Entries are made up of multiple kiosks or a full gallery installation and are interactive and educational.
Jury Chair: Marcello Dantas, Director
Magnetoscópio e MAG +, São Paulo, Brasil
GOLD: Worldwide Animal Viewers
Museum Victoria and Megafun Pty Ltd
Judges said: It is truly an innovative approach—the display is very nostalgic, maintaining the old way of showing natural sciences. It is attractive, it works, but it is a passive visit, a contemplative experience. And then, one instrument changes all, making the animals live, giving them a background, showing how they move and interact.
Producers said: Wild: amazing animals in a changing world is a new biodiversity exhibition of over 770 mammal and bird mounts from all over the globe that opened in November 2009 at Melbourne Museum in Victoria, Australia. It was designed to reach a broad general audience, so it was essential to develop an interactive interpretive device that could be used by young and old; short and tall; the techno-enthusiast and the techno-challenged. Adapted from a concept by Professor Jeffrey Shaw, Museum Victoria worked with Megafun Pty Ltd to create the PANORAMIC NAVIGATORS (generic name)—in this context dubbed the “Worldwide Animal Viewers”—a sophisticated but simple and fun to use system for accessing additional information on each and every one of the mounted specimens in the exhibition. Visitors LOVE them!
Description: the Panoramic Navigators are a pole-mounted, tilting and rotating touchscreen greeting visitors with a seemingly live image of the scene before them. Touching on an animal brings up factual information and conservation status. A high quality photograph or video of the animal in its natural habitat can be viewed and a 360° movie of the object can be rotated by the visitor and even downloaded to a BlueTooth compatible cell phone.
SILVER: Voices of Liberty
Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust and C&G Partners & Potion
Judges said: We live in very visual times. Images do guide opinions and direct points of view and distract us from other senses. This experience takes away the visual, allowing the visitor to concentrate and listen—truly listen—to what others have to say and how they say it. The experience is getting to know a story by hearing someone tell it—almost like bedtime stories from our childhood. A true immersion. But the content here is not always pleasant.
Producers said: Voices of Liberty is an interactive installation that features the stories of Holocaust survivors, refugees, and others who chose to make the US. their home. As visitors move through the installation overlooking New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island, audio testimony of the immigrants’ experiences are streamed through RFID to iPod Touches. Images of the speakers are displayed on the iPods along with their names, places of birth, and years of arrival to the US. Visitors can explore nine audio zones including “Arrival,” “First Impressions,” and “Dreams.” The use of audio encourages the visitors to contemplate the view rather than the iPods. Each theme is played on a loop allowing a new visitor to enter a zone and hear the same stories at the same time as other visitors in the zone, fostering a social listening experience. An onscreen map shows visitors where they have visited and which zones they have yet to discover. Visitors have the opportunity to contribute by adding their own immigration stories or impressions of the harbor. The visitors’ stories appear in text on the iPods and on a companion website http://www.mjhnyc.org/khc/voices/. These user-contributed stories inspire every visitor, regardless of background, to feel that his or her story has a place in the Museum.
BRONZE: The Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, and Building Hope Interactive Table
The Jimmy Carter Library & Museum and Cortina Productions
Judges said: Interactive software can teach. This table is proof: adults and children can travel around the world, engage in projects, help humankind, fight disease, without leaving the building. It is a complete learning experience—and the designers maintain an attractive interface—it works for children but also engages adults, there is a possibility to go deeper. Great example for new tools in museums.
Producers said: The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum wanted a dynamic, vibrant, and unique means of both celebrating and educating people on the work of The Carter Center—an organization founded by Jimmy & Rosalyn Carter that is committed to advancing human rights and alleviating human suffering. In order to achieve this goal, the Carter’s envisioned an interactive activity for multiple visitors that would take them around the globe just as their work does. In response to that challenge, the exhibit team designed the Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, and Building Hope interactive table.
Visitors are given the choice of eight expeditions, traveling from The Carter Center’s home in Atlanta, Georgia to Indonesia and points in between, as they fight diseases, defend human rights, monitor elections, increase food production, and shine a light of understanding on mental illness. At each destination, visitors play simulation games, explore interactive activities, and experience personal stories from each country they visit. The exhibit provides “take away mementos” for each visitor that may be e-mailed home. Along the way, visitors gain an understanding of the work of The Carter Center, while, hopefully, inspiring visitors to make a difference in the lives of others.
The team consisted of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, media design and production by Cortina Productions, exhibit design by Gallagher & Associates, AV Systems & Exhibit Fabrication by Design & Production, and Lighting by Abernathy Lighting Design.
HONORABLE MENTION: Sony Wonder Technology Lab
Sony Wonder Technology Lab and Unified Field
Judges said: Here technology meets science and entertainment—it is a place to play with new concepts, to understand how things everybody reads in newspapers in an everyday basis function. It is dynamic, fun and entertaining, speaks the language of today’s children, and introduces new technologies.
Producers said: Sony Wonder Technology Lab (SWTL) is a free interactive technology and entertainment museum for all ages. Located in mid-town Manhattan, SWTL inspires creativity in a high-quality, engaging and family-friendly learning environment. By inviting visitors to experience the latest technologies in a hands-on setting, SWTL nurtures curiosity while awakening visitors to their own talent and potential.
The Lab’s exhibits are designed to empower young visitors, primarily aged 8-14, to create, communicate and collaborate with one another through the innovative use of technology. In so doing, SWTL aims to educate and cultivate the next generation of leaders in media, science, technology and the arts. With more than 14,000 square feet of interactive exhibit space and over 30 different activities, SWTL brings technology and creativity together to make learning experiential, entertaining and fun. Visitors can design a unique digital profile, create their own animated character, program a robot, and even perform virtual surgery through the use of haptic technology. They can also experience markerless motion capture technology as they watch their very own dance moves performed by a Sony animated character in real time, and work as a team to produce an HDTV news broadcast.
Jurors:
Jeanine Menezes, Architect, Estudio GRU
Adriana Salomão, Executive Producer for Museums and Exhibitions, Al. Gabriel Monteiro da Silva
Álvaro Razuk, Architect, Alvaro Razuk Arquitetura
Gustavo Rosa de Moura, Film director, Rua Piauí
Karin Kauffmann, Development assistant Magnetoscopio
Angela Magdalena, Cultural producer, Angela Magdalena, Madai Produções
André Wissenbach, architect, Archimidia
Danilo Medeiros, Interface designer, 32Bits
Daniel Morena, Interface designer, 32 Bits
