Three Proposals for the New Millennium…or the next 5 years!

Peter SamisAssociate Curator,Interpretive MediaSan Francisco Museum of Modern Art

NAEA Museum Div. Pre-Conference New York February 29, 2012

Anthony McCall, U and I

No, we will not all be star children.…but we do aspire to be transformative.

But what will it take to get there?

How will we become transformative?

Practice #1: LISTENING

Who are these people? And what are their goals for their museum visit? And what about those who come less often?

Be uncomfortable.

“The fear of what we might need to do to be relevant.”

-Olga Viso, Director, Walker Art Center, at AAMD

DESIGN THINKING:

1. Empathize2. Define3. Ideate 4. Prototype5. Test

Offering chamber. Withholding chamber.

“Design thinking is not pre-determined by our solution. Don’t just refine the solution. Refine the problem.”

-Stanford d.school

Object sort activity at the Chicago History Museum. Families in action.

©2011 Garibay Group. All Rights Reserved

The goal of this activity was to uncover patterns and identify common characteristics of objects that fell in each quadrant. This process allowed us to understand how families approach and think about objects. By uncovering these patterns, findings can be used to help CHM make decisions about ways to interpret collections and engage families. Thus, the purpose of the matrix is to more easily visualize groupings. Keep in mind that the focus is not on the individual objects, but rather on the patterns that emerged.

Note that the italicized phrases in the quadrants (e.g., I know what…) were not on the matrix used by families. These phrases were names we gave the quadrants to facilitate analysis and discussion.

©2011 Garibay Group. All Rights Reserved

Lo-tech and low-fi are, surprisingly, fine.

(The Oakland Museum of California “Art Lab” used post-its on a wall.)

Along with a chair, a table, and a mirror.

They can still lead to results of remarkable polish.

The “You Are Here” activity in the California Portraits gallery.

How will we become transformative? By working with artists who have already done the work to transform themselves.

Some deeply.

Practice #2: WORKING WITH ARTISTS

Photograph: Mary Altaffer/AP

[And so they move us deeply.]

Some perhaps more superficially…

but nonetheless offering us a fresh perspective…Machine Project’s Soundings: Bells at The Hammer: http://vimeo.com/14039519

Or SFMOMA’s ArtGameLab.

Crowd-sourced games with missions for the public to act out in the gallery…

-curated by colleague Erica Gangsei

“Bring a strange object to SFMOMA. Check it in the coat check. Document.”

“Create your own version of a work of art you find at SFMOMA. It can be an exact copy or an interpretation.”

-supergoing.com/sfmoma

“Each time you hear, see or think this art word, perform the corresponding physical action.” –instructions for Dialogues In Motion

[This is, not surprisingly, the gesture for “Line.” Other art words include composition, modernism, metaphor, and scale.]

[These six masked friends relax amid the blocks in the Koret Visitor Education Center’s family area after successfully completing their missions.]

Finally, how will we become transformative?

Scenario 3

Practice #3: THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

[Here used for interpretation, context-building, exposure to the artists when possible. In this video, Robert Rauschenberg does what none of us can do: he plays his Trophy for John Cage in our self-authored multimedia tour, Making Sense of Modern Art Mobile.]

[Tate’s Muybridgizer app. Games clearly have a place here.]

What apps offer is the Pleasure of the KinAesthetic.

MoMA AbEx: de Kooning

Univ. of Virginia Art Museum (UVaM) app: 18 objects

[Not to mention the pleasure of real immersion: they can follow you home, and you can share them around. Sometimes, you can even turn them around.]

Words of Caution re: Seeing Technology as our Engine of Transformation

It can become a palliative tool, justifying keeping the status quo modes of address in the physical galleries.

“No need to adapt our exhibition designs to meet the needs of our visitors because we’re doing that through our nifty new mobile app!”

On the other hand…

Technology can give us an ear and a voice to enter into dialogue with our visitors, and to reach them, on-site and online.

• Physical – in the galleries• Social – as in social aesthetics• Emotive

Diversifying our modes of address:

But these structures are only just beginning to be articulated. Our methods of using technology to create a real dialogue—and to reach people in non-pedagogical ways—still need to be developed.

Thank you.

May we be half as successful as Wim Wenders was in treating Pina

Bausch!