on a new threshold: experiments in gaming, retail and performance design to shape museum entrances
DESCRIPTION
Dr Ross PARRY (Senior Lecturer, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester, UK) Dr Ruth PAGE (Reader, School of English, University of Leicester, UK) Alex MOSELEY (Educational Designer, Course Design & Development Team, University of Leicester, UK) Dr Erik KRISTIANSEN (Assistant Professor in Performance Design & DREAM, Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies, Roskilde University, Denmark) Even as museums continue to push content out to the network and support experiences at a distance, the threshold to the physical museum endures as a highly visible and symbolic space, where trust and expectations are built, protocols established and affordances noticed. But, today, are these threshold spaces still fit for purpose? Is the use of media within these spaces appropriate for modern modes of visiting? Are the informational metaphors (such as the architectural plan) sensitive to today’s media literacies? Does visitor connectivity suggest new types of encounter? And does visitors’ experience of playing, buying, discovering and learning in other parts of their lives point to alternative means of scaffolding the museum threshold event? Drawing upon the work of two connected research projects (in the UK and Denmark) this paper shows how museum threshold media might be influenced usefully by other sectors that (arguably) have more evolved concepts and practices around ‘threshold’, ‘orientation’ and ‘initiation’ – specifically retail, gaming and performance. The paper will also explain how three experimental media interventions (using these new conceptual lenses) were tested within three real museum contexts – the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology (London), New Walk Museum and Art Gallery (Leicester) and Chatsworth House (Bakewell, Derbyshire). Finally, the paper concludes by rethinking the idea of museum ‘threshold’ (defined, instead, by intention and action rather than physical parameters, perhaps more by time rather than space), and ends by reflecting upon the influence that the web is having on the conceptualisation, strategic use and design of our physical museum entrances.TRANSCRIPT
Museums and the Web 2014 Baltimore
On A New Threshold: Experiments In Gaming, Retail And Performance Design To Shape Museum Entrances
Museums and the Web 2014 Baltimore
On A New Threshold: Experiments In Gaming, Retail And Performance Design To Shape Museum Entrances
Dr Ross PARRY (School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester, UK) Dr Ruth PAGE (School of English, University of Leicester, UK) Alex MOSELEY(Course Design & Development Team, University of Leicester, UK) Dr Erik KRISTIANSEN (Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies, Roskilde University, Denmark)
there are alternative (mature) frameworks for designing thresholds that deserve our attention;
museum thresholds might better be understood as intention/action, rather than as a physical boundary (as time, rather than space);
digital media can encourage reconceptualization of other (non-digital) aspects of museum provision.
Our work on ‘Transforming Thresholds’ suggests:
Multiplying thresholds
Multiplying thresholds
Multiplying thresholds
Multiplying thresholds
Enduring iconicity
Enduring iconicity
Enduring iconicity
Enduring iconicityhistorically resonant sociologically complex interpretatively meaningfulpivotal to the visit event
digital being naturalised within the museum’s vision and articulation of itself
a preparedness for a post-digitalorganisational structure
actively recruiting blended roles
the presence of ‘digital thinking’
digital being part of the generativeand ideation moment
blended production
strategising for a multiplatform future
no need for digital to be strategised separately
The postdigital museum
Ross Parry, 'The End of the Beginning: Normativity in the Postdigital Museum', Museum Worlds, vol. 1 (2013), 24-39.
Alternative scaffolding
Alternative scaffoldingRetail Studies
Alternative scaffoldingRetail StudiesGame Studies
Alternative scaffoldingRetail StudiesGame StudiesPerformance Studies
the charette
the charette
the retail threshold
the retail threshold
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology (London)
‘Salient Signs’
the retail threshold
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology (London)
‘Salient Signs’
the game threshold
the game threshold
Chatsworth House (Bakewell, Derbyshire)
‘Augmented Signs’
the game threshold
‘Augmented Signs’
Chatsworth House (Bakewell, Derbyshire)
the performance threshold
the performance threshold
‘Human Signs’
New Walk Museum and Art Gallery (Leicester)
the performance threshold
‘Human Signs’
New Walk Museum and Art Gallery (Leicester)
RetailThreshold
Game Threshold
RetailThreshold
Game Threshold
RetailThreshold
Performance Threshold
Game Threshold
RetailThreshold
Performance Threshold
ChatsworthHouse
(Bakewell, Derbyshire)
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology
(London)
New Walk Museumand Art Gallery
(Leicester)
Game Threshold
RetailThreshold
Performance Threshold
ChatsworthHouse
(Bakewell, Derbyshire)
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology
(London)
New Walk Museumand Art Gallery
(Leicester)
‘magic circle’‘explorative play’
(Kristiansen, 2014)
‘saliency’‘servicescape’(Harwood, 2013)
‘Invisible theatre’‘real life rehearsal’
(Human, 2013)
Game Threshold
RetailThreshold
Performance Threshold
ChatsworthHouse
(Bakewell, Derbyshire)
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology
(London)
New Walk Museumand Art Gallery
(Leicester)
‘magic circle’‘explorative play’
(Kristiansen, 2014)
‘saliency’‘servicescape’(Harwood, 2013)
‘Invisible theatre’‘real life rehearsal’
(Human, 2013)
‘Salient Signs’ ‘Human signs’‘Augmented Signs’
Game Threshold
RetailThreshold
Performance Threshold
ChatsworthHouse
(Bakewell, Derbyshire)
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology
(London)
New Walk Museumand Art Gallery
(Leicester)
‘magic circle’‘explorative play’
(Kristiansen, 2014)
‘saliency’‘servicescape’(Harwood, 2013)
‘Invisible theatre’‘real life rehearsal’
(Human, 2013)
‘Salient Signs’ ‘Human signs’‘Augmented Signs’
Point-of-viewrecording
Visitor tracking / performer researcher
Aerialrecording
there are alternative (mature) frameworks for designing thresholds that deserve our attention;
museum thresholds might better be understood as intention/action, rather than as a physical boundary (as time, rather than space);
digital media can encourage reconceptualization of other (non-digital) aspects of museum provision.
Our work on ‘Transforming Thresholds’ suggests:
there are alternative (mature) frameworks for designing thresholds that deserve our attention;
museum thresholds might better be understood as intention/action, rather than as a physical boundary (as time, rather than space);
digital media can encourage reconceptualization of other (non-digital) aspects of museum provision.
Our work on ‘Transforming Thresholds’ suggests:
there are alternative (mature) frameworks for designing thresholds that deserve our attention;
museum thresholds might better be understood as intention/action, rather than as a physical boundary (as time, rather than space);
digital media can encourage reconceptualization of other (non-digital) aspects of museum provision.
Our work on ‘Transforming Thresholds’ suggests:
there are alternative (mature) frameworks for designing thresholds that deserve our attention;
museum thresholds might better be understood as intention/action, rather than as a physical boundary (as time, rather than space);
digital media can encourage reconceptualization of other (non-digital) aspects of museum provision.
Our work on ‘Transforming Thresholds’ suggests:
there are alternative (mature) frameworks for designing thresholds that deserve our attention;
museum thresholds might better be understood as intention/action, rather than as a physical boundary (as time, rather than space);
digital media can encourage reconceptualization of other (non-digital) aspects of museum provision.
Our work on ‘Transforming Thresholds’ suggests:
there are alternative (mature) frameworks for designing thresholds that deserve our attention;
museum thresholds might better be understood as intention/action, rather than as a physical boundary (as time, rather than space);
digital media can encourage reconceptualization of other (non-digital) aspects of museum provision.
Museums and the Web 2014 Baltimore
On A New Threshold: Experiments In Gaming, Retail And Performance Design To Shape Museum Entrances
Dr Ross PARRY (School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester, UK) Dr Ruth PAGE (School of English, University of Leicester, UK) Alex MOSELEY(Course Design & Development Team, University of Leicester, UK) Dr Erik KRISTIANSEN (Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies, Roskilde University, Denmark)