TEC-CH Online: Day 1

Besides the fact that today is the first day of the year of the Ox (read Happy Chinese New Year), today is also the first day of a new online course at TEC-CH Online, Museums and the Social Web, taught by Jim Spadaccini. As a former full-time student (and apparently a student again), online distance learning is a completely new experience for me. 

We were given online readings, instruction videos and also an assignment to be completed by the end of the week which we need to make available online. Although the course is at loss of having a face-to-face interactions, it is great to study at one's own home at a fully personliseable pace. I found myself putting videos on pause, taking occasional breaks, having lunch, and most importantly looking up relevant material on the Internet. It feels enriching in an exploratory kind of way. 

Scrapblog

Ever made a scrapbook when you were a child? Now the experience of cutting, pasting, stickers and creative captions can all be re-created online. Call it a fancy PowerPoint presentation or your own special digital album, whatever you like, Scrapblog allows you to use all kinds of fun gadgets to enhance your collections of online photos and memories. To throw in a geeky museum-related thought, one can create and interpret his own exhibition of travel photos, art works, or even hockey cards and share it with your friends for a private viewing. It will sure serve as a useful exercise if one day you are required to interpret images and write your own text panels.

Exhibition Display: A Technological Perspective

In response to our loyal blog reader S.'s request, I have researched on display technology in museums and am here to offer my two cents.

Display is one of the most vital aspects in the existence of an exhibition, as "show-and-tell" is the core idea of how museum learning occurs in the most traditional sense. With objects, interpretive schemes and curatorial knowledge, an exhibition display combines and compacts a multitude of knowledge into one concentrated dose of information that visitors can see, touch, hear, smell and/or even taste, and bring home the memories of "a museum visit" and hopefully new things that they do not already know. With the invention of various display technologies, it enhances the amount of information that can be packed into a museum exhibition and presents them in manner that is wondrous and resonates with the technology-enhanced lives of modern day. Considering that the topic is extremely broad and has many implications, this post will focus on the most interesting (yes it is as subjective as it sounds) uses of technology in recent exhibitions, in an attempt to shed some light on the potential uses of such medium.


The above video is demonstration of a project at the Vienna University of Technology called The Virtual Showcase. Quote from project website: "The Virtual Showcase allows for three-dimensional graphical augmentation of real objects placed inside a glass housing similar to a traditional showcase. The Virtual Showcase has the same form factor as a real showcase, making it compatible with traditional museum displays. Scientific or cultural artefacts are placed inside the Virtual Showcase, allowing to add additional virtual objects, explanations, reconstructions or virtual characters used for storytelling. The virtual (and the real) part of the showcase can react in various ways to a visitor, enabling intuitive interaction with the content displayed."

By allowing interactions with a virtual object, the showcase offers an augmented experience for visitors without risking damage for the original artifact. In addition, visitors can also access interpretive information and interact with an object that is usually off limits in a tactile sense. However, I wonder, does the interaction that visitors gain with an object's 3D rendering compensate for the loss of experience with the original artifact?

On this note, it is interesting to think about what happens if a museum completely relies on digital and virtual displays, without owning any permanent collections. This was the initial idea of architect Kisho Kurokawa when the National Art Center, Tokyo was built.

Besides the obvious fact of huge money savings, the lack of a permanent collection also allows a constant change of temporary exhibitions, including blockbusters that tend to attract visitors as well as more experimental work that pushes the boundaries of the art world. Kurokawa intended the museum to use cutting-edge technology in displaying images of artwork of flat-screen panels, instead of showing original artworks that are fragile and unclear. However, due to copyright issues, the plan was shelved indefinitely.

This also begs another question, should cultural institutions be exempted from certain copyright restrictions for the sake of public good? And should digital displays replace the exhibition of original art/artifacts?

Museum Blogs

As of today, the TEC-CH blog is officially listed on Museum Blogs, a museum news and blog directory supported by Ideum, of which the founder and director Jim Spadaccini is an instructor at the TEC-CH programme in Lugano.

With close to 300 links leading to various culture- and museum-related blogs, it is a rich resource for those who would like to learn the latest news about museums and various issues relevant to cultural heritage. It is a highly recommended read - who doesn't want to know more about "A Journey within A Journey" and Antarctic conservation? In addition to the latest contents of these blogs, one can also subscribe to the blogs individually or with the RSS mixer, which amalgamates your blog feeds of choice into one combined RSS feed.

The First Post of 2009!!

In celebrating the 101st post of the TEC-CH blog, as well as the first post of the year 2009, I decided to write an entry that involves the magical and wonderful number of 1, that signifies excellence and brand new beginnings. Here are my recent interesting finds that contain the number 1:

• 1stfans at the Brooklyn Museum: Known for its originality, the Brooklyn Museum is offering a new "socially networked" membership that connects its members via online access, where they can socialize with each other during monthly exclusive events, as well as on its Twitter Art Feed. The museum also invites artists to post on the feed at a regular basis, using Twitter as art medium. For the month of January, An Xiao is featured on the 1stfans Twitter Art Feed. A direct quote from her artist statement says, "Through tweeting Morse code, I aim to explore instant communication’s new direction by recalling its history. Rather than important issues, I will communicate daily minutiae, such as “Brushing my teeth” and “Tired. Need coffee.” Such usage of telegraph technology would have been inconceivable in its heyday. In so doing, I want to encourage 1stfans viewers to examine the evolution of instant communication and what purpose, exactly, is served by sharing such minor details of one’s life." (A big thank-you goes to Shelley for showing me the website!)

• One word: The idea is simple - the website features one new word a day, and you have 60 seconds to write about it. After submitting your piece, you can also see what others wrote about the same word. It is both an exhilarating mental exercise and an interesting take on demonstrating multiple perspectives. Its simplicity would also be highly applicable to museum activities, as the word range may be narrowed into one that is related to certain exhibition topics, the activity does not require much time to participate, and the end result is that visitors/users may see the various perceptions of a certain concept, without the interference of a curator. 

• One Laptop Per Child (OLPC): The project has generated so much buzz that probably some readers have already heard of it, but for the sake of good causes I think it deserves yet another mention here. With the creation of the so-called "XO Laptop", the OLPC project aims to provide one connected laptop every child in developing countries, consequently giving them the opportunity to learn via computer use and network access. Find out about various ways to get involved on the OLPC website. With the museum's social responsibility of enhancing learning in mind, how can we contribute to initiatives as such? When I was in Bern and in Warsaw, more than once have I seen the XO Laptop featured in exhibition displays, helping the project to become known to the world. The focuses, however, were on the intriguing designs of this low-cost laptop rather than that of its missions. Perhaps a collaboration in educational programming development is in order? If you have an idea, leave it in the comment box!