How can museums use both Aural and Visual devices to 'bring

their collections alive‘?Alex Gaffikin

Head of Interpretation and Design Australian National Maritime MuseumAnd thanks to Mark Hosking for idea

Why have Audio and Visual devices in museums?• Contributes to appealing to all senses which helps

people to orientate, learn, remember

• Adds atmosphere

• Can help when creating a range of exhibits to appeal to people with disability, different learning styles etc

• Sometimes it is the best way to convey a story

• Can affect mood of visitors – Check out videos by Grace Boyle of The Feelies … https://vimeo.com/290497610

Killerton, National Trust, UK

Low-tech

Action Stations, ANMM, Sydney

The Mutineers and 40 degrees South at the ANMM for ‘Sounds of Life and Death at Sea’

Fire Choir is a community choir led by award-winning folk singer and Foundling Fellow Sam Lee at the Foundling Museum London

Pros

• Low tech

• Doesn’t need an upgrade

•Won’t die on you if there is no electricity

• No need for a ‘sorry I am not working’ sign

• Adaptable to the context

Cons

• Need the talent

• Not ‘on’ all the time

?What no tech / no electricity ‘AV’ examples have you seen which you can recommend

to the group?

Bring your own device

Passive experience - encourage people to:

• Put photos on Instagram

• Put films on You Tube – egcreate their own museum hack

• Geolocate themselves at your museum, or ‘tag’ themselves

• Put piccies and rate you on facebook or trip advisor

Bring your own device

QR codes or links to your webpages or…. someone else's webpage

https://anmm.blog/2018/02/23/mmapss-a-vessel-inspection-of-the-1914-engineering-water-services-department-barge-dart-in-south-australia/

Preserving the Dart: a piece of working history from the Murray River by David Paine

Pros• Don’t need to spend money on

electricity

• Don’t need to generate much content or keep an eye on things too much (not entirely true, your community needs some encouragement)

• Devices can’t be nicked

• People are familiar with their own device

• Don’t need to fix things

Cons

• Need some monitoring

• Bit passive / dull

Buying equipment

Buying equipment

https://www.blackboxav.co.uk/2013/07/23/how-do-i-create-a-museum-video-exhibit/

https://www.blackboxav.co.uk/2012/11/27/how-do-i-create-an-audio-exhibit/

Buying equipment• Unless you have an AV techie person to hand – buy equipment you (or

your staff)/volunteers) know how to use. Domestic stuff will work fine. That way if it breaks you stand a better chance of getting it working again.

• Go for tried and tested equipment – not the latest fancy pants gizmos. Visitors don’t come to museums to be impressed by the technology –they come to have a great time playing and learning new stuff at your museum.

• Buy a spare. Or two spares. So you can swap something out as soon as it breaks. Plus you will find that a year or two down the track you can’t buy the old thing and the new thing won’t fit in the box or housing you made originally.

Cheap and cheerful ideas

Mood lighting: a well placed coloured or flickering lightbulb can work wonders.

And don’t forget sunlight. Shadows, ‘stained glass’ etc are all clever ways to make use of ‘free’ light.

Cheap and cheerful ideasSlightly more funky than a lightbulb but more robust than a projector is the gobo. We love gobos!

https://au.rosco.com/en/products/catalog/goboswww.goboplus.com

Can get patterns from $26. Fit into any projector. Gobo projector $600

Cheap and cheerful ideasMake a playlist, stick an ipod or phone on repeat, and play sound effects. Kensington Palace Queens rooms had them under the cushions. When you sat in the alcoves you heard whispers.

Gives atmosphere with no need for speakers for significant audibility. No mixing. No editing.

Free for education use – sound effects http://bbcsfx.acropolis.org.uk/

Ipod is $300 to $500Bluetooth speaker is $80

Cheap and cheerful ideas

Screens where you just stick a memory stick in and put it on repeat.

Toshiba Regza LCD Colour TV

Toshiba's Regza 46WL700A is a 3D-capable LED TV. It's got good picture quality for both high-and standard definition content.

Create your own movies…. Easy peasy

Using Powerpoint to make presentations

- Relatively simple- Comes on most PCs- Add pictures, film, sound, music- Relatively easy to edit- Relatively easy to figure out!

See example

Create your own movies…. Slightly harder

Using Windows Live Movie Maker to make your own movies!- Relatively simple- Comes on most PCs- Add pictures, film, sound,

music- Relatively easy to edit- Relatively easy to figure out!- Can add subtitles

Cheap and cheerful ideas – movie making

Level 1• Use pictures and

music• Add some animations

(like in powerpoint)

Level 2• Use library movie

snippets and music• Edit movie snippets

to make a narrative

Level 3• Use library movie

snippets with spoken word, music and sound effects

• Edit movie snippets to make a narrative

• Add in subtitles

Level 4• Film your own

movies snippets• Record your own

sound• Edit• Add subtitles

Do a script / storyboardtest with your audience

Cheap and cheerful ideas – movie makingTop tips- A single long narrative with a beginning, middle, cliff-hanger

and denouement that has to be watched through to ‘get it’ won’t work. Visitors to galleries come and go and have short attention spans. Your gallery A/V has to be like a magazine not a book. Short sharp snippets of info so it shouldn’t matter when you arrive in the show.

- Spoken word is a nightmare. It is incomprehensible on bad equipment, can be inaudible if there is a lot of background noise, and needs subtitling. If you have to use it consider speaker domes, headsets, cinemas etc. to contain the sound.

Clever ideas from other places

The National Museum of Denmark launches a “Boredom button”

Statues come to life, paintings talk, and secret chests open to reveal their treasures. Nobody knows just whatto expect. You may even meet a fire-breathing dragon, a sword-swinging samurai, or a thief out to snatch The Golden Horns.

https://en.natmus.dk/museums-and-palaces/the-national-museum-of-denmark/exhibitions/the-childrens-museum/

Filip Sterckx's Gallery Invasion

https://vimeo.com/191819410Uses a simple Panasonic projector – cheapest ones $2k

?Any more good

examples?