Letter from Museum Camp

Dear Folks,

I just got back from Museum Camp in Santa Cruz, and I wanted to tell you about it, and show you some pictures I took there.

First off, the "official" title of Museum Camp was "You Can't Do That in Museums Camp" or the somewhat edgier alternate title of "Hack the Museum Camp."  Anyway, whatever you call it, the Camp was launched by Nina Simon (a museum rock star, if there ever was one) at the museum where she is the director, the MAH (aka The Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, pictured below.)

Nina invited me to come to Museum Camp and be a "counselor."  (More on that later ...) Just like summer camp there were campers and counselors --- some of the campers even slept on the floor of the museum in sleeping bags, but I got to share a house with some of the other counselors --- museum "rock stars" in their own right.

Just getting to be part of the same event with fellow counselors like Maria Mortati, Eric Siegel, Julie Bowen, Jason Jay Stevens, Dan Spock, Kathy McLean, Darcie Fohrman, Kevin von Appen, and Merilee Mostov was big fun.  (Also the Camp counselors brought a lot of professional horsepower to the enterprise.)

So the big idea of Museum Camp was this: bring together about 75 people (Campers and Counselors) for two-and-a-half days, break them up into 15 counselor+camper teams, let them choose from 20 or so museum collection objects, and then have an entire exhibition ready for the public opening party!   So check-in on Wednesday and check-out Friday night after the exhibition party.

Woohoo!  The perfect high-stakes, high-pressure antidote to the usual museum whining ("we don't have enough time, we don't have enough money!" ) And honestly, miraculously, it all came together --- there were 15 exhibits lined up with bright, shining faces to form an entire exhibition.  A wild, eclectic exhibition, but everyone delivered the goods!

So how did this all shake down schedule-wise?  Everyone checked in starting Wednesday morning (since I was a counselor, I got a whistle!) and we had a series of workshops throughout the afternoon related to exhibit development topics like prototyping, writing prompts, emotionally-engaging exhibitions, etc.  (I got to do a workshop on becoming an "Office Supply Ninja" prototyper!)

After a scheduled "siesta" (really --- it is Santa Cruz after all!) we played a game to choose the artifact (or artifacts) that each team would use as the basis of their exhibit.  After that was sorted out and after a delicious group dinner (with carefully delineated vegan and gluten-free options --- still Santa Cruz, right?) we used the time between 8pm and midnight on Wednesday to lock down the initial "Big Idea" and crank up the concept and development phase of our project.  Knowing that everything had to be ready to go before the Exhibition Opening Party at 5pm on Friday didn't leave much time for monkeying around (which was good!)


So let me tell you about our team, Team #10 (aka "Perfect Ten.")  My three team members were super!  Diana Kapsner is a staff member at MAH --- it was great to have a "local" on our team when we looking for materials and resources!  Emily Black Fry works at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City --- she had tons of great ideas and enthusiasm.  And last, but not least, Karli Kendall from the Red Deer Museum, in Alberta Canada --- Karli was definitely our "organizer" but in a good way!

The "Perfect 10" team chose a large (7 feet wide by 6 feet tall) painting by Joseph De Giorgio, entitled Oceanside No. 8. (Pictured below, but it looks better in real life.)   I'm no art historian, but I liked it, and it used a sort of pointillist approach which led directly to our team's "Big Idea" namely, "One Painting, Many Points of View."

So my way of describing the idea(s) behind our team's exhibit would be that we wanted to reward visitors for being careful observers of Oceanside No. 8, and that we also wanted to give visitors many multi-sensory ways to look at the painting more than once, and to experience the painting in different ways.  We set out to do this by creating a physical "beach scene" tableau complete with beach chairs, cooler, table, etc. set up in front of the painting.  Objects you might expect to find at the beach would all be used to allow visitors to experience this one painting from many different points of view.

Then it was just hard work! Pulling materials together and editing down our ideas, our team pretty much worked from Thursday morning up until midnight.  It was a loooong day!  I think it helped that our team conversations were honest, but respectful, even if we pushed back on each others' ideas now and then.  I think my role was less counselor as "exhibit Yoda" but more as an equal team member (albeit with a bit more museum exhibit development experience!)  I think we all left with a clear sense of what we needed to accomplish in the few hours remaining on Friday and how we could work together to do it.

I don't think any of our team felt stressed at all when we gathered together Friday morning.  We articulated the things we "had" to finish, as opposed to the things we'd "like" to finish so we had a clear sense of our priorities.

I'm really proud and happy with where we ended up with our team's exhibit. I feel that the Big Idea is a strong one, and that we gave visitors many ways (sights, sounds, smells) and reasons to engage with De Giorgio's painting.

Would I have done anything differently with Museum Camp?  Not much actually.   I might have added one more day to the process,  and also added an optional mid-day activity to break up the intensity of the long day(s) of work.

Also we spent a lot of time talking about "taking risks" and making "risky experiences."  I'm still not sure what that means exactly.  In the end, I think notions of "risk" became a bit of a distraction to the exhibit development process at Museum Camp.

So would I participate in Museum Camp again?  In a heartbeat!  It definitely reinforced some of my ideas about "quick and dirty" prototyping, but also stretched me professionally in thinking about new and different ways to twist the "traditional gallery experience" in more visitor and community-centric ways.  (Also, I'm sold on the idea of installing more beach chairs inside Art Museum galleries!)

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Google Field Trip and "Free" Museums

Should all museums be "free"?  That is, charge no admission to anyone who shows up at the front door?  (And I don't mean the slightly bogus "pay what you wish" policy that many museums employ... that's still really intimidating for many "novice" museum goers.)

I've been thinking about this a lot as I am visiting many, many museums during a West Coast trip.  Usually a combination of my AAM card and/or my business card and/or turning on the 150 watt charm gets me into the particular museum for free.  Not always, but the vast majority of the time. But that works for me, not just anyone who shows up at the front desk.

I recently downloaded an app called Google Field Trip onto my iPhone.  It uses your location to suggest nearby cultural or historical or theatrical attractions that you might like to visit or explore.  As a bonus,  Google has partnered with some museums (mostly right now on the East and West Coasts) to offer free admission to the highlighted venue.   So this weekend as I was ambling aroung Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, my iPhone pinged me to let me know that I was near the de Young Art Museum and could get free admission there by showing the front desk staff my Google Field Trip screen.  Cool right? Who doesn't like free stuff?

Inevitably friends or neighbors who know I work in the museum business will say, "I love it that all the Smithsonian Museums in Washington DC are free."  Of course, I explain they're not really free since our taxes help to support the Smithsonian, but to most non-museum people it still shakes down the same way --- they think museums cost too much, and they would prefer (and practically expect) that museums should charge no admission.

Elaine Gurian has made a passionate case for free museum admission (you can check out her thoughts on her website.)  Her basic premise (which I agree wholeheartedly with) is that free museum admission will build broader and more diversified museum use.

On the other hand, it costs money to run and staff museums, so where will that "missed" admissions revenue be made up?  Jamie Glavic of the Museum Minute blog has written an equally passionate post defending the 9/11 Memorial Museum's decision to charge admission.

It's tricky isn't it?  The Web and smart phones and streaming technologies have given us an expectation that we can latch onto any kind of content for free, whenever and wherever we like.  Does that mean that museums should become "free" also?


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Exhibit Design Inspiration: Tom Eckert

Tom Eckert is a sculptor who works with only carved and painted wood to create his art.  Sounds simple doesn't it?  But if you take a look at Tom Eckert's website you'll soon come to appreciate the possibilities that can come from these basic materials and methods.

I love how the sculptures "fool the eye" and create their own fantastical scenes that play with your notions of "reality."  The pieces also reward viewers for being careful observers.

From the artist:

"Forms carved to suggest cloth recur in many of my pieces.  By tradition, cloth has been widely used to conceal and shroud objects in practices ranging from advertising to church rituals.  Covered forms are often more evocative - with a sense of mystery absent from the uncovered object by itself.  I remember in church one Lent, as a child, being mystified while gazing at the statues shrouded with purple cloth.

Since childhood, I have been curious about and amused by mistaken impressions of reality presented as part of my visual experiences.  One of my earliest recollections, on a car trip, was my perception of the wet, slick highway ahead that turned out to be an illusion, a mirage.  The revelation that I was fooled, visually and intellectually tricked, stuck with me.  This visual deception is now the basis for my creative direction.  “Cloth” carved of wood has much different structural qualities than real cloth. When this idea is applied to my compositions (floating book, floating cards, floating rock) a sense of the impossible happens - for me, magic."

Check out Tom Eckert's website for more images of his work!


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Don't lose your ExhibiTricks subscription!

As you may have heard, Google is killing off Google Reader on July 1, 2013.

Since over 700 of you subscribe to ExhibiTricks via Google Reader, I'd really like you to consider switching to another way of subscribing to my blog.

If you are a person who doesn't subscribe to ExhibiTricks using Google Reader, the rest of this post may not interest you much.  So check out these Cute Animal Pictures instead!

But here's a simple solution for Google Reader users who are loyal ExhibiTricks readers as well: Subscribe via your email address!  Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog and you'll be presented with an option to subscribe via email.  It's just that simple. 

I guarantee you I will never use your email address for anything other than sending you your subscription to ExhibiTricks.  Basically, you'll get every new ExhibiTricks post direct to your email box approximately once a week.

But what if you subscribe to other blogs and websites using Google Reader?  There's lots of great information about your options for switching from Google Reader (including ways to grab all your Google Reader data before July 1st) in this post from the "copyblogger" blog.

So take some time to grab your Google Reader data, and switch your ExhibiTricks subscription before they disappear.

Thanks for your continued interest and support of my blog!


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Technology's Kaleidoscope --- Reflecting on the HCI+ISE Conference

"You should always think about what you really want to accomplish first, before you start thinking about the technology you want to use."  This became a common refrain at the HCI+ISE (Human Computer Interaction in Informal Science Education) Conference that happened just last week in Albuquerque.

The why before the how, if you will.

However, "technology" is a slippery term, as is the implementation of technology in informal learning environments.  And everyone who uses (or creates) technology, especially digital technology, tends to view its uses through a very personal lens --- like a kaleidoscope that shifts and changes depending on who is using it.  I still see so much cringe-worthy digital technology deployed in exhibitions that I wonder if the WHY really does happen before the HOW in the most museums.

But rather than concentrate on the bad examples of tech implementation, I wanted to share some things that resonated with me in a positive way from the HCI+ISE Conference.  I'm honestly still mentally unpacking lots of meaty conversations and ideas to try to make better sense of it all.  But here, in no particular order, are projects, people, and ideas that stuck out for me:

Accessibility, and accessible technology, was a big part of the HCI+ISE conference.  Folks who are doing really interesting work in this regard include the Boston Museum of Science's "Creating Museum Media for Everyone" team.  Some interesting things that came out of these discussions included ideas about "sonification" --- the idea of supplementing, or augmenting, traditional visual approaches with additional sonic cues and layers.  (Check out the work of the Georgia Tech Sonification Lab.)

One of the Conference's participants and presenters was Sina Bahram.  He spoke about looking for ways to create standards for accessibility interfaces and the notion of creating graphic overlays where each layer could relate to different learning abilities and modalities.  (Imagine a sonic layer over a traditional iPad interface for people with visual impairments, for example.)  You should definitely check out Sina's website for more ideas in this regard.

We spent a bit of time at the Conference articulating differences between "digital" and "physical" exhibits and environments, including the social aspects of those differences.  I liked the discussions about:

• The differences between wall-based and table-based multitouch units and how visitors use them

• How do the types of devices used shape visitor expectations.  (Does every touchscreen now have to act like an iPad --- to be able to pinch or expand screens, or to sweep through images?)

•  Does NUI (Natural User Interface) only "work" if the objects don't "misbehave"?

Geeky, but good, stuff!  Which naturally led the Conference conversations and presentations into interlocking conversations about AR (Augmented Reality.)  There's a lot to say about this topic, but one of the HCI+ISE projects using AR that I really like is the NSF-funded ARIEL (Augmented Reality for Interpretive and Experiential Learning) Project out of the Franklin Institute in Philadephia.  One of the goals of ARIEL is to make "invisible" forces more visible (like the magnetic field exhibit pictured below.)

Also, I liked one of the ARIEL team member's quotes that exemplified their team's willingness to take risks:  "Everytime something worked, it was a happy accident."

Check out the ARIEL website --- there are lots of good resources there.


Seb Chan highlighted the cool things happening at the Science Gallery in Dublin, an edgy, program-heavy place programmed with temporary exhibits on current science that only allows visitors over the age of 16 to visit their space.  (They had me at Blood Wars, a program where blood is drawn from different visitors to have their white blood cells fight in a "death match" !)


Erika Kiessner was feeling a bit conflicted about "usability" but articulated three key aspects of good usability for visitors in exhibits, either with or without digital technology.

Good Usability:

• Is comfortable (physically appropriate)

• Does not make people feel dumb

• Puts people in control (with no obvious limits)


Dave Patten from the Science Museum of London, spoke about the many possible uses of digital technology in a large, object-based museum (and showed some cool experiments involving projection-based media) but I couldn't help but fall in love with a deliberately low-tech artist intervention called the Cockroach Tour!


Some other things that are still bubbling up in my mind from the HCI+ISE Conference include:

• The role of digital technology in "Citizen Science" projects.
( iNaturalist.org is a good website to check out in this regard.)

• Funky Forest --- an interactive/tech ecosystem where children create trees with their bodies and then divert the water flowing from the waterfall to the trees to keep them alive. The health of the trees contributes to the overall health of the forest and the types of creatures that inhabit it.  Check out the video!

• The book Consumer.ology about the "myth" of Market Research sounds fab!

I guess the mark of a great conference (and interesting conference participants!) is that I'm still thinking and sorting ideas that I encountered in Albuquerque.  I may revisit some of them here on ExhibiTricks in the future, but for now I'll leave you with a quote from one of those interesting participants, Beck Tench:

"At home I want to use tech to make time, not waste it."



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Thanks (again) Dad!

Father's Day is a meaningful day for me, not only because I have four great kids, but because it gives me time to think about my father, Orlando Orselli, who died in 2001.  My dad certainly helped set many of my ideas about work and parenthood, and I'm thankful for that.

My dad worked most of his adult life for The Ford Motor Company, first at the Rouge Plant, and then at the World Headquarters building (The "Glass House") in Dearborn, Michigan.  He was a Stationary Steam Engineer, which basically means he worked with BIG boiler systems.

Even though he didn't go to college, my dad instilled a love for books and learning, and the importance of education, upon myself and my two younger brothers while we were growing up in Detroit.

Because he worked the midnight shift, he made time to go on school (or scout or Boys Club) field trips during the day and then take a nap before he would drive to work later that night. He thought it was important that my brothers and I helped him fix things around the house and knew the names and uses of the tools in his basement "workshop".

When people ask me how I got into the museum business, I am sure memories of the day when my father took me when I was little (by myself, without my mom and brothers, for some reason) to Detroit's "Cultural Center" to visit the Historical Museum (the streets of "Old Detroit"!) and the Children's Museum (things I could touch!) and the Institute of Arts (Mummies!) all in one long afternoon have something to do with it.  Many, many family trips involved museums, or zoos, or nature centers.

Even though my career choice in museums might have puzzled my father a little bit, he always told me, and other people, how proud he was of the work I was doing.

Please never underestimate how important museums can be to people, especially kids and the adults they will become.

Thanks Dad!



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