Joanna and I visited the Getty Museum and looked at the J. Paul Getty exhibit. This exhibit incorporated photography and an interactive touch screen. Compared to the Nazi Olympics exhibit in CAAM, the J. Paul Getty exhibit had the perfect balance of text and pictures. The photos were aesthetically placed and easy to read. Each photo was paired with just the right amount of text. Users could use the touch screen, freely and at their own pace, to read more details on different events in Getty’s life, his interests, and so forth. I personally enjoyed this exhibit more than the CAAM’s Nazi Olympics because the design and information was not overwhelming.
My favorite part of the exhibit was the touchscreen because it was innovative and a tasteful use of technology. It was similar to using an iPad and the screen was responsive and functioned smoothly. The “Getty Collects” and “Antiquities & the Villa” touchscreens used a circular design on the main screen that was slightly confusing to navigate. I found myself selecting randomly, not knowing what categories I was selecting. Instead, the J Paul Getty’s life touchscreen was my favorite because it used a tiled photo design with clear headlines like “Named Richest Man in the World” and “Where Getty Lived”. Out of all the touchscreens, we interacted with this one the longest simply because it was the most smooth and easy-to-navigate.
Patrons followed the natural flow of the exhibit– they started by reading the introductory timeline piece, a timeline with selected events, pictures, and short descriptions. We observed that a lot of families with young children were visiting the Getty that day. Families that saw this exhibition spent a lot of time reading the first piece, the timeline paired with photographs. Patrons also played with the interactive touch screens. We found that most patrons actually spent most of their time reading through the “Life and Legacy” timeline because it really lays out the critical events in a beautiful and simple fashion.
Highly recommend visiting this exhibit and the Getty!!
J
I have been to the Getty Center so many times and I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve never visited this exhibit, nor knew that it even existed! I’m surprised that the Getty integrated the touchscreen in the way that it did in this exhibit. In the Getty Center’s many other exhibits, temporary and permanent, they seem to struggle when implementing technology into the space. Usually, they place small touchscreens with headphones outside of or around the exhibit, as opposed to being part of the exhibit itself. It seems that they’re experimenting more with technology. I can’t wait to check it out! Thank you for posting this!
I have not been to the Getty Center yet but I will have to visit before I move out of LA. I think the touchscreen is a great way of having people interact with the exhibits especially in addition to the timeline with pictures. I really enjoyed the CAAM and how they used technology in it as well, especially showing Hitler’s speech on a TV. If you’re saying this is better than CAAM, then I have to check it out.
For my last museum visit post, I also talked about an exhibit at the Getty that used touchscreen technology (iPads). It is interesting that the Getty seems to be trying to incorporate this type of interactivity in a lot of its exhibits. Perhaps they feel it is intuitive to a lot of people nowadays with the prevalence of using smart phones to get information. I personally feel that I am more attracted, at least initially, to parts of exhibits that have touchscreens or iPads.