Mirror Mirror

I started reflecting on the power of mirrors in exhibition design the other day when I saw some images of the hauntingly beautiful Lucid Stead Mirror House (pictured above.)

The installation from the artist Phillip K. Smith III in Joshua Tree, California follows in the fine tradition of other looking-glass landscapes by rewarding you for looking more carefully at your immediate surroundings, and by playing with your perceptions of space as well.

While I haven't seen Smith's Mirror House installation (yet!) there are two other "mirror masters" whose work I admire very much.



The first is Anish Kapoor, whose best known work may be Cloud Gate (aka "The Bean") located at the edge of Millennium Park in downtown Chicago.  

 

While the urban setting for Kapoor's piece could hardly be more remote from the desert location of Smith's Mirror House, they both have qualities that seem to draw people toward them while at the same time twisting perceptions of the surrounding space(s).



Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room takes the concept of a funhouse "Hall of Mirrors" to the level of High Art by combining her deeply-patterned art within cleverly arranged geometric mirrored boxes.

Even the floors of Kusama's installations are covered with mirrors, so you have to put little booties on over your shoes before you are allowed to step inside!  I found myself playing around with the mirrors in many different ways because of the intriguing environment that Kusama created.



What other types of "familiar" materials could we use in "unfamiliar" ways in our work? 




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Exhibit/Design Tech Inspiration: Disney Research

Many museum folks have an inherent dislike of Disney and their theme parks.  But even if you're not a Disney fan, it's worth checking out what the Disney Research folks (and their research partners) are up to.

On the Disney Research website, they show off videos of some of their cool concepts like "Printing Teddy Bears" (a method of using 3D printing to produce soft interactive objects) or Pixelbots (pictured below) which are sort of a combination of interactive graphics and robots!

There are literally dozens of cool ideas (including in many cases info about materials used) on the site that really push you to think of new technological possibilities for your projects. (Paper Electric Generators, anyone?)


Click on over to the Disney Research website yourself --- I especially recommend the Project Videos  and Publications sections as good places to start.



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Sometimes It Really Is About The Box ...

 

I'm inherently resistant to museum experiences that seem to put much more emphasis on "the box" than the stuff inside the box.  I cringe when I encounter a bad exhibit experience that seems like a five dollar idea stuffed inside a five thousand dollar container.

Similarly, it often seems that the resources poured into "starchitect" fees for many new museums would be much better spent on staffing, more creative exhibits --- or better yet, buildings with traffic flows that actually work and don't seem like crazy experiments in social engineering or dystopian sci-fi movie sets.

Despite my bias against pretty, empty experiences in cultural institutions, I went to an opening last week and found an instance where the emphasis on the high-level design aesthetics of the environments actually makes sense.

Those environments are part of Design Lab at the New York Hall of Science (NYSci) a collaboration between an amazing content team at NYSci and the talented designers at Situ Studio that totally transformed a core section of the original 1964 World's Fair building that formed the original part of the New York Hall of Science.

The design-based activities happening inside the five distinct areas or zones within Design Lab (and the adjoining Maker's Space) are, on one level, deceptively simple: building structures with long dowel rods and rubber bands, or creating parts of a "Happy City" using cardboard, tape, batteries, and LEDs.  But if Situ and NYSci had only deployed these activities by themselves (with simple fences or functional barriers around them) I don't think the experiences would have "worked" as well.

The combination of Situ's carefully-crafted "boxes" and the (on the surface at least) "less flashy" design activities combines to create an incredibly strong presence and makes the design-based activities inside much more attractive to visitors. (And from a practical matter, more attractive to funders as well.  I can't imagine the funders behind Design Lab ponying up the cash for simpler, utilitarian spaces.)

All of this makes me want to re-think my impressions of different "Maker's Spaces" I've encountered (like The Tinkering Studio or MAKESHOP® ).   How much of an impact are the "non-functional" environmental design considerations actually having on visitor experiences in these most ultilitarian and user-focused of museum activity spaces?

Could rough-and-ready Hacker/Maker Spaces and even Maker Faires benefit from additional, and intentional, interior/environmental design? Would it make the experiences and activities more satisfying for visitors in a way? 

It's a bit paradoxical (to me, at least) that activities that easily lend themselves to happening on workbenches in crowded shops, or portable tables under tents in parks (or parking lots) might actually become more effective or memorable when placed inside bespoke environmental surrounds.

But I think that's part of what makes Design Lab work.  If you find yourself around NYC, make sure to take the 7 train to Queens and check it out!

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