Chapter 11: Blurring the Boundaries for Museum Visitors
Areti Galani,
Matthew Chalmers,
This chapter, proposed by Areti Galani and Matthew Chalmers, deals with a visitor-centered approach to local and remote museum visiting that is shaped by social conduct in terms of both visitor’s intentions and overall experience. These studies investigate social interaction among friends and how social context is one of the three key elements that influence visitor’s experience. Other visitor-centered studies looked at how social interaction might affect learning and how social behavior is expressed by family and friends in museums. These studies have helped give insightful information in the ways social interaction have influenced interpretation and learning. This visitor-centered approach was inspired by sociological ethno methodology that attempts to examine how museum objects are constantly constituted in and through the social interaction of visitors by utilizing video recordings that captures social interactions around displays among friends and strangers at the object face. This sociological study looked to other resources visitors use to re-organize their conduct with fellow visitors and the exhibition. Inspecting this behavior around displays may help in the design of novel displays and enable and encourage social interaction.
Further visitor-centered studies indicated that the pace of the visit is influenced by social conduct and verbal and visual cues facilitate direct interaction and peripheral awareness of the group. These studies are primarily concerned with physical visits but the remote on-line viewer is increasing and they usually visit on-line museums with the company of others. Studying this social conduct is a better way to understand the visiting activity and design and social action (i.e. gestures and postures) support overall museum experiences and informs ones own engagement with artifacts.
The next section focuses on how the museum visit is a social activity and social interaction often mediates and shapes personal engagement in both asynchronous and synchronous environments. These collaborative virtual environments use 3D graphics and chat technologies to support synchronous remote visits among distributed on-line visitors. The evaluation on these technologies focused on technical and usability issues of the system and limited analysis of conversations that took place in the system indicated guided tours generated more talk about the artifacts. Social awareness and interaction have also been explored through networked art installations by supporting a two-way communication between physical and digital by offering view of the virtual museum environment to local visitors and view of physical environment to remote visitors.
After this was a discussion on a mixed reality museum application, called the Mack Room Mixed Reality, which supported social conduct among local and remote participants and sought to capture and understand the visiting activity in relation to its sociality. It also supported simultaneous visiting among local and remote visitors (whose categorization of participants is not a straightforward cut) whose social conduct may blur boundaries among the local and remote museum visitors and may have shared experiences for on-site and on-line audiences. This application combined virtual environments, hypermedia technology, handheld devices and an ultrasound positioning device. This was so all three visitors, one on-site and two remote, could visit the
Further, they discuss the shared engagement with museum artifacts, along with the empowerment of the remote visitor and the emergence of a mutually complementing physical and digital museum design. The design’s diversity does not seem to inhibit their shared experience which supports Galani and Chalmers idea that in looking at mixed reality environments one must treat all media – new and old – as equal resources in the course of interaction. In these instances, social conduct can support interaction in and through physical and digital environments and facilitate the blending of media and environments in one common activity.
Last, they discuss the practical consideration of two aspects regarding the application and maintenance of mixed reality technology in museum settings: the ecology of the museum environment and issues of maintenance and updating. These technologies are not just about presenting information, but also about supporting social interaction. They recognize the costs of design and maintenance of new technologies and they suggest that the computing and telephone technology of the 21st century will make such interaction accessible. This technology may offer the means to augment the accessibility of collections and educational activates of an institution.
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Chapter 11: Blurring the Boundaries for Museum Visitors
A review
Areti Galani, University of Newcastle
Matthew Chalmers, University of Glasgow
Chapter 11 examines visitor centered studies on local and remote visitors and how their social conduct can affect their overall experience at a museum. These studies believe that social context is one of the three key elements that influence local and remote visitors and how social interaction affects their learning and interpretation of the exhibits. This approach was influenced by a sociological ethno methodology that made an attempt to explain how museum objects are integrated with the visitor’s social interaction. This interaction was observed through videos that were employed to record social interactions around the displays between friends and strangers at the object face. The result indicated that visitor’s would re-organize their conduct with fellow visitors based on their social interaction. Analyzing these behavioral changes may help give insight in the design of novel displays that can help to encourage these social interactions.
Additional studies of the visitor centered approach denoted that social conduct could modify the pace of the visit and visual and verbal cues between the groups could assist in direct interaction. These studies were predominantly used on the physical visit, but other studies concluded that the remote on-line viewer was increasing and often visited on-line museums in a group. I found this argument implausible because I have never known a group of people meeting to visit an on-line museum. However, researching social conduct and its effects on the activity of the physical visitor is important in understanding how design and social action (i.e. gesture and postures) are pertinent to the overall museum experience.
The next section concentrates on how the museum visit is a social activity. Personal engagement of the local or remote visitor is affected by their social interaction and virtual environments use 3D graphics and chat technologies to support a shared experience for these visitors. Upon assessing new technologies, technical and usability issues of these systems and analysis of conversations recorded through the equipment specified that guided tours could produce more discussion about the artifacts giving the local and remote visitor a collaborative experience.
Following this section was a discussion on the mixed reality museum application called the Mack Room Mixed Reality. This application sought to understand how social conduct among local and remote participants was related to sociality. This system allowed simultaneous visits between three visitors: one local and two on-line. The participants used dissimilar technologies, such as virtual environments, hypermedia technology and handheld devices with an ultrasound positioning device. Their experiences seem to have blurred the boundaries of the local and remote visitor because of their social interaction with each other through these technologies.
Further, a discussion was made on the shared engagement of visitors with museum artifacts. In addition to this was the proposal of a mutually complementing physical and digital museum design. The diversity of this design did not seem to hinder the shared experience of the local and remote visitor, but only supported the idea that all media – old and new alike – should be treated as an equal opportunity for social interaction. This interaction is supported by the social conduct of the participant in these complementing environments and aid in the combination of media and museum environments in one familiar activity.
Last is a discussion of two important aspects pertaining to the addition of mixed reality museum applications: the ecology of the museum environment and the issues of maintenance and updating. The authors recognize that these systems are expensive, but they believe they are necessary. These systems not only function to provide information but also to support social interaction. They believe that new technologies of the 21st century will aid in making this interaction available as well as supplement accessibility of collections of these institutions.
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