the slightest gesture and people use their imagination to fill everything in. I was in a little museum once and they had created a full scale diorama of a tiny ship’s cabin. The cabin had a porthole with a view to the shore and the view bobbed up and down very slightly creating a powerful impression of being on the water. A few sound effects of creaking wood timbers and squawking gulls completed the sensation, it really put you there.

The Museum of Jurassic Technology in LA is another excellent example of what an imaginative person with extremely limited resources can do—I remember noticing how all of the spotlights were made from auto headlamps held up with lab clamps! Evocation is the name of the game. I think people really appreciate seeing things in context, so the more you can situate objects in their surroundings, the more evocative they become. A visual realization is also a storytelling act. It’s useful to think about the kinds of experiences we have all the time that trigger memories and conversations. These will translate well into exhibit experiences. It’s incredible what you can buy on Ebay now. It’s also exciting that the tools and equipment necessary to do stuff are becoming cheaper and more accessible. My daughter did a History Day project last year on iMovie that rivaled some of the stuff we’ve done at the museum. OK, I’m a little biased, but you get my point.



Tell us a little bit about the Mill City Museum, and how it got started?

It’s a long story. The Minnesota Historical Society operates about 26 historic sites and museums around the state. One of them was a storefront operation in downtown Minneapolis which was a jumping off point for guided heritage tours of the then dilapidated industrial riverfront. It had long been a dream that an industrial history museum could help anchor a process of riverfront redevelopment and the city had been making substantial incremental steps in that direction through partnerships with the city park board and redevelopment authority, the county, the National Park Service, real estate developers, preservation groups, some interested architects and MHS. Those relationships took years to cultivate.

As parts began to fall into place, especially the opening of the Stone Arch railroad bridge to pedestrian and bike traffic, which quickly became the money spot for skyline viewing, attention turned to the nearby ruins of the Washburn Crosby A Mill which had been gutted by fire about a decade earlier. The mill was on the National Register, it once housed the parent company of what’s now General Mills, and it was also once the largest flour mill in the world, flour milling being the industry that put Minneapolis on the map.



It was hard work, but basically a complex combination of civic vision, partnerships and a strong economy created the zeitgeist necessary to get the new museum funded. We imagined a program that would be built on experiential variety – immersive storytelling shows, a tasting kitchen, a hands-on waterpower lab and other areas with interactives, an outdoor view over the riverfront from on high, new architecture that was sensitive to the original fabric of the mill, along with plenty of both nostalgic, but also brawny, flour industry-related objects. Storytelling and interactivity in particular seemed to be golden opportunities that other industrial heritage sites had missed.

We wanted regional and global scope, so agriculture and global trade impact were in there. We had research suggesting that flour milling would be a loser topic from a promotional and attendance point of view, so we had to make sure the visitor experience compensated for that by being as compelling as we could make it. We had a branding and publicity campaign that helped project the idea that this would be an exciting place to visit. Since opening we’ve sustained annual attendance at around 120,000, our original goal being about 90,000. In the meantime we’ve also seen the rest of the riverfront redeveloped, including new parks and the new Guthrie Theater, which filled the last undeveloped lot downriver from us a few years ago, so MCM helped blaze a trail for development other than just luxury condos.



What are some of your favorite online (or offline!) resources for people interested in finding out more about exhibition development?

I read the Exhibitionist and Curator pretty religiously. Kathy McLean’s writings have been useful to me for many years and now she’s got her own blog which I will follow. I really like ExhibitFiles for its range and variety. I like your blog and Nina Simon’s Museum 2.0.

The Center for the Future of Museums has a blog now that’s always provocative, though less exhibit-specific. I don’t do the Museum-L listserve much; it’s not pictorial enough for me; I get lost in it. There also seem to be a lot people on it whining about things I think are progressive.

There’s a new blog called Museopunk that’s kind of fun. Never could quite click with Museum News for some reason even I don’t understand, though I think it’s getting a little better lately. I have Google pull me a bunch of topical museum stories every day which I comb for provocative or weird stuff. I follow a lot of museum people on Twitter now, including you!



What do you think is the “next frontier” for museums?

I resist the idea that there is one frontier. But I do think we know enough about how things are trending to talk about a framework within which museums will need to evolve. I just think that evolutionary process is liable to be very different from museum to museum and that’s a good thing. I take a biodiversity analogy. It’s better for the health of museums in aggregate if they stay resolutely differentiated, even if that means some don’t survive. The Center for the Future of Museums posted a good five point list recently: Green, Personalized, Comfortable, Interactive, Flexible, which neatly frames the areas of concern where innovation will need to occur.

To that list I would add what I said earlier about the increasing diversity of our potential audiences. In Minnesota our school age population is already more than 50% “minority.” Museums will need to ask themselves how they plan to respond to that reality. I also think there’s a lot of potential in doing interdisciplinary exhibits. The traditional academic categories around which museums were originally organized are beginning to prove inadequate for talking about the particular challenges we are now facing as a species on this planet—challenges people want to talk about. Exciting ways to understand these issues in relevant ways are going to be neglected if we insist on limiting our scope to one narrow discipline or another. I think designers could stand to think less about style and look more at communicating concepts visually through metaphor or juxtaposition—the way artists do!



What are some of your favorite museums or exhibitions?

I’m kind of polymorphously perverse, so it’s hard to pick even a few. I’ve already mentioned the Museum of Jurassic Technology and stuff that influenced me as a kid. I love the City Museum in St. Louis. The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore is a favorite. I like all of these for the DIY ethos they represent.


I saw a museum in Budapest a few years ago called the House of Terror that just blew me away. There’s a group in Switzerland called Stapferhaus Lenzburg which doesn’t have a permanent museum, but stages temporary exhibits in various locations that provoke encounters between strangers around topical issues. The Lower East Side Tenement Museum was a revelation when I first visited there. Dialogues in the Dark is an inspired, transformative exhibit. Bruce Mau’s Massive Change broke a lot of rules, but succeeded in being provocative by having a strong point of view.

Chicago History Museum has done some really cool exhibits recently, the one on teens and their recent fashion exhibits were real standouts for me. The USS Constitution Museum is really breaking out right now with a combo exhibit and research project devoted to family learning. Connor Prairie has methodically and imaginatively transformed what a living history site can be. The Museum at Bethel Woods, which is on the site of the Woodstock Festival, is really well done.

The Rosenbach Library was doing some very innovative programming when Bill Adair was there and the Eastern State Penitentiary, which is also in Philadelphia, does interesting stuff with artist installations and other programming. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is the best anywhere. Fred Wilson’s "Mining the Museum" was significant for me as was "Art/Artifact" at the Museum for African Art in New York; they really changed how I think about museum tradecraft. I like some of these not because they are models to imitate, but because they really can’t be imitated, they’re completely unique. I’ve admired the kind of risks the designer Francois Confino takes with exhibits; he doesn’t use artifacts or labels. The International Museum of Humor by Confino was appropriately hilarious.



Can you talk a little about some of your current projects?

We’ve got a bunch of cool things we’re working on now. One is a major traveling exhibit on the year 1968 which has proven extremely challenging to fund but it will be really worth the effort. It’ll be about the lasting impact of one year’s events on the memories of a generation of young people and we’re using some social media approaches to build the project up and out. We’re working on another major effort which we call “reinventing the field trip.” We’ll be looking at some novel ways for making an exhibit that’s more responsive to a school group audience. It’s still too speculative to talk much about it yet, but we did get some funding in place so it feels very feasible in what is otherwise a really icky economic environment.



If money were no object, what would your “dream” exhibit project be?

I’ve got tons of them in reserve, but the most impractical one I’ve always wanted to do is a combination museum and resort hotel where you’d get to live, sleep and eat in the museum. It would have guest rooms, lounges, restaurants, a pool, a bar, a day spa, all of which are a part of game-like exhibits you can party in around the clock with other guests. The museum could be about anything, but maybe it would be about a journey of self-realization. Something about the choices you make in life and where they lead you, a place where you can experiment with alternative paths and identities you’d never dare take in real life. Know anybody who’d like to fund it?



Thanks again to Dan for sharing his thoughts on the exhibit development process. (Feel free to forward his info to potential funders for the hotel/museum project!)



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NO!

What with all the hubbub surrounding Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen and Health Care Legislation in Washington D.C., it is frightening how a single person (or small group of people) stamping their feet and shouting NO! can derail literally life and death considerations.

So what does all that have to do with exhibit design? Simply this --- sometimes a democratic (or team-based or community-focused) design process can't work. Sometimes one over-sized ego or obstreperous individual will block any forward progress.

So what can you do, either as a design team member, or an administrator? While I'm a big fan of the defenestration of boneheads, that isn't often feasible, so instead you can take a page (or three) from the Climate or Health Care Negotiations:

1) Look For Common Ground
Try, really try, to find some common ground. Are there any points to agree on? If so, start from there and see if you can begin to move toward consensus. If not, you can move to Step 2.

2) Divide And Conquer
Some people are just disagreeable and/or unreasonable, and no well-considered discussion will change that. If the design or project impasse really comes down to one or two people, simply divide the work up so that the "chunk" the cranks work on is not essential to keeping the main design project moving forward. If this doesn't get you past the speed bumps, consider Step 3.

3) Go It Alone
Think of Bill Gates on world-wide health issues, or Al Gore on climate change. Both have decided to become passionate champions for their respective projects, and avoid naysayers impeding their forward progress.

Is it possible in your organization to run some design projects where one "project advocate" becomes the key decision maker and the ultimate "breaker of deadlock"? Does every design project need to be run democratically, and more importantly, are the end results of consensus truly better design?


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Exhibit Design Toolkit: WarnLaser

Why settle for a wimpy laser pointer, when you can purchase a laser that can "burn dark paper, melt plastics, pop balloons, and light matches"?

And just in time for those last-minute holiday shoppers, WarnLaser is just the place to buy such a device. Aside from the fun you can have melting and/or burning things, lasers are great to use in exhibits or educational demonstrations. The Instructables website also has some great examples of "laser show" projectors (also known as "laser spirographs")

Have fun --- and don't look directly at the laser source!

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Underutilized Design Opportunities: What's Inside Your Elevator?

Inside the elevators at the Hampton Inn in Wilson, North Carolina (where I was working last week with the fine folks from the Imagination Station Science Museum) there are evocative photos with simple captions (like the "pedal pusher" image above.)

At first, I wasn't really sure how I was supposed to react to the simple graphics and messages scattered throughout the hotel.  Eventually the combination of image+idea grew on me --- in a positive way.  (I'm trying to find out the motivations for Hampton Inn in "branding" themselves in this manner --- but that's for a future post.) 

Leaving all that aside,  since I got to see the different images in the elevators several times a day, for several days, I started thinking about why elevators (especially in museums) seem to be an underutilized design opportunity for environmental graphics and exhibits.

Occasionally, the outside of elevator doors are used as a place to mount informational/directional graphics, but what about the elevator interior (a classic case of a captive audience) or the usually blank walls and alcoves containing elevators?

I'm not talking about using elevator interiors as a place to hang the equivalent of "coming events" flyers --- rather how could we use these natural gathering spaces to engage visitors, to set a tone, to provide simple interactive experiences --- involving motion or perspective or acceleration or the "etiquette of elevators", for example?

I'd like to collect the best ideas and/or images you've experienced (or would like to experience!) of graphics, exhibits, or architectural embellishments involving elevators and pull them together for future blog posts on underutilized graphic/exhibit spaces in buildings.

So either put your elevator musings into the Comments Section below, or put them into an email to me directly.


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What Does The Discovery - Times Square Exposition Mean For Museums?

The Discovery - Times Square Exposition (Discovery TSX) is a big honking display center right in (as the name implies) Times Square in New York City.  So what are they showing in there --- exhibits and displays related to the shows from The Discovery Network shows like Sharks, or blowing up things with the Mythbusters?

In a word, no.  The shows that Discovery TSX has been rolling in since its opening are the very same shows (Titanic, King Tut, Lucy's Legacy, DaVinci's Workshop) that museums have been trying to make hay from.  Discovery TSX also features a café with large seating area and two stores --- The Discovery Store and The New York Times Store (the building once housed The New York Times printing presses.) Discovery TSX also offers special event rental spaces.  I'm sure if the Discovery TSX folks could have figured out a way to stick an IMAX theatre in there without violating contractual obligations with existing big-theatre venues in Manhattan they would have done that as well.

So what does this all mean for museums?  I'd say its pretty scary when a juggernaut like The Discovery Network starts making a grab for the high-profile, high-margin aspects (like traveling exhibitions, retail, food service, and special events rentals) that museums find themselves using to support their "less profitable" aspects (like educational programming, collections management, and exhibition research.) And Discovery TSX gets all the monetary goodies, and the reflected prestige of running a "museum-like" operation, without all the messy details of context and pesky curators and exhibit developers running around.

Well, you might be saying, I can see that a Times Square outpost by The Discovery Network might be problematic for nearby museums like the New York Hall of Science, or The Liberty Science Center, or even the American Museum of Natural History, but what's the downside for a museum outside the greater New York metropolitan area?

To that question, I'll finish up with two points to ponder:

1) If The Discovery Network manages to make their Discovery TSX venue a profitable proposition (perhaps a big "if") might they not set their sights on L.A., Chicago, or London next?

2) Have we in the museum business lost focus on our core principles (like collections, education, and exhibit development) and become mere "display centers" in search of the fast dollar? And have we also inadvertently trained an audience of Pavlov's dogs to respond only to new, shiny, traveling shows while ignoring the rest of our museums?

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Designer Toolkit: Taylor Ergonomic Luggage Scale

The Taylor Ergonomic Luggage Scale is a handy, and relatively inexpensive, digital scale.  As you can see by the image above,  the scale works by hanging things from the handle (that also serves to hold the digital read-out.)

A digital luggage scale is handy for weighing items before you go on a trip (duh!) to avoid excess baggage fees, but this particular unit is also durable enough to be used in interactive exhibits or museum lab spaces as a simple yet effective digital scale.

Last but not least, this is also the perfect type of device to substitute for cheap(er) spring scales in free-fall and "zero gravity" experiments and demonstrations.

The Taylor Ergonomic Luggage Scale is available at Amazon and the other online "usual suspects" for under $20.00 (USD).

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Exhibit Design Inspiration: The Reverse Geocache Puzzle ™

I've been edging around investigating the Arduino system (an open-source electronics prototyping platform) but now that I've read about Mikal Hart and the super-cool puzzle box called The Reverse Geocache Puzzle ™  that he built as a wedding present, I've got an added incentive to order up some Arduino gizmos and books.

Basically, as the name implies, Mikal Hart's box is dependent upon the GPS system.  In this case as long as you figure out (by reading the GPS-enabled diplay screen on the top of the puzzle box) within 50 guesses the pre-programmed "mystery location" the box will spring open revealing its contents.

There are several cool aspects to this: One is that you have to play a location game tied to satellites to make your present work, another is that in a perfect blending of high-tech and low-tech the device that interfaces with the electronic latch to make it work is a modified chopstick!

It really is worth reading the whole "Reverse Geocache Puzzle" saga yourself at Mikal Hart's website and checking out the goodies and gizmos at the Arduino website as well!

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Why Are You Reading This Blog?

I'm in a bit of an introspective mode.  So, I'm curious about the people who read this blog (like you!)  

Please leave a comment below (anonymous if you like) or send me an email to tell me: a little bit about yourself,  why you read ExhibiTricks, what you like, what you don't like, and what sorts of new things you'd like to see.

Thanks in advance for your comments, and thanks very much for reading ExhibiTricks.

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Duct Tape In Bushwick

In continuing our unintended recent theme of tape-related postings, two talented designers from the Master of Arts program in Exhibition Design at FIT named Isabella Bruno and Mandi Zanski wrote to share a recent project they did with duct tape a few weeks ago at the BETA Spaces event sponsored by Arts in Bushwick (that's in Brooklyn, for those of you outside NYC!)

Mandi and Isabella used fluorescent duct tape as a framing device throughout the neighborhood to call attention to the performing artists that they curated.  This created a "faux stage" or "instructions for viewing art" on the streets of Bushwick.  The idea was for pedestrians to stumble upon these art installations unexpectedly and to provoke them to consider how they viewed everyday environments in their own neighborhood.

The intrepid "duct tape designers" reported that they enjoyed watching the reactions of pedestrians who either stopped to view the installation or pass by it with no regard at all.  It was an interesting experiment for sure, especially since one of the performers almost got arrested because their tape was "defacing public property."  The officer said that he, "Couldn't bring her downtown looking like that ..." (wearing a red prom dress in the photo below) and he'd never seen anything like THIS."

Kudos to Isabella and Mandi for taking their design ideas to the streets! You can find an audio interview about the BETA Spaces event by clicking HERE.


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Exhibit Design Inspiration: Buff Diss

As a quick follow-up to my infatuations with tape as both a practical and prototyping medium, I'd like to point your attention to the work of Buff Diss.

Buff Diss works with masking tape in a graffiti style to transform the urban landscape, architecture, and construction sites, as you can see from his Flickr stream. 

The video at the top of this post is well worth a look and listen to get a sense of Buff Diss' creative mindset.  (I especially like the confusion that his artwork causes with authorities since it is removable and does not permanently damage the sites or surfaces it inhabits.)

Enjoy!

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ELVIS the Exhibit Prototyper?

This week I was fortunate to work with the students in the Exhibition Design Master's program at FIT (The Fashion Institute of Technology) in Manhattan.

My presentations covered one of my favorite, but often overlooked, design topics: Prototyping! 

In my opinion, most exhibit design misfires could be prevented by more thorough prototyping at the beginning of the exhibit development process.

In addition to warping the minds of these young up-and-coming exhibit designers with my corny jokes and some rapid/cheap prototyping exercises using paper and masking tape,  part of my presentation also dealt with how to use the word ELVIS as a mnemonic (memory aid) for exhibit designers when they are developing prototypes:

 E = Everyday Materials
Using everyday materials makes it easier to prototype AND maintain exhibits.  I'd much rather spec something from McMaster-Carr or the local Radio Shack that does the job, rather than creating a custom component that will be tricky to replace later on.

L = Looseness
Providing open-ended opportunities during exhibit development and for the visitors.  The best exhibits (and exhibit developers!) are not one-trick ponies, they are wired up to allow multiple successful outcomes.

V = Vermicious
The word means "wormy." Good exhibits and prototypes should "worm around" your head on many different levels: old/young, art/science, beginner/expert.  If you can find a way to conceptually and actively "hook" your visitors, they'll remember your exhibits.

I = Interesting
Two things: 1) Great exhibits/prototypes always seem interesting, no matter how many times you've seen them. Think of "classics" like gravity wells and mist tornadoes.

 2) If the prototypes you're developing aren't interesting to you, how can you expect your visitors to be interested in your final exhibits?

S = Sharing
We should be sharing ideas with our visitors, and each other as professionals.

In that spirit, don't forget to check out The Great Big Exhibit Resource List, a free compendium of great resources for designers, makers, AND prototypers.

Thank you... thank you very much. 

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100 Extremely Useful Search Engines for Science

Here's one of those handy compendium web pages that's well worth bookmarking:
100 Extremely Useful Search Engines for Science.

(I especially liked PhysicsCentral...)

Thanks to Amber Johnson for bringing the list to my attention!

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I (almost) lost my voice ...

In both a physical and metaphorical way, I (almost) lost my voice during the recent ASTC conference (the international gathering of science center folks.) My laryngitis is mostly better now, but I'm still mulling over why I felt like there were more hucksters and monument-builders dominating the conversation at the conference than usual.  Is it the effects of the poor economy, or an inexorable shift in the science center field itself?

It was a little sad to be surrounded by so many people (in presumably the same business as me) who seemed completely willing to rationalize bringing any off-message, off-mission, off-SCIENCE claptrap into their museums in the head-long chase after numbers. (Although it's questionable if either the money "numbers" or admissions "numbers" are real or sustainable.)

IMAX movies about giant robots taking over the world? Bring 'em on!  Exhibits about movie props without the annoying detail of including any difficult science content?  Call our ticket line right now!

And now onto to the trend of launching gigantic science center juggernauts...  I overheard the director of a newly-opened palace of mediocrity complaining that he would NEVER work again with the fancy museum design company that was one of their co-conspirators.  Well now's a great time to come to that realization, isn't it?  The checks have been cashed, the damage has been done --- and the fancy museum design company is on to another gigantic new museum project --- it costs money to pay for all that smart office space and furniture in the big city, after all.

When will the museum business stop building the institutional equivalent of Humvees? Do we really need more titanic, and in all likelihood, unsustainable (in both the business and environmental sense)  museum buildings sucking up resources, when we could do a better job refining and rethinking our existing museums? (Rather than building on top of their construction rubble ...)

Just as I was pondering how the sponsors of the ASTC conference possibly help to perpetuate this money-churning storyline that we need a constant stream of bigger (BIGGER!) projects to keep the science center world moving forward, the winners of the "Edgie" awards were announced.

The Roy L. Shafer Leading Edge Awards are presented annually to ASTC members and/or their employees in recognition of extraordinary accomplishments in Visitor Experience, Business Practice, and Leadership in the Field that not only enhance the performance of their own institutions but also significantly advance the mission of science-technology centers and museums.


I'd like to highlight and give a tip of the hat to two of this year's winners:  Klima X (a clever and thought-provoking look at global warming) produced by the The Norwegian National Museum of Science, Technology, and Medicine and The Coyote Point Museum  (an institution in the midst of carefully recreating itself to better serve its constituent communities.) In each institution's case, they are thoughtfully addressing critical issues of science with both rigor and creativity.

I say thank goodness for the Edgie awards, a welcome antidote to both the mindlessly conjoined  "numbers at any cost" and "bigger is better" museum trends that often seem to be dominating both the media landscape and the professional microphone.

There, my voice feels better now.

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Kathy McLean's Exhibit Manifesto

 Kathy McLean wants you to help create a revolution in exhibition design. And she has issued her manifesto.

Kathy gave a thoughtful presentation the other day during the Pecha Kucha session at the 2009 ASTC conference.

You can see an earlier version of her talk entitled "Manifesto for the (r)Evolution of Museum Exhibitions" on this webpage.

Kathy has hurled some great challenges to exhibit developers and designers like "strive for mutations" and "work smaller" but during her Pecha Kucha presentation she has also challenged all exhibit developers and designers to add to her manifesto. 

So after watching the video, why not take Kathy up on her challenge and leave your own ideas about the "Manifesto for the (r)Evolution of Museum Exhibitions" through her website's contact section?

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Happy ASTC Halloween!

The international "gathering of the clans" of science center folks called the ASTC Annual Conference starts in Fort Worth this Saturday.

Which as my four children have repeatedly reminded me is Halloween.

So here is a great "trick or treat" (without the trick!) opportunity for any intrepid ExhibiTricks readers who will be in Fort Worth --- I've got several decks of Harry White's Exhibit Aphorism cards (kindly provided by Harry)  to give away.  To find out how to snag your own free deck, just keep reading ....

Here's an excerpt from a previous ExhibiTricks interview with Harry about the decks:

Tell us about your card deck of exhibit aphorisms.
In 1996, Techniquest started the UK’s first Masters course in Science Communication based in a Science Centre. It was a great success with students from all around the world, graduates were snapped up by most of the new UK science centres. I taught the Exhibits module, but after a year of PowerPointing them into submission, I felt that it just wasn’t appropriate to teach a degree about informal education, formally. Also, whenever I ran out of material for a session, just saying something deliberately controversial would start a debate that would fill the time and engage the students.

So I started collecting these quotations, jokes and provocations as aphorisms and put 52 of the best/most annoying onto a deck of cards. When the sessions flagged, I’d ask someone to pick a card, read it out and then the group would try and fathom what I was getting at. Most times a heated debate would ensue.

So you’d like some examples. There are over 200 so bear with me and I’ll pick some of the better ones. You may notice I’ve sneaked one in already in italics above.

The first is from Ken Gleason, at one time it was up on the wall in our workshop.

The Three Ways an Exhibit Must Work.
1. Attraction
If they don't use it, it can't achieve anything.

2. Function.
It must work, keep working and be safe.

3. Education.
What we're for, and why we're doing it. 1 & 2 lead here.


And from Ian Simmons
"The Survival of the Dullest"
Good exhibits are popular, get used and therefore break down.
Dull exhibits don't get used, and so don't break down.
Therefore all interactive exhibitions, without maintenance, eventually tend towards the dull.


Others are shorter and reflect bitter experience:

Sufficient ruggedisation of loose parts turns them into weapons.

For every hole or gap there is a corresponding human limb or appendage to get wedged in it.

Making easy exhibits is difficult.
Making easy exhibits difficult is easy.


Then some come in pairs:

Any component which is ideal, cheap and universally available will be discontinued by the time the exhibit that uses it is fully developed.

Any component that doesn't exist, so you have to devise it at great cost, will be in the next RS (McMaster Carr) catalogue.


Not all are about exhibits:

Nobody cares who the Director is.
(As you may imagine this was more forcefully put, the point being that however hard the administration works it’s the people on the front line that the Visitors meet and our job is to support them.)


“Give a visitor a fact and they know one thing,
Give them curiosity and they will learn endless things.”
Ian Russell

“Nobody flunked a Science Centre.”
Frank Oppenheimer


“The probability of somebody doing the absolutely inconceivable is never exactly zero.”
H. Richard Crane

“Visitors come to a Science Centre because it’s cheaper than the movies and less exhausting than the swimming pool.”
Gillian Thomas

You can know the science from a book,
You can know the engineering from experience,
But to find out what it makes people think you have to ask them.


Exhibits are about the phenomena, if the Visitor notices that the design is good, then it’s not good enough

The interactive content of an exhibit is inversely proportional to the area and expense of the graphic surrounding it

And so on, and on and on…………….


The idea of an Aphorism is to put some core truth in a memorably flippant way so that people who are “in the know” recognize it and those who don’t think about it. As an instructional tool this has a fatal flaw in that any one who “gets” it doesn’t need it and those that need it, don’t get it.

So I have started writing explanations of the Aphorisms to go with them. I use them a lot in consulting with other centres because they are memorable and anti-intuitive, a bit like good exhibits really.

A consultant is a person who borrows your watch and then charges to tell you the time.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

So, if you'd like a chance to win your own Exhibit Aphorisms deck of cards, just find me on October 31st, hand me your business card, and say "Trick or Treat!"

That's it.  Supplies are limited, but I'll make sure I have a batch to give away for both the A.M. and P.M. to keep things interesting.

Hope to see you in Fort Worth!

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Exhibit Design Inspiration: The Dyson Air Multiplier

A classic science center exhibit involves a lightweight ball or balloon trapped in a fast-flowing stream of air to demonstrate (ostensibly) the Bernoulli effect. 

However most fans or blowers are loud, and involve blades that don't respond well to pencils, visitor's fingers, and other foreign objects.

Enter Sir James Dyson's latest invention, The Air Multiplier --- which basically is a "bladeless" fan that sends out a smooth continuous stream of air as opposed to traditional "bladed" fans that send out choppy bursts of air.  (Sir James explains it all in this video.)

While the Dyson Air Multiplier looks to be a little pricey (when it becomes available!) at $329.00 for the 12" model, and $299.00 for the 10" model, I still can't wait to get my hands on one to experiment with ways to create new airflow exhibits for visitors!

Are there some other types of new technology on the horizon that you think might work well for exhibits?  Let us know in the comments section below.

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Museum Mission Pop Quiz (First In A Series)

Pop Quiz:  Do the two statements below belong together? Why or why not?

STATEMENT 1:

The Mission of the Museum of Science:

The Museum's mission is to play a leading role in transforming the nation's relationship with science and technology. This role becomes ever more important as science and technology shape and reshape our lives and world, and it means we:

• Promote active citizenship informed by the world of science and technology
• Inspire lifelong appreciation of the importance and impact of science and engineering
• Encourage young people of all backgrounds to explore and develop their interests in understanding the natural and human-made world

To do this, we will continue to build our position as a leader in the world's museum community and use our educational perspective as an informal learning institution to help the formal pre K-12 education system.

STATEMENT 2:

Harry Potter™: The Exhibition

Opening Soon at the Museum of Science:

Harry Potter™ is a cultural phenomenon, inspiring the imaginations of millions across the globe. Now it's your chance to peer into the wizard's world in a new exhibit featuring more than 200 authentic props and costumes from the Harry Potter films, all displayed in settings inspired by the film sets -- including the Great Hall, Hagrid's hut and the Gryffindor™ common room. View iconic film artifacts such as Harry's glasses, the Marauder's Map, and Hermione's Yule Ball gown, and pause to pull a screeching Mandrake from its pot or try your hand at tossing a "Quaffle."

Are Museums Creating Enough Risks For Visitors?

Since I'm part of a session called "Are Science Centers Missing The Science?" at the upcoming ASTC Conference in Fort Worth, I've been pondering the roles that "danger" and "risk" play in science education and science museums.

As you can see from the video at the top of this posting, starring my pal Ian Simmons from the UK, even a discussion of the calories in food can become interesting if an element of danger (like pure oxygen and metal-cutting flames!) is introduced.

There seems to be a wonderfully subversive undercurrent of "controlled danger" in the work of William Gurstelle (through his books like Backyard Ballistics) and groups like the Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories.  (Of course the fine folks at United Nuclear can provide supplies for your tinkering ...)

In addition, folks like Gever Tulley (and his Tinkering School) and Lenore Skenazy (of the Free-Range Kids blog)  argue that what kids (and adults!) need to learn is MORE risk and independence, not less.

In these troubled times, when many museums seem to be "hunkering down" and waiting for the economy to improve, should we also be thinking of ways to take more risks in the programs and exhibits we develop, not less?

Before you argue that building places for open-ended, messy activities and physical risks aren't possible with a phalanx of lawyers or nervous board members around every corner, I hope you'll visit the websites of The City Museum or PATH (PlayAssociation Tower Hamlets) to get a little "risky" inspiration!

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Exhibit Design Inspiration: Hand from Above

Now here's a screen-based project to love! Artist Chris O'Shea inserted some clever computerized wizardry into very large public video screens (called, aptly enough, Big Screens) sponsored by the BBC and placed around various cities in the UK.

In O'Shea's piece, a giant cartoony hand (looking like something out of Monty Python) tickles, flicks, squashes, or removes images of pedestrians on the screen. As you can see from the embedded video at the top of this posting, rather than merely gawking at the jumbo TV, the people in the square are laughing, talking with each other (and even playfully shaking their booties!) as they interact with Hand from Above.

You can find out more about Chris O'Shea and his work by visiting his website.

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Exhibit Designer's Toolkit: Creating The Sounds of "Gore and Squidge"

Now that many museums are creating multimedia projects in-house, being able to make your own sound effects can really help stretch tight budgets.  (Plus sound effects demos and workshops make great Halloween season activities as well!)

The Guide To Sound Effects is a simple how-to primer for creating all sorts of sound effects. Arranged alphabetically and containing everything from "flying bats" to "gore and squidge" the guide gives some simple hands-on techniques for creating interesting sounds for your projects.

But where do you go if you need a specific digital sound file of an umbrella opening, or an elephant's roar?  A great resource for your digital sonic searches is the FindSounds website. It's sort of like Google for people in search of particular digital sound files.

Simply enter a search term, like "umbrella" and FindSounds does the rest. You can additionally set parameters for particular file types, file size and sample rate as well.

Do you have a favorite web-based exhibits or multimedia tool that you couldn't live without?  Let us know your favorites in the "Comments" section below!

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Designer's Toolkit: IdeaPaint

Who hasn't had the occasional urge to write a great idea or comment on the walls of your house or a museum?

IdeaPaint can turn virtually anything you can paint into a high-performance dry-erase surface.

As you can see on the IdeaPaint website there are a variety of colors available to create dry-erase areas,  as well as two paint formulations: an "industrial" solvent-based version called PRO that is backed by a 10-year warranty, and a "consumer" version called CRE-8 that comes as a water-based material.

IdeaPaint seems like a great way to loosen up meeting spaces and kids' rooms.  I'm just waiting for a museum to paint their entire building (inside and out!) with the stuff to collect visitor feedback on everything from the doorknobs to the exhibits inside!

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So Why Doesn't Your Museum Just Give Away Free Ice Cream?

Would better public funding mean better museums?

I know this may not be the best time, economically or otherwise, to bring up the topic of "public funding" , but I've been thinking about this a lot recently since the notion keeps popping up in projects and meetings I've been involved with.

The biggest operational trick for most non-profits, including museums, is a steady, reliable funding stream.  Without having a clear sense of your resources, realistic budgeting and planning becomes nearly impossible.

So how have museums reacted to these budget uncertainties?  Unfortunately, in many cases, by the institutional equivalent of buying lottery tickets.

All sorts of dodgy "get rich quick schemes" seem to have forced many museums into, to be charitable, exhibits, programs, and events that are "off mission."  For example, I'd love to know what showing the latest cheeseball Transformers movie on your IMAX screen has to do with history or science.  Or how turning the latest kids TV show character into a traveling exhibition practically devoid of content is best serving the needs of our visitors.

I can hear the arguments already --- "but if we bring people in with some pop culture exhibit or program, they'll stay to see the rest of the museum."  By that line of thinking you could also give away free ice cream to get people in the door, but is that really what museums should be doing?  (Also the "but they'll also look at the rest of the museum" rationalization was played out 25 years ago when planetariums started doing Pink Floyd laser shows on Friday and Saturday nights for the stoners...)

So let's do a little blue sky thinking --- if numbers (either visitation numbers or dollars) weren't the primary motivation for museum decisions, how would the look and feel of your exhibits and educational programming change?  More importantly, how would your institutional priorities change?
Share your thoughts and ideas in the "Comments Section" below!


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Could Frank Oppenheimer Get Hired To Run A Museum Today?

One tiny, but striking, section of K.C. Cole's biography of Frank Oppenheimer (the founder of The Exploratorium) entitled something incredibly wonderful happens: Frank Oppenheimer and the World He Made Up  is the section that quotes F. Van Kasper, the former chairman of The Exploratorium's board: 

Frank couldn't get hired to run the Exploratorium today, Van told me.  "Frank couldn't get hired to run any museum today."  And because the job of director was now seen mainly as a matter of fundraising, "he wouldn't want to be hired either."

If that doesn't sum up the current state of science centers (and perhaps all modern museums, at least in the U.S. with its execrable governmental funding structure toward cultural institutions) I don't know what does.

Part of the reason the quote about Frank Oppenheimer struck me so much is that I've been thinking about a panel I'll be part of at the upcoming ASTC Conference called "Are Science Centers Missing The Science?"   One of the thoughts I keep circling back to as I prepare my talk is the willingness of many museum directors to bring any "dog and pony show" to their institution, no matter how tangentially related to their mission, in the hopes of raising funds.

The museum field needs more passionate (and even eccentric) leaders like Frank Oppenheimer.  But the museum field also needs more funding, widely distributed to all types and sizes of museums, to allow more diverse leadership styles (and by extension, more diverse museum offerings) the space to flourish.

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The Missing MacArthur Fellow

The MacArthur Foundation just announced the class of 2009 for the "genius grants." And while I sincerely congratulate this year's winners, for the past several years I keep finding a glaring omission from the list of awardees.

That would be the artist and creator of kinetic sculptures, Arthur Ganson.

If anyone has "shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction" to quote the grant standards, it is Arthur Ganson.  To further quote from the MacArthur website: "There are three criteria for selection of Fellows: exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishment, and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work."  Again an apt description of Arthur and his work.

Rather than speak in greater detail for Arthur or his work,  I'll just direct you to his excellent website, and the wonderful video from the TED Conference embedded above.

Creative work is often un(der)appreciated work, and while many wonderful artists, craftspeople, and facile thinkers will never receive the recognition they deserve, I hope that Arthur Ganson soon becomes part of the cadre of MacArthur award winners.

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