Zeven Rodriguez

The MOMA is redesigning the entrances of there exhibits. The Abstract Expressionist exhibit is a clear example of the new visual style they are going for. They are using large type with high contrasting colors. In this case they flooded 2 walls with this design. I also found it interesting that the automatic doors add this barrier which helps you read the sign when you first get in.

The reorganization of the abstract expressionists had a good flow. The scale of the art and the sparsity makes it overwhelming enough. You still get the wow factor. The designers used the rooms to juxtapose the artists. Rothko and Newman are used as the calm rooms to give viewers a break from the Pollock paintings. One of the main breaks in the flow where the Robert Frank Photos by the staircase and the rest of the photography.

One of the biggest issues I had with the exhibit was the lighting. The lighting felt spotty. I made a weird gradation between the work. It made the art photograph ok, but the light was not enough to light the room evenly.

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I felt the Forbidden City exhibit at the MET had an interesting flow. I think the first room and the projection were the most successful. I think I learned the most from these areas. They set the stage for what made the space interesting. The emperor was highly influenced by European art styles of perspective and visual trickery. This was not apparent if you did not read the placards but was emphasized in the video projection. The 3d models where really nice to see the overview of the space and how it would have looked. Image was used sparingly but I thought that its use could have been pushed further. In some instances like the left hand graphic, image was used in the background but the vases on the raised case made the presentation kind of awkward. This area of furnishing that communicated with the patio was nice because it brought in the natural light into the space. Images could have adorned some of the inner galleries where the furnishing is to give a sense of placement. Some of the placement was kind strange. There was an actual door next to a doorway in the forbidden city next to a throne. In the calligraphy portion the middle case talked about the restoration. This was interesting but seemed out of place when you had a room the contained more calligraphy tools. Over all the lighting was very nice. There was 2 lighting schemes. One was the natural light coming from the patio. The other was laid out similar to 19th century galleries, but with more visible spot lights. I felt that the space should have accommodated for hiding the spot light tracks. The spot lights were used very well highlighting table posts and other artifacts to really show there detail.

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In the article, the author mentions traveling exhibits giving museums a possibility to refresh there space. Also mentioned is the fact that museums more and more are lending themselves to this sort of work. I think this might be vital to a museums strive to stay relevant. It helps strengthen collections of museums and provide the possibility of collaborating with other institutions help forge a stronger collection and ultimately a better exhibits.

The traveling exhibit besides attracting people to visit; it helps gauge community interest in subjects. I can also see it helping museums decide on what areas to invest more in. The traveling exhibits can inform museums about new interactions and styles that can help redesigning of there permanent exhibits. With larger museums, they have the opportunity of aiding smaller museums and being able to create a community of knowledge in areas that might not have the access that a larger museum might. Being able to show multiple collections and create stronger exhibits is great for museums because it shows patrons the very best. This helps museums retain a level of quality not possible on there own.

One of the interesting thing about the traveling exhibits is the design challenge they pose. Being able to make modular exhibits that retain logical order is an interesting challenge. When we talk about light design and construction having to decide what to sacrifice becomes a tough choice. What we give up in terms of functionality is a topic of much interest to me. As exhibits become more interactive, how we can automate and make this setup easier to run could lead to some changes on the hardware end of things. If this trend becomes more common place how spaces and the exhibit can transform to accommodate the changing layouts and people could lead to interesting studies on how these traveling exhibits are experienced.

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The goal of this exhibit is to show the evolution of humans and the growth of human potential through time. The exhibit has a good flow that takes you through human evolution and its out come. The parts that were most interesting to me are: How we got to where we are? i.e. color sight, sound, etc. and The science of how we know these things. i.e. fossil recovery

The exhibit has this sorta laboratory feel to it. I think it it when you come in you have those 2 white glowing walls. I learned a lot about the origins of who we are and what made us how we are. I would have maybe liked this part explored more toward the end in the section that dealt with culture.

The use of touchscreens was pretty good in this exhibit but there were three areas that I saw poor use of space or not extremely interesting information.

At the begining of the installation, on glowing wall you have the tree of life section. The area is nicely designed, but the touchscreen was a little confusing. The graphic tried to explain the origins of life. The origin was not clear in the graphic. As you clicked on organisms on the tree, the flow between the screens was not evident at first. Also Compared to the other side, the family tree, which not loaded with information, there was a lot going on information wise in that portion of the exhibit.

Behind the skeletons in the front, the touchscreens are kinda lost there. I think there could have been an opportunity to project something behind the skeletons interacting with the skeletons.

There are 2 parts that I wish could have been put together. The Pepper’s ghost diorama and the touchscreen about where they found bones could have been intertwined alittle more. I think mostly because having 2 competing touchscreens and then the diorama makes for a bit of sonic confusion. A game element could have been nice for the fossil detective part. Especially cause the diorama has a good flow in the explanation, but I wanted to interact with it more.

The one game element there was was static and there it could have used a touchscreen. The round table with the bones was a perfect space to do a memory or bone comparison game. The game element was not evident either cause the gray on gray type was hard to read.

I never understood why this was blocked off, but now I see that to keep the flow and linearity of history in the round space, a physical barrier had to be put. Another barrier that was interesting was the brain part of the exhibit. The round brains case acted like a rotunda throwing toward the classroom area or towards the culture area.

This music game was really fun and interesting because you are able to experience different instruments from different cultures. I found it was a good touch to keep in the key that the style of music is written in. I liked this area of the exhibit because it explained the how we perceive culture and how we made it.

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I found it interesting that the two of the examples explored as successful forms of the experience economy are now secondary actors in there respective interactive space. The article opens up with LAN party sites. As a gamer, it was true that it gave you a space with a myriad of games and a social interaction that at the time was not possible over the internet. AOL gave the same experience to the mainstream internet user. It gave a myriad of tools to access the internet. These examples show how even though we provide the best service to a community, if you do not reinvent and grow with that community you fall off.

What I found interesting was that both AOL and LAN sites, educated us on how to navigate through their respective space. What is also interesting is that they brought a sense of true community to the internet. As the internet grew, we became extremely active participants in the community. AOL and LANs were a pseudo-passive environment, because they offered the space but we chose to leave when we wanted to. We went from a community where groups of people interacted through the internet to a community of people who simply puts themselves out there to be commented on. We ultimately became more introverted, but this introversion heightens our immersion in the environment. Thus, as designers, we need to harness peoples introversion as a way to bring people through the door.

It is concerning that the web is rapidly combining and iterating the main tenures of the article: education, escapist, and esthetic. They can do it faster and sometimes better then most educational and entertainment spaces. Though it will be hard to recreate the esthetic, the web is making leaps with educational and escapist. From WoW to Google’s new museum walk-through to cellphones, we now have the tools to take experiences with us and make them better. Moreover how museums and even places like Disney stay relevant might end up being the very thing that has taken there place as the premier place for education and entertainment.

But hope is still there. The internet has 2 grand issues: its follow through and transformation. Google’s new museum walk-through will not replace the museum. Why? Because the internet is volatile and Google cannot give you an experience. They present you one. The web cannot make a physical thing real. Paints, sculptures, animals, etc are not perceived by us in a two-dimensional plane. The Disney example is a perfect one. Most of Disney’s content is two-dimensional. Yet, millions have gone to Disney World. People will always visit museums and entertainment. The key is whether we want to stay relevant or stay with the stream.

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Cabinets of curiosities laid the foundation for the 2 main types of museum design. The 2 schools of museum design are what I call “didactic” and “gallery”.  The didactic and the gallery museums stem from the cabinets laying out and organizing their collections into logical groups. They differ in that gallery museums mostly stayed with Cabinets idea. Didactic museums grew out of world’s fair mentality. When patrons would visit cabinets, they would draw conclusions on what they were seeing. When the world’s fairs came around, governments and industry used amusement and explanation to sell themselves. They wanted to show new technologies and national treasures. Didactic museums embraced new technologies, because they have to keep up with changing history and explain it. Their collections grow based on expanding the museums knowledge base.  Gallery museums have to keep up with their collection philosophy to stay relevant.  At the end of the day it’s how museums contextualize their collections that make them special.

The fundamental differences between gallery and didactic museums lead to the difficulty in designing for both types of museum. You know your collection. In a gallery style museum you organize, make some logical sense, and exhibit. If your audience is not interested in the content, you have an unsuccessful museum. This is where taking from didactic style museums could enhance an audience’s experience. Not everyone has the Mona Lisa or King Tut’s Tomb. Understanding an artist’s or architects process and context makes the piece more accessible. Though an artist’s job is to connect with an audience, many people do not have the vocabulary to realize why a certain piece is special. Most galleries have small placards explaining pieces, but graphics along with text could go a long way in explaining pieces.  Context is key.

On the other side didactic museums can fall into the trap of being overly didactic and too focused on technology.  Most science museums and natural history museums can contain similar items. There are many rocks and plenty of fauna to fill up a museum. In the end its how the story is told. In most gallery museums you categorize by date or artist, in didactic museums the contextual flow of an exhibit is important. Though difficult to provide a linear narrative to history in an exhibit, being able to make the viewer reference back to other parts of the exhibit is important. Technology can play a role in filling that gap. Technology can be gimmicky though. People can feel good design, but just because you have a room full of screens it does not make your exhibit good.

19^th Century Galleries for Painting and Sculpture MET

This gallery is the quintessential art gallery. The art and the collection take center stage. The gallery opens up with a horizontal gallery connected to 3 vertical galleries. The horizontal gallery I felt had three themes, victory and mysticism, leisure, and women. The 3 vertical galleries seem to progress from left to right by time. The beginning of the exhibit showed a lot of photo realistic portraiture and scenery.  Towards the back and emphasis was made to show the art nouveau movement, by recreating a room, but lacked more art work from the time.

Some rooms were full of sceneries other full of portraits.

As you reach the center rooms and right most room, a heavy emphasis on Monet, Van Gogh, and artists like Pissaro are made. The organization the rooms are somewhat strange. Most of the Monet paintings are located in singular rooms, but the Van Gogh paintings are split between 2 rooms and are placed along the same wall. Though you can catch similar styles from peaking into rooms and looking, unless you happen to read the right sign, you might miss the history as to why. Some rooms are dimly lit to highlight sculpture but paints also placed in the rooms suffer from the low light.

Rooms all very similar but vary in color. Reds, purples, tans, and whites line the walls. I tried to discern a pattern as to why certain rooms where colored that way but I was not able to figure out if there was.

The galleries definitely showed 19^th century art. The art housed in the space is amazing.  The issues I have with galleries is the following, I want to know more. If I am come to the gallery multiple times a year or even that one time, I would like context to what I am seeing.  As I enter a room full or Monet’s I would like to know a general overview at what I am seeing. While the little placards are great, having something that explains the bigger picture would be nice. A good example is Toulouse-Lautrec’s Portrait of Henri Gabriel Ibels. In a sign it says the Ibels was a founder of Nabi brotherhood, which included Bonnard and Vuillard.

This gives in-site as to what inspired artists. The center area could used to give general context to rooms and paintings, which will let patrons make more connection with the work.

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