The reading that really got me thinking this week was the Rhizome piece by Orit Gat, “Global Audiences, Zero Visitors: How to measure the success of museums’ online publishing.” Gat argues that museums should not use online publishing solely as a means to expand their audience, although online presence seems like a no-brainer in this digital age.
I agree with Gat. The purpose of a museum is to advance knowledge and encourage discussion about culture, history and heritage. And online publishing, along with any effort by a museum should serve to advance this goal. According to Gat, the success of a museum’s online publishing can be measured in terms of the innate value that it specifically brings to its digital audience (i.e. zoomable images and interactive features that print magazines lack) and the meaningful conversations that it creates.
That being said, I guess the million-dollar question that we’ve all been trying to grapple with in class discussions is, how the heck do we imbue value to digital platforms used by museums – specifically, online publications in this case? One solution is to make the connection between text and multimedia more seamless and meaningful, and I think this is something that museum curators can learn from multimedia journalists. Of course, I am by no means saying that one is better or worse than the other.
For example, The New York Times creates beautiful and immersive visual stories that marry the benefits of multimedia and the written word. One example is Desperate Crossing, a story about the journey of 733 migrants across the Mediterranean Sea, most of whom were trying to escape the poverty of subsaharan Africa or the violent wars in the Middle East. The visual story offers readers an experience, not just facts and ideas. The full-screen photos and videos, which are specific to the bite-sized text displayed, add real-life context and continually project it in the readers’ minds, as opposed to images and videos intermittently embedded between paragraphs which I’ve seen in some online publications by museums. I can see the same multimedia style being applied to digital artworks that use photos and videos or for editorial content that aims to give visitors further context about a certain artist or artwork.
And we can already see the same immersive multimedia/long-form style being applied to arts-related topics. Take this New York Times piece about architecture for instance: “Dear Architect: Sound Matters.” It incorporates both sound and video! I can see museums incorporating the same idea for digital tours of exhibitions.
Also, this piece about the newly opened Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, “A New Whitney.” The 3D animation really enhances readers’ understanding of the space.
Another benefit to using this multimedia narrative form is that it encourages collaboration across various art fields: photography, film, 3D visualization, animation, etc.
The possibilities are limitless.
I really appreciate the way you highlight immersive visual stories! Actually, at the moment, I am in the process of recreating the murder case of Hae Min Lee in 1999 as an interactive visual journalism creation. From my personal experience, I can fully agree with you that these types of interactive mediums engage the viewers in ways that advance the knowledge and further discussion — as many of my peers learned more about the justice system from my interactive journalism piece.
Wow, I love the idea of using some of journalists’ tools of immersive storytelling to bring audiences closer to museum objects. It would require, I think, a very different approach than the one museums currently tend to use, which is much more didactic than immersive.
I really enjoyed all the links you shared!! Since newspapers/ publishing has long been considered a dying industry, it’s heartening to see that journalists and digital media gurus have upped their game by creating such beautiful and immersive ways to experience information. I can definitely see how museums could use such techniques for public engagement. Another challenge would be to publicize these pieces so people actually know they exist. Academic journals on art, however, cater to a different market altogether and could probably survive a little longer untouched.
The points you brought up are all so interesting! It has been great to see how museums are changing their stances on the media, but watching them incorporate it has been an arduous process. It is going to be really interesting to see how the museums can work with journalists and become more and more interactive. That would definitely add a new dimension to how visitors can interact with the pieces and enhance their experience.