Hidden Tech and Stealth Evaluation?

I'm hoping ExhibiTricks readers might provide some good examples of two interesting types of exhibit/design challenges:


• "Hidden" Tech: by which I mean exhibit components that make clever use of technology by making it integral to the design and essentially invisible to the user.  The exact opposite of the "shiny new toy" syndrome where touch screens (or tablets, or iPads, or projection surfaces) are so out front that it looks like a Best Buy store.


• "Stealth" Evaluation: moving away from people with clipboards (or the digital equivalents) to looking for exhibit design aspects that provide both quantitative and qualitative data about visitor experiences and content acquisition.  An example (pictured above) is the "Would you go to Mars?" digital counter gates. A matching set of gates is placed at both the entrance and exit of the Ontario Science Centre's Facing Mars traveling exhibition. Visitors (and museum staff) can see how opinions might be different before (and after) finding out more details about potential space missions to Mars inside the exhibition.

What are some of your favorite examples of hidden tech and stealth evaluation?  Post your examples (with links to websites and/or images if possible) in the "Comments" section below, or send me an email with more info.


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Thanks Dad!

Today would have been my father Orlando Orselli's 78th birthday.

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 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!

Another Visit With The Exhibit Doctor: Don't Touch The Walls!

In our continuing "Exhibit Doctor" feature, here's a common problem that ExhibiTricks reader Mary Anna Murphy raised:

This isn't a very knotty problem, but I've run across it again and again in installing 2d works in a non-traditional gallery setting such as a mall, an office that worships its walls, or even the Russell Senate Office building rotunda.  None of those places have walls that want nails or hangers.  I'd be interested in seeing how other folks have managed to make their displays.  Oh, and it always has to be low budget.


Ian Simmons from the Centre for Life in the UK puts in a vote for Velcro:

We have the same problem as Mary Anne in some of the places where I need to hang 2D stuff, and I swear by industrial grade Velcro, which avoids having to make holes for anything. This can keep up an amazing weight of stuff pretty securely, depending on how much you use, but it does need the venue to be relatively sanguine about any paintwork as it will take paint with it when peeled sometimes, but if they are cool about having someone just come round to do a touch up it works really well. It has to be proper Velcro brand Velcro though, none of the knock-offs are anywhere near as good.
 
Thanks, Ian!  (You can find "industrial strength" Velcro at Amazon, amongst other suppliers.)



For a different approach,  Dana and Kathy Dawes from ExhibitShop shared some of their work from the Palouse Discovery Science Center (PDSC) in Pullman, Washington (pictured below.)

While we haven’t come up with anything particularly elegant, we’ve come up with two solutions to hanging 2D displays in the parts of our local science center that has concrete walls.  One is to use GridWall panels connected into three-sided prisms, “X” or “H” shapes, or zigzag walls.  We’ve been able to get these from industrial/commercial liquidation sales for very reasonable prices.  We like them in our space because they are not visually intrusive; the downside is that some people don’t care for the industrial look.  

The other solution is to use door slabs connected together to create temporary walls.  We can get hollow-core, primed hardboard door slabs made up in sizes from 1-6 x 6-0 to 4-0 x 8-0 and the prices are very reasonable.  Our favorite way to assemble them is with bed-rail hangers mortised into the edges of the doors.  If necessary, we’ve finished the exposed edges with tee-molding or stained/varnished wood.  To make them easier to assemble, we have routed slots in the bottoms as well and use a t-shaped wall brace to align the bottoms of the panels. 

Nice work! Thanks for sharing Dana and Kathy.

Hopefully those ideas will help Mary Anna (and other museum/exhibit/design folks) break through some institutional "walls" (at least design-wise!)


Have some of your own "off the wall" design ideas to share on this topic?  Let us know in the "Comments" section below.  Also feel free to pose your own question or design challenge to The Exhibit Doctor below as well.  Lastly, don't forget to check out previous Exhibit Doctor posts.


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Designer's Toolkit: Gear Ties

Gear Ties are one of those forehead-slapping inventions that makes you wonder "why didn't I think of that?"  Basically, Gear Ties are reusable rubber twist ties that come in a variety of lengths, thicknesses, and colors.  While one of the primary purposes of Gear Ties is to wrap around things like computer or electrical cords, you can also make simple hooks or hangers from them, or temporarily bind things together as well.

The body of each Gear Tie is striated with parallel incised ridges, so they stay in place.

While all these attributes are great to keep any museum workshop or designer's space in order, I couldn't help playing around with the Gear Ties as toys and seeing the possibilities to use them as exhibit pieces (either for building or creative spaces) or to use during the exhibit prototyping process by holding pieces together or for changing configurations rapidly.

You can see the range of Gear Ties yourself over at Amazon.  Let me know how you end up using them!

(A special tip of the ExhibiTricks hat to Peggy Monahan for showing me Gear Ties in the first place.)

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ReWind: Building Internal Capacity

In honor of an article I have in the current (January-February 2012) issue of ASTC's Dimensions magazine entitled, "Internal Capacity: Making a Good Museum Great," I thought I'd reprise the post below. Enjoy!

If there is one silver lining to the continually oppressive economic news, it's the opportunity for museums and other organizations to focus (or re-focus) on building their internal capacity.

It might sound funny for an independent museum professional like myself to advocate for museums being able to develop and create programs and exhibits internally, but I am a strong believer that all types of museums should build upon the strengths of their existing staff and other institutional resources, rather than automatically looking for outside help. (See my recent posting on the importance of in-house exhibit workshops, for example.)

One way for museums to stretch their resources in these tough times is to look for ways to increase such internal capacity.

Art Museums, as one obvious instance, are starting to think more carefully about how the items in their collections might be reinterpreted or redisplayed to create new exhibitions, or even "mini-exhibitions" of a few works, rather than booking traveling shows, or trying to mount expensive "blockbusters."

Any type of museum could benefit from taking a fresh look at their programs and exhibits to try and creatively, and economically, improve them. Is there a way to slightly change or reconfigure a troublesome exhibit component to make it more interesting for visitors? Can you rethink or revitalize an exhibit in storage, and bring it out of retirement? What about building upon a current news item to rapidly develop a combined education program and mini-exhibition on the topic?

So why not try to stretch your museum's ideas (and budget!) by thinking some more about internal capacity?


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What Real World Advice Would You Give to a Museum Education Grad Student?

Once again I'll have the pleasure of teaching the graduate class in Exhibition Development at Bank Street College this semester.

While I'm continually impressed by the high caliber of the students I work with, I always feel compelled to share "real world" museum advice with them --- especially with the job market so tight.

So I'd like to harness the brain power of all my ExhibiTricks readers and ask you to please share (anonymously if you'd like) in the Comments Section below one bit of advice about the museum business that will help my grad students as they move forward and consider their place in the museum ecosystem.

Thanks!

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