{"id":730,"date":"2016-02-20T23:09:56","date_gmt":"2016-02-21T07:09:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/?p=730"},"modified":"2016-02-20T23:09:56","modified_gmt":"2016-02-21T07:09:56","slug":"beyond-education-contextualization-creativity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/2016\/02\/20\/beyond-education-contextualization-creativity\/","title":{"rendered":"beyond education & contextualization: creativity"},"content":{"rendered":"

A museum should aim to educate the public about art, history, culture, etc., engaging with them in creative ways to communicate\u00a0their significance and relevance to the current generation. It goes without saying then, that a museum’s digital presence should support this mission. The videos, articles and other forms of online content that\u00a0a museum shares with the public should have a distinct purpose \u2013 to educate and contextualize \u2013 rather than to market\u00a0and induce “likes” on social media, although in today’s digital age, an institution’s social capital seems to be a key (and to some degree, false) indicator of its legitimacy.<\/p>\n

When it comes to art museums, I expect creativity and continuous effort to push the envelope even more so than I do from history museums, for instance.\u00a0Art has always been a field that praises self-expression, progress\u00a0and innovation \u2013 a lively spirit that I somehow expect to see transferred on to a museum’s digital space.<\/p>\n

That being said, I don’t think I’d want to watch an online class about the influence\u00a0of Modernism on American art or the techniques of Renaissance artists. I would however, watch a class about the influence of super hero comics on the meaning of social justice or the role of social media in democratizing the medium of photography.<\/p>\n

Clearly, creativity is one aspect that I appreciate from a museum’s digital presence. One digital storytelling piece that I truly find\u00a0creative\u00a0is the\u00a0piece about sound and\u00a0urban architecture\u00a0by Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic for The New York Times <\/em>and pianist. In “Dear Architects: Sound Matters,”<\/a>\u00a0Kimmelman discusses the importance of sound as an architectural material in shaping people’s experience of buildings, contrasting the distinct “feel” of New York landmarks like the New York Public Library, High Line and Penn Station by the sound they each\u00a0produce.\u00a0The digital team at The New York Times<\/em> makes the story an interactive one, including\u00a0muted clips of the landmarks that become audible once readers hover their mouse over the clips. They\u00a0are interspersed throughout the text and\u00a0allow\u00a0readers to immediately hear how each place that Kimmelman refers to differs from the rest.<\/p>\n

\"The
The caption reads: “Hover for sound. This article uses three-dimensional audio. The effect is only apparent if you listen with headphones.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Users can instantly feel\u00a0how sound distinguishes one experience from another by hovering over the clips. Also, they are very much integrated with the text. Readers can\u00a0find out for themselves what Kimmelman is\u00a0saying about each place. And I find it so interesting how a short clip, shot from a fixed angle, can be so powerful in conveying a message. I don’t think a video could\u00a0have achieved the same effect. Perhaps it’s the interactive aspect of the clip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A museum should aim to educate the public about art, history, culture, etc., engaging with them in creative ways to communicate\u00a0their significance and relevance to the current generation. It goes … Continue reading “beyond education & contextualization: creativity”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}