MUSEUM / GALLERY VISITS (PART 1 - SCIENCE MUSEUM)

On Monday 17th December i decided to go up to London to visit as many museums and galleries as I could in response to this interactive design project.

The Museum / gallery that I mainly concentrated on was the Science Museum, this is because the majority of this museum is highly interactive and I wanted to get some inspiration and influence towards the final design of my interactive project.

I took many photographs and notes wherever I saw anything that could have related to this project or my research for this current and future projects. This particular blog is dedicated to my trip to the Science Museum and my notes are included accordingly to the photographs I took, this also is included within my sketchbook showing more evidence of my primary research:


Into the Museum:

So as I walked into the Science Museum the first thing I noticed was this huge metallic arc.

It appeared that the purpose of this arc was to portray questions and answers that various people have asked concerning the vast world of science. The questions and answers circulate within the arc's pixelated narrow screen and the sheer size of this installation makes you feel a sense of awe.

Deeper into the science museum; similar installations to this arc (with questions and answers) stand out amongst other artworks. The image to the left shows a towering version of the arc installation which creeps up the entire height of the museum so it can be seen on every floor.





What I found interesting about these installations in relation to our project is that the public can ask questions and give answers to each other. This is similar to the type of interactivity you can find on an online forum, the main difference being that the information is portrayed on a towering interactive installation. It made me think that people might pay more attention to things if they have presence and that people want to be part of something that everyone can see or notice e.g. art installations. Does this prove how vain we are?

Models:

Throughout the museum and in many different galleries are sculptures and models that are ment to refer to a particular time and place in history.

This model environment is of nazi warfare and using a simliar approach to my Origam-E idea (see design futures project) I considered how these could be made interactive (or come to life). In order to get a true sense of the atmosphere that the model environemnt is trying to portray, then surely making these environments interactive is the next step forward. This refers to what I was saying about immersive interaction in the previous blog (action plan for christmas).










I took a similar approach to this life size sculpture of the moon-landing. It would be wonderful to enhance the users experience of this sculpture, for example adding extra effects and realism - like your actually there.
This approach to immersive interaction is an interesting one, it is all about improving the users experience, giving them something new and exciting.








Surveillance:

Surveillance and security is being improved everyday, we have the potential to visit any area of the world via satellite e.g. Google Earth. We can also see evidence of making a completey 3d environment with which you can fly-over in google earth. My main question conercning surveillance is how will this be made more interactive? With the help of HD and high quality imagery we can get fully proffesional images of wherever we want in the world, bringing you closer to the action via a sense of realism and immersion. My idea in relation to this project is that we will be able to put ourselves in a fully virtual environment (via a VR headset) and literally select where we want to go in the world and visit that place in a matter of seconds. Im sure this sounds familiar...Ah yes,The Matrix Films...

Hands - On Galleries:

To be honest the whole of the science museum is interactive, however the basement (hands-on galleries) gives the public an opportunity to get involved with the art pieces as physically as possible.
Because education is made interactive in these galleries, it definately improves the experience and I saw many younger children truely amazed by what they saw and played around with. This opened my eyes to how effective interactivity is, not just in the digitial world, but in the real (physical) world too.

Interactive Timetables:

These type of educational learning timetables are a really good way to grav peoples attention. Using both digital and physical examples of the topic being discussed made me consider how I could incorporate this into my project and bring the interactive side away from the screen and into the physical world e.g. via sensors and hardware discussed in my sketchbook and earlier in this blog (credit to Mike Blow and Rona Innes for explaning how this could be possible!)

Installation - The Human Body:

In relation to my current action plan (sport and fitness, improving workout experiences etc.) this piece inspired me. It would be nice to see how exactely your body improves after a workout session. Using a simliar perspective to this piece, a person could watch their muscles grow (inch by inch) and get a detailed 3D analysis of the workout and its improvements to the persons physical AND cognitive state. Along with the immersive interactivity included e..g virtual environments to run in, this would truely improve the persons will power to come back to the gym as they can see that they are improving their mind and body which isn't obvious at first but more clear with the interactive piece I am proposing in this in this project.

Pattern Pod:

A hands-on gallery that was created especially for children from 5–8 years of age and their parents.
Like scientists, children explore the world by trying to make predictions about events happening around them. It’s often easier to make these predictions if these events repeat themselves or if there is a pattern to them.
Using truly amazing multi-sensory exhibits this contemporary gallery looks at the many types of patterns in the world around us and encourages children to recognise and copy patterns – or create entirely new ones of their own. Like the other interactive galleries in the Museum, Pattern Pod also encourages learning through play and exploration, enabling children to develop key science skills in a fun and stimulating way.
There’s something for grown-ups too with touch-screen displays giving fascinating insights into the science behind the exhibits and the ways in which children play and learn.

As neither an adolescent or parent I coulnd't go into this exhibtion, but at a glance I thought this was a simliar concept to the Drawn piece by Zachary Lieberman (see blog post wednesday 5th December) and my research on interactive drawings.


The Who Am I? Gallery:

Within this gallery is a variety of different interactive pieces. As you walk in you come across a projection of lips that ask the questions portrayed on a narrow screen e.g. Are you unique?


At first I thought I had to answer the questions (thus interacting with the piece) and being in a questionable and curious mood I admit to embarrassingly speaking out loudin response to the questions being asked. Of course, nothing happened but it would have been a true experience to actualy communicate and interact with a piece like this, something I have considered for this project.

Venturing further into this gallery I came across various interactions that are ment to be educational and exciting. There were many different interactive touch screen pieces and I managed to use some of them. One of them I used was the memory game (image below left). This game asked you to pick a face to remember for 10 seconds, afterwards you had to try and piece together the face using a blank canvas for a face and tools for each facial component e.g gair, mouth, eyebrows etc.

Your score was then given as a percentage to see how well you remembered the face.

Another thing I noticed about these interactive pieces is that you could email yourself the results, images or imformation available on each piece. This made me think that this extends the perceptual boundaries of interactivity and shows how imporant communication is.

The Email:

So I sent myself an email of one of the interactive pieces, the Age maniuplator:

Dear Sir/Madam,On 16/12/2007 we received a request to email you a picture from our exhibit "Ageatron". The picture is attached to this mail.You have not been subscribed to a mailing list and will receive no further emails from the museum. However, if you would like to subscribe to our monthly newsletter click here:http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/home/elist.aspThe newsletter lets you find out about events, special offers from sciencemuseumstore, new features on the website and future exhibitions.

The image that was sent was:

As you can see I look a lot older, the interactive piece I used manipulated my face to look many years older. I thought this was a magnificent piece but the results quite worrying!














There were so many different forms of interactive material within the who am I gallery in the science museum. There were two others that I found very interesting and related to Luciana Hayle's IBVA Machine. These were the voice pattern game and the eye scan pattern game; both of these games ment that you either spoke or scanned your eye into the sensor on the interactive exhibited. Once you spoke or scanned your voice or eye, a visual representation (pattern) was portrayed on the screen (just like the visual representation given off in on the IBVA Machine).

Gary Hill:

If you are familiar with the work of Gary Hill you will know he is

mostly a video installation artists and always plays around with the conceptual boundaries of interaction via the moving image.

It was refreshing to see a familiar prestigious artists work in the science museum. I have considered creating a video installation for this project earlier on this blog so I was excited to see the work Gary Hill during my gallery visits!

Switches and Sensors:

This is a section in the basement gallery of the museum, I thought this directly related to my research on sensors and swtiches (making interaction happen via other means than just a keypress).







In-Future Gallery (Interactive Projections):

This section of the gallery had some wonderful visions of the future and I wish I visited this for the previous project (Design Futures).

The main features of this section was the interactive projections. The images you can see portray tables which approximately 1-6 people can sit around and play games, learn and educate however you want.

Having such a modern (futuristic) way of interaction in this gallery related well to the theme of "the future" but also made me think how else projections can be made interactive! I have already done a lot of research into this which is covered throughout my blog.




The Secret Life Of The Home:

Situated in the basement gallery, the secret life of home gave a historical tour of the average home. You also are able to see how styles, materials, technology and changes in society have influenced the design and use of gadgets and appliances over time.

Every example and appliance relied on interactivity of the audience and I found this whole gallery quite a fun and inspiring experience.


This image of the electric motors is a good example of the various interactive pieces in this gallery, as you can see there are all sorts of buttons and switches to play around on, generally with the exhibit asking you to complete a game in relation to what you could see in the glass case.







Computer Games ( A History Of interaction):

This section of the secret life of home was a wonderful experience and really brought back some memories. There was even an opportunity to play the traditional game of "Pong" (see image below left).

It was amazing to see how far technology and computing has come from these basic forms of entertainment. It could be nice idea to create an interactive project which portrays the history of interaction e.g. modern vs old. In response to this, here is a link to a modern game of 3D pong.


Materials Gallery (Touch, feel, sense):

This Gallery was just as interactive as the others, however I came across this particular exhibited. This is basically a line of different materials which you had to feel and guess what type of material each line consists off. This brought back thoughts about the idea of touch.

Touch is an important area of interaction, via this sense we can monitor and measure a huge range of different temperatures, textures and more. Refer to my sketchbook for more on this subject.

Plastics (Temporary Exhibtion):

Although this section didn't really relate to this project, I did come across more interactive pieces and also this image (left). I had to include this because it related to one of my favourite artists of all time. Pablo Picasso's - "Le Taureau" and his work with Painting with Light.

I experimented with painting with light during a vast majority of my A-Level Course in Photography.

I also found an interesting article on painting with light using digital design programs such as Adobe Photoshop - Click here.


The Simluators - Immersive Interaction

I visited three of the simulators in the science museum, I thought this was a great way to research immersive interaction and focus my mind on enhancing a users experience in an interactive piece or as the brief states: "Extend the perceptual boundaries of interactivity". I used three of the simulators, these were:

1. The SIM EX Simluator Ride ( image above) - Immersive air, water and seat vibration effects on this state-of-the-art motion simulator. Step aboard for any of our exciting missions and you could be feeling the breath of a dinosaur on your neck or the impact of an explosion in space for an experience so real you could almost be there! This experience was amazing and really made me think how I could incorporate this into my interactive project!

2. The Motion Ride Simluators - Defy your senses as you step into this movie house with a difference….and suddenly find yourself in the cockpit of a Harrier Jump Jet.

3. The Imax 3D Cinema - A completey 3D immersive experience, I really felt like I was there. I decided to watch the movie "3D Sea Monsters" due to the time of the day and rush I was in to see the other museums (see later blog on V & A Museum).

Out of everything I explored in the science museum, I felt that these simluators were the most influencial. This is because:

• I am concentrating on Immersive Interaction.
• I want to enhance the interactive experience of going to the gym via new ways of immersive interaction (simliar to these simulators).

Summary of Science Museum Visit:

Altogether the Science Museum was a truely worthwhile visit, i have gained a lot more influences and inspiration and I feel a more comfortable with the direction I am heading in for this project. More of my research on the Science Museum can be seen in my sketchbook and you can see any ideas generated (in diagrams / sketches) from this visit and the various galleries so you can understand the perspective I am coming from.

I also had a quick look around the Victoria And Albert Museum (V & A) which can be seen in the next blog.