Museum Techmuse

CSI: The Experience opening day anticipation

I'm sitting outside under a shady tree waiting for the opening for CSI: The Experience at MSI in Chicago. We're told that the cast of CSI is showing up for the event, which adds to the anticipation. (As anyone who has worked on exhibits knows, the other element of anticipation is the recurring thought "What if something goes wrong?"). But it's all up and running and, I have to say, looking great. The StoryKiosks in the exhibit will as visitors to record their observations of the crime scenes, and to give expert testimony.

CSI: The Experience (preview at AAM)

Last week had the pleasure of installing the prototype StoryKiosk for Fort Worth Museum of Science and History's upcoming blockbuster exhibit, CSI: The Experience. The exhibit will be previewed at the Museum of Science and Industry at AAM in Chicago.  The exhibit promises to be unlike any other I've seen in terms of its integration of science content with popular culture.  Developed in conjunction with CBS Consumer Products and the CSI television show, the exhibit draws visitors in as investigators in compelling storylines running through the exhibit. And the StoryKiosk itself includes content from both CSI television characters (shot at the CSI studio in LA) and real-world forensic investigators, allowing visitors to compare observations and to email their recorded conclusions home. If you're heading to AAM, be sure to check it out!

National Scouting Museum: Be Prepared!

Who says that computers lead to sedentary living? I just finished installing a StoryKiosk at the National Scouting Museum (to record visitors' memories of Scouting) during a tornado warning. Museum staff were told they could leave at 2 pm, but on I went, installing the kiosk along with a band of committed staff.  (Actually, I can't think of a better place to be during a tornado warning. The Scouting motto is "Be Prepared!", and the museum reflects that well, with several bathrooms labelled "Severe Weather Shelter". The gift shop has plenty of books on preparedness and weather emergencies.) As I write this, a few hours later, television is running nonstop with the latest weather and info on "storm cells" and "rotational systems". (If you don't see any additional entries to this blog within a few days, please send a rescue team ;-)

Upcoming exhibit: CSI: The Experience

In LA today, sitting in on the shoot for Fort Worth Museum of Science and History's traveling exhibit, CSI: The Experience. This exhibit promises to be unlike any other, with its merging of museum and entertainment industries converging on forensic science. Actors, experts, and visitors all talking about their observations and offering their expert testimony. The exhibit opens at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago in May. More on this later.

CMOM PlayWorks: Environment for Family Learning

Installed a StoryKiosk in the Children's Museum of Manhattan's new exhibit, PlayWorks. The exhibit provides an extraordinary environment designed specifically to encourage family learing -- a major goal is encourage both adults and children to "find everyday opportunities that nurture play and a love of learning." And the StoryKiosk encourages parents and children to record stories of their experience together, recording answers to questions such as "Tell us about your favorite experience today in PlayWorks". After a family has made a recording, they can email it home, providing a post-visit reminder of their experience, and a link to further learning activities.

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Museum of Science and Industry: Parent/Child Collaboration

Installed Storytelling Kiosk last week in the U-505 exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. What a pleasure to install in this signature exhibit.

One of the issues we wanted to push in this installation was parent/child collaboration. How can we encourage parents to do an interactive with their child, drawing along with this the benefits of collaborative learning and storytelling?

One simple answer: tell them to do it together. We changed the audio prompts to make it more obvious that this is a collaborative activity. Rather than just "Choose a question. You can listen to other visitors' responses and record your own..." we added the phrase "with a friend or family member."

The favorite question among visitors: "Could your family live on a submarine for a week? What problems might you have?"

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Denver Art Museum, Amish Quilts

A pleasure to install Storytelling Kiosk in the Denver Art Museum's Amish Quilts exhibit. We want to provide a place where visitors build their own connections to the exhibit, and where they talk with each other about these connections. Within the first hour of installation, staff were recording stories about quilts in their lives – a quilter who is saving parts of her daughter’s clothing through the years to make a quilt symbolic of her growth, another person who found a quilt at a Grateful Dead concert and is still searching for the owner.

The Museum itself is actively building new ways of connecting with visitors, innovating with architecture, technology and public programming. I feel this momentum talking with staff at the Museum, and am eager to see the outcome of this when their new building opens in the next year.

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Doll’s Day Out

Mothers, grandmothers, and granddaughters brought their dolls in to the Mercer Museum this past weekend and recorded their stories on Storytelling Kiosk about them. Wow. Felt like we tapped into something archetypal. Visitors eagerly lined up to record their stories. Conversations about dolls between visitors abounded. “Is this Tiny Tears? Or Betsy Wetsy?” Hand stitched clothes, two girls who add a braid of hair to their handmade doll at each sleepover – (and now, a story for each braid), a mother who updated her 50’s doll with a 70’s outfit for her daughter…

Conversations between visitors about personally meaningful connections to exhibits is the gold standard. Asking visitors to bring in a significant object and record a story about it in a special program is a powerful way to promote this. I was amazed at the power of the doll.

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American Visionary Art Museum Opening

The Jim Rouse Visionary Center opened this weekend – a major new facility for AVAM as it expands its visionary mission to include programs, classrooms, and large format exhibits. And I’m very pleased to participate with an installation of Storytelling Kiosk (look for it on the second floor, as you enter from the elevators), gathering stories from visitors about what they can do to improve their communities.

One of the highlights for me at the opening: showing the kiosk to sculptor Andrew Logan who flew in from London. His six foot Cosmic Egg sculpture provided the basis for our opening animation. This is one of the true pleasures of working in the museum field: the Cosmic Egg became the center of my focus for weeks as we build the story gathering program around its metaphor of birth and creation. (Reminds me of the time I focused on the Smithsonian National Zoo’s giant pandas for two weeks, logging over 12 hours of panda footage to create the Zoo’s CD-ROM. I still see the image of a panda sometimes when I close my eyes.)

I’m appreciate to AVAM for the opportunity to make their visionary mission part of my life.

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American Visionary Art Museum Birthday

Once again, the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore has blown me away. If you’ve never been there, there has been an enthusiastic buzz in the museum community about this museum. Others outside the museum community are noting it as well: it was listed in Travel/Holiday magazine as in the top 5 must see museums in the country.

But, I have a more personal connection to the Museum. I was down there last week to install a Storytelling Kiosk in the new Jim Rouse Visionary Center which will open in a couple weeks. Rebecca Hoffberger, the Founder and Director, quite perceptively figured out that it was my birthday. And, at the funders’ VIP brunch the next morning, during an inspiring performance by pioneering gospel singer Mavelyn Statham, Rebecca asked Mavelyn to lead the audience of fifty in a gospel rendition of “Happy Birthday” to me while I stood up front.

On this particular Storytelling Kiosk, we feature an image of the Cosmic Egg, a sculpture by Andrew Logan featured at the new visionary center. We recorded stories from people who talked about Jim Rouse’s vision: bigger and bolder than we ever thought possible. Bigger, bolder, and cosmic – not a bad way to begin another year.