“The Immersive Cultural MuseumExperience – CreatingContext and Story with New Media Technology”Maggie Burnette Stogner, American University, USA

Abstract: This paper explores a range of immersive and experiential media technologies and how theyare being used to engage visitors in narrative context for cultural and historical artifacts. The “on-site” experience is changing, particularly in cultural museums. This paper focuses on the use of ad-vanced digital media technologies in creating immersive, story-driven visitor experiences, and exploreshow new media technologies are being used to create cultural context and narratives. It raises issuesof representation, authenticity, integrity, and inclusivity.

Keywords: Immersive, Experiential, Cultural, Case Study, New Media Technology, Media Technology

Hypothesis

TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY MEDIA technologies have excellent potential tocreate immersive storytelling for cultural exhibitions by heightening sensory engage-ment and by forging deeper cognitive and emotional contextual connections withartifacts and objects. These new immersive techniques can attract more diverse and

younger audiences, increase accessibility to cultural experience, enrich visitor engagement,lengthen memory retention, and inspire new ways to tell and share cultural stories. The ef-fective use of these technologies in representing culture must take into consideration bestpractices including quality of content, authenticity, and representation.

Representing Culture in the Digital AgeA heated debate over how to contextualize artifacts and objects has raged for decades in themuseum world. In the early 1900s, “…some critics bemoaned the sensationalist leanings ofturn-of-the-century museums, others maintained that museums were inaccessible to thegeneral public due to their overly scholarly preoccupations” (Griffiths, 1999).

Today’s increasing use of digital technology has fueled the controversy once again. Manycultural museums1 continue to display objects as rarified items in display cases, with smalltext labels typically interpreted by well-established academic specialists. They voice concernthat digital technology undercuts true learning by converting education into edutainmentand transforming the traditional museum into a theme park. Others have embraced the useof new media technologies for their potential to make exhibitions accessible to more diverseaudiences, boost attendance, and attract more revenue. The centuries-old debate continuesand one might think little has changed, but not so. Unlike the dioramas, stereoscopic photos,and filmstrips of yore, today’s ubiquitous explosion of digital technologies has reached a

1 For the purposes of this paper, this includes art, history, archaeology, ethnography, and other museums that rep-resent human heritage.

The International Journal of the Inclusive MuseumVolume 3, Number 3, 2011, http://museum-journal.com/, ISSN 1835-2014© Common Ground, Maggie Burnette Stogner, All Rights Reserved, Permissions:cg-support@commongroundpublishing.com

tipping point. These new communication devices are the pens, pencils and printing pressesof future generations, and are evolving as essential tools of cultural representation and inter-pretation. They are the medium and, as Marshall McLuhan would have said, the message,of museums in the new millennia (Innis 1951). If museums are to engage a broad range ofthe public in today’s media-saturated world, it will require understanding and embracingtwenty-first century media technologies.

This engagement is critical at a time when cultural museum attendance is seriously declin-ing. A new report from the Center of the Future of Museums points out that museums in theU.S. are increasingly out of sync with their demographics (Center for the Future of Museums2010). “The U.S. population is shifting rapidly and within four decades the group that hashistorically constituted the core audience for museums—non-Hispanic whites—will be aminority of the population.” In addition to shifting ethnic demographics, the age of museum-goers is increasingly older than the average U.S. adult. According to a study by the NationalEndowment of the Arts, adults age 45-54, traditionally the core audience of art museumgoers,dropped nearly thirty percent between 2002 and 2008 (NEA 2008). Research suggests thata different approach is needed to appeal to visitors today. Younger generations learn in verydifferent styles than the traditional “passive observer” approach offered by many culturalmuseums. They are growing up in a media-rich, networked society and have different expect-ations. The Millennials, ages 8 to 28, tend to be team-oriented, collaborative, and “activeusers of culture” rather than “passive consumers” (Howe, 2006).

For Americans under 30, there’s a structural shift in which consumers drive narrative,asserts a study by the Center for the Future of Museums. The study projects future trendsand demographics, and predicts a rising visitor demand for “immersive interactive program-ming and an emerging you-as-protagonist concept” (Center for the Future of Museums 2008).This is in keeping with today’s communication paradigm shift and the integration of socialnetworking with digital media creation and consumption. Going forward, museums mustdetermine how to mentor future generations in interpreting past and present cultures. Culturalstorytelling using new immersive design techniques is emerging as a powerful tool.

The Value of Sensory ImmersionIn 1980, the Oakland Museum in Oakland, California hosted an exhibition on realism thatincluded a premiere screening of documentary filmmaker Les Blank’s Garlic Is as Good asTenMothers. During the screening, museum personnel blew fumes of roasting garlic throughthe ventilation system of the theater, creating a hyper realistic experience as we watchedfamous chef Alice Waters chop garlic and a sausage maker smash dozens of pungent clovesinto a vat of meat. The smell itself and the collective reaction of the audience as we emergedfrom the theater reeking of garlic, gave this experience a very long memory tail. There is nodoubt that this sensory immersion succeeded in heightening the audience’s connectionthroughout the rest of the exhibition.

The concept that multi-sensory immersion can be used to engage audiences and heightenemotional experience is not new. It has been used in cultural rites and religious ceremoniesfor millennia. In the past century, populist museums have used dioramas, film projections,sound effects, voice tracks, and the occasional smoke and mirrors to contextualize culturalartifacts and historical objects with immersive atmospheres. They have drawn on the stagingand mise -en-scene techniques commonly used in theater and film. They have at times dared

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to use cutting edge technologies, such as stereoscopic 3D when it was first popularized inthe 1840s, to appeal to a wider audience.

Many studies have established that multi-sensory immersion increases emotional engage-ment and that this connection, in turn, creates more profound and memorable experiences.In museum environments, “…museum experiences can be deeply embedded in visitors’memories with potential for significant learning” (Falk & Dierking, 2009). A recent visitors’study of the California Science Center’s “Goose Bumps: The Science of Fear” exhibitionfound that from the visitors’ perspective, the experience was as much about feelings andemotion as about knowledge and cognition. The study found evidence, “…that elevatedemotional arousal positively affected cognition and memory” (Falk et al, 2009). An earlier,in-depth study found that, “Although cognitive processes were long considered to be separatefrom emotion, current research has indicated that these processes are inextricably intertwined.”The study concludes that emotions have been linked to both decision-making and memory,and that they are likely “…impacting the experiences with which visitors choose to engage,the memories they make, and ultimately the learning that takes place” (Damasio, 1995).

Immersive experiences that engage the senses create a heightened emotional and cognitiveconnection that ignites the imagination. In today’s multi-tasking, information-overloadedera of distraction, immersive museum environments offer another compelling advantage.They provide discrete experiences free from external disruptions, which enable the visitorto relate more fully and mindfully to the content at hand.

The Power of Immersive StorytellingNarrative is a powerful immersive tool in and of itself, particularly when presented in amulti-sensory environment. Who hasn’t been spellbound by a scary ghost story around thecampfire? The wind in the trees, the eerie hoot of a night owl, long shadows flickering bythe fire’s flame all help to create an atmosphere that heightens the listeners’ fear and excite-ment.

Artifacts are at the core of cultural exhibitions and, through these objects, the stories ofyore are conveyed. Silverman states, “…humans share a basic need to express the meaningswe make by telling them, often in the form of stories” (Silverman, 1995). However, if littlemore than the objects’ title, date of origin, and materials are provided, there is a lost oppor-tunity to forge a meaningful emotional connection with visitors. An effective immersivenarrative not only shapes the exhibition design, it provides a bridge between the visitor’sown life experiences and the objects that represent another time and place. Perhaps mostsignificantly, this personal connection makes visitors care.

Immersive storytelling in a museum environment depends on the same concept of “sus-pension of disbelief” as a good movie. It lures the audience into the narrative of another timeand place, and plunges us into an alternate world in which we forget about the distractionsand worries of our daily lives. We become engrossed in the life and lifestyle of this otherworld; we become part of it. “Given the right kind of imagery our mind can empathicallyenter the screen and if it does the resulting experience is deeply immersive” (Coulter-Smith,2006). In the case of cultural exhibitions, a meaningful story enhanced with multi-sensoryimmersion can activate visitors’ imaginations, transporting them to the life and times of an-cient cultures and historical events.

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Visitors bring their own life experiences to these narratives and, through a heightenedstate of immersion, engage in a visceral exploration of personal relevance and meaning.“…the impact of museums is best understood via the meanings visitors make and negotiatein the long-term. This provides critical insights into what a museum visit means and how itsimpact is negotiated within time and space” (Schorch, 2009). The most memorable immersivestories transcend cultural differences by resonating with our common humanity.

Visitor as CharacterIn an immersive museum experience, representational characters are frequently woven intothe narrative and contextual content of the exhibition. Many museums use a simple combin-ation of archival imagery and audio to represent historical characters. Digital media techno-logies are enabling new approaches: In Real Pirates (see example later in this paper), life-like mannequins of Captain Sam Bellamy and several crew members take visitors throughthe narrative of the pirate ship with immersive voice recordings.2 The Abraham LincolnPresidential Museum in Springfield, Illinois uses a holographic technique to bring alive theghost of Abe Lincoln in the presidential library. In Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queenof Egypt, the audio guide is narrated in the voice of Cleopatra, who takes visitors on an in-timate tour through ancient artifacts representing the highlights of her life.

The idea of using characters to engage audiences is at the core of storytelling. In museumexhibitions, there is a natural opportunity for visitors to become part of the narrative byputting themselves in character roles. The simple act of a visitor’s movement through theexhibition space physically immerses them within the story as it unfolds and comes alive.One excellent example of an active role can be found at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museumwhere visitors choose a passport identity of a real Holocaust victim and follow through theexhibition in that person’s footsteps. Hein’s research on active learning in museum environ-ments reveals that, “…active participation of the mind in learning, and recognition that theprocess of learning is not simple addition of items into some sort of mental data bank but atransformation of schemas in which the learner plays an active role and which involvesmaking sense out of a range of phenomena presented to the mind” (Hein, 1995). The moredefined and active the character role, the more deeply engrossed the visitors are likely to bein the exhibition narrative.

Gone are the days of one-object-label-size fits all. Visitors bring a vast range of personalcultural experience and expectations to today’s museums. Through the use of new mediatechnologies, visitors can tailor their learning experience and character roles according totheir interests, needs, and abilities. Falk suggests we “…stop thinking about visitors asdefinable by some permanent quality or attribute such as age or race/ethnicity. Instead, weneed to come to appreciate that every visitor is a unique individual, each capable of havinga wide range of very different kinds of visitor experiences” (Falk, CMT 2009).

The immersive, narrative-driven exhibitions for which I’ve created and produced contex-tualizing media suggest a continuum of visitor roles ranging from passive to active to inter-active. In a typical passive role, a visitor strolls through the exhibition as a spectator/observer.In a moderately active role, the visitor participates in the narrative as a time-traveler, explorer

2 The content of the voice recordings were based on historical transcripts and authenticated dialects from the early1700s.

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or discoverer. In a highly active, interactive, and/or networked role, the visitor might contrib-ute his or her own experiences or mediate information in the form of historian, archaeologistor art curator.

Additional qualitative textural analysis from case studies indicate a correlation between theuse of media technologies in cultural exhibitions and the role of visitors, wherein those ex-hibitions using new media technologies tended to engage visitors in more active roles. Forexample, multi-use touch tables encouraged self-directed explorations of multiple layers ofinformation, both individually and collectively; networked multi-media devices enabledvisitors to collect time-shifted information to websites for extended learning opportunities;and more advanced technologies incorporate visitor’s cognitive and emotional responsesinto contextualized experiences. These and other media technologies spur the use of active-engagement in immersive design concepts.

Case Studies and ExamplesIn any emerging field, there are many ways to frame, categorize, and label new advancesand the descriptive lexicon evolves over time. For the purposes of this survey, I have categor-ized immersive design models in the following ways:

1. Experiential Immersion2. Narrative Immersion3. Theater Immersion4. Interactive Immersion5. Virtual Immersion

Many exhibitions use combinations of these immersive approaches within the same area orinstallation. As explored earlier in this paper, immersive experiences are defined by themedia technologies and conceptual design, as well as by the role of the visitor.

Experiential ImmersionExperiential immersion without narrative is purely sensory, but can be highly effective instimulating an emotional connection with extensive retention value. In fact, this type of im-mersion can be highly provocative. When touring the Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco, thedocent was a former prison inmate who instructed each of us to step into a solitary cell andclose the door. Just one minute spent in the dark, dank space haunted by the smells of cor-poral confinement produced an unforgettable experience. No narrative was needed. TheRothko Chapel in Houston, Texas is another illuminating example. The natural light fromhigh windows plays across the artist’s large purple paintings, creating a form of meditativevisual music that reflects nature’s calm and stormy moments. Visitors bring their own inter-pretive meaning to this contemplative experience. Mine, and that of others, was a lasting

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sense of inspiration. Both of these examples are effectively in situ but today’s digital techno-logies are increasingly able to recreate simulated experiences off-site (see virtual examplesbelow).

Narrative ImmersionOver the past five years, I have created media for several world-touring traveling exhibitionsthat are excellent examples of narrative-driven immersive experiences. They are designedas experiential stories through which the visitor moves. Multi-sensory media is integratedwith designed environments to provide rich contextual connections with the artifacts.

Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs - Sponsored by National Geographicand Art and Exhibitions International, this traveling exhibition opened in 2005 in Los Angeles,toured throughout the US, including a non-museum venue in New York City’s Times Square,London, and Australia. An introductory high-definition video, narrated by Egyptian actorOmar Sharif, plays on multiple screens with surround sound, transporting visitors to theworld of Tutankhamun. The curtains open to reveal a beautifully lit, signature artifact andvisitors are drawn into a journey through 18th dynasty ancient Egypt, experiencing the boyking’s rise to power, learning about his ancestors, witnessing the 1922 discovery of his tomb,and exploring the cause of his demise through modern scientific analysis of his mummy.Visitors move through the exhibition in the role of observer, explorer, discoverer, archaeolo-gist, and scientist. High definition videos, photomurals, archival imagery, 3D computer an-imations, and music serve to bring alive and contextualize the artifacts that represent thisamazing ancient culture.

Top-down projection of archival photos of Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhuman’smummy show the exact in situ location of artifacts displayed in this gallery (courtesy of

AEI)

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A second exhibition, Tutankhamun: the Golden King and the Great Pharaohs, uses manyof the same design techniques. A multiscreen, high definition introductory video, narratedby Harrison Ford, sets the mood and atmosphere. It transports visitors to the world of thegreat pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, and then doors open to reveal a replica of an ancientcauseway through which visitors begin their journey. This exhibition, representing 3,000years of artifacts from ancient Egypt, premiered in November 2008 in Atlanta, Georgia andis touring throughout the U.S. It includes a full range of integrative media, including animatedvideo labels for signature artifacts and a simulated CT-Scan machine to reveal details aboutTutankhuman’s mummy. The digital technology woven throughout this exhibition providesa multi-layered experience, easily tailored by the visitor.

Using authentic data, a simulated Cat-Scan of Tutankhamun’s Mummy highlights scientificfindings, including Tutankhamun’s impacted wisdom tooth, embalming resin at the base of

his skull, and signs of an infection below the knee (photo: Maggie Burnette Stogner)

Real Pirates: the Untold Story of the Whydah, from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship presents anextraordinary collection of artifacts that are contextualized by immersive sets and integrativemedia technologies. Approximately 16,000 square feet, the exhibition opened in 2007 atThe Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and is traveling throughout the U.S. It reveals the storyof the first authenticated pirate ship to be discovered in the U.S., and includes the ship’sslave and pirate histories, as well as the ship’s discovery off the shores of Cape Cod over250 years later. The immersive design places artifacts, as though in situ, on the ocean floor,within a reconstruction of the ship, and other environments. Life-like figures representingCaptain Sam Bellamy and several crew, high-definition videos, integrated computer anima-

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tions, music, voice and soundscapes, combine to contextualize the artifacts and provide arich immersive experience. A team of eleven scholars, transcripts from the 1717 trial of sixpirates who survived the shipwreck, scientific studies of the artifacts, and other historicaldata ensured a high level of authenticity throughout the exhibition.

There are many other examples of Narrative Immersion. One that stands out for the au-thenticity of its immersive design approach is the Greatest Generation Exhibit, MinnesotaHistory Center, St. Paul. A gallery called “This Must Be Hell” invites visitors to enter thefuselage of a real World War II era Douglas C-47 and imagine themselves in the role of theparatroopers who once sat on these very benches. A16-channel sound system, video projec-tion, and visual effects outside the plane windows immerse visitors in a realistic representationof a WWII invasion. Visitors hear real stories from WWII veterans about the D-Day jumpon Normandy. Immersed in a genuine physical environment creates a powerful emotionalconnection to the veterans’ accounts of life and death during wartime.

Theater ImmersionSurround screen technology, high definition video, and digital audio combine to createpowerful immersive experiences that are increasingly used to plunge visitors into the lifeand times of another environment. They are often used to emotionally prime visitors at thebeginning of an exhibition, to heighten visitors’ contextual connection to artifacts and objects,and to expand visitors’ empathetic understanding of an exhibition. The use of 3D has recentlyresurfaced, and has paved the way for the new 4D immersive experience, which enhancesthe immersive experience with tangible elements such as moving seats, wind, bubbles, andmist. The Newseum in Washington DC installed one of the earliest permanent 4D theatersto relate the historical highlights of journalism. The Visitor Center in Edinburgh, Scotlandopened its permanent 4D theater with the program “Our Dynamic Earth”, a stereoscopic 3D,lighting, audio, wind, snow and aroma extravaganza. In a déjà vu of a hundred years ago,critics bemoan the high cost and sensationalism of the mega-sensory theatrical experiences.However, the trend appears to be catching on. “Planet Earth 4D” produced by theBBC/Discovery Channel/NHK in association with the CBC is just one of several broadcastcompanies that are beginning to produce 3D and 4D programming simultaneously with theirregular 2D television programming.

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(Fulldome theater. Photo courtesy of NMAI)

IMAX and IMAX 3-D theaters and programs are also expanding, as well as OMNIMAXand other surround screen technologies. Digital media advances have dramatically enhancedlarge screen resolution and lowered costs, opening the way for a plethora of new designs.One specific category is the dome theater. An early example is the Smithsonian’s AmericanIndian Museum (NMAI) “fulldome,” designed by Global Immersion in the U.K. and firstinstalled in 2004. It was subsequently upgraded in November 2009. A 120-seat circulartheater immerses visitors in a 13-minute presentation titled ‘Who We Are’ about contemporaryNative American lifestyles. The overhead dome simulates the sky. On the floor below, inthe center of the theater, a video campfire flickers. Video screens placed above the digitalcampfire project stories to the audience. Visitors’ attention is directed to three levels ofcontent simultaneously: the fire-pit, the video screens at eye-level, and the dome screenabove. The Fraunhofer Institute has also developed a dome screen but, unlike the passiveexperience of NMAI’s dome, this one includes an interactive component that enables visitorsto participate in the creation of content. Still in developmental stages, it will be interestingto see how this interactive, immersive design evolves.

Interactive ImmersionThe potential for interactive and participatory immersive design is tremendous. Networkand wireless technologies, Twitter and instant messaging, social networking and crowd-sourcing, are among new technologies that are finding their way into museum environments.They are enabling a substantial change in the role of the visitor from passive viewer to activeparticipant. Their use, like the technology, is nascent. As these technologies evolve, theywill enable increasingly meaningful levels of visitor participation and contribution.

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(Grammy Museum’s interactive digital drum set. Photo: Maggie Burnette Stogner)

Cultural museums are beginning to see the value of interactive and participatory technologies,particularly to engage younger and more diverse audiences, as well as to extend the learningexperience off-site. One example is multi-use touch tables, which engage visitors in a col-lective tactile, exploratory experience. The new Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, CA in-troduces visitors to an extraordinary amount of multi-layered content covering nearly acentury of musicians and genres. Visitors can select text information and music samples,which may be listened to individually or in pairs. Similar collective listening stations areoffered throughout the museum. Small rooms simulate music studios that enable 4 to 6 vis-itors to learn collectively as they interact with variety of music genres. Digitally enhancedinstruments provide visitors the opportunity to play along with different songs while hearingthe results through headphones (no doubt a relief for other visitors).

In its recent exhibition, ‘From Memory to Action’, the US Holocaust Memorial Museumin Washington DC introduced a combination multi-user touch table with video screensoverhead of testimonials and eyewitness accounts of genocide. Visitors use the EyewitnessInteractive table to explore deeper and, if desired, to save selected stories which they canthen send to the museum website to be accessed and shared at a later time. Visitors are par-ticipating in the living history of these important eyewitness accounts.

Museums are also experimenting with new media technologies that enable visitors tocontribute and share their own experiences real-time. An excellent example of how this un-folds within an immersive design was inspired by the story of Alice Through the LookingGlass. Step into the Painting, at The Hunt Museum, Limerick, Ireland playfully takes visitorsinside the story of a painting, providing an immersive exploration of creativity. The install-ation is based on a still life painting by Patrick Hennessey selected from the permanent col-lection of Limerick City Gallery of Art in Ireland. It reconstructs the original still life as athree dimensional set, inviting the spectator to step right into the painting. Three interactivevideo projections surrounding the set allow the visitor to become part of a series of everchanging new digital, still life artworks, which represent contemporary interpretations of

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the classical painting genre. The developers of the installation, Anne Cleary and DennisConnolly, strove to use creative immersive experiences to explore cultural phenomena.

(Photo: courtesy of The Limerick Museum)

Virtual ImmersionThis large and varied category is benefiting from the rapid growth of well-funded videogaming, animation and theme park industries. Augmented virtual reality experiences havethe advantage of transcending the physical and temporal, enabling visitors to explore histor-ical and archaeological sites based on real data. VR goggles have been in development forover twenty years – my first experience with them was at a TED (Technology, Entertain-ment/Education and Design) conference in 1990. They have come a long way thanks to ad-vancing digital imagery, compression, and mapping technologies. Fairly new on the horizonare augmented VR models such as the “Virtusphere” that enable visitors to explore three-dimensional imagery using VR goggles while walking within a suspended rolling ball.

Computer-generated re-creations of archaeological and historical sites have also greatlyadvanced. 3D fly-through models can be created and displayed on large screens or small,with interactive devices that allow individuals to explore a site. More recently, video gamingcontrol sets are used to enable collective exploration. Users can assume the role of archae-ologist, historian, or a character in that time period. The highly acclaimed Rome Reborn,which debuted in 2007, is one of the largest archaeological simulations created to date. Acomplex virtual representation of Rome in 400 A.D., organized by Bernard Frischer, headof the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, University of Virginia, wassourced from ancient maps and building data and involved over 100 experts. This virtual3D model was then licensed to create a commercial version, Rewind Rome, which addedAsterix-like characters and, in the words of creator Joel Myers “digital grit.” The charactersand their voices are distinctly comic book like. Myers said of the original, scholarly model:“It’s not lived in at all -- there’s no graffiti, no mud on the walls, no hustle and bustle,”

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Myers says. “There’s no story to it.” 3 Myers’ version raises issues, however, of representationand authenticity. The dialog and characters are not grounded in historical scholarship.

Another example is the Museo Archeologico Virtuale, which has over 70 multimedia in-stallations. What it doesn’t have are any artifacts. Virtual media is used to immerse visitorsin the life and times of nearby Pompeii and Herculaneum in their heyday, before Vesuviuserupted in 79 A.D. MAV’s website boasts that visitors can “channel [their] inner IndianaJones. . . You do the discovering here: Your footsteps scatter virtual dust along the floor toexpose intricate mosaics from Pompeii's House of the Faun, and your fingertips wipe awaya misted glass to reveal a woman bathing after a visit to the caldarium.”4 It remains to beseen if this virtual museum experience motivates visitors to go to the actual ruins of Pompeiiand Herculaneum, or if it becomes a replacement of the in situ experience. It fuels the debateover what constitutes a museum. Is a virtual representation, in which there are no real objects,a museum at all?

What will virtual reality look like in the future? “One can only guess however, it wouldbe safe to say that it will include total immersion of the participant in a 3-D augmentedreality with holographic images and wave frequency interactions with the Bio-system of theindividual or individuals who are participating” (Winslow, 2007). This may sound like anexcerpt from a science fiction novel, but new media technologies are advancing at astonishingrates.

SummaryCulture is all about our human stories. It is how we, as humans, share who we are, what webelieve in, what we fear or love, what we hope for, how we live. We have communicatedour culture through multimedia storytelling from the earliest cave drawings and storiesaround the fire-pit. Immersive media technologies are an evolving means to tell and sharethose stories. Museums can benefit from embracing new media technology not for its ownsake but for the ways in which it offers new opportunities to contextualize and foster mean-ingful connections with the artifacts of our collective world heritage. Use of 21st centuryimmersive media technologies can make available, both on site and virtually, cultural exper-iences and information to those who do not have the means to access them, or who simplydo not feel welcome at venerable institutions. Ideally, “...museums can provide a reassuringsetting for visitors to interact with art, with their heritage -- and with one another” (Cemblast,2009).

A word about best practices: the old computer programming term GIGO (garbage-in,garbage-out) still applies today. New media technologies are tools with which to create,share, and archive content. But the content is only as valid as the source from which it isderived. Immersive environments can significantly enhance how we contextualize, represent,and interpret history and culture, but they can also misinform, obscure and detract from ac-tual objects and artifacts. “Museums play a more critical role than ever as purveyors of theauthentic, addressing a human desire for the real as the wonders of technology march us to-wards the opposite path” (Center for the Future of Museums 2008). Best practices of repres-entation, authenticity, veracity, and diversity are critical if museums are to avoid reducing

3 www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/rome_reborn4 www.museomav.it

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the cultural experience to a Disney or Las Vegas-like caricature. Today’s new media techno-logies have tremendous potential to enliven and give meaning to ancient cultures and histor-ical events of the past, but they must be used with a strong commitment to content researchand quality.

ReferencesCemblast, R. ARTnews, Reshaping the Art Museum, June 2009Center for the Future of Museums 2008. Museums & Society 2034: Trends and Potential Futures.

Prepared for the American Association for Museums by Reach Advisors.Center for the Future of Museums 2010. Demographic Transformation and the Future of Museums.

Prepared for AAM by the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago.Coulter-Smith, G. 2006. Deconstructing Installation Art, Chapter 2 “Immersion in a field of distance”

CASAID Publishing.Damasio, A.R. (1995) Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason and the human brain. New York: Penguin

Group.Falk, J. H., Gillespie, K. L., Kelly, L. D., Niedbalski, A., The Role of Emotion in Free-Choice Learning,

22nd Annual Visitor Studies Association Conference, July 2009Falk, J.H. and Dierking, L.D. 1992. The Museum Experience, Washington DC: Whalesback BooksFalk, J.H. Proceedings of CMT2009/A/003, The Learning Tourist: The Role of Identity-Related Visitor

Motivations, p38.Griffiths, A. 1999. Media technology and museum display: A century of accommodation and conflict.

Paper presented at the MIT Communications Forum, Dec. 19.Hein, G. E. 1995. Learning in the Museum, p23. [Also, see Roschelle (1995)]Howe, N., & Strauss, W. (2006). Millennials and the pop culture: Strategies for a new generation of

consumers in music, movies, television, the Internet, and video games. Great Falls, VA: Li-feCourse Associates.

Innis, H. A. 1951. The Bias of Communication.Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press.National Endowment of the Arts 2008. 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, Prepared by

Kevin Williams and David Keen, BBC Research & Consulting, Denver, COThe Smithsonian Magazine, Bernard Frischer, head of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the

Humanities, University of Virginia, organized the project. www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/rome_reborn

Schorch, P. July 2009. “What Does a Museum Mean? A Narrative Approach to Museum Impact.”22nd Annual Visitors Studies Assoc. Conference.

Silverman. L.H. (1995) “Visitor meaning-making in museums for a new age.” Curator: The MuseumJournal 38(3), p162

Winslow, L. 2007, Trends in Augmented and Virtual Reality (VR)

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About the AuthorMaggie Burnette StognerI come from a lengthy career as a documentary filmmaker, with a few forages into interactivemultimedia in the 1990s at Apple Computer and my own company 100th Monkey Media.From 1995 to 2004, I was a producer and then Senior Producer of National Geographic’sweekly documentary series “Explorer” and “Ultimate Explorer”. In 2005, I founded BlueBear Films, a media design and production company that has produced the media technologyfor large traveling exhibitions such as “Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the GreatPharaohs”, “Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures”, and “Real Pirates: the Untold Story of theWhydah from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship”, among many others. I am also a faculty memberof the Film and Media Arts department at American University in Washington DC. Mygraduate degree is from Stanford University in Communication, specializing in DocumentaryFilm.

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