I agree with Chris' thoughts given below and would go further:  Our
experience in the last few years has been that you can't bring a designer
into the planning process too early.  In fact, I've concluded that it's
easier to write to a design than to design to a script and as an exhibit
coordinator I would much rather have a design than a script to work
from.  Making exhibitions is about physicalizing ideas and about
negotiating the translation from two dimensions to three.  Ideally, ALL
the participants are involved every step of the way, since the process
is iterative and emergent.
 
On Tue, 23 Aug 1994 11:10:17 EST, Christopher Miller wrote:
 
I think that the development of the story and the media choices
>must evolve together.
>
>Because of the influence of the medium on on what the visitor takes away from
>the experience, the relationship between story and medium is more complex than
>"choose one then choose the other to fit."  Clearly choosing the story first an
d
>the best media second is better then vice-versa, but I think a model in which
>media issues are considered as the story is developed is superior.
>
>I think this is especially true of exhibits.  An exhibit is a compound medium
>that can contain all other media, including real artifacts, live interpreters,
>environments, and yes, computer-aided virtual experiences.  An exhibit is TRUE
>"multimedia" because of this fact.  Marshall McLuhan describes how the content
>of any media is other media.  The exhibit is the "media-superior" which can
>contain them all.  With all of this media richness at our disposal, we must wor
k
>within a model that takes advantage of it, and does not allow either media or
>story to be in the driver seat.
>
>It seems to me that to say "choose the story, then the medium" is a lot like
>saying, "have the curator write the exhibit and then let the designer design
>it."  This "hand-off" model of curation and design has long been abandoned,
>recognizing that design and story must develop together and inform each other i
n
>the process.  I thought that this was one of the axioms of the team approach to
>exhibit development, now accepted as the norm.
>
>Likewise, museums are abandoning the "let the exhibit people build the exhibit
>then let the educators program it" approach.  Again it has been recognized that
>exhibit and programming plans must develop together, informing one another alon
g
>the way.
>
>When I was Exhibit Curator at the Minnesota History Center, we tried to
>implement this overall philosphy by including the Exhibit Media Specialist,
>Production Lead, and Exhibit Designer in exhibit development from day-one of
>concept development.  The assumption that media issues were to be considered
>during story development was explicitly stated.  The results were erratic and
>the process often difficult, but I think the exhibits produced during this time
>("Manoominikewin: Stories of Wild Ricing;" "The Minnesota Almanac;" and
>"Homeplace Minnesota") show the power of this approach, media and story are wel
l
>integrated.
Ken Yellis
Assistant Director for Public Programs
Peabody Museum of Natural History
170 Whitney Avenue
Box 208118
New Haven, CT 06520-8118
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