A visit to the new mammal hall at the Museum of Natural History
in New York will give you an example of good multimedia presentation
that works collaboratively with the real thing to give the
visitor more than they could have had before.
 
New technologies can encourage a rethinking of information and
how it can be linked both within the museum collection and
outside of it. The result may not even involve new
technology at all because it it isn't required. It may
be a matter of a reflow of traffic to facillitate understanding,
or a wall text. The Met has opened another room of Greek
funerary sculpture that is MUCH better than they had before.
I'm not sure gadgets would add anything.
 
New technologies can also encourage a rethinking of expertise.
There's a wonderful exhibit at the Whitney right now called
"Edward Hopper and Jack Pierson: American Dreaming" where
Pierson has been given the authority to select work of
Hopper's that he feels relates to his own work and install
them together into a hybrid narrative that provides a new
context for Hopper and historical reference to Pierson.
Again, no gadgets, but a hypertextual way of thinking.
 
There's an interesting article in the September WIRED on how
newspapers are failing to understand the online world even
as they are pouring money into projects. I think museums
and newspapers may have a lot in common in that.
 
Robbin Murphy
Managing Editor, ArtNet
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