Week 1

Words to Describe Thesis

This was a free-form exercise where we wrote words that we associated with "thesis"

Thesis Dump/Initial Brainstorm:

Here is a written explanation of the potential avenues of investigation I had for thesis with the accompanying slide from the in-class "About Me" presentation.

Exploring the Intersection of Pop-Ups & Museums

This subject arose from my personal experience with pop-ups, many of which I went to. I can't remember the first one I went to (probably around spring 2018), but I distinctly remember becoming very curious by the language used in the marketing; ("immersive experience" would become a soon-too-familiar phrase), and by the superficial associations to museums that I felt were used in order to gain credibility.

Once I went to that first one, Facebook advertising aggressively started marketing them to me, so I kept going to others. I went because I hoped I would find an interesting interactive or learning an interesting fact, but I was mostly disappointed by the superficial treatment of the subjects and that most of them were instagram voids.

Initially, it became an informal hobby of mine to investigate how I could improve pop-ups, both content-wise and interactive-wise. I became curious about why they were successful and how these "secrets to their success" could be leveraged by museums.

Thus, this line of investigation for my thesis would be about revisiting my initial inquiries about pop-ups and perhaps re-exploring this phenomenon now with COVID-related concerns in mind (is America/NYC, for example, simply just "going back" to how we want thing or has the landscape of this experience been altered?).

Before, exploring pop-ups made me realize that I knew very little about museums formally, so if I investigated this topic, I would also explore what a museum is, how it was defined, and how it can evolve.

Project-wise, I'm not sure if the output would be a hypothetical gallery or exhibition or business proposal, so I'm pretty stuck on that...

Technology and Museums

This topic is definitely more open-ended than the former, but I was interested in what new technology could be successful in a museum-space.

The Museum and Interactive Technologies class I took last fall was extremely influential in spurring my interest for this subject because not only was I exposed to a solid overview of technologies used in museums, but also I really enjoyed the overall perspective from the museum's side, rather than from the developer's.

Huge influences for this project would be what I thought think are successful examples of technologies in museums:

  • The Cooper Hewitt Pen: allows users to both further explore and create content based on the museum's collection.

  • Gallery One at the Cleveland Museum of Art: a gallery of fun digital interactives. I have never been but always wanted to go! I like how these interactives are both fun but actually engage the user with the art all whilst fostering creative expression.

Project-wise, I'm hoping to actually produce either a physical + digital object, or maybe just a software? Also unsure...

Ideas

  1. A New Pop-Up

Relates to: pop-ups & museums

For this project, I would explore the business behind pop-ups in addition to improving their content, with the final output being a proposed business model. This would examine the nitty-gritty finances of renting a space and event-planning logistics in addition to exploring the curation-aspect. In order to incorporate the best of both the museum and pop-up worlds, I would want to gather a lot visitor data, though I'm not sure where to find it. Furthermore, I would want to think of the exhibition schedule and potentially create 1 example of an exhibition (perhaps similar to my Invisible Design class); for it, I could plan not only its curation and design, but also the its marketing materials and the educational resources.

Basic questions to start would be:

  • What makes a pop-up so interesting?

  • Who tends to go to them and how does it compare with breakdown of museum-goers?

  • What are the basic finances of a pop-up?

  1. Preserving Past Exhibitions

Relates to: technologies and museums

This project could potentially be a website or app that better documents that material for past exhibitions. This project was borne out of the observation that unlike some other entertainment (like movies or music), exhibitions are very ephemeral (similar to a play except in the case of a musical where one can listen to the soundtrack afterwards). This project would explore how to preserve exhibits after they have finished and leverage how they can be powerful educational resources. Curators are essentially researchers, so it's interesting to see how all their work (and others) tends to get lost to history unless a visitor buys the museum catalog. For this project, I would investigate how museum could archive its exhibitions better (and if it's even worth doing so). I think one avenue that would interesting to add to this research is incorporating considerations about how people learn across different age groups and how that could be demonstrated by different educational resources.

Starting questions would be:

  • What do people who haven't seen the exhibition like to learn about it after it's over?

  • What do people who have seen the exhibition like to see after it's over?

  1. A New Technology for a Museum?

Relates to: technologies and museums

This topic is perhaps the most vague, but I thought I should put it on here in case it develops later into something more concrete. One thing I'd definitely like to play with is the idea of a personalized experience (similar to the Cooper Hewitt Pen, Buzzfeed personality quizzes, Build/Create Your Own ___ experiences).

General Starting Questions:

  • In addition to learning more about a piece/topic or documenting/sharing it, why else would people want to use technology?

  • Are there other ways to interact with museum content that isn't game-ified?

  • What are the needs of different users given different visitor types?

Technology Idea 1

One idea is a wearable RFID bracelet/tag that allows users a customized experience (similar to SpyScape and the Cooper Hewitt Pen). The only thing is that I would need to think about what other experiences the user can have that warrant the need for this technology.

Also this impression feels a bit dystopian, giving me vibes from the movie In Time, where people in this society have time as a currency that is added to their lifespan. In order to avoid this, I'd want to make sure that the user doesn't feel like I'm just taking their data, but also giving them a meaningful/fun experience.

Technology Idea 2

Since phones are ubiquitous, including in the museum space, I naturally thought to maybe create a phone app. I wanted to explore a QR based web experience to enhance the museum visit for these reasons:

  • QR and the web is easily accessible (as opposed to downloading a separate app)

  • QR is an opt-in experience: visitors don't have to use their phones/scan the code if they don't want to

Letter to My 60-year-old Self

Dear Me,

Hey, how's it going? How are you knees/hips/back? Please tell me that I'm still mobile and haven't completely followed a strictly sedentary lifestyle. Anyway, I'm writing to you about my thesis project at ITP, which I hope you're looking fondly remembering as I write this. To begin, I'd like to outline an idea I had about how to approach the first half of thesis.

The first goal would be to figure out how to choose a topic. To start, I'd definitely like to speak to a lot of people and get their opinions; not only does this include my professor and several residents, but I'd also love to get insight and resource recommendations from several museum professionals. I think I'd also like to conduct user research to figure out my audience better; I'd definitely need to create a system for this process. From there, hopefully I'm inspired enough to be able to more concretely envision what the project would be in terms of output, be it a website, a wearable, or a business proposal. I'm pretty nervous about this last part because the general gist this thesis project has been floating around my subconscious without further materializing.

Thanks for being my soundboard!

~Pauline


Potential Resources:

The Museum Experience - John H. Falk

Museums in the Digital Age: Changing Meanings of Place, Community, and Culture - Susana Smith Bautista

The Future of the Museum: 28 Dialogues - András Szántó

The Existential Void of the Pop-Up ‘Experience’ - Amanda Hess