Archive for March, 2010

Use BklynMuse!

Monday, March 29th, 2010

I think this is a very exciting time for museums who are willing to be experimental. Yesterday I whiled away an hour in the Brooklyn Museum‘s galleries, trying out a new version of BklynMuse, to access their online collection, on their newly upgraded mobile website.

Here’s how it works: once you’ve joined their public wi-fi network, you stand in front of an object, type in its number on your phone and, presto! you can pull up the image, “like” it, a la Facebook, leave your own comment, see other visitors’ comments and learn more about it from experts.

You can also play Gallery Tag, where you collect points for every item you tag, and extra points for doing this on more than one floor.

I wanted to try out BklynMuse  because I was curious to see how disruptive the social media activity would be to my experience. Normally when I go to a museum it’s to see a specific show, or just wander with a friend through the galleries. I couldn’t really imagine wanting to interact on my phone.

There’s a piece that I’ve always loved in the Arts of the Pacific Islands gallery, so I went there first. Here he is, a little figure from the Nicobar Islands.

To me he looks like kind of a crazy, happy guy, and maybe he’s surfing.

I typed in his number and, to my surprise, this is where it got to be fun. Thanks to BklynMuse I saw right away that five other people have also “liked” the Nicobar Island man so I know I’m not the only one. I happily left a comment, and am eager to see what future visitors think of him,  and how that might give me fresh ways of looking at him.

I tried the tagging game too, and racked up 25 points, which put me in 3rd place! BklynMuse just launched this week so very few people are using it yet. Gallery Tag reminded me of a home made version of FourSquare.

What’s unique about BklynMuse is that it’s entirely visitor driven. It’s not a tour or guide to the collection designed by Brooklyn Museum. It’s a vehicle for visitors who are motivated to feed their curiosity about particular artworks; it encourages them to voice their reactions to the works, and validates what they have to say by publishing their comments.

Tagging too can have its serious purpose; even as a kid just playing a game, you have to look at the object you’ve chosen, look at the tags that are offered, think about which is most appropriate, and if there isn’t one, create a new one to use. It’s empowering in its way!

We’ve been members of the Brooklyn Museum since we moved here from Manhattan 20 years ago. I took my son to more Arty Facts sessions than I can recall. In 1997 I produced a big, beautiful 24 screen video wall program for the exhibition Monet and the Mediterranean, in their old, cavernous lobby. That was large cutting edge technology for its day, and the Museum used it to make the space more friendly for visitors waiting on line to see the show.

Today they’re carrying on that tradition of being out in front in using technology, with imaginative, experimental efforts in social media and mobile,  to make the Museum friendly to new audiences. As a visitor I really feel that they’re trying to give me a wonderful experience and I’m willing to try it. In the process, I learn from them and they learn from me.

Posted in art, Brooklyn Museum, iphone, mobile, museums, sharing, social media, social tagging, web 2.0 | No Comments »

#WhiBi: The Twitter Tour of the Whitney Biennial

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

Today I participated remotely in the Twitter Tour of the Whitney Biennial, organized by @Whitney, @WNYCculture and @cmosntah (Caroline Miranda), and led by Biennial curator Gary Carrion-Murayari. Eight winners of a contest were invited to go on the tour through the galleries and tweet about it. A bunch of us followed the tweeters, got to ask questions, add comments and participate in a strange but enjoyable experience.

What was it like? The fun part was performing an unscripted conversation about the Biennial in real time with smart people I didn’t necessarily know. We came together and formed an ad hoc little community for the event (an event community) to eagerly share and receive words from the curator, reactions to the art, and pictures. Even though there were two distinct groups – those who were at the Whitney, and those who were not, it didn’t feel hierarchical.

As remote participants we only received a small fraction of the story due to the limitations designed into Twitter. There were plenty of tweets that arrived out of chronological order, partly due to dead spots in the Museum, and partly to the differences in people’s phones, so the flow wasn’t smooth. But no one expected a typical museum tour. In fact, I’m not sure any of us knew what to expect. That was part of the excitement. I was on auto-pilot for a few minutes when I had my ear buds in, as if expecting there to be Twitter audio. I guess that’s next!

Would I do this again? Probably. Did I have fun and converse with some very interesting people? Yes!

You can follow all the comments and see all the pictures at #WhiBi. You’ll be surprised how much you find out!

Posted in art, mobile, museums, sharing, social media, Twitter | No Comments »

The Grateful Dead Shaking Up The New-York Historical Society

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

We recently went to the opening of a Grateful Dead exhibition at the New-York Historical Society – a very unusual show for them. As you would expect, the normally staid N-YHS crowd was rockin’ to live music and the vibe was good!

In the gallery everyone was animated, swapping stories, looking closely at the concert posters, tee shirts, album covers, memorabilia and at the amazing, lovingly designed envelopes and letters sent by fans requesting tickets to concerts or just expressing their love. It’s a small exhibition but you could spend a very happy hour there.

The New-York Historical Society is on to something with this exhibition. The Grateful Dead were a part of New York City’s history, having played the Fillmore East at least 12 times between 1967 and 1970, not to mention Sheep’s Meadow in Central Park and other venues many times during the 28 years before Gerry Garcia passed on.

Three things occurred to me as I was walking around.

One: why couldn’t N-YHS do a series of exhibitions on the history and impact of the music scenes in our fair city? New York has always been a place where reputations were made, and where music has deeply influenced the culture. Think about the East Village in the 1970s and ’80s; or Harlem and the jazz clubs in mid-town in the ’40s and ’50s. It’s probably been that way since there were enough people living here to be an audience, all the way back to the 17th century.

With a series of exhibitions about the history of music in NYC, new audiences of avid music fans would discover N-YHS. They’d be fascinated to see the music they loved and their own lives as part of a larger social history. This would probably change their perception of what History is, and make it feel personally relevant. They might even become members!

Two: this content really inspires visitors to share memories and comments. N-YHS could collect these stories to share with other visitors on their website, and on social media sites. It would be a wonderful way to help give N-YHS a fresh look.

Three: the Grateful Dead were really early adopters, probably pioneers, in the social media sphere in the way they embraced their fans’ entrepreneurial activity. Instead of outlawing fans who taped their concerts, they created special areas where tapers could stand and record the music. When fans began designing their own Dead t-shirts and other gear, instead of hauling them off the streets for illegally using the brand, they encouraged them to submit their designs and helped promote the best stuff.  The Grateful Dead were way ahead of the curve in so many ways!

Posted in art, history, music, New-York Historical Society, social media | 2 Comments »

New From AMNH – the Dinosaurs iPhone App

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Dinosaurs iPhone app from AMNHThe recently released Dinosaurs app for iPhones from AMNH was well reviewed on Museum Mobile Wiki. I’ve been spending quality time with it on my morning commutes and having a wonderful time reading the Stories section. Six dinosaurs and their discoverers get the full treatment.

Did you know Barnum Brown was a prodigious fossil hunter, discoverer of three T-rex skeletons, an oil prospector and a spy for the US government? Neither did I till I had the app on my phone. I’ve read the label copy on the museum wall before but info didn’t stick until I was holding it in my hands.

One of the things that struck me is the absolutely incongruous reality of looking at a picture of the 80 foot tall Barosaurus on my iPhone, where the image on the screen is all of 1.5 inches tall. It’s mind-bending to comprehend the scale of dinosaurs in this medium unless you already know a lot about them, though the picture of the paleontologist Earl Douglass standing next to a section of the actual backbone can help.

Also, I wrote a comment on the Museum Mobile Wiki about how I wished that, on top of all the other good stuff the app provides, it would hold your place when you had to quit. It does, at least while you’re reading one of the Stories, so I apologize for mis-reporting.

Posted in iphone, mobile, museums | No Comments »