New Media and Museums

We've just started poking around the Web site of the Center for History and New Media (CHNM), a project funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation that assesses museum practices in new media, specifically that accessed on mobile devices, and makes recommendation for its further development in the field. The assessment section discusses the proliferation of podcasts (cheap, easy to produce with little technical knowledge) but brings some other ideas to light as well:

The San Jose Museum of Art was among the first American museums to build an iPhone/iPod Touch tour that featured browseable gallery guides to augment the exhibitions’ objects. These digital exhibitions offer short videos, including discussions with curators and artists. Selections from the museum’s permanent collection offer images and videos. The Brooklyn Museum of Art released their collections database API for public use which resulted in a company developing an iPhone application for the museum that gives users free access to their collections in and outside their galleries. Relying on a rich tagging schema, Brooklyn’s application gives visitors the opportunity to search for art by tag or artist name. And for those who do not know what to look for, they may choose to randomize the collection. This randomization brings one to a painting by Thomas Birch followed by a shot glass designed by Tiffany Studios. Antenna Audio recently launched Pentimento, a system for creating iPhone application templates, with its first application called Love Art. Love Art provides access to select art collections and curator-narrated videos on the lives and art of masters from the National Gallery, London, including Rembrandt, da Vinci, and Van Gogh. Visitors may also scroll through different “insights” or themed tags, such as betrayal, faith, or light, to find videos on specific pieces. Opening collections and exhibitions for a mobile-friendly website or an iPhone or Touch application allows anyone to browse through art and related curated information in or outside of the gallery. While increasing access to museum collections, these applications limit the audience by platform, thus limiting the total audience able to enjoy such access.

The CHNM has also created three different prototypes that put its recommendations into action. We haven't had a lot of time yet to play around with these or with the site, but it's a work in progress, with a bibliography to which visitors can contribute, and it's a good idea, at very least, to have a gathering place for this kind of information that is specific to museums.