featured
Digital Technologies and the Museum Experience: Handheld Guides and Other Media
Submitted by kevin on 28 August 2008 - 8:15pm
Edited by Loïc Tallon and myself, published by Alta Mira Press. Publishers blurb:
The biggest trend in museum exhibit design today is the creative incorporation of technology. Digital Technologies and the Museum Experience: Handheld Guides and Other Media explores the potential of mobile technologies (cell phones, digital cameras, MP3 players, PDAs) for visitor interaction and learning in museums, drawing on good practice to identify guidelines for future implementations.
For further info and to order go to thepublisher or Amazon (even available for Kindle).
latest exhibits
Submitted by kevin on 27 October 2009 - 9:56am
I design exhibits, including software and hardware, design and production. This involves managing projects and leading teams, working solo, or simply acting as technology consultant. I have been doing this for about 10 years, before which I was Senior Software Designer for exhibitions at the American Museum of Natural History. Not too many exhibits lately as I've been more in research - but PhD now completed, back to exhibits! See also some of my own art.
Beth Sholom Synagogue visitor center
Submitted by kevin on 15 November 2009 - 1:45pm
I did technology consulting for this visitor center designed by Picture Projects, in Frank Lloyd Wright's last building.
To highlight the special features of the building, 360 degree panoramas showing it in all its variability, in changing weather, over changing seasons, and different light, are shown on a Panasonic TC-P50G10 50" plasma screen with (Happ) trackball for interactive navigation. (Mac Mini drives this)
Flora's Feast installation
Submitted by kevin on 26 April 2008 - 9:15pm
In my second job for video artist Jennifer Steinkamp, I enlisted electronix guru Brock Craft (pictured here with the artist) to help install her piece Flora's Feast at the home of a private buyer in London.
Beautiful rendering of movinig flowers plays on a two-story-tall LED screen installed in the wall behind a lift with glass doors. The flowers subtly move up or down depending on which way you're going in the lift.
Originally spec'ed for infrared sensors to detect movement of the lift, we managed instead to detect button presses from the lift electronics. We retained one of the Arduino Diecimilia boards shown here, for feeding the data into the PC which controls the animation (a Quicktime movie controlled in Director).
Foundling Museum audio trail
Submitted by kevin on 8 March 2008 - 11:26pm
Worked with teens to create the museum's first audio tour, as part of the MLA Youth Programme. I specified inexpensive MP3 player/recorders which the students used for their initial research, then I recorded the dramatic narrative they came up with, at our lab, on Minidisc. This was then edited with the students on my laptop using Audacity. The tour now available for download at the museum's site, or for free on the players at the museum!
Centre Pompidou mobile system
Submitted by kevin on 31 December 2007 - 11:46pm
Created mobile phone audio annotation system, hiring Shawn Van Every for programming of an Asterisk based exhibit voicemail system, to interface with the Pompidou's Lignes de Temps software. A local phone number from DID Worldwide connected invisibly to an Asterisk box in New York for tests. Thanks to Yves-Marie Haussonne, the museum duplicated our system on a local server. The system is described in further detail here.
latest research
Submitted by kevin on 27 October 2009 - 9:41am
I conduct research on technology and learning. I am completing a PhD at the Institute of Education in London, focusing on mobile technologies for supporting learning in museums. Previously I studied anthropology, media and journalism. For more on research see my page at the London Knowledge Lab, and recent column for Educational Technology.
Technology in visual culture: Transforming the museum experience
Submitted by kevin on 9 February 2010 - 8:58am
In this 9 Feb 10 session for the module on the MA Museums & Galleries in Education, held at the London Knowledge Lab, we first made the following distinctions:
Different types of museums adopt different epistemological positions:
- History museums relate learning to cultural identity;
- Science museums view learning in terms of abstract scientific concepts; and
- Art museums link learning to direct aesthetic experience.
Designing for an Open Museum
VeSeL project in Parliament
Submitted by kevin on 7 December 2009 - 10:00am
We will present the Village e-Science for Life project results in a seminar on Science, technology and innovation for poverty reduction, organised by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, and EPSRC. The VeSeL kit, including solar-powered laptop, GPRS modem, and handheld sensors, along with free and open-source blogging and other software tools, has shown some degree of success in the villages in rural Kenya we've worked with. Project details here. Further details about the event here.
Museer/teknologi
Submitted by kevin on 28 October 2009 - 10:00am
Lots of interesting work is going on in Denmark with regard to museums, technology and learning, as we found out when a group from DREAM visited and participated in this seminar at London Knowledge Lab.
DREAM director Kirsten Drotner introduced the group and its work. Then Vitus Vestergaard talked about his work at the Danish media museum in Odense.
