Peter SamisAssociate Curator InterpretationSFMOMA

Mixing It Up with Media @ SFMOMA

Museum Educators of Southern CaliforniaSummer InstituteLos AngelesJune 26, 2010

the Epicenter of Confusion!

Today we are at…

Opportunity comes fraught with peril:

Old structures are dissolving…

© Nathan Johansen, Wachovia Implosion, Atlanta

Ask John Seely Brown, prof at USC…

No wonder he calls himself “The Chief of Confusion!”

For example, at SFMOMA

we’re breaking downboundaries

even as we prepare to design & build…

Between departments…

• Between galleries and social spaces• Between social spaces & knowledge

spaces• Between exhibitions… & Live Culture• Between professional & public

spaces• Between what has been hidden and

what will be visible

And that’s just talking about the

Physical Building.

There’s a whole other kind of

dissolution

going on…

lands

between departments.

At the

Boundary

Marketing/PR

Media Arts

Interactive Educational Technologies

WebPublications

Architecture & Design

For instance, take our blog…

• Which department publishes what?

• Is our blog a community voice or a PR Voice?

• (Could it be both without betraying our existing community? One blog or two… why not four?)

• Who produces video? Anyone? Everyone?

• How long will the scholarly catalog survive?

• Will new forms supplement or supplant it?

We’ve been asking questions like:

Curatorial walltexts, extended labels, catalogs

—>

Education public programs with guest speakers —>

Mktg & PR placements —>

+ IET mobile multimedia, kiosks & Web features, YouTube or ArtBabble videos

+ Ed/Web invited blog corps

+ Twitter, Facebook, flickr groups

Right now the digital grows out of—and augments—the analog, across museum functions:

Analog Digital

Does a new central structure emerge, encompassing all things digital?

Was there a department of pencilsin the old museum?

…or is it small parts loosely joined?

[That said, there are economies of scale: think digital infrastructure.]

landsBoundary

We’re in the

.

How did we get here?

Once, not so long ago…

Educational technologies

were there to supplement the White Cube of the gallery.

• Physical aspects• Process of its making• Relationships (to its maker, to ideas, to

other works)• Documents (journals, letters, sketches)• Media• Methods of approach and understanding

Modern art—like all the objects we exhibit —exists in a framework of meanings.

Of these, art museums typically strip away all but one or two.

• Process of its making• Relationships (to its maker, its time)• Documents• Media• Methods of approach and understanding

• Physical aspects

Somewhere along the line

that left us to restore thecontext.

Experts………………Novices

Enter docents, & digitally speaking, the kiosk or Web feature

The ability of an image or object to grab you, stop you in your tracks, reach down into you, and stay with you.

Visual Velcro

Some things have velcro even though they look clean and polished…

Mirrors, for instance.

Olafur Eliasson show, MoMA

Or even moreso, “The Bean.”

36,961 images on flickr.[These 5 by Ken Ilio.]

Different objects have different hooks suited to them…

urbanmkr, ...in our borrowed tackle box

When there’s no velcro, we supply the hooks.

[used by Wayne Gretzky as a child]

And interpretive resources make a real difference:

(Statistics courtesyRandi Korn & Associates)

FI GURE 7OVERALL RATI NG OF BARNEY EXHIBIT I ONBY TOTAL NUMBER OF INTERPRETIVE OFFERINGS USED IN THE EXHIBIT I ONANDBY FAMILIARITY WITH BARNEY’S ART

TOTAL NUMBER OF INTERPRETIVE OFFERINGS USED IN THE EXHIBITION

NO OFFERINGS( n = 1 6 )

1 – 2 OFFERINGS( n = 7 2 )

3 - 4 OFFERINGS( n = 8 8 )

5+ OFFERINGS( n = 6 2 )

MEANS MEANS MEANS MEANS

7 _

_ 6 .1_ 5 .9

6 _

_ 5 .6_ 5 .7

n 5.6S _ 5.4C

A n 4.8L

5_

_ 4.6E n 4.3

_ 4.04_

n 3.3MEAN SCORES:

_ Familiar with Barney’sArt

3_

_ 2.6 _ Unfamiliar with Barney’sArtn Combined

2_

1_ 7-POINT RATING SCALE: 1 = UNFAVORABLE / 7 = VERY FAVORABLE

Number of offerings: F=5.671; p=.001Familiarity with Barney’s Art: F=36.578; p=.000Number of offerings * Familiarity with Barney’s Art F=2.48; p=.062Model: F=12.500; p=.000 R2=.276

So that is one clear vocation we have as educator-interpreters.

Next question: when & how to deliver?

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

When do visitors want to know most about a work on exhibit?

[my hypothetical view]

Enter: the mobile tour.

2010: A rare opportunity to focus on the permanent collection

Bringing it all back home.

• Developed more than 135 add’l stops & 75 sub-levels

• Purchased and adapted previous Antenna content

• Totals well over six hours of content on all 5 floors

• Mix of voices & perspectives

• Publish on demand NOUSguide CMS software

• Offered FREE to our visitors

Drawing on the Audio-Video archive

• Ansel Adams*• Robert Arneson*• Matthew Barney*• Vija Celmins*• Chuck Close* • Bruce Conner*• Imogen Cunningham* • Jay DeFeo* • Richard Diebenkorn*• Marcel Duchamp*• Felix Gonzalez-Torres*• Dan Graham*• Philip Guston*• David Ireland*• Chris Johanson*• Frida Kahlo*• Ellsworth Kelly*• Jeff Koons*

• Dorothea Lange* • Sol LeWitt*• René Magritte*• Brice Marden*• Barry McGee*• Nicholas Nixon* • Robert Rauschenberg*• Ed Ruscha*• Robert Ryman*• Doris Salcedo*• Richard Serra*• Kiki Smith*• Kara Walker*• Andy Warhol*• Edward Weston*

* Stop contains audio or video of the artist

[Also online for your use at www.sfmoma.org/explore]

Videos, yes…

But first & foremost, audio…

Crafting commentary for just-in-time use, when visitors need it most, in the gallery.

Sub-levels allow you to Go Deeper.

Followed by a Guest Takein the tradition of SFMOMAArtcasts: Cellist Zoe Keating

• Create our content when we want to• …and own the rights to it when we do• Choose which exhibitions to cover—with

visitor experience trumping profitability• Engage Guest Take commentaries &

creative responses from the communityAnd in the future:• Potential for download or streaming to

personal devices• Potential for 2-way dialogue with visitors

Transition to Making Sense of Modern Art Mobile

• Research• Scripting• Design• Production• Deployment• Distribution• Upkeep• Evaluation

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

with a little help from our friends…

WARNING: Bootstrapping in the Mobile space may be harder than it appears!

Substantial added responsibilities…

2 primary creative partners/collaborators:

NOUSguide, Vienna Earprint, San Francisco

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

In-house buy-in: changes & adjustments• CURATORIAL: Recording

conversations among colleagues in the galleries

• IT: Reconfiguring the Wi-fi network for updates

• DESIGN: New object label templates

• VISITOR SERVICES: Adding distribution duties & staffing

• MARKETING & COMM: Promoting to our visitors

• FINANCE: Renouncing revenue from tour sales… at least for starters

• DEVELOPMENT: Fundraising for sustainability

Takeaways from the Team:

1. People love the “go deeper” option—especially after a short top level.

2. Casual & conversational is a good tone… 1st person, too

3. Focus groups say they don’t want to hear from “any Joe Schmoe”

Next Steps/Some options to explore:

• Analyze logs & do thorough visitor evaluation• Add navigation options including wayfinding & bookmarking• Add Family Tour, more music, & Guest Takes• Offer channels through this rich content mix

Robert Rauschenberg, Trophy IV (For John Cage), 1961

Some things a visitor can’t do… or see:

So we’ve brought the audio tour function in-house and made it multimedia.

• How do these authority voices tie in with visitor construction of meaning?

• How are they tied in fruitfully with blogs & social media?

• How do community voices come back to us?

•Who’s curating whom?

But that still leaves questions:

And does all this have to happen at once?

Capability - Maturity Model

• Initial phase: “heroic”• Managed phase: “1-deep”• Defined phase: Processes in place• Quantitatively managed: metrics • Optimizing: metrics feed back into

system

Don’t skip the steps. Just set your sights on the step you’re at, and the next.

“I’m gonna learn about Technology and he’s gonna learn about Education.”

The Two Jasons

That’s enough for

now.

Let’s talk.

www.sfmoma.org/explorePeter SamisSan Francisco Museum of Modern Artpsamis@sfmoma.org