In 2015 Swedish street artists introduced a new 'traffic sign' in Stockholm. Meant as a joke with a hint of seriousness, the yellow and red triangular sign showed a man and a woman crossing a street with their eyes glued to their phones. Even the people in the photo are fixated on their screens. No wonder that companies and museums are trying to get in on this mainstream addiction.
Art and history museums have been struggling in the past few years in terms of visitation numbers. It seems that conventional historical sites and art museums are believed to be needlessly boring. Museums are often mentioned in articles with gloomy titles like 'Are museums still relevant?' and 'Are museums too old school for millennials?'. Modern and unconventional projects like MuseumTV and MuseumApp make an effort to reverse this stuffy image and focus on reaching a broad target group - in particular those elusive millennials. Even the British newspaper The Guardian strove to reach a younger audience with their flashy animation on the use of art, narrated by the popular British philosopher Alain de Botton, who wrote a book on the subject (see below). The aim of this video was to 'go viral' on social media and perhaps to let people look at museums in a different, more personal way. A 2014 Boston Culture Track Survey showed that 60% of American millennials see museums as a place for reflection and self-discovery - a significantly higher percentage than the older generation - and 20% admit to skipping a museum if they can't find anyone to go with. That means that turning a museum visit into a solo experience by means of one's personal device could prove to be an efficient and innovative strategy. This blog will discuss the MuseumApp in terms of the way it tries to appeal to its public.
But how do you get your museum's educational programme in the hands of your visitors? Doctor of Education Mark Moss wrote a book on the visualisation of history, in which he discussed the ways in which modern technology should be used to engage people in history. History has of course been visualised many times in films and games, but Moss argues that museums should also implement the technologies that allow for visual representations and interactivity. Admittedly, Moss feels that museums have been rather successful in implementing unconventional, modern technology whereas many schools are lagging behind. He emphasizes the important difference in how information is transferred using modern technology: with a focus on (moving) pictures instead of text. The information should ideally not be structured in a straightforward linear or passive manner. In this sense it should differ markedly from more conventional representations of history and art. Yet he claims that modern technology (like apps) can never fully replace reality: a digital experience is not the same as visiting a museum, with its variation of 2D and 3D objects and a different narrative structure.[1]
When you open the MuseumApp you are greeted by a quick manual and a young girl standing in front of a H&M store while she is holding her smartphone. You can also create an account by logging in using Facebook or Twitter. They are indeed trying to cater to a younger crowd. With the advent of the Internet and TV on demand, people are accustomed to having options. This is reflected in the city tours that the MuseumApp privides. The visitor is allowed to follow a planned city tour or to explore the route on his own. This is hardly the only unconventional aspect of this app. The user is also invited to interact in terms of little quizzes in the case of the Amsterdam Museum. The Maritime Museum in Rotterdam even appeals to the visitor's competitive side as it offers levels of achievement ranging from 'havenless' (a play on words in the Dutch language) to 'haven expert'. More than that, the user is encouraged to add photos and complete small assignments, to make the tours interactive and to offer some agency. Additionally, The Cobra museum in Amsterdam offers a free tour through an admission-free garden and offers an incentive: as a reward for completing the tour the visitor gets a discount on museum tickets. All tours are constructed in a visual sense; small photos, audio and video material are more prominently visible than text. But the quality of many of the pictures is not great, most likely related to avoiding extensive loading time.
One of the downsides of MuseumApp is that not many museums have joined the app so far. Larger museums with more substantial budgets have their own professional apps - like for example the beautiful, awardwinning app of The Rijksmuseum. (see below) Furthermore, joining a non-committal, free walking tour - with e.g. the same theme as the museum - is not automatically linked to a paid museum visit. So whereas museums might hope this will generate extra business, this will not necessarily be the case. One could even 'walk' the Google Maps tour from home. Apart from that, not all museums decided to produce professional images, video and sound, which is why not all tours are equally riveting. The use of professional animation could also improve the visuals of the app. Furthermore, in some cases the historical knowledge in the app appears fragmented and stripped of its chronology and context, exactly because of its primarily visual and non-linear structure. And one could wonder if there are any didactic strategies involved here. Moreover, as we've established, the project seems mainly focused on young millennials. But is this app also suitable for older museum aficionados?
So whereas it is an interesting app, it might not lead to the desired results for the participating museums. The smartest move for smaller museums might be to add incentives (financial or otherwise) to visit the museum building, improve the visuals and underlying strategy and offer more information on why we should visit the actual museum.
G o t o b l o g p o s t 1
[1] Mark Moss, Towards the Vizualization of History (Toronto 2008) 191-213
