Rethinking Museums from a Visitor’s Perspective

Tuesday 3 September 2013

ing. Ruben Smit MA

The Interactive Museum Experience (Falk & Dierking)

Unlocking the visitor’s mindAn introduction

Rethinking Museums

Some statements…

Some statements…

“People come to museums carrying with them the rest of their lives, their own reasons for visiting

and their specific prior experience.”

(Eilean Hooper-Greenhill)

 

Some statements…

"(…) the multiformity of exhibitions ensures that museum visitors will interact in an almost endless variety of ways with the exhibits and with each other."

 

(Kathleen McLean) 

Some statements…

“Fun must be part of the exhibition experience ---

or visitors simply will ignore the exhibits!”

(Chandler Screven) 

Some statements…

“If you want to educate a mind

you first need to entertain it.”

(Walt Disney)

Some statements…“A museum can sparkle, kindle excitement, and be an uplifting experience, or it can be tawdry and depressing in spite of the glory of its collections. A museum environment is not neutral; its quality and atmospheredirectly affect those who visit it, (…)” (Design Team Royal Ontario Museum 1975)

Some statements…

“(Museums) can be shelters from the rain, mortuaries for dead objects, shrines to the memory of wealthy donors (…), forums for debate, repositories for community archives, centres of scholar-ship and understanding, instruments of social control, locations for recreation and reflection, sacred places where the spirits of the ancestors rest, anchor tenants in urban renewal programmes, lovers’ meets or places to lose children.” (Gaynor Kavanagh)

Museum Experience Model

The Museum Experience by John Falk and Lynn Dierking

Three contexts:

1. Personal Context

2. Social Context

3. Physical Context

Lynn Dierking & John Falk

"Traditionally, museum professionals have failed to recognize that visitors create their own museum experience, (…)" (Falk and Dierking)

1. Personal Context

personal context

1. Motivation and expectations

2. Prior knowledge and experience

3. Prior interests and believes

4. Choice and control

personal context

In it’s core learning leads to the reconfirmation of yourself…

Your identity is partly determined by what you make and understand of your surroundings.

Learning is self-confirming…

1. Personal Context motivation

Motivation to learn is intrinsic.

People are curious by nature.

Wanting to learn is what makes us human.

The need to learn, curiousity, it is all very human…

1. Personal Context motivation

Learning is not just about facts and concepts, especially intrinsic learning often is a very emotional experience.

True learning is both cognitive and emotional

1. Personal Context affection

A deeply felt interest enhances the learning process.

Interest is key to true learning…

1. Personal Context affection

Our brains are the evolutionary result that took millions of years

The oldest part (on top of the brain stem) is the so called limbic system.

1. Personal Context affection

Within that part of the brain our emotional and geographical memory is stored.

1. Personal Context affection

We now understand that the limbic system is central in our capacity to remember important things.

The limbic system is the central unit that regulates our memory.

‘Memory’ Daniel Chester French (1917-19)

1. Personal Context affection

Most people are in a higher state of alertness or even anxiety when they encounter a new situation or a new environment.

On these moments all our impressions are being filtered by our limbic system.

In the speed of light we emotionally tag and label our experiences.

1. Personal Context affection

We can assume that all things we want to remember are emotionally ear-marked by our limbic system.

In other words: memorable experiences have an emotional label.

What is emotionally experienced, will be remembered…

1. Personal Context affection

New facts always land on top of existing knowledge.

Pre-knowledge by and large determines how this new knowledge finds it’s place.

Knowledge always builds on existing knowledge…

1. Personal Context construction

The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget assumed that knowledge was assimilated.

New knowledge partly covers existing knowledge that as such is reconfirmed.

1. Personal Context construction

As such pre-knowledge is very likely a strong base for further learning.

1. Personal Context construction

“Numerous nonprofit organizations have discovered to their dismay that consumer expectations are higher than management had anticipated, and that users demand quality service from public and nonprofit organizations just as they do from private firms.” (Lovelock and Wineberg)

2. Social Context

social context

personal context

5. Within-group sociocultural mediation

6. Facilitated mediation by others

social context

People are intrinsically social.

Learning often is a social process and is not isolated.

2. Social Context learning together

You share and build knowledge with other people…

The learning process is strongly

mediated by: – spoken language,– body language, – observation, – use of socio-cultural means, – symbols, – and all of this in a historically

and culturally layered context of societal -, religious -, and shared value systems.

2. Social Context learning together

The concept of ‘culture’ is complex. In this context it is wise to see culture in relationship to learning.

Culture is not genetically transferred. You grow up in a society where the existing culture ‘moulds’ you.

The educational anthropologist John Ogbu claims that culture consists out of 5 components:

2. Social Context socialization

1. Habits and ways of life. Think about: work, food,

expressing affection, how to raise kids, marrying, etc…

2. Social Context socialization

2. Codes or assumptions, expectations and emotions that are at the base of that behaviour.

2. Social Context socialization

3. Meaningful artefacts and things the community produces.

Think about: harbours, houses, cars, chairs, etc…

2. Social Context socialization

4. Institutions of a economical, political, religious or social order.

All these form a recognisable meshwork of: knowledge, believes, qualities, behaviour that makes a society more or less predictable.

2. Social Context socialization

5. Patrons and social ties. Think about: family, school,

friends, university, colleagues, etc…

2. Social Context socialization

It does make a difference how the social context of a museum manifests it selves…

With mind-like fellow students?

2. Social Context at the museum

…or tourists in large quantities?

2. Social Context at the museum

…with elderly people?

2. Social Context at the museum

…school kids?

2. Social Context at the museum

…families?

2. Social Context at the museum

…to many young toddlers?

2. Social Context at the museum

…or with no-one present and the museum seems to be all yours?

2. Social Context at the museum

…what about front of house staff?

Policing?

2. Social Context at the museum

The security staff on the museum steps, ca 1902

Or helping and participating?

2. Social Context at the museum

…as role players or actors?

2. Social Context at the museum

What would you like to ask Gene Cernan, the last man to

step on the Moon in 1972?

Science Museum

Passive and slightly sad in a corner?

2. Social Context at the museum

Museum Guard by Duane Hanson

or…as a guide just a little too eager and as such intrusive?

Social interaction with museum staff can strongly influence the experience.

2. Social Context at the museum

All tangible reality contributes to this part of the experience. From easy access to clean toilets; from exciting exhibitions to freshly brewed coffee in the museum’s cafe; from a well-stocked museum shop to clear signposting.

3. Physical Context

social context

   

physicalcontext

personalcontext

7. Advance organizers

8. Orientation to the physical space

9. Architecture and large scale environment

10. Design of exhibits and interpretation / content delivery

11. Reinforcing events and experiences outside the museum

   

physicalcontext

Advance organizers

How do you get there?

3. Physical Context

The fysical context starts at home with leaflets or websites of the museums.

3. Physical Context

Advance organizers

Website easy to navigate? With ample but not overwhelming information?

Advance organizers

How do you get there?

3. Physical Context

Advance organizers

Are there clear signposts leading to the museum?

3. Physical Context

Orientation to the physical space

…is there a clear entrance?

3. Physical Context

Orientation to the physical space

Where do you buy your ticket?

3. Physical Context

Orientation to the physical space

Once in the building is there a clear routing?

3. Physical Context

Orientation to the physical space

Is there easy orientation within the exhibition?

What about routing and pacing?

3. Physical Context

Orientation to the physical space

How do (large) objects fit in the existing architectural space?

3. Physical Context

Orientation to the physical space

… and if they are truly small, how are they being displayed?

3. Physical Context

Design of exhibits and interpretation / content delivery

Is there a multitude of interpretation devices?

3. Physical Context

Design of exhibits and interpretation / content delivery

Is interpretation provided in different ways?

3. Physical Context

…is the interpretation passive or activating?

3. Physical Context

…are there any other means of interpretation like interactive audio-visuals?

3. Physical Context

…or hands-on?

3. Physical Context

Architecture and large scale environment

Can the visitor also sit down and rest for some contemplation?

3. Physical Context

Architecture and large scale environment

…is there a café or museum restaurant?

3. Physical Context

Architecture and large scale environment

…quality of the restrooms?

3. Physical Context

Architecture and large scale environment

…and finally is there a well assorted museum shop?

3. Physical Context

Reinforcing events & experiences outside the museum

…e.g. Post-Visit on-line feedback of recent visit

3. Physical Context

Reinforcing events & experiences outside the museum

3. Physical Context

Museum Experience Model

The museum visitor’s experience is the result of the overlapping of the physical context, the social context, and the personal context.

Museum Experience Model

social context

   

physicalcontext

personal context

Museum

Experience

Museum Experience Model

Museum Experience Model

“Each visitor’s experience is different, because each brings his own personal and social contexts, because each is differently affected by the physical context, and because each makes different choices as to which aspect of that context to focus on.” (Falk and Dierking)

Dream Space and its implication for museums

Discussion on Museum Experience

ing. Ruben Smit MA

(Sheldon Annis)

Sheldon Annis: “The Museum as staging Ground for Symbolic Action”

The idea of a multi-layered museum experience connects well with Sheldon Annis’ vision of the museum as an expressive medium, with visitors moving through three similarly overlapping and influential spaces:

1. cognitive space

2. pragmatic space

3. dream space

Sheldon Annis cognitive space

Cognitive space is the museum’s striving to facilitate (life long) learning. Here the museum provides the accumulated knowledge on a topic related to the collections. The museum expertly presents this knowledge in the light of the museums subject and the needs of the audiences.

Sheldon Annis cognitive space

cognitive space

Sheldon Annis pragmatgic space

Visitors are playing roles: are they there primarily as teacher, parent, partner or friend? The motivation for visiting is very often socially determined. If visiting an exhibition with a friend results in a stronger bond with that friend, the memory of the visit will be pleasant, because of that result. The content of the exhibition can have become pleasantly vague, or even completely forgotten.

Sheldon Annis pragmatic space

pragmatic space

cognitive space

Sheldon Annis dream space

“In museum dream space there is a flow of images and meanings - highly personal, sometimes lulling, sometimes surprising, more or less conscious: ‘I like this’, ‘I don’t like this’, ‘I don’t care about that’, ‘I know this’, etc.” (Annis)

Sheldon Annis dream space

“In dream space many things might tumble through our minds: bits of songs, half-written shopping lists, things left unsaid. The shape or shadow of something, its texture or colour, the operation of space and the people moving through it can be triggers to an endless range of personal association.” (Kavanagh)

Sheldon Annis dream space

pragmatic space

   

dreamspace

cognitive space

Sheldon Annis

pragmatic space

   

dreamspace

cognitive space

       

Sheldon Annis

“The artefacts are clearly tangible; it is the emotions that they evoke which are intangible. Experience, therefore is the intangible characteristic of the museum, (…).” (Fiona McLean)