How Are Museum Curators Incorporating New Technology Into Exhibitions Encourage Participation From A Younger Generations Of Americans?

Positioned alongside Central Park in the heart of New York City, The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the largest and most influential art museums in the world. The Met houses an extensive collection of curated works that spans throughout various time periods and different cultures. The context of museum, especially one as influential as the Met, inherently predisposes its visitors to a certain set of understandings that subtly influence how they interpret and ultimately construct meanings about each individual object within the museum. Brent Plate in Religion, Art, and Visual Culture argues that “objects obtain different meanings in different locations and historical settings.”An object placed on display behind a glass case inside a museum would hold a vastly different meaning if it was put on sale by a street vendor, like the ones who set up their tables in close proximity to the Met. The different meanings that objects are able to obtain is attributed to the relationships that are established between the object itself and the environment that surrounds it. These relationships often involve the kind of audience that a museum attracts, where the work is exhibited, and how the exhibits within a museum is planned out. Museums subsequently have the ability to control how these relationships are established which influences the way a viewer is able to construct meaning. When a visitor observes an object on display at the Met, they instinctively construct a certain set of

For this reason, participatory learning derives from the desire of the museum to engage a wider audience and create collaborative learning experiences for the visitor. Like at the Yuma museum, it can receive a great number of people and accomplish the same goal. The exhibits vary enough to allow for free range of the museum with experience triggered by the artifacts, interactive exhibits, and the sensors that trigger additional information in the courtyards. Each level of interaction informs the viewer and allows for the people to gain a collective experience

As one of the most excellent British modern museums, Tate Modern ran several digital strategies aim to creat incomes and build interactive communication with their audice. In that process, Tate proved how important that digital communication offered to museum to create and nurture an engaged arts community and to maximise the associated revenue opportunities. In the three years, Tate Modern had improvement on their incomes, however, their number of website visitings was not stable, thus, the result should be analysised with theories, to find out why it would happen.

History museums across the country are experiencing a decrease in attendance. In a study from 2012, only 24 percent of Americans older than 18 had visited a historic site in that year, 13 percent lower than 1982 (Marsico and Tiedemann). Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 have an attendance rate of only 20.5 percent in 2012 (Marsico and Tiedemann), The lack of early education and interest has led to this decrease in attendance. Americans only have one idealized version of the history and seek no other validation or explanation for it. Yet even with the decreases, every year the government continues funding the preservation of historical

Use case studies as headings and below the heading describe the characteristics of the display and then use subheadings to connect the theories. I will not necessarily connect all of the theories to each of the displays, just the ones that are most pertinent. Case studies will be arranged in chronological order. I am leaning towards this arrangement of my paper.

The Victoria and Albert Museum created many different ways to interact with the visitors. First, they created their website to be easily navigated and created interactive exercises such as “Design a Wig” to promote their exhibitions. By visitors having fun with creating a wig, it builds anticipation on their visit and creates more reason to visit the museum. At the museum itself, visitors will be met with the Hands-On Exhibitions. The exhibitions allows the visitors to try on Victorian costumes, make a brass rubbing or a giant slider puzzle, try on armour gauntlet, design their own tea post, and more (). Through out the whole experience, the visitors are met with fun interactive activities that are not only geared toward children, but adults as well. At Science Museum London, they take pride in their own section of interactive exhibits. Launchpad, packed with over 50 interactive exhibits geared to ward 8-14 years old, is now closed as the museum prepares to open new Interactive Gallery. The new Interactive Gallery, 60% larger than Launchpad will engage all visitors in the drama and spectacle of math and science (). This change was done to better engage the adults, especially experience seeking millennials. One of Gen Y panel member from Millennial Marketing recalled that: “My best museum experiences were London Science Museum and Victoria & Albert. One common thing these both museums have is that they mange to interact with their visitors. Once you walked into the exhibition hall, you find yourself in some place like Wonderland. The interior design, interactive tools and toys are simply designed to create a magical experience. It is never boring. A magical land would never be boring.”

Museums are an amazing place that is constantly evolving in order to expand knowledge and cultural inclusivity. For example, museums are putting extra effort to feature culturally diverse exhibitions such as works from Native Americans. Gillian Flynn and Deborah Hull-Walski, the authors of the article, elaborate museums are incorporating new cultural items; however, these items need extra energy when taking care of the items. Typically, museums have traditional habits of how to handle objects; however, nearly all of these works were western-themed works. Having culturally inclusive exhibits is incredible, but it means that it must adopt new modern standards of care. This article addresses that there needs to be a change in how modern museums

Nowadays we are surrounded by an abundance of technology in which public historians make use of this technology in order to make memories and history come alive. One of the more common ways public historians use technology to make memories interactive and interpretive are through documentaries and movies based on true stories. For example, the movie we watched in class on the Massacre of 1913 is a use of digital media. The use of digital technologies is important for public historians because many of citizens across the world are immersed in different technological devices and are up to date with technology. Public historians are taking advantage of this opportunity and are incorporating them into museums and public history sites to engage

There are opportunities though, and they are good opportunities. I was able to identify three that they should pay attention to and really hit hard on. In today’s economy, people aren’t wanting to spend a lot of money. The recession is making people be a lot more conscious about money. Good news, the museum is free. If marketed properly, this could be a huge way to gain new visitors. Plus, art museums have sophisticated connotations that make people feel smart when they go to them. What better way to spend the day than to go somewhere that is free and feel sophisticated? Another opportunity is that new exhibits could attract younger demographics, pending on the exhibit. This could be tricky though because they want to attract everyone, but older crowds are interested in things that younger generations aren’t. They have to be able to balance the attractions so everyone can relate to it and want to view it.

The Museums branding strategy has started to be appreciated within the institution. Elements such as a new logo, slogan and webpage are already being perceived as more modern. Nevertheless, it is still a long way before the general public can assimilate the museum as a major attraction in the city.

Museum managers should carefully examine individually all aspects of a museum’s function in order to answer this dilemma. They must take into account the situation of each museum in terms of wealth and popularity, its target group (type of visitor it attracts), the collection as well as its location (Bailey, Falconer, Foley, McPherson, & Graham, 2007).

Museums are boring. Stuffy. Musty. Much too “cultured” and “bourgeois”. Who cares about those old paintings? Not us, we say, as we flit from review book to science lab to English essay. Our parents want to plan something fun for the family, and perhaps we could try that new Italian place? Oh wait, we have to finish those notes. Do we even have time for fun anymore? Our friends are constantly busy on the weekends. The few plans hastily created on the group chat inevitably fade away as we are buried under the gargantuan strains of everyday life. Our minds are drained, exhausted, and oh so very stressed. We could use a break. Maybe even take a trip somewhere. Well, what about that “boring” museum? Although museums strike us as vapid, time-consuming, distant, and just plain stuffy, we should increase museum attendance in order to destress our lives and increase our overall awareness.

During the course of her fieldwork she studied the discourse (what people say), the practice (what people do) and the experience. For doing her study discourse she conducted a visitor survey for the museum service of fifty visitors. In her questionnaire she asked about visitors’ demographics, the experiences of museums’ visiting in general, as well as elicited visitors’ attitudes. She further combined her data with already existing secondary data, such as visitor statistics and comment forms that helped to compare her future data of prevalent attitudes and establish the main informants for future interviews. From these initial surveys she distinguished various demographics of Croydon inhabitants, such as class, gender, ethnicity, life-style choices and sexuality that she made sure to include in her research. Following established goal Anat Hecht gained access to eighteen visitor households, six households from three main demographic localities of Croydon. Anat Hecht also established lasting relationships with fifteen staff informants, with librarians, security staff, cleaners, as well as museums’ front and back gallery professionals. These two different groups of informants and the comparison of what they say and do helped the researcher to understand and deepen her studied subject. Anat Hecht confessed her difficulties in establishing rapport with her respondents. The reason for it was that the first contact was made in the museum setting that is why her informants

Earning an online museum studies degree is the first step to following numerous career paths. Museum curators are in charge of permanent collections and acquiring new additions. Archivists catalog and analyze artifacts, paintings, film and other historical items.

Cultural relevance, understanding and education are the key areas that modern museums seem to be addressing seriously. As a public institution a museum must consider its role in society, the way culture is represented and displayed and most of all, how interpretation affects those not of museum training backgrounds, for example a visitor or patron. Some would argue that art, is an expression of a culture and its political and economic values (Hein 2006), while others would suggest that is the artifacts of long lost peoples and cultures that have the most worth to the public (Sabeti 2015).