museum in a box - museum showoff feb 16
TRANSCRIPT
museuminabox.org@_museuminabox“Object Oriented Experience Design”
Extending / Building upon:● collections● handling tables● loan boxes● 3D digitisation● replicas / casts● DAMs● outreach● self learning● alternative / outsider content
This is going to be a short presentation so here is a quick list of some of the things that we’re ruminating on with our work on Museum in a Box. Essentially the work involves using the wonderful processes of photogrammetry and 3D printing to create a portable and customisable museum experience.
Good, Form & Spectaclegfns.uk @goodformand
George Oates @ukgloAdrian McEwen @amcewenTom Flynn @nebulousflynnmuseuminabox.org/about
Museum in a Box is an R&D project by London based design firm Good, Form & Spectacle. The core team included designers George Oates and Tom Flynn, and Adrian McEwen our in house tech expert. We’re slowly accumulating a long list of advisers and collaborators too, some of whom can be found in the about section of our website.
The Small Museum thesmallmuseum.org
me
GeorgeHarriet
MiaB found form as part of a larger, longer term project by G,F&S called The Small Museum which seeks to investigate the question “What would a 21st Century museum look like if we built it today, from scratch?”. To test this out George, Harriet Maxwell and I set up our first Small Museum as a two week residency at Somerset House in May of 2015.
We had a room (our museum) and a table that acted as our exhibition space, and a collection of Scan the World prints as our collection.
We worked with the door open to the public and invited lots of museum and tech and creative folk along to join in the fun.
Each day we’d roll out a new piece of brown paper on our exhibition table, pick a print or group of prints and make something we felt reflected that object or collection or approached it in an oblique fashion.
At the end of each day, we’d strip down the table and hang it on the wall so it became part of the “permanent” exhibition and we could give tiny guided tours to members of the public that drifted in...
The Line of “Do Not Touch”
HUMAN
TECH
ARTEFACT
Another concept behind our work is how technology enables interaction with an object. At a recent tech event it became apparent that a lot of in-museum tech is used as a proxy for interaction with an object, or the lens through which it is view in new ways.
TECH
HUMAN
ARTEFACT(replica)
What if the technology took a back seat and a human could snuggle up to an object (or at least a version of it) and get to know it, hold it, examine it at one’s own pace while the technology supplements this interaction with ambient media?
So that’s where our box of lady statues comes in - a theme (statues of women in london), 3D prints of real objects not currently in any particular museum, and a brain to playback content and access information.
What’s in the (brain) box?
The ‘brain’ in each box is actually a WiFi enabled Raspberry Pi with an attached RFID reader that can pull content from the web, relay usage and tell you if someone else is exploring the same objects as you (well that’s where we’re headed)
POWER
VIDEO
AUDIO
The Pi runs on USB power (mains or battery) and outputs HD video and audio.
So! Touching one of our RFID sticker’d 3D prints to the brain, you trigger a retrieval of media / data / information about that object.Glass of wine optional.
For example, here we are showing off Museum in a Box at the Remix Summit at the British Museum last December, our tagged print of a bust of Virginia Woolf is sitting on a bare naked brain and pulling up a photographic portrait of the author and playing back the one of the only known recordings of her voice, an extract is from a talk "Craftsmanship" broadcast on the BBC on 1937.
The Big Idea
Museum A
Museum B
Museum C
One big aim we have is to allow people to curate their own collections from museums across the world.
Museum A
Museum B
Museum C
Box 1
Box 2
Box 3
Then, what if our intelligent boxes allow people to add content to the history of an object or connect them with like minded collectors, enthusiasts, researchers
The Big Idea
a museum is not a building
We hope that Museum in a Box will allow institutions to broaden their audiences, reflect on their collections in new ways and invite non-expert opinion into the history of objects.
the object is not THE object
The work of conserving and caring for an object can continue but the physical sensation and even use of an object can be offered up to the waiting audience.
museuminabox.org@_museuminaboxObject Oriented Experience Design
Hopefully that’s given you an idea of what Museum in a Box is all about, we feel like we’ve barely skimmed the surface of the potential with our current prototypes and are looking for funding to take our work to the next level.We’re in talks with several museums about how they might use this concept, let us know if you’re interested too!