Museums & new media
Museums are embracing new media for storytelling. A series on projection, sound, and pacing, and what museums gain and lose as curators start directing experiences.
Museums are embracing new media for storytelling
Projection, sound design, and interactive displays are changing what a museum visit feels like. A look at what is actually being gained and lost.
What a projection can do that a plaque cannot
A short comparison of two ways to explain an artifact’s history, and why one keeps visitors moving while the other makes them stop.
The curator’s new job is partly a director’s job
As exhibits lean on sound, light, and pacing, curatorial work is starting to overlap with film and theater direction more than archival scholarship.
Why some exhibits reward a second visit more than a first
A well-designed exhibit can reveal something new on a second walk-through. A look at what makes a space rich enough to hold up under repeat attention.
Sound design is doing more work than visitors notice
Ambient sound shapes how long visitors linger and how they feel in a space, often without them consciously registering that sound is involved at all.
The children’s museum figured this out first
Interactive, hands-on exhibit design has existed in children’s museums for decades. Larger institutions are only now catching up to the same lesson.
When an exhibit outlives the technology it was built on
Interactive exhibits built on specific hardware and software eventually face a problem plaques never do: the technology stops being supported.
The exhibit everyone praised on the way out is rarely the one they remember
Exit surveys measure enjoyment on the day of a visit. What actually stays with someone a year later often looks quite different from what they praised leaving.
