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What if we combined immersion, emotion, storytelling — and games? We all want “engagement” … but what is engagement? How can our projects create it? What are the elements that go into it? Can game theory and play teach us how to make our experiences better? What is “narrative transportation”? Why are emotions key to memory creation? And what do Renaissance fairs have to do with museums? Ed Rodley (Co-Founder and Principal, The Experience Alchemists), joins MtM host Jonathan Alger (Managing Partner, C&G Partners) to discuss “Playful Engagement.” Along the way: holodecks, Sleep No More, portmanteaus, and Ed's upcoming book.Talking Points: 1. What is “Playful Engagement”?2. The Magic Circle3. Immersion 4. Emotion5. Storytelling6. Games and PlayHow to Listen:Listen on Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/making-the-museum/id1674901311 Listen on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6oP4QJR7yxv7Rs7VqIpI1G Listen at Making the Museum, the Website:https://www.makingthemuseum.com/podcast Links to Every Podcast Service, via Transistor:https://makingthemuseum.transistor.fm/Guest Bio: Ed Rodley, Co-Founder & Principal, The Experience Alchemists (TEA), is an award-winning experience designer with over thirty-five years' experience in making exhibitions and experiences for cultural organizations large and small. Incorporating emerging technologies into museum practice has been a theme throughout his career. As a thought leader in the digital transformation of the cultural sector, Ed frequently speaks at events around the world like ICOM's International Symposium 2024 in Dubai and the National Digital Forum 2023 in New Zealand. He was one of Blooloop's 50 Museum Influencers for 2021. His book “Designing for Playful Engagement in Museums” is due out in Summer 2025 from Routledge. About Making the Museum:Making the Museum is hosted (podcast) and written (newsletter) by Jonathan Alger. This podcast is a project of C&G Partners | Design for Culture.Learn more about the creative work of C&G Partners:https://www.cgpartnersllc.com/Links for This Episode:Ed Rodley by Email:ed@theexperiencealchemists.com The Experience Alchemists https://www.theexperiencealchemists.com “Taking the Plunge” in Museum Magazine https://www.aam-us.org/2022/11/01/taking-the-plunge/ This article discusses the current state of immersive experiences, some of the conversations around these experiences and their “authenticity” and surveys the psychological research into immersion in digital environments to explore what makes them compelling. "Thinking about Museums" Blog https://thinkingaboutmuseums.com/ Ed's personal weblog on museums, content, design, and why they matter. Museopunks: The Podcast for the Progressive Museumhttps://www.aam-us.org/programs/about-museums/museopunks/ Ed had the distinct pleasure of co-hosting with Suse Anderson her AAM-sponsored podcast which investigated the fascinating work and personalities in and around the museum sector, with a focus on emergent, boundary-pushing work and ideas. Humanizing the Digital: Unproceedings from the MCN 2018 Conferencehttps://ad-hoc-museum-collective.github.io/humanizing-the-digital/ This book explored how museums can use technology to foster human connection and dialogue, advance accessibility and inclusion, and champion inquiry and knowledge, drawn from the Museum Computer Network conference. CODE | WORDS - Technology and Theory in the Museum https://medium.com/code-words-technology-and-theory-in-the-museum Brought together leading museum thinkers and practitioners to explore emerging issues about the nature of museums in the light of the dramatic and ongoing impact of digital technologies. Links for Making the Museum, the Podcast: Contact Making the Museum:https://www.makingthemuseum.com/contact Host Jonathan Alger, Managing Partner of C&G Partners, on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanalger Email Jonathan Alger:alger@cgpartnersllc.com C&G Partners | Design for Culture:https://www.cgpartnersllc.com/ Making the Museum, the Newsletter:Liked the show? You might enjoy the newsletter. Making the Museum is also a free weekly professional development email for exhibition practitioners, museum leaders, and visitor experience professionals. (And newsletter subscribers are the first to hear about new episodes of this podcast.)Join hundreds of your peers with a one-minute read, three times a week. Invest in your career with a diverse, regular feed of planning and design insights, practical tips and tested strategies — including thought-provoking approaches to technology, experience design, audience, budgeting, content, and project management.Subscribe to the newsletter:https://www.makingthemuseum.com/
Today I welcome David Nunez, director of technology at the MIT Museum. David Nuñez is the Director of Technology and Digital Strategy at the MIT Museum. He leads the Museum's digital transformation as it prepares to reboot in a new location in the Spring of 2022. David sits on the Board of Directors of the Museum Computer Network, an organization that seeks to digitally empower museums and museum professionals. Before the MIT Museum, David was the Managing Partner for Midnight Commercial, a design, strategy, and innovation consultancy that invented new products, experiences, and artwork for global brands. His current research seeks to illuminate the humanity existing in computation as he builds projects to explore source code marginalia, speculative human-computer interfaces, and augmented personal productivity systems.
Check out the #ContemporaryArtConversations series where I talk with curators and arts professionals about the state of the #artmarket and the after-effects of the #COVID19 pandemic on #production, #exhibition, and #collection of #fineart. • I’m joined today by independent arts and museum leader and also my buddy, #JamesLeventhal (@jamesgleventhal)! • James G. Leventhal is an arts professional who has been in the museum field for over 25 years, most recently as the Deputy Director and Chief Development Officer for the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco. With a strong background in program development, community engagement, and fundraising, James has worked at museums as far-ranging as The Contemporary Jewish Museum to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is is a graduate of the Getty Leadership Program (2015). He holds an MBA in management and museum studies from John F. Kennedy University, Berkeley, and was named Alumni of the Year in 2013. He completed course work toward an MA in art history and museum studies from The City College, City University of New York; and has a BS in studio art and anthropology from New York University. Leventhal has served on the Boards of the Western Museums Association (2010-2017) and Museum Computer Network (2010) and is currently on the Programs Committees for the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) and the Berkeley Art Center. • #ArtAboveReality
SPEAKERS: Ariadna Matas, Copyright Policy Advisor, Europeana Foundation Sarah Pearson, Legal Counsel, Creative Commons Andrea Wallace, Lecturer in Law, Exeter University Organized by the Special Interest Group on Intellectual Property, Museum Computer Network and friends from the Open GLAM community! The current global health emergency forced libraries and museums to organize digital engagement strategies, from #MuseumFromHome to making digital broadcasts. However, this doesn’t mean that copyright laws have been suspended from working. How do we deal with copyright in this public health emergency? What are the important things we need to be looking at when we make our digital engagement strategies? Where can we go to find openly available content from museums and libraries? How do we make sure that we can legally preserve some of the current records being created by these digital engagement strategies?
Dr. Porchia Moore, Inclusion Catalyst at the Columbia Museum of Art, started Visitors of Color with nikhil trivedi in 2015.Visitors of Color is a Tumblr project that documents the perspectives and experiences of marginalized people in museums. It is a record of what the museum experience can be like for people who are often discussed but whose voices are rarely privileged, people that don’t feel welcome in museums, and people that don’t feel like nearby museum spaces are for them.In this episode, Dr. Moore discusses the Museum Computer Network conference where the project launched, the museum-visiting habits of freshmen at a Historically Black College, and how Visitors of Color has been received by the wider museum community.Special thanks to Dr. Moore for taking the time for the interview. Guest: Dr. Porchia MooreTopics Discussed:00:00: Intro00:14: Dr. Porchia Moore00:36: “A Librarian Who Studies Museums”01:11: Survey of College Freshmen03:43: Visitors of Color Launch06:35: Gathering Stories for Visitors of Color07:30: Visitors of Color as a Counternarrative Project08:45: The Power of Museums as Cultural Heritage Institutions09:45: Response from Institutions Across the Country
Are we there yet? Join me this week for a fabulous conversation with Carolyn Royston, Director of Digital at the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum, Boston. Carolyn will describe her approach to building a forward- thinking digital strategy and, as the President of the Museum Computer Network (MCN) will share the ways that MCN is supporting the museum of the future.
Carol will share her observations from the Museum Computer Network and MuseumNext conferences.
What happens when technical difficulties get in the way of regularly scheduled programming? The Punks make do, of course. In this episode, Suse and Jeffrey chat about inspiration, show dynamics, and their upcoming ‘Live’ shows at the Museum Computer Network conference in Montreal.
DigitalCitizenship.net cites nine individual elements of digital citizenship: access, commerce, communication, literacy, etiquette, law, rights & responsibilities, health & wellness, and security (self protection). Cultural institutions are doing well in some respects, but what about other areas? Could museum interactive experiences not only provide access to rich content, but also help increase the overall digital literacy of users? Can our digital projects travel parallel paths in pursuit of both curatorial mission and digital good? Should they? Guests: Darin Barney, Canada Research Chair in Technology & Citizenship, McGill University Kyle Jaebker, Director IMA Lab, Indianapolis Museum of Art Luis Marcelo Mendes, Communications Consultant for Museums, Fundação Roberto Marinho This episode was recorded live at MCN 2013 on November 21, 2013. Thank you to the Museum Computer Network for making it possible, and inviting us to be a part of this conference.
Over the course of MCN2013, we’ll hear a lot about great #musetech projects and issues facing the sector. But in this session, the Punks want to learn about the muses and inspirations outside of the sector that help fuel and inform some of most creative work from some of the most interesting #musetech practitioners. What music, literature or extra-curricular activities inspire us? And how do those inspirations relate to our professional approach? Guests: Don Undeen, Manager of Media Lab, Metropolitan Museum of Art Micah Walter, Webmaster, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Koven Smith, Principal, Kinetic Museums This episode was recorded live at MCN2013 on November 22, 2013. Thank you to the Museum Computer Network for inviting us to be a part of the conference.
Marshall McLuhan once proposed that new technologies introduce new habits of perception, new ways of seeing and interacting with the world. In this session, the Punks and their guests will tackle this theory head-on. How do digital tools and technologies alter our habits of perception? What does it means to look at the world with one eye always glued to a screen? How is digital culture impacting our visual and written language, and are we cool with all of this? Guests: Beck Tench, Director for Innovation and Digital Engagement, Museum of Life and Science Matthew Israel, Director of The Art Genome Project, Artsy Nancy Proctor, Head of Mobile Strategy and Initiatives, Smithsonian Institution This episode was recorded live at MCN2013 on November 23, 2013. Thank you to the Museum Computer Network for inviting us to be a part of the conference.