Installation
From
the producers:
Points of Departure: Connecting with Contemporary Art was
an innovative and deliberately experimental exhibition of permanent
collection works, encompassiong six curatorial units or themes.
The thematic
organization was supported by in-gallery Smart Tables, iPAQ Gallery
Explorers (handhelds), Make Your Own Gallery kiosks, and Making
Sense of Modern Art kiosks and website. The overarching goal of
the exhibition was to explore new ways to use digital technologies
to build and sustain a more
meaningful dialogue between contemporary art and our visitors.
Themes were chosen based on the ideas, formal impulses, visual
structures, and studio practices that drive the artists' own thinking
and making, and on questions repeatedly asked by our viewers.
All interactive content, from curator interviews and artist videos
to activities and texts, was directly linked to the theme of each
gallery. The result was a rich dialogue, suggesting a variety
of perspectives. The team also created a video Points of Departure:
Prototyping a Museum of the Future to document the experiments.
The judges said:
“One of the best and most ambitious integrations of art and
technology in a museum. Great use of archival video. Hearing and
seeing artists speak about their work makes a huge difference.
Most intelligent use of handheld device. A landmark in exhibition
and in media application”
www.ballgame.org
Production company: Interactive Knowledge
The judges said:
"I found this site to be engaging, entertaining and informative.
I've gone back to it several times to revisit some of the information.
I am NOT a sports fan! but I did enjoy this."
From the Producers:
"The Sport of Life and Death" web site supports The Mint Museum of Art's traveling exhibition about the world's first team sport—The Mesoamerican Ballgame. The site's design group, Interactive Knowledge, specializes in creating interactive educational experiences that entertain as well as inform. We wanted to take advantage of the technology by using "hands on" activities, video clips, music, and more to teach history and social studies through art. Our target audience is both middle school kids and the general public, so the site had to be colorful and playful, but still look like there's quality information available. We want to provide an educational experience for people not able to attend the exhibition, as well as to prepare and/or expand the knowledge of those who do visit the museum.
Tips:
Grab the user's attention immediately! Make them believe that your site is going to give them something they can't get anywhere else. On our home page we used bright yellows, dramatic art, big text, and some interesting photos to generate excitement. We knew our inside pages would take some time to load on a modem, but the payoff is big. There's a lot to do on one page. Also, you need to strike a balance between pushing the technology envelope for broadband users while providing a rewarding experience for modem users. Rather than creating one site that was either high-bandwidth or low-bandwidth, we chose to present a "smorgasbord" of media and information—something for everybody.
www.artsmia.org/arts-of-asia
From
the producers:
"Arts of Asia is a growing online resource featuring objects
from The Minneapolis Institute of Arts' permanent collection.
It is intended for museum visitors, teachers, and everyone interested
in Asian art, culture, and history. The Web site/gallery kiosk
hybrid provides access to all above audiences in two ways: 1)
As an in-gallery resource for museum visitors, who can find out
more about the works on view as well as the breadth of a collection
that connot be fully displayed.
2) For off-site visitors -- from teachers and students to collectors
and others -- with an interest in Asian art and culture. Also,
the Web medium allows for future expansion of the project, both
in the depth of the existing materials and into other areas of
this vast collection. The seed for this program was a 1992 interactive
videodisc project addressing The Institute's Japanese collection.
The desire to preserve and expand that project and bring it to
a larger audience led us to choose the Web as a medium."
A tip from the producers:
"Older interpretive materials don't have to die! They can
be poured into shiny new containers and, just as importantly,
spark interest in new development, new ideas, and a whole new
framework. Arts of Asia's roots are in a ten-year-old videodisc
program. The project is now a richer resource and, as a Web based
project tied to our collection database, has built-in potential
for even more material addressing all areas of our Asian collection.
Plus, with 3,000 to 4,000 people using Arts of Asia each week,
we've truly reached a new audience."
The judges said:
"The size and complexity of the site and the enjoyment with
which I roamed through it, finding both things I expected and
surprises. Many devices were used effectively to spark my interest."
Production Company: Magian Design Studio
From
the producers:
"This project was originally an initiative of Tanami Network
and the Warlpiri Aboriginal community at Yuendumu, a town situated
on the edge of the Tanami Desert in Central Australia. Yanardilyi
or Cockatoo Creek is an area of land 25km north-west of Yuendumu.
The South Australian Museum commissioned a large painting from
the community. The result is a magnificent 3m x 4m canvas painted
by the Warlukurlangu artists at Yuendumu. A contemporary dot painting,
it depicts four Dreaming stories from the Yanardilyi or Cockatoo
Creek area. The community originally commissioned Magian Design
Studio to create a CD-ROM as a parallel to the project. Explorers
Hall at the National Geographic Society Headquarters hosted an
important exhibition of Australian Aboriginal Art titled "Spirit
Country". Explorers Hall commissioned Magian to create a
touchscreen adaptation of the CD-ROM.The touchscreen program gave
the museum audience an insight into the processes of creating
the artworks and also the history of the development of contemporary
arts in an Australian Aboriginal Community."
The challenges facing the producers:
"The project presented a challenge for the production team
at Magian. There was a huge range and volume of content that needed
to be included in the program with careful consideration of its
rich cultural knowledge. The guardianship of knowledge within
an Aboriginal community is treated seriously and with care. The
passing of knowledge from one person to another involves a mutual
participation. In respecting this, we decided to take an unconventional
approach and create a navigational structure and a series of screen
interfaces designed to encourage exploration before explanation.
As the user spends time with the program, a process of discovering
and deciphering the data within it becomes apparent. Information
is not given in an obvious way: it is found when it is sought.
The result is that knowledge is revealed in layers, in response
to a willingness to explore and discover."
The judges said:
“Interactive on Aboriginal art from Australia. Interesting
choice to privilege visual exploration of the artwork over information
display. Information is imbedded in aspects of the art. Sensitivity
to the intention and beliefs systems of the artists is commendable."
From
the producers:
"This half hour documentary presents new findings about the
paintings techniques of the 19th century American artist, Thomas
Eakins and reveals for the first time his use of photographic
projection in the making of his paintings. Detailed filming of
his drawings, paintings and photographs, demonstration of his
techniques and special camera effects are used to convey a vivid
sense of the process of artistic creation. Eakins was an accomplished
draftsman and master of traditional artistic methods, but he also
enthusiastically embraced photography and turned it ingeniously
to his aims as a painter, creating works of striking individuality,
sophistication and realism. In describing how these new discoveries
about Eakins’s use of photography were made conservators,
historians and scholars afford the viewers a behind-the-scenes
look at the rich possibilities of shared and contrasted ideas
and cooperative interdisciplinary research."
The judges said:
Complex story set forward in clear and compelling way, involving
multiple players. I particularly liked inclusion of scholars'
emotinal response to absorbing new way of thinking about Eakins.
Production company: Cognitive Applications
Installation
From the producers:
'Exploring Picasso's La Vie' is an interactive display for the 'Picasso: The Artist's Studio' exhibition at The Cleveland
Museum of Art. The interactive is based on original research carried
out at the museum and uses technology to open new windows on Picasso's
creative process.
The installation consists of a large plasma screen mounted vertically
on the wall, with speakers mounted below and a cordless mouse
sitting on top of a plinth in front of the screen. No computer
is visible at all. All the interaction occurs within the boundary
of the painting itself. This innovative display creates a feeling
of direct interaction with the work of art.
Dr. Holly Witchey, Manager of New Media at the Cleveland Museum
of Art, explains, "Our goal was to create an interactive
which would involve a number of visitors in a gallery. We wanted
something more than a kiosk in a corner. "Exploring Picasso's
La Vie" not only spurred visitors to go back to the beginning
of the exhibition and look again at the actual work of art, it
proved to be a successful multi-generational and multi-modal learning
experience. "
The judges said:
“Innovative way of bringing conservation into the galleries
and linking it to art history and appreciation. Large screen format
works well for variety of visual explorations and for showing
multiple views of x-ray and other imaging techniques. Well thought
out as a gallery interactive. It seems useful for visitors of
all ages.”
Artists of Brucke: Themes In German Expressionist Prints
Museum of Modern Art (www.moma.org/brucke)
Production company: Second Story
From
the producers:
"This site is The Museum of Modern Art's first, exclusively
created "virtual" exhibition and showcases its unparalleled
collection of German Expressionist prints and illustrated books.
The Brücke group, formed in 1905 in Dresden by four revolutionary
architectural students including Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Erich
Heckel, strove to achieve a new synthesis between art and life,
bringing meaning back to what they considered the superficial
bourgeois existence of German life under Kaiser Wilhelm II. They
organized exhibitions and publicized their own work by issuing
annual portfolios of prints. Printmaking, and the woodcut in particular,
became one of their most important modes of expression. This site
presents more than 110 prints arranged into thematic groupings
that highlight the issues and motifs central to this seminal movement
in the history of modern prints.
"This site was a unique opportunity to explore how interactivity
can enhance the exhibition of art. Visitors can tour the eight
thematic 'galleries' comprised of more than 50 comparative groupings
of art with interpretive text and narrated quotes. Every image
in the exhibition links to a larger version with more specific
information about the work. Access to a map provides context to
where these artists worked, the sites they depicted, plus biographical
information on the artists which includes narrated
passages from their writings. In the Prints section, viewers can
select or 'curate' their own comparative groupings, and personalize
their experience by sorting the entire collection according to
theme, artist or medium."
The judges said: "Well written, well designed, good
organization, easy to navigate, good integration of audio, great
images."
Jacob Lawrence: Over the Line
The Phillips Collection
www.phillipscollection.org/html/trvlexbt.html
The judges said: "This was a relatively small
scale piece, but I thought it was a model—clear, engaging,
effective use of the fluidity of multimedia, simple but effective
use of audio, stills, etc. Good teaching resources, nice to include
section of related kids art."
Devices of Wonder
J. Paul Getty Trust
www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/devices
The judges said: “Great hand-on activity for all ages
to understand how antique toys were used and enjoyed without touching
the real thing. Interface allows for direct interactione without
too many words or instructions. Extremely clever.”
Gallery
Kiosks for Treasures from a Lost Civilization: Ancient Chinese
Art from Sichuan
Seattle Art Museum
Installation
The judges said: “Visually rich. Great combination of
objective, narrative, and thematic information. New spin on standard
multimedia tricks that make this program very engaging.”
