Beyond the Audio Tour: Challenges for Mobile Experiences ... · Beyond the Audio Tour: Challenges...

Master of Museology Degree Program ▪ Reinwardt Academy ▪ Faculty of the Amsterdam University of Applied Science for the Arts

BeyondtheAudioTour:ChallengesforMobile

ExperiencesinMuseumsThecaseof“Scapes”:whenanartistexperimentswithoneofthemostuniversalinterpretationtools

Valeria Gasparotti

Master Research Thesis – 2012/2014

Written by Valeria Gasparotti ▪ Master Research Thesis ▪ Supervised by Ruben Smith ▪ Submitted August 2014

Acknowledgements

Foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Ruben Smith, for the continuous support

for my research, his motivation, enthusiasm and knowledge.

I would also like to thank all the people that contributed, through interviews and amazing conversations, to

the realization of this work. My research couldn’t have been realized without each of the invaluable insights

and opinions they gave.

I am grateful to Halsey Burgund for providing, through his wonderful work, his vision and his kindness, the

inspiration and the support to continue my thesis. I thank Robbie Davis for his helpful insights and amazing

enthusiasm.

I also thank my friends, old and new, for “being there”: Corina, Laura, Manon, Lori, Francesca I, Francesca

II, Dixie, James, Erica, Selwyn, Margo, Alice, Paolo, Ryan.

My sincere thanks also goes to both my families. The one that continuously supported and loved me from

far away, and the one that I have found throughout my journey to the US. Thank you Giovanni, Nancy,

Titus, Pearl and QingQing for making possible things that I couldn’t have achieved otherwise.

Beyond the Audio Tour: Challenges for Mobile Experiences in Museums.

The case of Scapes: when an artist experiments with one of the most universal interpretation tools

Table of Contents

1. Introduction 1

1.1a. Scope of the thesis 1

1.1b. Research setting 2

1.1c. Thesis question 3

1.1d. Research approach and methodological considerations 3

1.1e. Structure of the thesis 5

2. Mobile in museums: between tradition and innovation 6

2.1. Introduction 6

2.2. Museums and new technologies: a square peg in a round hole? 8

2.3. Mobile and emerging technologies: an overview 11

2.4. Between tradition and innovation: an overview of mobile in museums 15

2.5. A closer look at history, development and features of mobile technology in museums 15

2.5a. The audio – tour as the first mobile experience in museums 15

2.5b. Mobile in museums today 19

2.5c. From handled devices to mobile apps: is the lesson learned? 21

2.5d. Future challenges for mobile interpretation: flow experiences and interaction 32

3. Overcoming the audio tour model ‐ The case of SCAPES by Halsey Burgund 37

3.1. Defining spaces through sounds 37

3.2. How did Scapes work? 39

3.3. An analysis of the narrative, personalization and interaction within the Scapes framework 41

4. From headphones to microphones: Roundware at the Smithsonian 51

4.1. Access American Stories 54

4.2. Stories on Main Street 59

5. Learning and meaning making through immersive mobile experiences 63

5.1. Museums and experiences 63

5.2. Experiencing worlds: reality and virtuality 65

5.3. Learning in museums: a framework for immersion through personal, connected and social mobile tools 69

6. Conclusion and future work 81

6.1. Summary 81

6.2. Considerations 81

6.3. Future work 84

Appendix A – Interviews to professionals from the audio tour/mobile media industry 86

Appendix B – Interviews Access American Stories Users 88

Appendix C – Transcripts Interview Halsey Burgund 90

Appendix D – Transcript interview Robbie Davis 94

Appendix E – Bibliography and Resources 97

1. Introduction

1

1. Introduction

1.1a. Scope of the thesis

Museums are more and more looking at new technologies to support their core activities, from

interpretation and learning, to way finding and commercial collaterals. Institutions can no longer ignore

impacts and reach of digital tools and have to set the strategies to make the best out of them. As already

limited museum resources hinder the possibility of experimentations with devices and platforms that

evolve at a fast pace and have a short life‐span, strategic thinking should in approaching digital engagement

should be applied. In particular, involve audiences through mobile devices, should not be done for the sake

of embracing a new technology assuming that this would maintain the relevancy of the institution.

Portable devices first entered the museum field in the form of audio tours. Mobile has been primarily used

to provide interpretation and access as an overlay of information on collections. For example by providing

descriptions in different languages for foreign visitors. However, audio tours have never gained the status

of indispensable parts of the museum visit, despite having been introduced over 60 years ago. The industry

rule of thumb claims that permanent collections tours have an average take‐up rate below 5% or less.

Over the last years, interactive platforms have been seen as a revolutionary tool for museum

interpretation, but none of the technologies through which content are delivered have changed the way we

look at cultural institutions and on‐site interpretation. Today, web apps and smartphones enclose a

revolutionary promise, and the museum world is looking at employing them as they offer unprecedented

possibilities for engagement and collaboration. Cutting edge mobile technologies permit new ways of

connecting with audiences, communities and partners, as well as increased accessibility paired with the

possibility to ‘meet audiences where they are and bring them someplace new’1. However, the classic model

of the audio tour still predominates, and even if it’s now delivered on smartphones and tablets including

videos and images, it repeats the same kind of “broadcasted” experience on different device. Thus, it can

be argued that ‘these new platforms will simply replace the traditional tour, which effectiveness in

providing engaging experiences is not certain, with more difficult and expensive solutions for museum

interpretation’2.

Furthermore, a series of questions can be raised. Is there is a glass ceiling for take up rates and usage of

mobile tours delivered on different platforms? And if so, is it because just a minority of museum‐goers

prefer that form of interpretation? Or has the success of mobile tours been limited mainly by “external

1 Nancy, Proctor. "Nancy Proctor Keynote at MuseumNext." Vimeo. N.p., May 2012. Consulted on 1 June 2014. <http://vimeo.com/44404225>. 2 Proctor, Nancy. "The Museum Is Mobile: Cross‐platform Content Design for Audiences on the Go." 31 March 2010. Museums and the Web 2010. Ed. J. Trant and D. Bearman. Consulted on 23 March 2014

1. Introduction

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factors” such as poor marketing and signage, low quality content and generally not being a priority for

decision‐makers?

This thesis taps into the status of the art for mobile interpretation in museums, which is rooted into the

audio‐tour interpretation model, to explore possibilities for mobile to offer deeply engaging experiences

rather than primarily didactic ones. This thesis takes in consideration content and design, as well as the full

potential of the “connectedness” of mobile devices. In particular, it looks at one example that leverages

the two‐ways communication potential of mobile technology. In 2010 the artist Halsey Burgund created

Scapes, half mobile app and half art installation, for the deCordova Sculpture Park in Massachusetts. Scapes

was a crowd‐sourced audio location‐based experience of the Park. Visitors moved around the space while

the music they heard changed according to where they were standing. Furthermore, they could record a

message, a comment to a work of art, a thought or even a sound. The pool of contributions blended with

music, sounds and noises, was inscribed into the physical location of the park, attached to the objects and

the environment and changing according to visitors locations and dwelling time. The conversations among

visitors, who could respond to each other’s observations, increased over time as more participants added

their voices. The thesis investigates the potentials for the application of this model in museum settings as a

way to establish personal and emotional connections with objects and collections and create innovative

forms of storytelling. Aims of the thesis is thus to analyze the current scenario in mobile interpretation and

define recommendations for sustainable and user‐centered mobile projects in museums.

1.1b. Research setting

Research for the thesis has been conducted in the context of an internship at the Smithsonian Mobile

Strategy and Initiatives Program (SI Mobile) that run from September 2013 to July 2014.

SI Mobile is part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Education and Access. In addition to leading the

development of the Smithsonian's Mobile Strategy, the program functions as an advisor on mobile policies

and projects with the aim of creating network effects and generating economies of scale across the

Institution's mobile projects.

The Smithsonian Institution has embraced the motto “recruit the world” for its mobile strategy and has

been employing mobile tools to fulfill its mission: to increase the diffusion of knowledge. Challenging the

top down approach that museums have been traditionally used in delivering contents, a number of SI

mobile projects have experimented with crowd sourcing as a way to share narrations, connect communities

and enhance accessibility and learning. During my internship, I have been assisting the Head of SI Mobile on

a number of projects and, in particular, on the internal and external promotion of the more than 40 apps

and mobile website that the Institution has. This gave me the chance to explore a wide variety of mobile

projects in the context of different Smithsonian Museums.

1. Introduction

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Another substantial part of my research came from the opportunity to work as a volunteer and attend two

Museums and the Web conference, held in Florence and Baltimore. Museums and the web is an annual

event featuring advanced research and exemplary applications of digital practice for cultural, natural and

scientific heritage. Through these opportunities, I have been exposed to case studies and best practices,

and put in touch with professionals from around the world that have been providing precious data and

contribution for this work.

1.1c. Thesis question

Can the connected nature of mobile technologies encourage a shared process of interpretation around

museum artefacts, triggering personal engagement and meaning rather than just delivering information?

An analysis of the model introduced by the art installation SCAPES.

1.1d. Research approach and methodological considerations

Being connected to a device will more and more make us access new worlds that change and adapt to who

we are and allows to participate in conversations and discussions. In this scenario, opportunities for

museums, that host collections full of stories and narrations, are endless.

As argued by Ed Rodley, effective immersion in museum contexts should not be built through astonishing

digital tricks but rather be considered as a means to an end. Immersion contributes to the possibility of

visitors having a flow experience in which all of the sensory information integrates and fits with your own

past experiences allowing to build new meaning from it3.

Thus, it can be argued that an experience as such is integrated to the visitor’s location, identity and needs,

and allows the creation of emotional and personal connection with objects as well as with other fellow

visitors. The thesis starts from the idea that mobile media have the potential to support and create these

kind of experiences. Visitors become an active component of the story, they can make sense out of

heritage relating to it in personal ways and establishing a sense of deep engagement with space and

narrations. It can be argued that audio and mobile contents isolate the user. However, data show that

there is an unexploited potential for mobile experiences that aligns with visitors desire to be fully involved

and interact, together with other visitors, with the story that a certain space tells.

How would this relatively new and experimental approach stand in the museum scenario considering that

mobile tours can be fairly unpopular among visitors? Why does this happen and what can museums do to

engage visitors with these tools, avoiding the pitfalls of the “audio tour model”?

3 Rodley, Ed. "MCN 2013: Immersion In Museums (Audio & Slides)." YouTube. YouTube, Nov. 2013. Consulted on 01 June 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r57TlRhBSEc>

1. Introduction

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The thesis looks at how an artist has been experimenting with this tool and takes the art installation Scapes

as a possible new model. The art installation prompted visitors to tell personal stories inspired by the

location they were, the object they saw, describing them or what they felt as well as talking and asking

questions to those who came after them. In other words, Scapes encouraged the process of meaning

making to be shared and triggered exchanges among visitors by using immersive mechanics through music,

sounds, personal stories and location awareness. The Smithsonian Institution created different mobile apps

built in collaboration with Halsey Burgund and using the same open source platform, Roundware. Through

these apps, personal stories and voices are “digitally attached” to an object of a place, becoming their

“expanded” labels.

The Access American Stories app4 is an example of how this approach has been applied to a different

context. It enables visitors to the “American Stories” exhibition at the Smithsonian American History

Museum to contribute verbal descriptions and stories about the iconic objects they see, and listen to these

as well as professional verbal descriptions. While the primary target group for this app are blind and

partially sighted visitors, it has been noticed that everyone enjoys the verbal descriptions , as both listening

to and contributing descriptions of collection objects themselves opens the eyes of sighted visitors to the

museum as well5.

Stories from Main Street6, on the other hand, allows visitors to share personal stories about traditions

across rural and small towns. In this case, users can be engaged and transported in conversations about

their heritage through memories and personal narrations.

The thesis analyzes the model proposed by Scape and looks into how the Smithsonian Institution has

adapted it to different contexts and purposes, in the two above mentioned examples. In this perspective,

the potential of mobile media to create immersive and engaging experiences will be explored and

discussed, as opposed to pitfalls and successes of the “audio tour model”. By gathering different data from

the project Scapes (reviewing articles and studies around the project, listening to the recordings and

interviewing the artist) the research provides insights into the main features of the app and how it was

perceived and used by the public.

Secondly, two mobile projects from the Smithsonian Institution are analyzed and discussed as they

constitute two examples of how the “Scapes model” can be applied to a museum or a cultural context.

Literature related to elements that influence the museum experience, with particular regard to how

emotional and personal dimension can affect the process of meaning making, is reviewed as part of the

research project. In particular, resources concerning immersion in cultural settings are analyzed to

4 Access American Stories more information: http://www.si.edu/apps/accessamericanstories 5 Proctor, Nancy; Burgund, Halsey. "The Access App Platform." Smithsonian 20. 16 Nov. 2013. Consulted on 01 June 2014. <http://smithsonian20.si.edu/2013/11/16/the‐access‐app‐platform/>. 6 Stories from Main Street more information: http://www.storiesfrommainstreet.org/

1. Introduction

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comprehend what are the building blocks of a flow experience and how they can be applied to museum

settings as well as to the delivery of mobile content.

By bringing together these findings, the thesis aims at providing reflections for museum practitioners when

creating mobile projects that, like the installation SCAPES, make use of the potential of this technology to

add layers for interpretation and accessibility of collections, trying to overcome the “traditional” audio tour.

1.1e. Structure of the thesis

Including this introductory chapter, the thesis is divided into six chapters. It starts by exploring history,

literature and major implications for mobile usage in museums by examining and identifying trends,

practices and challenges. A closer look at this means of interpretation is necessary to be able to talk about

models that go beyond it. In particular, this initial part investigates the topic from two different points of

view, trying to identify trends in usage of audio guides. On one hand, how museums approach and deliver

this interpretative tool, on the other, how visitors perceive it.

Secondly, an analysis of Scapes is conducted by combining an interview with the artist, Halsey Burgund,

along with an analysis on the Scapes database, containing all the recordings in the app. The thesis proceeds

by exploring how the Smithsonian Institution has applied the “Scapes model” to different scenarios. In

particular, Access American Stories app as well as Stories on Main Street.

Qualitative data regarding the user experience for these apps are gathered through:

‐ Interviews with visitors using the app Access American Stories in the context of the exhibit American

Stories on view at the National Museum of American History;

‐ Interviews with the staff that participated to the development of the app Stories from Main Street,

reviews and analysis of existing data and submitted stories.

Gathered data are finally analyzed in the perspective of the theoretical background. Bibliography includes

resources on immersive experiences in museums and how these can affect learning and engagement.

A final chapter including conclusions and considerations for future works marks up scenarios for further

researches on the topic.

2. Mobile in museums: between tradition and innovation

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2.1. Introduction

On March 10 1876, Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, made the first call to his assistant,

Thomas Watson, by saying "Mr. Watson‐‐come here‐‐I want to see you”. To think about that first

communication makes us smile if we think about the current explosion in usage of smartphones, which

today represent one of the most fast growing markets. Mobile technologies have been impacting how we

communicate, live and work in a way that we couldn’t have imagined a few years ago.

Since 2008, when the iPhone App Store was launched, the market for mobile applications has never

stopped growing and in just a few short years, the app business has transformed how we interact with

mobile devices. According to Apple announcements, more than 1 million apps are available, only on the

company’s store7, while on the Play Store, the Android operating system market, numbers overcome the

million8.

At the same time, more and more people access the internet, make transactions, work and connect with

friends, families and communities through their mobile phones. As the Pew Research Center’s Internet &

American Life Project reports, in the USA as January 2014, 90% of American adults have a cell phone and

58% of American adults have a smartphone. Nearly two‐thirds (63%) of cell phone owners now use their

phone to go online, meaning they use their cell phone to access the internet or read emails. The proportion

of cell owners who use their phone to go online has doubled since 20099.

If we look at global numbers, it is estimated that mobile web will be bigger than desktop internet by 201510.

A research conducted by Cisco estimates that by the end of 2014, the number of mobile‐connected devices

will exceed the number of people on earth, and by 2018 there will be nearly 1.4 mobile devices per capita11.

Very soon, it will not be possible to think about the Internet and everything the Internet represents, in

terms of social, information and interaction, as separated from mobile devices.

7 Ingraham, Nathan. "Apple announces 1 million apps in the App Store, more than 1 billion songs played on iTunes radio." The Verge. Consulted on 06 March 2014 <http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/22/4866302/apple‐announces‐1‐million‐apps‐in‐the‐app‐store>. 8 "Number of Available Android Applications." Appbrain. Consulted on 01 June 2014. <https://www.appbrain.com/stats/number‐of‐android‐apps>. 9 Project Pew Research Centers Internet American Life, RSS. Mobile Technology Fac Sheet. January 2014 <http://www.pewinternet.org/fact‐sheets/mobile‐technology‐fact‐sheet/>. 10 O'Dell, Jolie. New Study Shows the Mobile Web Will Rule by 2015. 13 April 2010. Consulted on 03 March 2014 <http://mashable.com/2010/04/13/mobile‐web‐stats/>. 11 Cisco. Visual Networking Index. 5 February 2014. Consulted on 07 March 2014 <http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service‐provider/visual‐networking‐index‐vni/white_paper_c11‐520862.html>.


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The growth in usage of mobile devices throughout the world has had considerable consequences in

countries that have been struggling to evolve economically and overcome social injustices. The Arab

Awakening and the role that social media have played in communicating the protests is just one example.

The New York Times has recently talked about how, thanks to the increasing availability of internet access

through portable device, virtual middle classes in developing countries start demanding for social justice12.

To give an example, a population of 300‐million‐person middle class, a number that is larger than the

population of the United States, is currently present in India. In the last few years, even the profoundly

poor families can afford cheap internet connected devices. As a consequence, another 300 million people

form a virtual middle class. They now have the same access to government policies, knowledge, social

networks as the richer neighbors.

All in all, 2.4 billion people over the world are now online while the next 5 billion are not far behind: this

huge mass of people look for ideas and meaning, they want to learn and be inspired by authentic stories.

In this scenario, museums are challenged by the huge opportunities that the internet unfolds, and by

expectations of users to find collections, stories and resources available online.

Museums have been traditionally considered as elitist temples in which knowledge and narrations were

preserved, interpreted and displayed. But as much as the Web becomes a huge repository of information

and digital content that is not authored by the museum spread on social media pages such as Facebook,

Instagram and Twitter, institutions need to re‐think their role in order to survive. How can museums

provide their online audiences with “authentic” experiences? How can museums engage in the different

digital spaces as much as they do in the “real” ones?

As Nancy Proctor13 argues, we can no longer talk about a multi‐platform museum referring to the different

spaces, either digital or analogue, in which the institution voices its contents. The idea that real and digital

are separated components of the museum experience is becoming obsolete, as the two dimensions often

overlap in the space of a visit. Rather, we can talk about ‘the museum as a distributed network’. The

network itself questions institution’s authority to an extent that was previously unimaginable as the

museum does no longer place itself as a central authority, but just steps out and allows the pieces to

connect and create ‘a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts’. So that to ‘earn and guarantee their

reputation and trust in society’ – says Michael Edson14 ‐ ‘museums need to act as “playmakers”. Not those

who mark down the goal but rather those who set the flow, establishing the order in the field and letting

the play happens’.

12 Friedman, Thomas. The New York Times. 2013 February 02. Consulted on March 09 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/opinion/sunday/friedman‐the‐virtual‐middle‐class‐rises.html?_r=0>. 13 Proctor, Nancy. "The Museum as Distributed Network." Museum Identity Ltd ‐ High‐quality Conferences, Study Days, Publications, for Professionals, 2010. Consulted on 01 June 2014. <http://www.museum‐id.com/idea‐detail.asp?id=337>. 14 Edson, Michael. Unpublished interview with the writer, March 2014.


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2.2. Museums and new technologies: a square peg in a round hole?

Over the last years, cultural institutions have been trying to respond to social transformations adapting to

new visitor’s expectations and needs. Technology plays a large role in this process: museums have been

approaching new platforms and methods by opening blogs, social media accounts as well as embracing the

newest mobile platforms.

However, as Robert Stein15 points out, ’the relationship between museum content and technical change

has always been challenging, given the dramatically different time‐scale of the two disciplines’. The pace

museum collections evolve, put in contrast with technology, characterized by fast change, makes us

wonder ‘how can museums flexibly adapt to the rapid changes of technical innovation while leveraging a

body of content and collections that change at a comparatively glacial pace?’.

As already mentioned, from traditionally “elitist” institutions that study, preserve and then present their

collections through assumptions of rational and objective approaches, museums are opening up to new

methods, acknowledging that interpretation is as much important as conservation and research.

Larry Friedlander16compares this phase to a “teenage crisis” picturing very well anguishes and uncertainties

that typify this transition in which museums mutate in new forms, rethinking their role and approaches in

order to remain meaningful to contemporary society.

This ongoing change has been also reflected by the ICOM definition of museum: ‘a non‐profit, permanent

institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves,

researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its

environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment’17. The definition seems in fact to address

a rather open environment in which contents are presented and explored in a way that satisfies a wide

public of different ages, abilities and backgrounds.

Museums experiment with new media not only to offer services and support to the visit, but to establish

long lasting relationships with their audiences. Educational programs, hands‐on workshops and activities

that ask the public to create and co‐create and multimedia platforms, such as interactive kiosks and mobile

applications, are among the tools that institutions create to provide different “points of access” to the

meaning of collections. Indeed, the visual experience, represented by the passive observation of the

objects on display, is not enough anymore.

‘Museum visitors seek experiences that cross the boundaries of seeing, learning, and doing. Over the

course of a single day, they are quite capable of absorbing thrills and excitement, relaxing, and then finding

15 Stein, Robert. "Mobile Content Strategies for Content Sharing and Long‐term Sustainability ." Proctor, Nancy and Jane Burton. Mobile Apps for Museums: The AAM Guide to Planning and Strategy. Washington DC: AAM, 2011. 16 Friedlander, Larry. "When the Rare Becomes Commonplace: Challenges for Museums in a Digital Age ‐ Opening Plenary MW2013." 20 April 2013. YouTube. Consulted on 24 May 2013. 17 ICOM. "Definition of museums." 2007.


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delight in aesthetic pleasures and intellectual discoveries. As much as possible, museums should provide

multiple experiences’18.Visitors want to be captured and immersed, they demand to be engaged through

experiences that take into account their dreams and aspirations; the visit to a museum is not just about

spending a nice day with their family looking at an exhibition, they want the experience to leave a mark, an

impression on who they are, to encounter memorable stories that are worth the time they decide to spend

in a certain heritage institution. Besides, providing visitors with services other than fascinating exhibits, is

not an option anymore: museums have to be multifaceted spaces in which people can also sit and relax,

drink a and buy gifts at the museum shop. These last are elaborated tokens that stand for the experience

they just had, or even better, the escape they had from their daily routine.

In particular, we observe a significant use of technology for exhibition design that aims at immerse the

visitors in spaces and stories. Examples can be found at the Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam19 with the

Voyage at sea, a series of rooms in which the visitors learn about some of the highlights of the museum

through stories that run on all around projections. The Dolhuys in Haarlem provides another example:

exhibitions reproduce the environment of private rooms, hospitals and living spaces to tell stories and

engage the public with the topic of psychiatry20. Companies like 3‐Legged Dog21 reinvents cultural and

urban spaces through an intuitive use of technology. Again, the results are aesthetically impressive and the

technologies used are extremely sophisticated, allowing for example the visitor of the soon to be re‐opened

Smithsonian Cooper‐Hewitt Museum, to explore the tapestries collection by choosing which one projecting

on the walls of an exhibition space through the commands of an iPad22. However, it can be argued if and

how these experiences immerse the visitor into a meaningful process of engagement rather than just

surprise and amaze. Augmented reality, digital reproduction and game dynamics, play an important role in

creating immersive environments and settings. But as examples from immersive theatre like ‘Sleep no

more’ or ‘Then she Fell’23 show, technology is not necessarily the key in the creation of a sense of

immersion. In these cases, a story, with the sole power of narration, can make participants feel and share

an experience together. As Cory Doctorow24 points out, emotionally engaging and thus effective stories

should make you feel the elements of a story without necessarily distract the participant with the

complexity of the narration. In this sense, James Bradburne25 refers to the exhibition ‘Blood, perspectives of

18 Kotler, Neil, "Delivering Experience: Marketing the Museum's Full Range of Assets." Museum News, 1999. 19 Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam. For more information: http://www.hetscheepvaartmuseum.nl/ 20 Dolhuys in Harleem. For more information: http://www.hetdolhuys.nl/english‐info 21 3‐Legged Dog. For more information: http://3ldnyc.org/ 22 Project mentioned during a presentation of 3‐Legged Dog, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, November 2013 23 For more information: Sleep no More http://sleepnomorenyc.com/#share | Then She Fell http://thenshefell.com/ 24 Doctorow, Cory. Concept mentioned during a conversation with the author at Museums and the Web Florence February 2014 25 Bradburne, James. Concept emerged during a conversation with the author during Museums and the Web Florence, February 2014


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art, power, politics and pathology’ ‐ held at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst and the Schirn Kunsthalle,

Frankfurt from November 11, 2001 ‐ January 27, 2002 ‐ as an example of what an exhibition can do in terms

of engagement. ‘Visitors were so involved, even shocked and passionate about content, design and

narration, that once they exited the exhibition they went straight to talk to the employee at the bookshop

about their experience’. Museum visits should provide experiences as such, that prompt groups to gather

together and enthusiastically discuss, comment and speculate on what they saw as when coming out from

a movie theatre. In this sense, digital content could enhance the opportunities for visitors to personally

engage with the museum narrations. Mobile and personal devices, that visitors increasingly bring with

them wherever they go, allow a two‐ways communication model. However, the radical change that

technologies bring, should act at the very core of the structure of power of an organization26. In this sense,

Nancy Proctor reflects on the shifts from headphones, referring to the top‐down content delivery approach

of the traditional audio tour, to microphones, suggesting a model in which the visitor doesn’t only listen to

an information, but is an active participant of a narration. Furthermore, it is important to highlight how the

content provided by mobile tours, regardless the platforms, is a rather unique one. Lindsay Green27

compares audio in museums to film in movies theatres. The latter, is characterized by an action that

changes while the spectator is sitting still. The former, changes while the visitor moves in a space. Can

overlapping the strong physical space of the exhibition with a digital organized story help in creating

experiences that are emotionally meaningful and engage the visitor in a multilayered narration?

The combination of a deep emotional involvement with collections paired with the possibility to “navigate”

alternative realities that tell the stories of the objects with a multitude of perspectives and tools, can

remind to sci‐fiction scenarios. A comparison with a 1999 film by David Cronenberg, ‘eXistenZ’, seems

particularly appropriate. ‘eXistenZ’ is an organic game system that, when downloaded into humans,

accesses their central nervous system, transporting them in and out of reality. Moreover, the game changes

every time it is played, by adapting to the individual user. In this movie, the body, not an external device,

becomes the interface to access new worlds that respond to the user’s needs, personality and even moods.

Although some may say that increasingly virtual experiences would hinder our ability to perceive the

authentic and “real” world, it can be argued that there are certain aspects of “immersion” that enhance,

rather than confuse, the surrounding environment, as well as our inclination to meaningfully engage with

it.

There are many ways in which museums can “immerse” visitors into new worlds and possibilities generated

by technology. However, currently these tools don’t provide a seamless interface between the body, the

26 Proctor, Nancy."Keynote at MuseumNext." May 2012. Vimeo. Consulted on 22 March 2014 <http://vimeo.com/44404225> 27 Green, Lindsey. "Listening to Visitors: Research Findings on Mobile Content." Weblog post. Frankly, Green + Webb Journal. 11 Apr. 2014. Web. Consulted on 30 April 2014. <http://www.franklygreenwebb.com/2014/04/11/listening‐to‐visitors‐research‐findings‐on‐mobile‐content/>


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virtual and the real, yet lacking the total immersion that science fiction promises. Challenges in the creation

of mobile experiences in which the technology becomes a support as invisible as possible remain significant

for the field. The thesis will come back on the concept of immersive experiences, exploring in details

features and impacts.

2.3. Mobile and emerging technologies: an overview

As the Internet is no longer tied to desktop browser, expectations for accessing information anytime and

anywhere via our smartphones rise, including when visiting a museum. Mobile expands the on‐site visit of a

by linking the user to context‐sensitive web content. Examples of technologies that move in this direction

include augmented reality, visual recognition and location‐based technologies. Over the last years, there

has been a growing interest in exploring new platforms and devices. It is interesting to note how

experimentations with these technologies is often framed into pop‐up events and ‘hackathons’. These are

often open‐ended experiences and activities that ask audiences to create and add on the museum

experience and/or to manipulate approaches and collections. Although the term ‘hacking’ has a negative

connotation, referring to breaching private information or disrupting systems, museums hack events ask

people to do just the opposite. In a short span of time, participants, which can be regular museum visitors

as well as artists, designers or other not museum‐y professionals, are asked to build something from

scratches or to experiment with digital and non‐digital tools.28 This tendency shows that cultural

institutions still prefer to frame radical experimentations and innovation in fixed‐terms events and

contexts, preferring to be prudent in embracing them as a whole.

Among the newest technologies some can have particular implications for mobile:

Location‐based technologies

They offer personalized services that are connected to the specific location. Public expectations for

extensive public digital connectivity continues to rise and location‐aware technologies are being developed

in public spaces, using a wide range of tools; from Google Indoor Maps to triangulating position, from

sensors in LED lighting to crowd‐sourced photographs of public spaces. The Internet of Things, as this

phenomenon is also known, arises from the proliferation of internet connected devices that can collect

information (via sensors) and trigger actions. This particular technology is challenging for museums, as the

possibility to install solutions presents limitations within closed spaces, in old buildings full of objects.

28 Gasparotti, Valeria."The Rise of the Culture of Making and Haking." 2014. Svegliamuseo.com http://www.svegliamuseo.com/it/making‐hacking/.


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However, demand for interior positioning that supports orientation and access are rising as we get more

and more used to find these services outside and in commercial spaces.

Augmented reality

Augmented reality overlays the “real world” with digital content, usually visual. In the cultural space, AR

has been used to add historic photos to contemporary environments, for example. AR depends on a

location‐based technology, e.g. GPS, to trigger the display of the correct content for the scene viewed

through the user’s device. Pine and Gilmore29 define augmented reality as ‘the Reality‐based experience

shifts by one variable, from Matter to No‐Matter, from constructing an experience purely physical to one

that uses digital substances to enhance the world around us’.

An example of application of AR comes from the Stedelijk Museum’s AR project, AR tours, which explore

this technology in different contexts30.

Visual recognition, QR Codes, NFC Technology

Visual recognition technology uses visual cues and patterns to identify specific objects and match them

with Internet content. QR Codes (short for Quick Response) and NFC technology (Near Field

Communication), on the other hand, trigger contents from a specifically designed code or sign.

QR Codes are black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. QR codes are often more

useful than a standard barcode because they can store (and digitally present) much more data, including url

links, geo coordinates, and text. QR Codes can also be scanned using a simple app on any smartphone. In

order to scan the code the user needs to download a QR code reader app, which uses the phone's camera

to scan and read various codes. Museums have used QR codes in exhibitions and galleries, however, there

are limitations and constraints that often hinder their usage. Examples of usage of the codes at the

Smithsonian31 showed that a key rule to ensure usage and effectiveness of this technology is to add

contents that are significant and inform users in advance about what they are going to discover by scanning

the code. The necessity to download an app to scan the symbol in advance, is a main limitation in their

usage. An example of a successful campaign using this technology is the exhibition ‘Picasso: Masterpieces

from the Musée National Picasso’, organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and The Martin Agency.

The museum and the agency carried out a joint social media effort that brought to life the 176 displayed

29 Pine, Joseph and Jim Gilmore. Infinite Possibility: Creating Customer Value on the Digital Frontier. Koehler Publishers, 2011 30 Stedelijk Museum’s AR project, AR tours. For more information: http://www.stedelijk.nl/en/artours/artours‐app 31 Using QR at the Smithsonian. 2013. Smithsonian Mobile Wiki. <https://smithsonian‐webstrategy.wikispaces.com/mobile>


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works32. In this case, the use of QR is strongly tied to marketing activities that make it as part of the brand

of the exhibition.

Near Field Communication (NFC) establishes radio communication among devices, such as smartphones or

tablets, by touching them together or bringing them close to each other. This technology could be applied

in museum contexts by allowing visitors to simply tap their phone to the tag and be taken to videos, audio,

games, or other information about what they are viewing. The Quay Branly in Paris have experimented with

NFC technology for the app ‘Musée en Musique’. The mobile app is created for the exploration of the music

instruments collection of the museum, which is preserved in visible storages33.

Examples of usage of visual recognition in museums include ArtClix34, by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

ArtClix is a photo‐sharing app that reveals additional information about the artworks and allow users to

share them online. As a photograph is taken, the application automatically detects the artwork and

provides details about the piece. The image detection is based on image recognition technology and does

not require visible codes. The Metropolitan Museum of Art35 as well as the J. Paul Getty Museum36

developed collaborations with Google Goggles to provide information of the art in the galleries through

direct links to the museum’s websites. Google Goggles is a downloadable application that allows taking a

picture of a famous landmark, a painting or an image would search for information about it. Google

Goggles has also applications in the commercial field, so that scanning a product’s barcode will search

information on that item.

3D Scanning and printing

3D usually refers to digital models and assets that represent objects and environments in full three‐

dimensional form or space. The Smithsonian Institution has recently released the Smithsonian X 3D

Explorer37, a tool that will eventually allow students, educators, and laypeople to interact with 3D models

of the museum's 137 million artifacts. The tool will also let users 3D print scale models of artifacts that

could otherwise never be touched.

32 Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso campaign. For more information: http://mashable.com/2011/02/10/qr‐codes‐picasso/ 33 Quay Branly Museée en Musique. For more information: http://www.quaibranly.fr/fr/musee/le‐musee‐sur‐mobiles‐ettablettes/lemuseeenmusique.html 34 Bruce, Wyman and Forbes, Julia. "ArtClix: The High Museum of Art’s Foray into Mobile Apps, Image Recognition, and Visitor Participation." April 2013. MW2013 Museums and the Web 2013. Consulted April 2014 <http://mw2013.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/artclix> 35 Campbell, Thomas "The Metropolitan Museum of Art ‐ Google Goggles." 2011. Consulted March 2014. 36 "Getty, PRESS RELEASE: Google Goggles ." 27 June 2011. Getty.edu <https://www.getty.edu/news/press/center/googlegoggles.html> 37 Smithsonian X 3D Explorer. For more information: http://3d.si.edu/


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Also the Metropolitan Museum of Art is experimenting with 3D. The Met opened a program, Met Media

Lab, that explores ways new technology can affect the museum experience for staff and visitors, as well as

in galleries, classrooms, and online. Last summer, a 3D scanning and printing event hosted twenty‐five

digital artists and programmers that spent two days photographing museum objects and converting the

images into 3D models. A lot of debate was generated on Twitter about if and how these digital “mash‐

ups” outraged the “sacrality” of the art 38.

Wearable technologies

Smartphones allow us to be always connected to the people around us. However, we have barely scratched

the surface of what’s possible with mobile technology. Wearable technologies are slowly becoming the

leading edge. Google Glass is the mobile wearable technology created by Google that allows users to take

pictures and video, receive email, browse the Internet and social media, as well as find directions. Besides

the Metropolitan Museum of Art39, the Egyptian Museum in Turin is experimenting with Glass for the

creation of tours accessible to deaf people with the project GoogleGlass4Lis40. Another interesting

development comes from the recent acquisition of Oculus Rift, virtual reality headset employed for gaming

and other virtual reality environments, from the social media platform Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg41,

founder of Facebook, comments this acquisition: ‘Mobile is the platform of today, and now we’re also

getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow’. Once again, possibilities for employing these technologies in

museums are endless.

Each of the above mentioned technologies carries their own benefits and obstacles, depending on the

intended applications. It can be questioned to what extent museums can afford to look at these ever

changing technologies in a sustainable way. Neal Stimler42 responds to this argument by saying:

Curiosity about the world is vital to the process of humanistic scholarship in museums. This openness

applies to innovations in technology as well as new methods and means of intellectual inquiry. As

society is in a new cultural paradigm ‐ one defined by the hybridity of our physical and digital lives.

38 Cairns, Suse. "I like Your Old Stuff Better than Your New Stuff. On 3D Mashups, Appropriation, And irreverence." 2013. Museum Geek. The whole Twitter debate can be found here: https://twitter.com/CultureGrrl/status/395005646182969344/photo/1 39 Stimler, Neal. "The Metropolitan Museum of Art ‐ Seeing the Met through Glass." 2013. The Digital Underground. Consulted March 2014 40 "Turin Egyptian Museum, Ramses II Uses Sign Language." ANSAmed, 2013 41 Metz, Cade. "Facebook Buys VR Startup Oculus for $2 Billion." 23 March 2014. Wired Digital. Conde Nast Digital. Consulted 29 March 2014 <http://www.wired.com/business/2014/03/facebook‐acquires‐oculus/> 42 Stimler, Neal. “Who is going to be at MWF2014”. February 2014. http://mwf2014.museumsandtheweb.com/who‐is‐going‐to‐be‐at‐mwf2014‐three‐questions‐to‐neal‐stimler/


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The public's engagement with museums on social media and open access to digital content via

personal mobile devices are keys to sustainability.

2.4. Between tradition and innovation: an overview of mobile in museums

It is uncertain which of the above listed technologies ‐ or even newest ones ‐ will ultimately have the

greatest mainstream support and how they will evolve entering in our daily use. What is clear, however, is

that technology will evolve toward interfaces that will be more and more integrated to where and who we

are. Personalization, location‐based services and connection of real‐world items to Internet content are the

leading edges in this sense. More importantly, each of these technologies are driving an entirely new model

for mobile.

When thinking about cultural contexts, it is more and more difficult to talk about "mobile" as separate from

web or the in‐gallery experience or any other media. Reflections about engagement through mobile devices

are no longer experimental and not only the museums with bigger resources can look into possibilities for

their applications. Rather, museums of all sizes should understand that mobile devices are in the pockets of

the vast majority of their visitors and truly represent an opportunity for engagement, on‐site and beyond.

2.5. A closer look at history, development and features of mobile technology in museums

2.5a. The audio – tour as the first mobile experience in museums

Mobile technologies have been part of the tools for interpretation in museums since the creation of audio

tours, a sound‐based guide throughout a space. Audio tour facilitates an efficient communication of

paratexts43 to museum visitors. Before the internet, audio tours, delivered through handled devices, were

the only available technology to be generally used in museums.

The first example of its introduction in a museum dates back to 1952. Willem Sandberg, Director of the

Stedelijik Museum in Amsterdam from 1945 to 1968, pioneered the first audio tour using radio broadcast

technology. Loic Tallon44 gives an extensive description of the technology used as well as the reasons that

led the museum to approach it. The system was launched for a temporary exhibition, ‘Vermeer: Real or

Fake’ and provided foreign language tours to visitors. The technology available at the time allowed audio to 43 Seuil. Paratexts. Thresholds of interpretation. CUP. Cambridge, 1997. Gérard Genette defines paratext as those things in a published work that accompany the text, things such as the author's name, the title, preface or introduction, or illustrations. Genette states "More than a boundary or a sealed border, the paratext is, rather, a threshold." It is "a zone between text and off‐text, a zone not only of transition but also of transaction: a privileged place of pragmatics and a strategy, of an influence on the public, an influence that ... is at the service of a better reception for the text and a more pertinent reading of it" (Source: Wikipedia) 44 Tallon, Loic. "About That 1952 Sedelijk Museum Audio Guide, and a Certain Willem Sandburg." 19 May 2009. Musematic. Consulted 22 March 2014 <http://musematic.net/2009>


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be silently broadcasted into the galleries so visitors with an audio guide would hear the identical audio

simultaneously. The tours in different languages had to be scheduled throughout the day, as the

technology didn’t allow them to be played at the same time.

Figure 1: Still from a 1952 news clip from the Dutch Gescheidenis Web Site demonstrating the new audio tour – Stedeijlik Museum

As Loic Tallon points out, this very first example of mobile “overlay” on collections shows a tendency ‘to re‐

conceive the visitor’s relationship with the museum, an ambition which continues today as we explore the

potential of IPhone applications and of social networking principles within the gallery space’.45

In 1958 the National Gallery of Art in Washington created an audio system called LecTour, a recorded guide

throughout the masterpieces of the museum, by putting transmitters under its floorboards and distributing

radio receivers to visitors. As for the Stedeijlik, the audio was broadcasted at the same time, and had fixed

starting times. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's audio tour, introduced in 1963, consisted of a tape player

that visitors carried around with a leather shoulder strap.

As the technology available consisted, at first, of radio broadcasts or tapes, the type of narration was linear.

In a linear model stops or soundbites , pieces of information on specific objects or exhibits, are provided to

the listener as he/she presses play and moves along a path. Stops are attached at certain points of the

soundtrack, the continuous line of speech provided by the tour. Stops focus the narration on a certain piece

45 Ibidem


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while in between stops the visitors is instructed on where to go to reach the following object.46 In some

cases from the first tours, these pauses were also used to give context and to create a narrative for the

presented artworks sustained over time. However, this model caused visitors to get lost or wonder off, as

they followed the tour throughout the galleries.47

The second generation of audio tours aimed at solving this issue by providing random access to the content

before presented as a linear sequence of stops. By using keypads to insert a number that reference the

piece of the collection, visitors could jump around freely. However, with the freedom of moving around and

not being “tied” to a predetermined path, the ability to sustain a narrative over time was lost.48 Cell phone

tours are examples of tours that use random access to pieces of information on the collection. A venue is

assigned a phone number with appropriate stop numbers, displayed next to the exhibit. Once a visitor has

dialed in, they enter the corresponding stop number of the exhibit they are viewing, to hear the recorded

content.

Screen based technology allowed to combine these different formats and recover the possibility to sustain

a “storyline” from the beginning to the end. Over the years, multimedia electronic guides were developed:

devices specially designed to provide audio, visual or textual content to museum visitors with or without

user interaction. To the device simply providing sound, were increasingly added displays with LEDs or LCD

screens. Among these tools, PDA, Personal digital assistant, have been used to support museums

interpretation and create interaction as they are provided with an electronic visual display, employing

touch screen, enabling it to include a web browser. Today PDAs are today largely considered obsolete with

the prevalent adoption of personal multimedia devices.

With the increasing usage of smartphones and mp3 players, museums have started to produce audio

contents through podcasts, the wildly popular practice of posting recordings online, so they can be heard

through a computer or downloaded to mobile devices like iPods. Podcasts can be listened to while on site

but also independently from the visit as they often provide additional educational resources and in‐depth

content. The rise of podcasting is now giving the possibility to visitors not simply to listen but also to create

their own guides and tours. An example from MoMA is ArtMobs49, a group of people who produced

unofficial audio guides for the museum, making them available as podcasts. The project wants to remix

museum’s content by providing information that are funny and ironic.

46 Harris, Beth, Richard McCoy and Nancy Proctor. "The Gallery Overview: An Experiment at the IMA." 10 May 2009. MuseumMobile.info. Consulted March 2014 <http://museummobile.info/archives/190> 47 Harris, Beth, Richard McCoy and Nancy Proctor, And Hardman, Chris and David Torgersen. "Audio Tours 101: Writing the Rules." 2009. MuseumMobile.info. 2014 < http://museummobile.info/archives/111> 48 Hardman, Chris and David Torgersen. "Audio Tours 101: Writing the Rules." 2009. MuseumMobile.info. < http://museummobile.info/archives/111> 49 ArtMobs. For more information: http://mod.blogs.com/art_mobs/


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With podcasting museums starts to target public that are not traditionally considered as audio tours

audience. MoMA Unadulterated50, is another unofficial audio tour created by kids. Each piece of art is

analyzed by children aged 3‐10, as they share their unique, unfiltered perspective on such things as

composition and the art's deeper meaning. The company that produced it, Audio Tour Hack, is a group of

artists and professionals from the communications industries using creative storytelling to provide people

fun, unexpected and interactive journeys.

Increasingly, technology allows creation, promotion and diffusion of content, as well as facilitate them to

be accessed from people’s own devices. Tours and content of this kind can be also the result of unofficial

groups of amateurs, independent from the museum.

But museum tours often dictate, to a certain extent, time and pace of the visit, either if they follow a linear

path or random access models. May this be considered as a deterrent for visitors, along with the fact that

tours tend to isolate the person as opposed to docent tours, which take place in groups and allow

interaction and questions? Falk & Dierking51 emphasized how learning, and particularly learning in

museums, is a fundamentally social experience. The concept highlights that people make sense of the

world through social interaction with others, by distributed meaning‐making. ‘Social interaction includes

questions and discussions generated by looking at the exhibition and reading labels, as well as the

conversations, glances and touches that are totally unrelated to the museum’. Data show that what a

visitor recalls of an experience in a museum, even many years later, are primarily the social aspects of the

visit. Thus, it can be said that since users are obliged to wear a headset for the duration of the exhibit, this

might reflect negatively on part of the whole experience as well as on the possible depth of the learning.

Not all the audio tours, however, uses stereo headphones and provide “isolating” experiences. The very

first device that was used in the sector was actually made of one earpiece that would also allow two users

to listen to the content at the same time.

More broadly, reflections on how to satisfy different kind of learning styles should be done. Beth Harris

argues that, as visitors often lose patience in being obliged to stand in front of a piece for the duration of

the commentary, we should refer to “stops” as “starts”, because visitors start hearing the message while

looking at the related object, but walk away before the end52. Visitors are not universally engaged with the

same tools and approaches. Motivations and expectations, in fact, can vary according to a range of factors

in which the visitor’s identity plays a great role. A study conducted at the Smithsonian53 on smartphones

usage and services, revealed that visitors had strong preferences in terms of how they wanted to access the

information they were interested in. Most wanted to listen to the information, while others wanted to read

it, and still others to watch a video on the topic. In this sense, “stops” should become more layered and

50 MoMA Unadultered. For more information: http://audiotourhack.com/ 51 Falk, John H. and Lynn D. Dierking. The Museum Experience revised. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast, 2011 52 Harris, Beth. Conversation with the author cited in Nancy Proctor, “Evaluation‐led Mobile Experience Design." 03 January 2010. Consulted 10 March 2014 <http://museummobile.info/archives/297> 53 Office of Policy and Analysis Smithsonian Institution. "Smartphones Services for Smithsonian Visitors." 2010


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varied in type to satisfy time, interests and learning styles of the audience. They can include not just audio

and video clips, but wall labels, catalogue text, interactives, as well as user‐generated content.54

It can be said that smartphones and apps, as opposed to traditional audio guides, allow to include a wider

range of possibilities and thus to potentially reach a more diverse audience.

2.5b. Mobile in museums today

As the number of visitors that enter the museums with a mobile device grows, meet their expectations in

terms of access to contents and participation is becoming imperative. Thus, institutions need to guarantee

availability and access to digital and mobile experiences as much as to physical exhibitions and events.55

When in 2007 Apple launched the first iPhone, the definition of “smartphone” changed across the industry.

But already before this technology became omnipresent, mp3 players and cellphones got museums

thinking on how to provide mobile content through visitors’ personal devices. ‘BYOD’ – ‘Bring Your Own

Mobile Device’ ‐ is in fact supposed to allow easier access to mobile tours and avoid costs of content

creation and hardware distribution.

Furthermore, in talking about tablets and smartphones capabilities of providing fairly different experiences,

museums are challenged to look into how behaviors associated to these devices need the contents to be

adapted to the different contexts of use. While smartphones are employed to consult, play and interact

while on site, during the visit and while standing, tablets are more suitable for accessing content offsite.

The Victoria & Albert Museum explored different ways visitors access content and studied possibilities for

online resources accordingly. The British institution made a series of reflections on how to simplify the

structure of the website to provide a seamless experience when accessing from a small screen while

standing. On the other hand, the museum built certain features of their website to work best on a tablet.

‘We did this because tablets are what people use when they are indulging themselves on the web ‐ sofa‐

friendly, feet‐up devices.’56 To give other examples of this approach, the Rijksmuseum applied to its

website the “tablet first” logic and the same is doing the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.

54 Proctor, Nancy. "The Museum Is Mobile: Cross‐platform Content Design for Audiences on the Go." 31 March 2010. Museums and the Web 2010. Ed. J. Trant and D. Bearman. Consulted 23 March 2014 <http://www.archimuse.com/mw2010/papers/proctor/proctor.html> 55 Gasparotti, Valeria. "Marketing the App: A Toolkit." 13 January 2013. Smithsonian 2.0. Consulted 26 March 2014 <http://smithsonian20.si.edu/2014/01/13/marketing‐the‐app‐a‐toolkit/> 56 Lewis, Andrew. "Making Visitor Information Easier for Mobile Phone Users." 31 October 2013. Victoria and Albert Museum. Consulted 29 March 2014 <http://www.vam.ac.uk/b/blog/digital‐media/making‐mobile‐users‐experience‐better> —. "Why Bother Designing for Tablet Users?" 18 March 2014. Consulted 29 March 2014 <http://www.vam.ac.uk/b/blog/digital‐media/why‐bother‐designing‐layouts‐for‐tablet>.


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But what does all this mean for museums? When considering developing a mobile experience it is

important to think about the whole range of factors involved. A mobile app can be an integrated tool for an

exhibition or another fixed‐term project, or have an independent life span, as a game based app or a

comprehensive tour of your museum, for use on‐site or elsewhere.

In the current scenario, museums are more and more using apps as one of the main delivery content

system. Apps are software that functions on smartphones, tablets computers and other enabled mobile

devices. Currently, two kinds of apps can be developed: native and web based. Native applications are

usually designed and made available for distribution platforms managed by different operating systems.

They can benefit from the brand and visibility offered by the marketplace, and they can be paid or free.

However, native apps, specifically developed for stores such as Android and Apple store, are significantly

more expensive to build. The wide variety of available platforms make it necessary to test the app

throughout a number of devices, furthermore an upgrade of the app is necessary every time a new version

of the system is released. Content is in fact displayed differently, according to the type of device

(smartphone or tablet) but also to operating system and version. Reviewing and maintaining content and

look is also necessary when moving from different versions. In this sense, native apps represent a bigger

investment for museums and their long term maintenance should be taken into consideration before

approaching them.

Web based apps are instead developed to work in web browsers and they are basically websites optimized

for mobile. Nothing need to be downloaded and they can be accessed by URL despite the device. The

development costs are significantly lower and there is no need to update it, however, they require internet

connectivity so users will have to rely on their own data plan if the museum doesn’t offer WiFi. This

element can be considered as a barrier, along with the fact that visitors that use smartphones are not

thinking in terms of browser, but more accustomed to apps. It can be observed how choosing the right

platform requires an attentive exploration and studies in order to identify mobile habits and preferred

devices from the audience the museum is targeting.

As Heather Foster57 points out, market research and clear focuses and targets should be the starting point

of any mobile project. Develop a mobile app for iPhone, for example, can be appealing as it communicates

an idea of modernity as the museum employs up to date devices, but will automatically cut out users that

don’t own that kind of device. Today, users expect to access content on demand from a variety of tools.

Thus it can be argued that an app should strongly resonate with the core audience of the museum, but also

aims at sustainability by promoting cross‐platform thinking and approaches.

57 Foster, Heather. "So, You want to build a museum app?" 13 March 2013. Smithsonian 2.0. Consulted April 2014 <http://smithsonian20.si.edu/2013/03/19/so‐you‐want‐to‐build‐a‐museum‐app/>


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A research conducted on how the over 40 apps and mobile websites at the Smithsonian Institution58 shows

how these tools are developed and promoted with a product‐based approach. It can be argued that the

methodology is the same as the one applied to any other exhibition or programs. When the application is

released, the staff moves to the next project and with that, institutional priorities change. It can be argued

that mobile projects should be thought more as processes rather than products and apply iterative design

concepts. Impossibility to maintain the app, which over time may become obsolete in style, contents and

platforms, is an issue that especially affect apps that are connected to temporary exhibitions. In these

cases, the apps and their contents are rarely repurposed and thus not marketed with continuity. Ultimately,

lack of awareness on how to market the apps constitutes one of the causes that affect visibility of these

tools. In this sense, Nancy Proctor59 argues that the biggest mistake museums make with mobile is building

tools and just expect people to use them: visible signage to promote them and awareness on how visitors

services should present them can be scarce, so apps remain often underused.

A more in depth exploration of possible barriers in downloading and using mobile resources in museums

will be conducted in the following chapter.

2.5c. From handled devices to mobile apps: is the lesson learned?

The audio tour is perhaps the most universal interpretation tools in museums, as much as labels and docent

tours. Today, tours have evolved through a number of mobile platforms and mobile apps and are delivered

through the newest technologies. In particular, smartphones and tablets are the arrival point of a tradition

over 60 years long.

The Museum and Mobile Surveys60 indicates that over half of large museums (which have annual

attendance of over 50000) already have mobile experiences. Using annual attendance figures as an

indicator of an institution’s size, there is also evidence that smaller institutions are increasingly using

mobile technology: the correlation between an institution’s size and whether they use mobile is in fact

diminishing. Only 41% of the smaller museums reported that they currently had no plans to use mobile,

compared to 55% in 2012. The Museum Association carried out a survey on mobile offering in museums

that informs about the UK scenario61. The research shows that 50% of the surveyed institutions have a

mobile offer and 19% plan to have one within the next 12 months. The remaining 31% have no mobile offer

and no plans to introduce one in the next year.

58 Gasparotti, Valeria. "Who Is Going to Be at Museums and the Web Florence 2014: Three Questions to Neal Stimler ." 2014. MWF2014 Museums and the Web Florence 59 Proctor, Nancy. "The Museum Is Mobile: Cross‐platform Content Design for Audiences on the Go." 31 March 2010. Museums and the Web 2010. Ed. J. Trant and D. Bearman. Consulted 23 March 2014 <http://www.archimuse.com/mw2010/papers/proctor/proctor.html> 60 Tallon, Loic. "The Museum & Mobile Survey." 2013. Pocket‐Proof. Consulted 20 March 2014 61 Atkinson, Rebecca. "How Are Museums Using Mobile?" 2013. Museums Association


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While the Museum Association survey includes QR Codes among the uses of mobile that a museum can

apply, the Mobile Museum Survey take into account different categories of experiences, such as playful and

interactive ones. The Mobile Museum Survey also highlights how museums tend to focus on the permanent

exhibition rather than on fixed term projects as well as on site experiences rather than off‐site ones. As in

both surveys emerges, the objective that the vast majority of the museums consider in approaching mobile

platforms is to create a layer of content that would be impossible to deliver otherwise. All in all, institutions

now developing their first mobile tools are more likely to define it as an interactive experience and to seek

for different links to social media platforms, rather than providing a “simple” audio tour. In both surveys,

however, it emerges that the vast majority of participants do offer products that are essentially audio

tours, providing visitors with self‐guiding tools throughout the galleries. A recent article on Mashable62 lists

the best museum apps for virtual field trips, highlighting the fact that mobile allows to reach people beyond

the museum walls. Again, we find among these apps the structure of a traditional tour, with information

delivered with a scholarly approach. It can be argued that, despite an increasing understanding of the

enhanced possibilities of mobile, museums are offering the same content re‐developed for new devices. An

article from the Guardian63 recently defined museums apps as “spectacularly boring”, sparkling debates in

the museum community.

The article pledges for the adoption of mobile media in the form of apps and interactive experiences.

However, according to data gathered from industries in the sector and different museums64, the take‐up

rate for mobile tours, especially in permanent collections, has been very low over the years and it happens

that even when visitors decide to take the tour, they end up using it very superficially, possibly abandoning

it and proceeding through the exhibition without it. It can be argued that mobile guides are not perceived

as an indispensable part of the museum experience.

As we look at numbers, take up rates in permanent collection tours usually range from 1% to 10%65. When

talking about downloadable tours delivered through smartphones, users listen to an average of two stops

of the 20 to 40 that might be available66. Low take up rates and number of downloads for the vast majority

of these media points to a failure to engage visitors effectively.

If we compare these numbers over time with older audio experiences in museums, patterns and tendencies

in how museums approach mobile can be identified. It is striking how certain features haven’t changed so

much as opposed with older and more traditional tours. These tendencies will be analyzed in the following

pages.

62 Dawson, Gloria. "6 Museum Apps for virtual field trips." 06 August 2013. Mashable. Consulted 20 March 2014 <http://mashable.com/2013/08/06/best‐museum‐apps/> 63 Petrie, Matthew. "Dear museums: the time is right to embrace mobile." 31 May 2013. The Guardian. Consulted 05 March 2014 64 Data reported by a variety of professionals in the industry (including Antenna, Acousticguide, Guide by Cell etc.) over the course of interviews conducted by the author between March and April 2014. Full list Appendix A. 65 Antenna International. Series of interviews on tours take up rates Valeria Gasparotti, April 2014 66 Cutler, Robert. Series of interviews on tours take up‐rates Valeria Gasparotti, March 2014


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All in all, gathered data seem to reveal that there is not a priori reason why educational mobile media

should be subject to strict limitations on take up rates. Data referring to a variety of guides delivered on

different platforms and in a very large time‐span show that the fluctuations in adoption does not strictly

depends on stable factors, such the technologies employed to deliver the tour or the permanence of the

subject matter. Low take up rates should be also put in the context of the individual institution, as

museums with greater attendance would have lower percentages based on the overall volume of visitors.

By the same token, a free site will appear to have a lower take‐up as their attendance is generally much

higher than a paid site. At the same time, big institutions with a wide range of activities, such as the

Guggenheim or the Metropolitan Museum of Art, might be characterized to lower adoption rates as

opposed to smaller institutions in which the tour plays a significant role in experiencing the site, as for

example in the case of the Frick Collection.

None of the gathered data suggest that the device particularly affects the decision to adopt a tour.

However, it can happen that the employed technology doesn’t meet visitors expectations in terms of

usability and quality of the experience and this factor can affect future adoptions greatly.

Despite the complexity of the topic, a few patterns and generalizations can be conducted with regard to

possible barriers in adopting and using traditional audio tours as much as the latest platforms.

1) The iconicity of the site:

It can be argued that the motivation for adoption of a tour is determined by the level of interest for a

certain site. This can be influenced by visitor’s lifelong engagement with myth and culture, combined with

particular aspects of the collection. ‘To some extent’‐ Chris Tellis points out – ‘it has to do with the same

celebrity attraction that also absorb most of the audience. You could do an amazing exhibition of

columbian gold artifacts and nobody would come. But if you do a show with one painting, such as the

Mona Lisa or The Nightwatch or the Girl with the Pearl Earring the public would line up.’67

Tellis continues by reflecting on what he calls the ‘Level of Commitment’, meaning ‘the proportionate

desire of the audience to engage in deeper experiences than a simple viewing’, which changes according to

subjects. Thus, the adoption of mobile guide will increase as much as all other supplementary activities

such as the docent tours, lectures and sales in the gift shop.

The ephemeral nature of the experience plays a significant role in affecting the level of commitment and

thus adoption of the tour. Laura Mann68 identifies high percentages in adoption rates in pilgrimage sites.

67 Tellis, Chris. Series of interviews on tours take‐up rates Valeria Gasparotti. March 2014 68 Mann, Laura. Series of interviews on tours take‐up rates Valeria Gasparotti. 3 April 2014


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Sites as such, get a continuing turnover of out‐of‐town visitors. Audience generally plan to go there and

may not have the opportunity to come back. Among some examples, sites that have an inherent narrative

connected with mythology, such as Graceland in Memphis or Alcatraz. The latter, in particular, has a take

up rate settled on 98%. The Van Gogh Museum is another example, with 17% , demonstrates that visitors

feel they want to know things about the artist, they want to have a great experience and they are willing to

spend extra money for the tour and have the best possible experience.

2) Content

What does it mean to have good and engaging content in a tour, regardless the platform?

As a recent article from the Guardian69 highlights, when talking about digital media is crucial to offer

something worthwhile. The article pledges in using these tools with approaches that take into account

interactive, rich and engaging content before the technology itself.

There are broadly recognized “best practices” that help in defining what good content is. Ed Rodley70 lists

the features of what can be considered good content in tours. Personalizing the subject by bringing in less

solemn and institutional elements, or offering unusual points of view on the matter, can help in bridging

the gap between the expert and the user. All in all it can be said that good content triggers emotional

engagement as opposed to information overload and didactic approach.71

In the past, the preference for a subjective voice rather than objective droning voices, led to employ

celebrities as narrators. This has determined, in some cases, high percentages in adoption. The

Acoustiguide Corporation, a Manhattan‐based company, made its first celebrity Acoustiguide in 1959 when

Vincent Price narrated a tour of the Phoenix Museum of Art72. In the following years the practice of

employing celebrities voices expanded.

In the mid‐eighties Meryl Streep was the voice of ''Monet in the 90's'' for the Baltimore Museum of Art and

rentals rose to 62%73. In an interview to the New York Times74, Michael Plummer, senior vice president for

marketing and operations at Acoustiguide, declares that ‘the public responds more when it's a celebrity.

Market research shows that people who take audio tours stay longer at a museum and spend more money

69 Grose, Benjamin. "Does the Long‐term Survival of UK Arts and Culture Rely on Digital?" 14 March 2014. The Guardian. Consulted 21 March 2014 <http://www.theguardian.com/culture‐professionals‐network/culture‐professionals‐blog/2014/mar/14/survival‐uk‐arts‐culture‐digital> 70 Rodley, Ed. "Ice Cube & AFP: What Makes for Successful narrators?" 15 July 2013. Thinking About Museums. Consulted 22 March 2014 <http://exhibitdev.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/ice‐cube‐afp‐what‐makes‐for‐successful‐narrators/> 71 Goldberg, Sandy. "Content for All Kinds: Creating Content That Works for On‐ and Off‐site visitors." Proctor, Nancy and Jane Burton. Mobile Apps for Museums: The AAM Guide to Planning and Strategy. Washington DC: AAM, 2011. 72 Wikipedia Acousticguide page. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustiguide> 73 Cutler, Robert. Series of interviews on tours take‐up rates Valeria Gasparotti. March 2014 74 Vogel, Carol. "Museums speak celebrities voices." 16 November 1996. New York Times. <http://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/18/arts/museums‐speak‐in‐celebrity‐voices.html>


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at shops and restaurants.’ Plummer continues by highlighting that audio‐tour takers are more seriously

committed to the museum experience.

Content for mobile guides has to be designed to work within a set physical space in which the visitors

move. For this reason, considerations about content need to be tied up to experience design.75 As mobile

users can access from the galleries, but also from home or any other locations at different points in time, to

have an impact, content can’t be just “good”, it needs to be appropriate for the medium.

Paolo Paolini76 reinforces this concept by saying that users of mobile tools want a seamless experience –

‘the stories they need when they need them’. In other words, ‘content needs to be put in context’. In this

sense, it can be argued that possibilities for mobile technology to augment the museum’s reality should

focus on the way visitors look at objects, rather than distracting them from the ‘real object’ by providing

more things to look at. A recent study on audio tour users and non‐users conducted at the National Gallery

in London77, underlines how these tools should be designed to provide ‘help to make a painting mean

something, to be provoked into forming an opinion and to be challenged to think’. Quantitative data

gathered from the same study, also suggests that one of the most common reasons for visitors preferring

not to take a guide – at the National Gallery and elsewhere is ‘wanting to go at their own pace’.

Data from Guide By Cell78, one of the biggest cell phone tours providers, highlight how cell phone tours

range between 8,5% to 10% in usage, while text‐messages tours are used by 15% to 20% of visitors. The

option of texting to be directed to a mobile website and access the content of a tour is also used by the

15% to 20%. Scanning QR codes for the same purpose remains however low, hovering around 5%. These

data make us reflect on how providing small ‘pills’ of content that the visitor can access anytime without

the ‘commitment’ of taking a more linear guide, can be more successful.

However, despite the shift to a random access experience offers more control over content, no fixed

sequence can result in a less meaningful experience as each stop is a stand‐alone piece of information not

connected to the previous or the next. It can also be noted how random access may result in a less

75 Goldberg, Sandy. "Content for All Kinds: Creating Content That Works for On‐ and Off‐site visitors." Proctor, Nancy and Jane Burton. Mobile Apps for Museums: The AAM Guide to Planning and Strategy. Washington DC: AAM, 2011. And Landry, Rob. "What Makes a Museum Website Great Is the User Experience ("UX")." 12 August 2013. Plein Air Interactive. Consulted 22 March 2014 76 Paolini, Paolo. "Panel Discussion Museum Mobile, Museums and the Web Florence ." February 2014 77 Green, Lindsay. "Listening to visitors: research findings on mobile content." 11 April 2014. Frankly, Green + Webb blog. Consulted 13 April 2014 <http://www.franklygreenwebb.com/2014/04/11/listening‐to‐visitors‐research‐findings‐on‐mobile‐content/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FranklyGreenWebb+%28Frankly%2C+Green+%2B+Webb%29> 78 Asheim, David. Series of interviews on tours take‐up rates Valeria Gasparotti. March 2014


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immersive experience with users having to jump back and forth from listening to a stop back to the reality

of the museum.79

3) Marketing and service design

Marketing plays a crucial role in determining the use of mobile tools and it is interesting to observe how

this barrier applies either on traditional guides up to latest mobile apps, representing still today a matter of

discussion. Although visitors increasingly expect museums to provide Wi‐Fi and connected services, they do

not automatically assume museums have apps available to support and enhance their visit, so these tools

must be made visible and clearly available. In fact, while an exhibition or an educational program can’t be

missed by visitors walking through the galleries, a mobile app and the content that it offers is invisible

without appropriate signage and promotion to support them80.

‘If we provide no information, and simply advertise to visitors that “audio guides are available”, we’re

actually encouraging visitors to draw on personal notions of whether they like audio guides in order to

decide whether to take it or not’. Tallon81 continues by highlighting how the technology employed for

delivering audio tours is often the principal ‘selling point’, while a description of the type of experience that

visitors would have is often left out. In this sense, museums are asking audience to take a leap of faith in

renting the tour.

Older data from the travelling exhibition “Treasure of Tutankhamun” and the rates in adoption of the

Walkman taped audio tour connected to it, show how marketing was crucial and are applicable today as

well. Robert Cutler82 explains how between 1976 and 1975 the exhibition travelled to the National Gallery

of Art in Washington DC and to the Field Museum in Chicago. Take up rate was, respectively, 5% and 12%.

But when the exhibition arrived at the New Orleans Museum of Art, the museum’s management, along

with the vendor, placed the point of selling in a square donut in the middle of the visitors’ path. 39% of

rentals were achieved: the following venues saw an increase by adding other strategies such as celebrity’s

voices (Orson Welles at the San Francisco De Young reached 44%, Art Gallery Ontario with Christopher

Plummer 51%). The path through which the visitors had to go was structured and balanced with quite time

to let visitors focus on the offering, good signage and promotion at the right moment before the purchase

decision. As in retail happens, location is crucial in influencing the purchase. Another example comes from

79 Hardman, Chris and David Torgersen. "Audio Tours 101: Writing the Rules." 2009. MuseumMobile.info. 2014 < http://museummobile.info/archives/111> 80 Gasparotti, Valeria. "Marketing the App: A Toolkit." 13 January 2013. Smithsonian 2.0. Consulted 26 March 2014 <http://smithsonian20.si.edu/2014/01/13/marketing‐the‐app‐a‐toolkit/> 81 Tallon, Loic. "I never take audio tours I can't stand them!" 11 June 2009. Musematic. Consulted 5 March 2014 <http://musematic.net/2009/06/11/i‐never‐take‐audio‐guides‐i‐can%E2%80%99t‐stand‐them/> 82 Cutler, Robert. Series of interviews on tours take‐up rates Valeria Gasparotti, March 2014


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the tour of The Forbidden City, which used Peter Ustinov’s voice along with catchy marketing collaterals,

the take up rate was between 30% and 40%.

The successfull combination of time, information and structure is confirmed if we look at data that belongs

to sites with an entry ticket. Institutions such as the Louvre and the Van Gogh Museum, in fact, show higher

adoption rates because of the ‘funnel’ that can be created at the entrance. When standing in line to

purchase tickets, visitors weight the offer of the museum and potentially decide to buy the audio guide,

while for free sites the flow at the entrance spreads in different directions making more difficult to create a

point of sell.83 It can be argued that the design of available services should be planned to provide clear and

effective information about the tour at the time visitors look for it, usually the moment before the

purchase decision. This moment is often extremely short and influenced by tons of other factors as the

visitors, just arrived to the site, have a lot of things to look at. As Sarah Dines84 underlines, online adoption

rates are typically higher than onsite as this decision timeframe is longer and allows users to evaluate their

choices and the content.

According to Lindsay Green85, how the museum phrase the sale of a guide significantly influences adoption.

In this sense, bundle the audio guide to the ticket enhances visitors motivation to adopt, as demonstrated

by the case of the National Gallery in London. The site has free entrance and in the past asked for a

donation for the audio tour with a rather confusing formula. By defining a fixed price and communicating

the tour clearly, the Gallery has increased the take‐up rate.

An interesting example that shows how marketing can significantly influence take‐up and engagement,

comes from the Louvre. The institution has started a collaboration with Nintendo for the creation of the

audio tour throughout the Museum. Nintendo provided the hardware with the popular gaming 3D console

and included specific features such as the 3D visualization and the possibility to look at objects from

different angles on the device. The Museum, on the other hand, provided fairly traditional content that

explains the pieces and allow to filter among highlights or personalize tours. Besides traditional marketing

that includes very visible signage and focuses on the appeal of the device, the partnership has represented

a marketing action itself as a popular device associated with play is paired up with a rather serious and

traditional institution. This choice created a story that has been picked up by the press and has generated a

lot of enthusiasm. Adoption rates have in fact almost doubled as opposed to the audio tour previously

available, ensuring the emergence of new motivation for visiting. Studies report that 2/3 are not traditional

audio guide users. 80% of the audience wants to visit the museum with a new and efficient tool, while 85%

want to have more fun and 42% want to test the device. The Museum observed that the guide has

83 Mann, Laura. Series of interviews on tours take‐up rates, Valeria Gasparotti, April 2014 84 Dines, Sarah. Comment on Loic Tallon, “I don’t take audio tours! I can’t stand them ." 11 June 2009. Musematic. Consulted 25 March 2014 85 Green, Lindsay. Series of interviews on tours take‐up rates, Valeria Gasparotti, April 2014


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triggered the interest of totally new audiences that do not represented a core visitation for the Louvre.

Technophiles, that constitutes the 70%, and foreign young adults, 21%, represent new audiences for the

Museum.86

Should or shouldn’t museums charge for the audio tour? This is a functional question to marketing and it is

a choice that should be structured strategically. More commonly the audio tour is handed out for a fee

although there are examples of tours bundled with the entrance ticket. Alcatraz, for example, has an opt

out deal for its Cellhouse tour. Visitors receive the tour automatically by buying the ticket to get the ferry

that leads to the Island. They can decide to give it back and get a refund on the price of the ticket. By doing

so, the site reinforces the concept that the tour is an integrated part of the experience: ‘the museum is

“telling” visitors that they need the audio guide: they aren’t leaving the visitor to guess whether they need

it or not.’87

MONA, Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, Tasmania, has a similar approach. The “O” device is handed

out along with the tickets. The website claims: “We don't have labels on the wall. We have the O. Use it to

read about the art on display and to listen to interviews with the artists”. The tour is free. Interestingly

enough, the Museum asks visitors to turn off their mobile phones while visiting88. According to Tony

Holzner89, the take up rate, as well as the gallery usage for the “O” device, is nearly 100%.

Choosing between a free or a paid formula for the audio guide can affect adoption rates under different

perspectives, interconnected to the gratuity of the site as well as to visitors motivation. Paradoxically,

visitors of sites that charge for entrance are more likely to spend additional money on the audio tour. Paid

sites experience a large attendance of people motivated to learn. Furthermore, the fact that they pay for

entrance, make them wiling to add an extra cost to have the best possible experience. Free sites, on the

other hand, are more subjected to different types of visitors that might simply visit for leisure.90 This

separation is more perceivable in the UK, where the vast majority of museums are free, as opposed to the

US where blockbuster exhibitions have consolidated audio guides usage and perception.91

Referring to the statement that ‘a mobile guide is only as good as the service to support it and market it’92,

another reflection needs to be done. Data suggest how take up rates increase, regardless the type of tour,

when front house staff are good at selling it by explaining its unique features and prompting visitors to use

86 Alfandari, Agnes. Series of interviews on tours take‐up rates Valeria Gasparotti, April 2014 87 Tallon, Loic. "I never take audio tours I can't stand them!" 11 June 2009. Musematic. Consulted 5 March 2014 <http://musematic.net/2009/06/11/i‐never‐take‐audio‐guides‐i‐can%E2%80%99t‐stand‐them/> 88 MONA. For more information:https://www.mona.net.au/visit/facilities/ 89 Holzner, Tony. Series of interviews on tours take‐up rates conducted by the writer, April 2014 90 Mann, Laura. Series of interviews on tours take‐up rates Valeria Gasparotti, 3 April 2014 91 Green, Lindsay. Series of interviews on tours take‐up rates Valeria Gasparotti, April 2014 92 Ibidem


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it. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, for example, recently increased the audio tour adoption rate through

a more collaborative effort between the audio guides provider and the visitor services of the museum.

4) Visitors motivation:

It can be argued that aligning mobile tours with museums core visitors goals and motivation is paramount

for institutions. Museums should pay more attention in listening to visitors when planning to develop

mobile apps. They might in fact introducing new barriers rather than facilitating the usage of these tools93.

BYOD is a formula that requires a lot more joining conditions than the traditional handled device. A study

conducted by Franky, Green + Webb94 shows that the major barrier in using visitors’ own devices is because

of concerns related to the battery life, followed by the absence of Wi‐fi in the building, and roaming

charges for international visitors. Furthermore, ‘there is too much noise in the visitors’ lives before entering

museum’s doors’.95 Thus, the necessary steps to access a mobile app (going to the store, downloading the

app, etc.) do not necessarily align with visitors’ goals and motivations. Nancy Proctor96 debates on a similar

point by saying that, ‘standardized tour content creates a homogenous, one‐size‐fits‐all experience,

possibly watered down to better appeal to mass audiences but ultimately boring to both the novice and the

expert’.

As previously described, marketing and right timing in “serving” the information about the tour can help in

prompting motivation to adopt this interpretation tool, but ultimately, some visitors will simply decide that

that type of experience is not for them; it’s important therefore that museums take the time to identify

which type of visitor would be best served by the audio tour, and to then ensure that the tool is marketed

in a way that directly speaks to that visitor type.97

Researches investigate visitors’ perceptions and needs toward interpretative media. A study conducted at

the San Francisco MoMA on the exhibition Matthew Barney: DRAWING RESTRAINT, showed that the

majority of visitors prefer analogue forms of interpretation (such as labels) rather than technology for on‐

site interpretation.98 At the same time, the Smithsonian’s study on smartphones services across the

93 Ibidem 94 Mann, Laura. "Design Principles for Creating Mobile Experiences in Museums." Proc. of Museum Computer Network, Montreal. 28 Nov. 2013. Consulted 09 May 2014 <http://www.franklygreenwebb.com/2013/11/28/weeknotes‐48‐2013/> 95 Ibidem 96 Proctor, Nancy. "The Museum Is Mobile: Cross‐platform Content Design for Audiences on the Go." 31 March 2010. Museums and the Web 2010. Ed. J. Trant and D. Bearman. Consulted 23 March 2014 <http://www.archimuse.com/mw2010/papers/proctor/proctor.html> 97 Tallon, Loic. "I never take audio tours I can't stand them!" 11 June 2009. Musematic. Consulted 5 March 2014 <http://musematic.net/2009/06/11/i‐never‐take‐audio‐guides‐i‐can%E2%80%99t‐stand‐them/> 98 Samis, Peter. "Gaining Traction in the Vaseline: Visitor Response to a Multi‐Track Interpretation Design for Matthew Barney: DRAWING RESTRAINT." Museums and the Web. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics, 2007


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institution99 reveals that the most popular features the visitors would like to have are audio tours, including

highlight tours and topical ones. It is interesting to note a contradiction between the results of that study

opposed to the rather unpopular usage of tours in museums. In this sense, Loic Tallon100 reflects on how

tours are perceived by the vast majority of visitors and how this sort of diffused perception generates an

almost universal neglect toward them. If a visitor has taken a tour in his or her life and the experience

didn’t meet the expectations, it is very likely that he or she won’t commit the same mistake twice.

Mobile apps and the possibilities for interaction, participation and social connection, can have a broader

reach. Visitors motivation to take up and use traditional audio guide is fairly ‘black and white’, as it

connects with the idea of a more informed experience suitable for visitors who specifically look for that

kind of didactic learning. With apps, motivation is more nuanced as visitors can have more than just a

didactic experience, such as playful ones. Furthermore, smartphones are personal tools and thus transform

the experience and make it more subjective. Anecdotally, we can say that through mobile apps and the

possibilities they enclose, a more diverse audience can be targeted101.

Data from analyzed resources show that digital content is usually conceived for too general of an audience.

The Museum Association’s study on mobile usage102, for example, reports that the vast majority of

museum’s mobile applications are targeted to general audience. Cultural institutions often have fixed

budgets to develop tools and programs, the ‘one‐size‐fits‐all’ solution seems less risky than the narrowed

and targeted one. It can be argued that before thinking about apps as the groundbreaking solution that

should revolutionize museum interpretation, institutions should reflect on what are they trying to achieve.

‘Engagement’ is a buzzword in the museum field, meaning many things that are not exactly measurable as

they can include depth of learning, active participation and creation of meaning. In this sense, the concept

of digital engagement is even more complex as based on even less tangible components, either through the

processes and tools in which it is delivered as well as the outcomes it produces. ‘To better understand

digital engagement, cultural organizations need to understand what and who they value, along with what

their audiences value, before exploring how this ambition might be enhanced through digital channels.’103

In this sense, Falk104 identifies the different identity‐related needs that characterize the museum visitors,

dividing them in explorer, facilitator, experience seeker, professional/hobbyist, and recharger. As he points

out, an ‘individual’s visit motivations represenst a contextually‐specific construct, intimately bound to

desires for personal satisfaction and identity. Identity‐related motivations are not correlational artifacts;

99 Office of Policy and Analysis Smithsonian Institution. "Smartphones Services for Smithsonian Visitors." 2010. 100 Tallon, Loic. "I never take audio tours I can't stand them!" 11 June 2009. Musematic. Consulted 5 March 2014 <http://musematic.net/2009/06/11/i‐never‐take‐audio‐guides‐i‐can%E2%80%99t‐stand‐them/> 101 Outhier, Charles. Series of interviews on tours take‐up rates, Valeria Gasparotti, April 2014 102 Atkinson, Rebecca. "How Are Museums Using Mobile?" 2013. Museums Association 103 Malde, S., et al. "Let's get real 2." Report from the second Culture 24 Action Research Project. 2014 104 Falk, John. Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience. Left Coast Press, 2009


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they reflect socioculturally created norms of how the public (currently) perceives the attributes and

affordances of museums’. Further research from the Smithsonian Institution explores audience

segmentation from the point of view of different motivations. Observations and interviews over 16 years

have shown how visitors can be classified according to their primary interests. Ideas people, objects people

and people people.105 Audience segmentation proves that content, platform and structure of mobile

experiences should be developed by conducting audience research, to provide tools that strongly resonate

with the institution’s core visitation and their needs.

Reflections on different identities and ways of consuming contents need to be also paired with the way

people already use their mobile devices. As Nancy Proctor points out in her response to the Guardian

article106,

if mobile can be the “glue” that connects people, platforms and experiences both inside the museum

and beyond, then its success is co‐dependent on museums embracing their audiences across

platforms, geographies and other sorts of divides as well – which includes, but must not stop at,

understanding their mobile habits and preferences.

In an effort to meet the real needs of the users, the Smithsonian National Museums of Air and Space

carried out a survey aimed at identifying visitors mobile habits.107 The research shows that smartphones

usage within the galleries is high as 7 out of 10 visitors carrying a smartphone with them while visiting. A

significant amount of the surveyed people used their smartphones to take pictures. A similar study

conducted at the Victoria & Albert Museum108 shows that almost two thirds of visitors to the V&A own a

smartphone and carry it with them in daily life and on their visit to the Museum, while more than a third

own a tablet. The V&A recognizes that opportunities for mobile rely on adding on visitors existing activities,

photography and research of information.

A reflection on visitors motivation in accessing mobile contents and the barriers that a user can encounter,

has led the Art Institute of Chicago to experiment with mobile devices placed directly in the galleries. In the

Eloise W. Martin Galleries of European Decorative Arts, iPads stations prompt the exploration of the

objects on view. Three‐dimensional animations allow views and manipulation of the works that would be

impossible otherwise, while video clips narrate the original contexts, uses, and construction of the pieces

105 Pekarik, A. J., et al. "IPOP: A Theory of Experience Preference." Curator: The Museum Journal, 2014 106 Petrie, Matthew. "Dear museums: the time is right to embrace mobile." 31 May 2013. The Guardian. Consulted 05 March 2014 107 Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum . "Smartphones at NASM." 2013 108 Victoria and Albert Museum. "What Do Visitors Say about Using Mobile Devices in Museums?" 13 March 2013. Victoria and Albert Museum. Consulted 21 March 2014 < http://www.vam.ac.uk/b/blog/digital‐media/museum‐visitors‐using‐mobile>


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that date back to 16th through the 19th centuries. According to Elizabeth Neely109, when using a mobile

guide, visitors tend to search for what interest them the most and experience that piece of content only. In

this sense, iPads placed in front of selected works lower the barriers that would apply to BYOD (download

an app, battery life, etc.), resulting in a more smooth experience. At the same time, they prompt audience

to explore pieces that wouldn’t primarily attract the attention. It is interesting to note how the Institution

still continue to provide the traditional audio guide, which adoption rate is aligned to low percentages,

despite the growing range of interpretative media that is developing. In this sense, the Museum keeps

serving a relatively niche audience that still prefers that interpretative tool, while experimenting in multiple

ways on how to provide access to broader and diverse groups. Although this choice is supported by

resources that not all the institutions can rely on, this example shows how museums are more and more

reflecting on how effectively engage visitors with mobile media. While many institutions still look for one

size fits all solutions, acknowledgment of visitor centered thinking and approaches are rising. Use of

technology, and in particular mobile media, is more and more drawn on extensive audience research aimed

at identifying precise category of preferences, behaviors and needs as much as familiarity with tools and

processes. In this sense, percentages of take up rates acquire new meaning as an increasing number of

museums understand the necessity to tailor mobile tours on the right users rather than all of them.

2.5d. Future challenges for mobile interpretation: flow experiences and interaction

As we have seen, patterns of engagement for the vast majority of mobile experiences follow the traditional

narrow‐casting model of the audio tour, in which the visitor is a passive participant in understanding and

learning. Among the trends in mobile for museums identified by one of the most important cell phone

tours providers, Guide by cell, we can see that fun and game‐like experiences, that support or trigger

contextual interaction, depend on the fact that visitors bring their own smartphones with them. However,

it is important to highlight that to be successful, experiences as such need to be easy, supported by clever

marketing strategies and offer a reward that is greater than the effort required to use them.110 Although

BYOD is not yet pervasive in museums, due to limitations such as the availability of Wi‐Fi, it has a great

potential. Museums understand it as emerge in the Mobile in Museums survey111, in which the main

objective for mobile seems to be ‘experimentation’. However, museums might still adopt mobile for the

sake of implementing the newest technologies. ‘One misconception in the digital world had been that CD‐

ROM and websites don’t need to be as interesting, compelling or useful as traditional experiences in the

109 Neely, Elizabeth. Series of interviews on mobile tours take‐up rates. Valeria Gasparotti, April 2014 110 Asheim, David. "What Are the Trends in Mobile Technology for Museums?" YouTube. SI Mobile YouTube Channel, 09 May 2014. Consulted 10 May 2014 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVOhA7mJ2pU&list=UUwKEkMvIE9sc701IrOH0egw> 111 Tallon, Loic. "The Museum & Mobile Survey." 2013. Pocket‐Proof. Consulted 20 March 2014


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same genres – the novelty alone was enough to be successful.’112 In this sense, as Loic Tallon113 points out,

in building new platforms we tend to recreate the same limitations of the previous one. As a result, few

applications of the technology brings the innate characteristics of the mobile platform: portable, locative,

playful, emotionally engaging, personal and social, designed around the users’ needs and the organization’s

mission. Experiences that leverage on these characteristics have the ability of connecting the visit to a

museum to our personal dimension, our memories, our lives and beyond. ‘Successful digital media are

those that offer experiences unique to their medium and compete with traditional media in usefulness and

satisfaction.’114 In considering what role mobile technologies might play in the future, an analysis of some

of the examples that reflect on these kind of experiences is necessary.

The app ArtLens, developed along with the complete renovation of Gallery One, at the Cleveland Museum

of Art, is an interesting case that includes some of the features that overcome the narrow‐cast model. It is

an iPad app (recently released for iPhone as well), that responds to this kind of visitors behavior, allowing

audience to scan bi‐dimensional works and magnifying details of the pieces. Furthermore, the app senses a

visitor’s location in the museum and offers the possibility to access digital content about the surrounding

artworks that can be also “liked” and gathered in personal tours. The app is integrated in the broader

environment of Gallery One, which constitutes an emblematic example of what the museums of the future

might look like. The space was created with the occasion of a major renovation of the building and blends

art and technology with ‘interfaces that inspire visitors to see art with greater depth and understanding,

sparking experiences across the spectrum from close looking to active making and sharing’.115

Multi‐touch screens are embedded in the gallery, the lenses, and allow closer look to series of objects

grouped together and placed in front of the screens. In these interactives, each artwork in the installation is

interpreted through storytelling hotspots with opportunities to explore them visually through magnification

and rotation, and to discover their original contexts. Each interface has a series of “games” that allow

visitors to interact on different levels. From re‐assembling the art on view, to sharing opinions and

thoughts, to even use their bodies to match the poses of sculptures and paintings. Extensive audience

research supported the creation of Gallery One, that identified visitors of the Cleveland Museum of art as

112 Shedroff, Nathan. Experience Design 1.1 ‐ a Manifesto for the Design of Experiences. S.l.: Nathan Shedroff, 2009. Www.experiencedesignbooks.com. 2009 113 Tallon, Loic. "Is It Working? Analysing the Effectiveness of Mobile in Museums." Proc. of American Alliance of Museums 2013, Baltimore. 09 May 2014. <http://www.slideshare.net/LoicT> 114 Shedroff, Nathan. Experience Design 1.1 ‐ a Manifesto for the Design of Experiences. S.l.: Nathan Shedroff, 2009. Www.experiencedesignbooks.com. 2009 115 Alexander, Jane, Jake Barton, and Caroline Goesner. "Transforming the Art Museum Experience: Gallery One." MW2013 Museums and the Web 2013. Proc. of MW2013: Museums and the Web 2013, Portland. Consulted 10 May 2014. <http://mw2013.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/transforming‐the‐art‐museum‐experience‐gallery‐one‐2/>


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browsers of the collection.116 Rather than following the thematic approach supported by the curation of the

space, audience tend to look for what they like or what they can connect to their prior knowledge.

Mobile offerings that inspire social, on‐site experiences, open up new ways of using content and platforms

for informal social learning, often use games dynamics to break the experience free from the audio tour

paradigm. ‘Murder at the Met’, for example, is a scavenger hunt designed for the Metropolitan Museum of

Art.117 Through this app every visitor could become a detective, using their smartphones to explore

museum objects and interview suspects and witnesses to discover the killer, his or her weapon, the place of

the murder, and the killer’s motive. ‘Spy in the city’ from the Spy Museum in Washington DC118, employs a

GPS‐interactive device to unfold a spy story and get users to explore the city by playing the role of spies,

achieving missions. Another example from the Smithsonian Institution was developed in June 2012 for the

centennial celebration of Girl Scouts. Agent of Change119 was a free, non‐commercial, educational mobile

game for Girl Scouts for use on iPhone or digital camera. The game’s narrative took place in the future.

Through war and environmental problems, the world as we know was destroyed. Remaining people lacked

technology, culture, etc. The Girl Scouts’ job was to use magical devices (phones, cameras) to travel to

Washington, DC, visiting museums and sites, ‘collecting’ objects to re‐boot life on earth by photographing

them, upload the pictures to the game website, and collectively discuss and vote for the top objects to save

the world.

These examples of location based games show how mobile technology can be used to unfold a narration

throughout a space and prompt the visitor to play a role and interact with content and context. Although

the user’s motivation in playing a game in a museum setting might be different from the one taking place

for a mobile tour, the barriers that can be encountered are very similar. Kellian Adams120 highlights how

location based games are very different from video games, in which the player’s attention is completely

focused. Experiences designed for a specific location are public rather than private. Players are not alone

but surrounded by people, friends or family, usually immersed in highly stressed environments. As much as

for mobile tours, barriers usage need to be lowered: the user needs to be easily directed into the game,

and overcome limitations such as the lack of Wi‐Fi in the building or a too complicated task to accomplish.

‘It takes fifteen seconds to nevermind’121, if that first level of engagement is not ensured by making the

experience as seamless to access and use as possible.

116 Ibidem 117 Murder at the Met. For more information: http://www.metmuseum.org/metmedia/video/news/murder‐at‐the‐met 118 Spy in the City. For more information: http://www.spymuseum.org/exhibition‐experiences/interactive‐spy‐experiences/spy‐in‐the‐city/ 119 Agents of Change. For more information: http://www.agentsofchangehq.com/ 120 Adams, Kellian. Smithsonian Mobile & Smithsonian Gaming Meeting: Mobile Games in Museums. YouTube. 09 May 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MURPwklkJkY&list=UUwKEkMvIE9sc701IrOH0egw> 121 Ibidem


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It is also important to keep the interaction with the device as simpler as possible. Examples of successful

location based games, such as Ingress122 or Zombie, run!123, require the user to accomplish very simple

tasks achieved by simply tapping on the screen or moving in the space. In this second case, the body

becomes the interface as audio content change according to the location. Thus, the user is immersed in a

narration and the actual interaction with the technology is brought to the minimum.

It is also interesting to note how some of the mobile applications released over the last few years, does not

necessarily follow deep educational aims. Tate Magic Ball124 is an example, providing an experience that

nothing has to do with touring the museum, but rather engaging with the institution, and in particular its

brand. By shaking the device, the app serves the user with art from the Tate’s collection responding to his

or her location. It is interesting to note how, in approaching mobile from a marketing perspective, the final

product can radically change. This example show how mobile experiences are more and more approached

by cross‐departmental teams rather than just one.

Narration delivery methods are also changing, becoming more collaborative and less linear. ‘Explore 9/11’

‘provides a look at history through the eyes of people touched by the event’.125 The app, that can be

defined a mobile memorial, provides a public and private tour through Ground Zero by tapping into the oral

and visual narratives about 9/11. It can be argued that mobile technology transforms our relationships

toward these stories as well as their memorialization creating an evolving and collaborative narrative that

will change as new events will form history’s course. Furthermore, the app ‘place the reader in a fascinating

position because it makes the stories of history and spaces become intensely personal, private and possibly

emotional.’126

Examples as the ones mentioned above generate experiences and immerse the users into scenarios and

stories. Although an immersive experience doesn’t have to be an interactive one, usage of multimedia in

Gallery One, show how the two are very much linked. Some of the examples put visitors into a space and

make him/her go through a story, either following a game narrative or a non‐linear tour through the

collection in which the relation with the space triggers content accordingly. These experiences are

characterized by elements that can lead to a flow, a mental status of completely focused motivation. ‘Flow

is a single‐minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate experience in connecting the emotions

122 Ingress. For more information: http://www.ingress.com/ 123 Zombie Run! For more information: https://www.zombiesrungame.com/ 124 Tate Ball. For more information: http://www.tate.org.uk/context‐comment/apps/magic‐tate‐ball 125 Valentino‐Devries, Jennifer. "App Watch: Museum Looks at 9/11 Through Photos, Stories” ‐ Digits ‐ WSJ. Digits RSS. 10 Sept. 2010. Consulted 01 June 2014. <http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/09/10/app‐watch‐museum‐looks‐at‐911‐through‐photos‐stories/> 126 Farman, Jason. The Mobile Story: Narrative Practices with Locative Technologies. Routledge, 2013


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in the service of performing and learning.’127 Ed Rodley128 lists a series of characteristics that a flow

experience in exhibition environment can have: realism of the illusion, dimensionality, multi‐sensory

stimulation, meaningfulness, mental imagery and lack of interfering factors.

The conditions that support an experience as such for mobile media are similar and overlapping. In

particular, experiences should be multisensory, as much as possible, resulting appealing to sight and sound

as well as having a lack of interfering factors. It can be argued that for mobile technology the interaction

with the device can represent an intrusive element that can hinder the immersion. The mental imagery,

which is defined as the ‘degree to which visitor uses imagination to put himself/herself in the time and

place’129, recalls the concept, common to all the above cited examples, of creating a sense of being

transported to another time or place. An example of this integration, that sums up the characteristics of

mobile immersions as both an ‘escape’ from reality and ‘augmentation’ of the surrounding environment,

comes from Janet Cardiff and George Bureff Miller’s Alter Bahnhof Video Walk.130 The piece was a site

specific art project for the Kassel’s Hauptbahnhof station. By walking through the space holding an iPhone

and pointing it where the artist’s voice indicated, a soundscape populated by performers from an

unspecified moment in the past formed a parallel reality. This new space was overlapped on the space of

the station, creating an emotional state while sight, hear and touch were engaged in the piece.

Mobile media are personal and context specific. In this sense, they can provide content that is relevant to

visitor’s interest and environment in a given moment. Museums are rich of stories that open doors on new

realities and times, while mobile media are ‘portable and spatial (spatially flexible) and thus equipped to

engage with the narratives about space.’131 In fact, they offer the possibility to layer multiple – even

contradictory – stories on a single location. Through mobile media, individual narratives can be supported

and constructed actively: these stories are not directed toward the acquisition of information

communicated by the museum, but rather toward the construction of a very personal interpretation of

museum objects. These considerations make foresees that challenges for mobile media will be geared

toward the incorporation of the Internet of things132 into experiences with objects and collections.

Achieving this will require to find effective and reliable solutions for technologies that support interior

positioning, integrated in mobile interfaces that help visitors find the content that responds to their needs,

interest and context.

127 Source: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29#History.2Fbackground 128 Rodley, Ed. "Tilting at Windmills, Part One." Weblog post. Thinking about Museums. 29 October 2013. Consulted 10 May 2014. <http://exhibitdev.wordpress.com/2013/10/29/tilting‐at‐windmills‐part‐one/> 129 Ibidem 130 Cardiff and Miller Walks. For more information about the piece and other audio walks by the artists: http://www.cardiffmiller.com/artworks/walks/index.html 131 Farman, Jason. The Mobile Story: Narrative Practices with Locative Technologies. Routledge, 2013 132 The internet of things, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_Things

3. Overcoming the audio tour model ‐ The case of SCAPES by Halsey Burgund

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3.1. Defining spaces through sounds

Sound is the primary way most of us receive data, information, and knowledge. While we encounter much

of these through reading, still, and increasingly moving visuals, the majority of our understanding comes

from hearing. Even visual media, such as television and movies, convey the majority of information through

speech and other sounds, and the majority of emotions through music.133

We have been seeing how new technologies allow us to see additional content related to objects or spaces:

historic locations come alive and stories evolve in front of our eyes. Regardless the possibilities enclosed by

virtual and augmented reality, sound still remain an enduring form of augmentation in many contexts.

However, it can be argued that the museum experience is so rooted into being a visual one that sound is

often left aside, entering the museum doors more as a piece of art, rather than a tool for interpretation.

The exhibition Fermata, for example, is characterized by walls of speakers designed by the sound artist

John Henry Blatter and defined by the Washington Post as a gallery show in which ‘you can take in with

your eyes closed. But leave your ears (and your mind) open’.134 The piece showcased around 25 sound

artists expressing through an array of speakers to present their work. By situating Fermata in a physical

space ‘visitors are invited to reevaluate their preconceptions about how sound — and its synesthetic

evocation of the visual — fits into the world of fine art’.135

The relation between sound and location has been further explored by Bluebrain, a musician duo that

created location‐based music compositions that can only be experienced within the designated coordinates

of a physical space. The National Mall136, for example, is a soundtrack for the American park in which sound

changes according to listener’s location. Dan Deacon137 , on the other hand, leverages on opportunities for

participation offered by mobile technology. He reflects on the context of live concerts with an app that

synchronizes sound and light to make audience collectively interact with their smartphones in a shared

performance. In this sense, people re‐connect with the live experience and the fellow participants rather

than playing in isolation with their phones. Deacon reflections could be easily applied to museums contexts

in which mobile experiences, either when offered by the institution as an interpretative media or simply

133 Shedroff, Nathan. Experience Design 1.1. S.l.: Nathan Shedroff, 2009 134 O'Sullivan, Michael. "Spring Arts Preview Galleries: Art on a Whole Other Wavelength Led by Artisphere’s Aural “Fermata.”."Washington Post. The Washington Post, 02 Feb. 2014. Consulted 24 May 2014 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/spring‐arts‐preview‐gallery‐picks/2014/01/31/5a080e12‐82b6‐11e3‐bbe5‐6a2a3141e3a9_story.html> 135 Ibidem 136 Bluebrain. For more information: http://www.bluebra.in/ 137 Dan Deacon. For more information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8UlLBuzy6Q


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related to the personal usage by the visitor, should find the balance between ‘looking around vs looking

down.’138 Possibilities for mobile experiences have been explored by musicians in the mainstream industry

as well: Sound Graffiti by Bob Dylan and Access NIN by Nine Inch Nails. The former is a marketing tool that

supported the release of the album The Tempest, allowing to listen to songs only when standing in specific

locations, thus creating a narrative for the pieces as associated with the life of the singer.139 Closer to

Deacon’s reflection on audience’s behaviors during live events, Access NIN provide a tool for the exchange

of photos and comments that allows users to interact with other fans, according to their location, during

concerts and beyond.140 It is interesting to note how these two examples from the music industry, leverage

on how people already use their devices (listening to music, taking pictures and using social media during

live events), rather than striving to impose new behaviors.

More in general we can observe how interesting experimentations are being conducted beyond the

museum field. ‘There is a huge advantage to working with artists on new platforms, as it is in the nature of

their work to push the boundaries of the technologies, content and approaches we may think we know so

well.’141However, there are fewer cases in which artists actually create experiences with technology that

reflect on a traditional museum interpretation tool. Although being an art piece itself, Scapes, by the

Massachusetts based sound‐artist Halsey Burgund, makes us reflect on possible uses for mobile media in

cultural spaces.

Specifically designed for the deCordova’s Sculpture Park, in Boston, Scapes was an app that visitors could

access through download or by renting a device over a period of 6 months in 2010. The app played with

sound and location to create an evolving narration that changed with the visitor’s own movements and was

enriched by audience’s contributions. Cardiff and Miller’s piece as well as Bluebrain were recorded tracks,

composed and created for a space. Scapes opened up the voice of the artist to the multiplicity of

participants, providing an experience that constantly re‐shaped, not only according to location, but also by

being enriched as much as visitors contributed to it. The Institution, which includes an outdoor area and a

Museum, is the largest park of its kind in New England and displays constantly changing large‐scale,

outdoor, modern and contemporary sculpture as well as site‐specific installations.142

By incorporating Global Positioning System technology (GPS), the app allowed users to get closer to the art

in a very intimate way by listening to other visitors’ descriptions of the sculptures rather than docent‐like,

138 Rodley, Ed. “Looking Around vs. Looking down: Incorporating Mobility into Your Experience Design” in Proctor, Nancy and Jane Burton. Mobile Apps for Museums: The AAM Guide to Planning and Strategy. Washington DC: AAM, 2011 139 Van Buskirk, Eliot. "Evolver.fm." Evolverfm Bob Dylan Busts Out Perfectly Intelligible Yet Elusive IPhone App Comments. 11 Sept.ember2011. Consulted 24 May 2014. <http://evolver.fm/2012/09/11/bob‐dylan‐busts‐out‐perfectly‐intelligible‐yet‐elusive‐iphone‐app/> 140 Access NIN. For more information: http://access.nin.com/nearby/earth 141 Proctor, Nancy. "Keynote at MuseumNext." May 2012. Vimeo. Consulted 22 March 2014 <http://vimeo.com/44404225> 142 DeCordova Sculpture Park. For more information: http://www.decordova.org/about


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curated notions. In addition to this, visitors could participate recording messages by responding to simple

prompts embedded in the app. Voices and messages were coded by location and immediately assimilated

into the system, where they could be played blended together with music. The music part was an ambient

soundtrack composed by Burgund and mixed by the computer, also based on location. The app is very

simple: the main screen offers two choice: listen or speak. More importantly ,’the participant’s body was

the interface to the mobile content. The visitor’s movements literally wrote the mobile experience, in real

time, kinetically.’143This factor limited the actions of the users and the interaction with the device resulting

in a very seamless experience.

Figure 2: Main Screen Scapes

Scapes generated an intimate connection between sound and site, providing a reflection on how the

physical environment and the “invisible” fabric of which people’s experiences are made, shape and re‐

shape each‐others. As explained by the artist, ‘Scapes is about exploring how people experience places,

how certain locations change and how people experience them over time. This component was a very

fascinating thing for me.’144 The possibility to gather up the history of a place in a micro‐community of

people that have been there, putting them in conversations, was one of the primary interests of the artist,

who arrived to this piece after different reflections and technical improvements.

3.2. How did Scapes work?

143 Nancy, Proctor. "MuseumMobile Wiki." Mobile Social Media: Halsey Burgund’s “Scapes” 21 October 2010. Consulted 01 June 2014. <http://wiki.museummobile.info/archives/16082> 144 Burgund, Halsey. Interview to the artist conducted by the writer. February 2014


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Roundware, the platform that supported Scapes and other apps by Halsey Burgund, is a framework that

allows to collect, arrange and re‐present audio contents as well as videos and pictures. Democratization is

at the very core of Burgund’s projects: the first version was built on Nokia tablet computers, but it found its

natural fit with the ubiquity of the iPhone. Not only Burgund’s projects give people democratized access to

artworks and landscapes on a device that more and more people own, but the very structure on which the

experience is built is open‐source, allowing other individuals or company to employ its basic concepts and

tools and to personalize it. The Internet and GPS added another layer to the distributed access the artist

orchestrated, becoming then predominant in his work.

ROUND:Cambridge and Mountain Ghost, created in 2011, are both site‐specific participatory sound art

installations in which Burgund experimented with the ‘raw material’ of people’s thoughts’, applying to

different locations the concept of Scapes.

ROUND:Cambridge explored the public art collection in Cambridge, MA through music and evolving

participants commentaries. Users were able to tag any location in the city with their own recordings which

were immediately available for other participants to hear when in the same location. Here, the possibilities

for participation were much broader than in Scapes. Although the primary inspiration to contribute was

supposed to be triggered by the public art, commentaries could be recorded at any location in the city

turning into invisible graffiti attached to places. Mountain Ghost, on the other hand, was created for a

natural environment, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs campus. ‘Participants are, in effect,

creating “ghosts” from the past that are permanently attached to specific locations’.145

Although the three pieces use a similar dynamic, the different settings impacted the outcomes in a number

of ways, as they influenced the motivation for users to participate. As a museum context, DeCordova’s

Sculpture Park was framed as a clear destination for people already interested in art, while

ROUND:Cambridge represented a much more inclusive environment. The University campus, on the other

hand, provided an environment with relatively young and ‘tech savy’ audience. While ROUND: Cambridge

was a challenge in terms of how to market it and let people know that they can join the piece, Scapes was

more easily addressed toward a smaller and focused audience.146

Any project that asks museum audiences to create content (whether comments, votes, tags, images or

more creative responses) raises issues about authority, trust, expertise and the changing relationship

between cultural and humanities organizations and their public.147 It is important to highlight how, as

participatory experiences, neither Scapes nor any other Roundware projects, had negative or rude

comments. As the artist points out, ‘the audience is already inclined to have respect for art, contemporary

art in particular, and the public was there to have the experience’.

145 Mountain Ghosts. For more information: <http://halseyburgund.com/work/mg/>. 146 Burgund, Halsey. Interview to the artist conducted by the writer. February, 2014 147 Ridge, Mia. "Digital Participation, Engagement and Crowdsourcing in Museums." London Museums Group. 15 August. 2013. Consulted 24 May 2014. <http://www.londonmuseumsgroup.org/2013/08/15/digital‐participation‐engagement‐and‐crowdsourcing‐in‐museums/>


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Burgund also highlights the relationship of trust triggered by the open model of Scapes: ‘by saying, your

comment will become part of the piece is as to say that I trust them. When people are told that they are

trusted are much more willing and act in a way that is worth that trust.’148 Different elements built into the

system also supported positive responses: in fact, comments were immediately assimilated in the piece

producing, on one hand, instant reward for participants while on the other, functioned as a deterrent for

negative behaviors. The app allowed to hear what people had previously done, giving users a feel for what

they were expected to do. This element, associated with the music, ‘brought everything into a greater

whole, and of course inserting yourself in a greater whole in a way that is productive and respectful is

generally what people want to do, as opposed to ruin something.’149

3.3. An analysis of the narrative, personalization and interaction within the Scapes framework

As Nathan Shedroff points out, ‘experiences that allow people to communicate with each other or simply to

be heard tend to be rewarding, satisfying one.’150 In Scapes, encouragement to participate with respect and

positivity was supported by the short and simple prompts the system served when asking for visitors’

contributions:

1. Scapes is an excuse to talk to yourself about anything at all. Go for it.

2. Look straight up and describe what you see.

3. Tell us about someone you wish was here with you right now. Talk to her/him.

4. Tell a story inspired by something you see or feel here.

5. Ask a question of those who come after you.

The questions represented an ‘entry point’ to access the piece as well as a mechanism to sustain the

engagement. Upon recording a message, users could select if they were Female, Male or Child. It is striking

how comments in Scapes resulted as very personal and emotional, sometimes even poetic. The questions

were designed by the artist to support reactions as such, acting in synergy with the surrounding, a mix of

man‐made and natural environment that encouraged self‐reflection, as well as the music, that augmented

the general feel of the place.

‘Is interesting to me that people bring their past experiences and bring themselves to this place rather than

just sort of reflect the place. The questions that I was asking were hopefully willing to encourage that.’151

148 Burgund, Halsey. Interview to the artist conducted by the writer. February, 2014 149 Ibidem 150 Shedroff, Nathan. Experience Design 1.1. S.l.: Nathan Shedroff, 2009 151 Burgund, Halsey. Burgund, Halsey. Interview to the artist conducted by the writer. February, 2014


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The question that received more responses was ‘Scapes is an excuse to talk to yourself about anything at

all. Go for it’, which, although being a rather open prompt, is phrased in a way that inspires self‐reflection.

An analysis of the recordings conducted by the writer assessed that visitors shared very personal point of

views with regard to what they saw, either describing the art or the surrounding environment. In this sense,

Scapes prompted to look at the park as a whole: the sculpture, the and the nature: ‘It looks like somebody

just dropped a giant pearls necklace on the ground…’152; ‘Is this a sculpture or a sculpture of a painting?’;

‘The sun is about to set and is the color of saffron, and is coming through layers and layers of trees,

smearing out. And three kids are playing hide and seek in front of it. It’s gorgeous’.153 The app enhanced the

combination of the art with the space generating ‘a living changing environment that is experienced in a

unique way by every person.’154

Users also shared confessions and stories about themselves, some of them surprisingly intimate and poetic.

For example, ‘Two years ago I was in love with two women, I had to choose which hearth to break. No

matter what choice I made my hearth would break. I made a choice, we have a son now.’155

As Nina Simon highlights, scaffoldings constitute a necessary step in open‐ended activities that require self‐

directed creativity. ‘When it comes to participatory activities, many educators feel that they should

deliberately remove scaffolding to allow participants to fully control their creative experience. This creates

an open‐ended environment that can feel daunting to would‐be participants.’156

Although many responses were inspired by the art and included references to the pieces in the park, the

content of the vast majority of them did go beyond the simple description or statement, moving toward

very personal narrations. At the same time, background noises and sounds, such as steps on the leaves and

the laughs, reveal an active interaction with the surrounding as well as with other visitors.

‘Tell us about someone you wish was here with you right now. Talk to her/him’ triggered fewer personal

responses, but still characterized by a profound and personal narrative. ‘I am looking at all these

newspapers and thinking about my mother who passed in 2007, and one of these newspapers is her

day.’157

‘Tell a story inspired by what you see or feel’ prompted some interesting responses that are worth a deeper

analysis. Again, visitors described what they saw in front of them, either a sculpture or the nature or the

blend of both. However, they reconnected the scenes happening in front of their eyes with themselves and

their personal lives and experiences. ‘Every time I come here it looks like I have never been here before.’158

152 Comment extrapolated by the Scapes database, recording 1719, Female, referring to “Butterfly effect” by Rick Brown (2004) 153 Comment extrapolated by the Scapes database, recording 1741, Female 154 Ibidem 155 Comment extrapolated by the Scapes database, recording 1674, Male 156 Simon, Nina. The Participatory Museum. Santa Cruz, CA: Museum 2.0, 2010. Feb. 2010 157 Comment extrapolated by the Scapes database, recording 1061, Male 158 Comment extrapolated by the Scapes database, recording 1533, Female


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Or even their own opinion or feeling about the art: ‘This is a very disturbing sculpture.’159 Some visitors

even told actual stories, making the sculptures play roles of imaginative scenarios. ‘Once upon a time, in

this spot under these pine trees, or rather between them, cause the giant was much much taller than them.

A pearl necklace snapped, fell to the ground. Arranged itself, perfectly, spiraling around the trunks of the

trees.’160

It can be argued that certain comments broke the boundaries of what a visit to a museum is supposed to be

like. ‘Silence, as a musician, I think a lot of it – explains Halsey Burgund ‐ Silence is a beautiful thing, can be

used to great effect. That say, I have a feeling that there is too much silence in a museum visit. Is not that

silence is a bad thing, I think the balance is more important.’161 Cultural institutions will increasingly

integrate participatory techniques in exhibitions and methods, but very few of them have given up the

traditional and “elitist” approach, which, for contemporary art museums in particular, constitutes the

distinctive mark in style and aesthetic. Important institutions such as the just renovated Stedeljik Museum

in Amsterdam, seems to embrace the inclusive tendency but at the same time, isolate it into side programs

and pop up events, rather than putting it at the core of interpretation in the galleries.

‘People have an inherent need to express themselves’162, however, it can be argued that visitors can be

often intimidated by the ‘white cube’ model, in which aesthetic supersedes interpretation, especially a

subjective one. In the case of Scapes, the open space of the park not only made possible location‐

awareness accuracy that would have been impossible to achieve in a museum‐closed space, but also

contributed to making visitors feel less ‘daunted’ in sharing their comments, as in a combination of art and

nature rather than in a silent hall.

Visitors looked at the art in new ways, as in the following commentaries about the Sol Lewitt sculpture,

Tower (DC) (1989/2009): ‘I think this sculpture is particularly cruel. It invites you to walk around all the way

to the top, it is so simple. But there is a rule: do not climb on sculptures’163; ‘This looks like a giant tower of

sugar cubes, although they are not cubes but rectangles. It’s pretty much what it looks like to me’.164

Some visitors even recorded their shared interpretation process, as in this example in which two visitors

talk to each‐others: ‘So where are we now? What are we looking at? We are looking at a sculpture made

our of stones. Looks like bodies are stocked on top of each‐others. It’s like when you look at the clouds and

try to see if you can see an animal, I’m trying to see what I’m looking at. Is like a woman playing a

159 Comment extrapolated by the Scapes database, recording 1006, Female, referring to “Putto 4 over 4” by Michael Rees (2004) 160 Comment extrapolated by the Scapes database, recording 1670, Female 161 Burgund, Halsey. Burgund, Halsey. Interview to the artist conducted by the writer. February, 2014 162 Shedroff, Nathan. Experience Design 1.1. S.l.: Nathan Shedroff, 2009 163 Comment extrapolated by the Scapes database, recording 1712, Male 164 Comment extrapolated by the Scapes database, recording 1628, Male


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saxophone’.165 It can be argued that without Scapes, visitors wouldn’t have shared these comments as they

might have lacked the confidence to express feeling and opinions. This process was not limited to the single

recording, but added onto each‐others personal views over time generating co‐created processes of

interpretation.

Upon considering if the Scapes model could be applied as an interpretative tool to another museum

setting, it is important to remember that Scapes was primarily an artwork. Among the factors that

contributed to its success, this is probably the most impactful one. As Burgund points out,

an artwork generates different attitudes as opposed to something that is built as an interpretative

experience. People are more open and willing to give part of themselves, because is not that they are

giving that to some institution that is going to, you know […]”disembowel” them and use them for

their own advantage. It is an art piece, so it’s a much more friendly and emotional.166

Furthermore, the artist steps out and doesn’t act as the authority. This is an important challenge for

museums that should understand that the value of a network isn’t in the middle, it’s at the edges, where

the people are.167

In considering how much the Scapes model could be approached by cultural institutions in their mobile

experiences, an analysis of its main characteristics is needed.

The personal dimension

It can be argued that in Scapes the virtual dimension was an overarching layer added on the space of the

park and thus it can’t be solely considered as a digital experience, as it functioned within the physical

context it was built for.

In an in‐gallery museum setting, meaningful experiences can be enhanced by exhibitions, art

collections, or other visitors. On the other hand, in an online museum setting, a meaningful

experience can be achieved by emotional interaction that can bridge the gap between the visitors

and the art collections by creating an environment that can increase intrinsic motivation and

satisfying aspect of their visits.168

165 Comment extrapolated by the Scapes database, recording 1480, Male (although a Female is talking too). Referring to “Jacob’s Dream” by Isaac Witkin (1986) 166 Burgund, Halsey. Burgund, Halsey. Interview to the artist conducted by the writer. February, 2014 167 Michael Edson, conversation with the author, March 2014 168 Chae, Gunho, Robert Stein, Jungwha Kim, and Susan Wiedenbeck. "Exploring Affective Computing for Enhancing the Museum Experience with Online Collections." Museums and the Web. Apr. 2012. Consulted 24 May 2014. <http://www.museumsandtheweb.com/mw2012/papers/exploring_affective_computing_for_enhancing_th.html>


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Scapes brings these two components together creating a synergy.

In the last years, museums have been reflecting on how to engage visitors in the galleries enhancing the

personal dimension of the visit. The discussion often reflects upon the possibility for the audience to take

pictures in the galleries. Mobile devices are, for many of us, one of the most intimate technologies: we use

them throughout the day without even thinking about it. At the same time, actions and gestures associated

with this technology have become more and more natural. Taking a picture with a phone, for example, is an

integrated part of the body language of digital technologies use in everyday life.169 The lack of this personal

component was a concern for MoMA when the team that worked at the renovated MoMA Audio + decided

to hand out devices rather than relying on BYOD only. Surprisingly, by integrating the photo features in the

devices, the museum achieved that level of connection: the feature is in fact extremely popular and allows

users to connect the MoMA experience with their own.170

By the same token, it can be argued that the possibility to record self‐reflecting stories and embed them in

the piece as well as the surrounding space established the connection in Scapes, regardless the ownership

of the device. In a way, the experience put the visitors at the center engaging them through a dynamic that

made them express their dreams, aspirations as well as imagination; In this sense, the experience left a

mark, an impression on who they are.

The narrative dimension

Stories put us in touch with ourselves, others, and our surroundings. Through technology, audiences can

make personal connections to visual art and museum artifacts by means of new ways of storytelling.

However, as argued by Jasper Visser, we can’t talk about digital storytelling but ‘only storytelling in the

digital age, and this isn’t much different from storytelling in the age of hunters, gatherers, dinosaurs and

ICQ’. Visser continues by saying that this doesn’t mean it cannot be challenging to tell a story people react

upon online. On any given moment, hundreds of stories are unfolding around you, on Facebook, Twitter,

and in niche social spaces.171

Stories, and in particular personal ones, are at the very essence of Scapes. However, ‘the idea of “narrative”

tends to put forth an idea of a cohesive, linear story about a site, an event or a community.’172 In this sense,

Scapes is certainly a form of non‐linear storytelling. As the artist points out, this has sort of a progression.

169 Nova, Nicholas, Katherine Myhake, Walton Chiu, and Nancy Known. "Curious Rituals Book!" CURIOUS RITUALS. Near Future Laboratory, Consulted 25 May 2014. <http://curiousrituals.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/curious‐rituals‐book/> 170 Burnette, Allegra, Tiya Gordon, Colette Hiller, Koven Smith, and Alice Walker. "Third Space: How Digital Experiences Break Down Museum Walls." AAM Annual Meeting and MuseumExpo 2014. Seattle. 22 May 2014. Speech 171 Visser, Jasper. "Digital Storytelling: How to Tell a Story That Stands out in the Digital Age? | The Museum of the Future | Museums and Culture in times of Social and Technological Change." The Museum of the Future. 11 October 2012. Consulted 26 May 2014. <http://themuseumofthefuture.com/2012/10/11/digital‐storytelling‐how‐to‐tell‐a‐story‐that‐stands‐out‐in‐the‐digital‐age/> 172 Farman, Jason. The Mobile Story: Narrative Practices with Locative Technologies. Routledge, 2013


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There are small individuals telling individual stories in a certain specific spots, that can be very short,

then you have the group of people telling their stories. And then you look at the whole project as

kind of a story of that space over that period of time. And that is something you can’t experience in a

linear, direct way. Rather in an infinite numbers of ways.173

Visitors shared fragments of their personal stories, for example ‘I am not sure that the black hearts that

can’t face each others are really what I need to see today’174, and listeners could grasp a feeling, an

impression of a bigger narrative that could move forward through imagination and be inspired by further

recordings as well as the park itself. In this sense, the traditional notion of storytelling can’t be really

applied to new media but rather ‘embrace the subjective experiences of the storyteller and the reader – or

in Scapes case the listener – and thus offers narrative practices that encourage fragmentation, limited point

of view, and the insertion of many voices to help offset the limited perspectives of the storyteller or the

reader.’175

The multiplicity and complexity of contemporary narrative approaches, does not apply to new media only,

but rather influence different practices. Theatre is one of these, and examples can be found in participatory

and immersive theatre performances.

‘Sleep no More’ is an example of ‘immersive exploration rather than linear storytelling.’176 It is a theatrical

experience produced by the company Punchdrunk177, that combines elements of Macbeth and film noir,

and takes place in an abandoned hotel in New York City. The audience are all given white masks and

instructed to remain completely silent during the three hours the play takes place. They wonder around the

building that slowly populates with actors moving up and down stairs and performing different scenes.

There is not a given guidance on how to experience the play: people can follow actors or explore the

spaces, opening drawers and doors. At the end of the experience, the audience get just a fragment of the

whole narration as each member of the public can only decide to follow one element of the plot at a time.

Nonetheless, the experience is very powerful and the story leads through a rich space, definitely generating

a memorable experience.

173 Burgund, Halsey. Interview to the artist conducted by the writer. February, 2014 174 Comment extrapolated by the Scapes database, Male, referring to “Two big black hearts” by Jim Dine (1985) 175 Farman, Jason. The Mobile Story: Narrative Practices with Locative Technologies. Routledge, 2013 176 Chan, Sebastian. "On Sleep No More, Magic and Immersive Storytelling." Fresh Newer RSS. 23 May 2012. Consulted 26 May 2014. <http://www.freshandnew.org/2012/05/sleep‐more‐magic‐immersive‐storytelling/> 177 Punchdrunk. For more information: http://punchdrunk.com/


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The immersive dimension

Sleep no More also represents an example of an immersive and non‐linear experience. If we look at how

this concept could be applied to mobile (un)tours in museums, it can be argued that the non‐linear has

been associated with lack of immersion.

Although profoundly fragmented, Scapes has many elements that make us reflect on its categorization as a

flow experience. The constant stream of content, paired with the location‐aware feature, made the user

wonder around freely without having to interact with the device or jumping back and forth from the space

created by the piece to the actual space of the park. As already mentioned, in a random access tour, the

discontinuity caused by having to connect the pieces is one of the main limitations in sustaining a narrative

and wrapping up the listener into a new world. But in Scapes this disconnection among the different voices

was unified and brought together by the music that connected the pieces making them emerge and blend

with each‐others. In Scapes ‘the “soundtrack” is a‐linear’178, as visitors could move into a space by being

guided by the technology, but at the same time, guiding the experience: a balance that is still difficult to

achieve in traditional tours, regardless the platforms. Furthermore, audio made visitors’ eyes free. This

feature, in particular, created and sustained the immersion.

‘I think about the constant stream of music as the ocean, and the voices are the creatures that live in the

ocean. […] It’s the feeling that you are in. And then you run into these inhabitants, these Scapes voices. If

the voices existed without the ocean, as soon as you are not listening to something you would have been

out of the experience, and then back in.’179

The vast majority of the comments were recorded in the park and it has been noted that the ones recorded

outside of the experience were not really meaningful (e.g. a man whistling, noises). As already mentioned,

the experience was strictly integrated within the space that was built for, turning it into a multisensory one,

as users interacted with the surrounding environment in unexpected ways.

Many of them were in fact walking, rather than standing in front of a sculpture. Others, were following

companions or fellow visitors, laughing, sometimes even talking together. Both the physical interaction and

the dialogues that emerge from some of the comments, make us reflect on another important component:

the creation of a synergy between an immersive experience and a collective one. Such a combination is

often difficult to achieve with technology but also in “analogue” immersive experiences. As we have seen

for the case of immersive theatre, the masks in Sleep no More make participants being literally “zombied

out” and walk across the space limiting thier interaction. If we look at audio tours, we can see that Antenna

International brought the immersive component by adding stereo headphones. Prior to that, Acousticguide

178 Nancy, Proctor. "MuseumMobile Wiki." Mobile Social Media: Halsey Burgund’s “Scapes”. 21 Oct. 2010. Consulted 01 June 2014. <http://wiki.museummobile.info/archives/16082> 179 Burgund, Halsey. Interview to the artist conducted by the writer. February, 2014


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produced devices with one earplug only: this meant that with the other ear, visitors could hear what

happened in the surrounding. And when it comes to apps, ‘so far, museums as an aggregate have not

effectively harnessed the full social learning potential of mobile apps, in part because they have not aimed

their mobile projects at capitalizing on the museum space as uniquely social. For the most part, museums

have adopted relatively anti‐social strategies.’180

The case of Scapes is particularly interesting in this sense. Although the system allowed users to identify

themselves as individual participants, and the listening mode triggered a rather solitary experience, social

interaction occurred and was sustained on three different levels.

The first level was related to the recorded conversations: the app became an open microphone that visitors

would use to collect group commentaries related to what they were seeing.

‘Ok, what do you think of these pine cones?’ – refers to the sculpture Cones by Ronald Gonzales – ‘… not

much to say’ […] laugh […] ‘I think they are made of actual pine cones’ […] laugh […] ‘Do you think they

would be more interesting if they were made of actual pine cones? That’s all we have to say about the pine

cones.’181 Comments as such naturally occur throughout a museum visit, regardless the use of a digital tool.

The playful nature of the comments and the giggles that can be heard in the background, reveal that the

social interaction was already happening but the app didn’t prevent it, rather sustained the preexistent

social dynamic.

The second level of interaction included the possibility to respond to other visitors commentaries or leave

messages to them.

‘If you are hearing this, you must have discovered the same path we discovered. And you must be one of

the only few that knows that you can actually walk down to the water at deCordova’s. So we are all walking

down to explore what we can see at the waterfront.’ 182

‘I left something for you. Can you find it? It’s inside.’ 183

‘What is it that you call a rectangular, tridimensional object? Is not a cube but…’ 184

People visiting together also recorded messages for the persons they were coming with, sharing what they

were hearing. In this sense, the type of interaction supported by Scape was user‐to‐user, rather than user‐

to‐device, as it happens in many mobile experiences. In Scapes, in fact, the device was just a medium to

deliver a message and not the final means of the experience.

180 Fisher, Matthew, and Jennifer Moses. "MW2013: Museums and the Web 2013." MW2013 Museums and the Web 2013. Apr. 2013. Consulted 27 May 2014. <http://mw2013.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/rousing‐the‐mobile‐herd‐apps‐that‐encourage‐real‐space‐engagement/> 181 Comment extrapolated by the Scapes database, recording 1727, Male 182 Comment extrapolated by the Scapes database, recording 1733, Male 183 Comment extrapolated by the Scapes database, recording 1504, Female 184 Comment extrapolated by the Scapes database, recording 1629, Female


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The third level of social interaction indicates how Scapes supported a truly social dynamic which so far has

been very difficult to obtain in mobile experiences.

‘I think Scapes does encourage perhaps kind of bouncing back and forth between socializing and not.

There’s no doubt that a large part of the experience is just you kind of listening. For people coming in

groups, the prevalent mode seemed that they would start out, wonder in different directions and then they

come back together.’185 It can be argued that onsite social interaction should be supported by the mobile

experience, instead of occurring within it. Rather than communicating through the digital tool only, visitors

had conversations in the ‘real world’ that were triggered by the digital one.

Many comments suggest this dynamic: visitors left messages to each‐others in different spots, but also

prompted their friends to go on a certain spot and listen to particularly interesting contributions. As

described by Ed Rodley in his review of the app, ‘at one point a woman said “I’m looking at a giant tree

root, it’s all gnarled. I’m not sure if it’s art but I’m not sure that matters.” I went over to share my latest

discovery and my friend said, “That was me! I said that!” I don’t think we would have shared that

observation if we’d just been talking.’186

As already mentioned, what made Scapes successful was a combination of factors and in particular the

element that the app ‘spoke the voice of the artist’ rather than the museum’s. The latter, would have been

traditionally delivered through an audio tour rather than a bi‐directional experience. As the artist points

out, ‘if Scapes would have not been sold as Halsey Burgund piece, but as a regular audio tour, people would

have listened to it for a second and then would have gone back to the desk saying “This is completely

wrong”.’187 In this sense, examples of application of Roundware to museum contexts, offered to the public

as interpretative media rather than art pieces or performances, generated puzzlement among visitors as it

will be analyzed later on in discussing the app Access American Stories.

Visitors expectations tend to connect mobile interpretation in museums as means to access information,

media, and communications. As already mentioned, studies reveal that tours, and thus information about

the exhibit, are what audiences would like to have when visiting a museum. Besides the already analyzed

percentages around audio guides in the first chapter, researches has also shown that visitors only read a

small percentage of the wall labels and panels in the museum188. As a consequence, institutions should

strive to provide ‘meaning rather than information only’189. The ‘third space’, defined as the dimension in‐

between the personal and the public environment, is the component that museums should take into

185 Burgund, Halsey. Interview to the artist conducted by the writer. February, 2014 186 Rodley, Ed. "Review of Scapes." 21 Oct. 2010. Consulted 31 May 2014 <http://www.exhibitfiles.org/scapes> 187 Burgund, Halsey. Interview with the artist conducted by the writer. February, 2014 188 Knudson, D., Cable, T. & Beck, Interpretation of Cultural and Natural Resources. State College, PA: Venture Publishing Inc., 2003 189 Laura Mann, intervention by the author during the session "Third Space: How Digital Experiences Break Down Museum Walls." AAM Annual Meeting and MuseumExpo 2014. Seattle. 22 May 2014


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account in rethinking orientation spaces and ‘designing their experiences for emotions’. In this sense, the

first space would be what we do with our devices at home, in our private and personal dimension, while

the second space would be connected to the public space, as for example when using our phones in the

galleries. The second space is generated by traditional audio guides and orientation mobile tours.190 As the

comments in Scapes revealed, the ‘stream of consciousness’ occurring during an art museum visit is more

about feelings and impressions rather than structured thoughts. Mobile can contribute in harnessing those

emotions and augmenting the personal components of the experience, rather than turning the fruition of a

space into a bigger load of information.

190 Burnette, Allegra, Tiya Gordon, Colette Hiller, Koven Smith, and Alice Walker. "Third Space: How Digital Experiences Break Down Museum Walls." AAM Annual Meeting and MuseumExpo 2014. Seattle. 22 May 2014. Speech

4. From headphones to microphones: Roundware at the Smithsonian

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4. From headphones to microphones191: Roundware at the Smithsonian

The Web 2.0 paradigm has challenged the relationship between experts and non‐experts and the role that

both have in the development, preservation and communication of knowledge. Democratization and

shared creation, are sustained by the growth of the Social Web, in which potentially everybody can

contribute in the dissemination of knowledge. Social networking sites, blogs, and wikis are just a few

examples of platforms that make possible this kind of opening. As Charles Leadbeater and Paul Miller point

out, the twentieth century was shaped by the rise of professionals. From education, science and medicine,

to banking, business and sports, formerly amateur activities became more organized, whilw knowledge and

procedures were codified and regulated. ‘As professionalism grew, often with hierarchical organizations

and formal systems for accrediting knowledge, so amateurs came to be seen as second‐rate. Amateurism

came to be to a term of derision. Professionalism was a mark of seriousness and high standards.’192 The

authors define “Pro‐Am” the amateurs who work to professional standards, a category that has

revolutionized amateurism. Key element of this change is technology, that helps “Pro‐Am” to gather and

co‐create. Open source software, like Linux193, and platforms, like Wordpress194, are just examples of how

this new category organizes to create solutions that expand and benefit from collaboration and exchange.

In this sense, Clay Shinky talks about the disruptive power of collaboration195 , which is changing the way

we work and even think. The author explains that ‘abundance breaks more things than scarcity. Society’s

really good at managing scarcity. If something is really valuable but hard to do, we develop a profession and

we have all these pricing models […]. Once something becomes so cheap that it’s not worth metering

anymore, that’s when real social change happens.’

Media organizations, together with museums, universities and others ‘gatekeepers of knowledge’, are

being challenged from the Web as a platform for interaction that harnesses the wisdom of the crowds and

collective intelligence.196 The recent leak of the New York Time’s digital strategy197, gives a glimpse of how a

media organization is trying to respond to the digital disruption. The strategy highlights the notion that

191 Nancy, Proctor. "Nancy Proctor Keynote at MuseumNext." Vimeo. May 2012. Consulted 01 June 2014. <http://vimeo.com/44404225> 192 Leadbeater, Charles, and Paul Miller. The Pro‐am Revolution: How Enthusiasts Are Changing Our Society and Economy. London: Demos, 2004 193 Computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux 194 Open source platform for personal publishing and CMS: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPress 195 Shinky, Clay. "The Disruptive Power of Collaboration: An Interview with Clay Shirky." McKinsey & Company. Mar. 2014. Consulted 07 June 2014 <http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/high_tech_telecoms_internet/The_disruptive_power_of_collaboration_An_interview_with_Clay_Shirky?cid=other‐eml‐alt‐mip‐mck‐oth‐1403> 196 O'Reilly, Tim. "What Is Web 2.0.Design patterns and business models for the next generation of softwares" O'Reilly. N.p., 30 Sept. 2005. Consulted 07 June 2014. <http%3A%2F%2F%20oreilly.com%2Fweb2%2Farchive%2Fwhat‐is‐web‐20.%20html> 197 NYT Innovation Report 2014. Scribd. BuzzFeed Docs, Apr. 2014. Consulted 04 June 2014. <http://www.scribd.com/doc/224332847/NYT‐Innovation‐Report‐2014>


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social networks thrive on human to human connections. As a consequence, there has been a shift from

linking of information to linking of people198. With the rise of the networked era, Museums have been

witnessing a growth in communities of interest and in how these relate with content and collections. More

in general, the very definition of community has changed: today, people have much more possibilities to

join a community of interest. The concept of ‘heritage community’ , introduced by the Faro Convention199 ,

broaden the idea of a community simply based on diversities, either geographical or social. In fact, in the

attempt of being inclusive, this latter approach, may results in creating exclusion and generate boundaries

in the construction of the very concept of community. Furthermore, community engagement is a process of

interaction through which the significance is created, a process of ‘heritage building’, meaning that heritage

is not fixed but created for purposes. In this sense, museums are more and more experimenting with

participatory experiences that open curation and meaning making to communities.

By putting their collections online, cultural institutions websites have become source of information about

objects that might not even exit the storages. This tendency has attracted people, from scholar to

researches, as well as amateurs, in contributing information to these collections. In this sense, the

knowledge about the objects that the museum disseminates, traditionally univocal and authoritarian, is

being opened up to the one that is created outside the institution. Museums are starting to experiment

with crowd‐sourcing to leverage on specific expertise as well as the willingness of users to carry out tasks

that the museum wouldn’t have the capacity for. Cataloguing, transcribing, verbally describing, are some of

the most common activities that can be crowd‐sourced. Among these, cataloguing provides an interesting

example. When objects are put online they are assigned tags, which are basically search terms, metadata

connected to the artifact, through which information about them can be found. The Brooklyn Museum

shows how this practice can be opened up to ensure not only access to the collections, but also relevancy.

The Museum started a game‐like social tagging activity through which users can assign tags to an object.

This ensures that the online artefacts are easily catalogued by relying on a labor force that the museum

couldn’t have otherwise. Besides, the ‘goal with tagging on our site is not just to gain search terms, but also

to allow our visitors ownership of the collection by tagging on their terms and then attributing those tags

publicly to their own Posse accounts. In this way, tagging becomes a social activity on our site.’200

The “free labor” component of crowdsourcing is only a narrow part of crowdsourcing's appeal, especially

for cultural institutions. As Trevor Owens highlights, ‘the process of crowdsourcing projects fulfills the

198 Wesch, Michael. "Web 2.0 ... The Machine Is Us/ing Us." YouTube. YouTube, 31 Jan. 2007. Consulted 07 June 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE&feature=kp> 199 Council of Europe ‐ Council of Europe Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (CETS No. 199), 2005 200 Shelley, Mike, and Jen Paul. "Brooklyn Museum Collection, Posse, and Tag! You're It!" Museums and the Web, Apr. 2009. Consulted 07 June 2014 <http://www.museumsandtheweb.com/nominee/brooklyn_museum_collection_posse_and_tag_youre_it.html>


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mission of digital collections better than the resulting searches. That is, when someone sits down to

transcribe a document they are actually better fulfilling the mission of the cultural heritage organization

than anyone who simply stops by to flip through the pages’.201Jasper Visser makes a similar point in

considering crowdsourcing as a means in involving the people in designing and doing things that are

culturally relevant to them202. Meaning making and collaborative creation, should thus be the main

objective in building activities that make use of the “wisdom of the crowd”. Increasingly, crowd‐sourced

online initiatives prompt participants to share stories along with other historical, artistic or scientific

information. Projects as such, do not aim at becoming an even bigger repository of information around a

certain subject, but rather add multitude perspectives that can make that very same subject more relevant

to people. The idea that the process is far more important than the final product, applies to crowd‐funding

initiatives as well. As Stephanie Pereira, Kickstarter’s Art Program Director, points out, crowd‐funding

campaigns should be considered as public programs aimed at building communities, rather than merely

raising funds. Thus, the human voice as well as the emotional approach, can determine the success of a

project.203

These fundamental shifts in the relation museums have with their audience, has brought about two

fundamental challenges. On one hand, institutions worry about bad comments that may come from

participants; on the other, visitors expect the museum to be an authority relying on its traditional role.

When involved in projects that open up that authority to external contributions, they might not enjoy the

experience.

Among the many online crowdsourcing initiatives, the Smithsonian Institution has particularly embraced

this model engaging audience in digitally transcribe documents as well as collecting oral history from users

to create new meaning for objects.204 In particular, the Smithsonian mobile strategy motto is ‘Recruit the

world’, underlying the potential embedded in mobile devices to allow visitors not only to listen to what the

museum has to say, but also to talk back and contribute on a series of levels. In fact, new opportunities for

201 Owens, Trevor. "Crowdsourcing Cultural Heritage: The Objectives Are Upside Down." TrevorOwens.org. 10 Mar. 2012. Consulted 07 June 2014. <http://www.trevorowens.org/2012/03/crowdsourcing‐cultural‐heritage‐the‐objectives‐are‐upside‐down/> 202 Visser, Jasper. "About Crowdsourcing and Us | The Museum of the Future | Museums and Culture in times of Social and Technological Change." The Museum of the Future. Consulted 07 June 2014. <http://themuseumofthefuture.com/2011/01/27/about‐crowdsourcing‐and‐us/> 203 Gasparotti, Valeria. "Kickstarter: Turning Crowdfunding Into Community Building." #svegliamuseo. 3 June 2014. Consulted 07 June 2014. <http://www.svegliamuseo.com/en/kickstarter‐quando‐il‐crowdfunding‐diventa‐community‐building/> 204 The Smithsonian Digital Volunteers program ask users to help transcribing documents from the collection: https://transcription.si.edu/ Smithsonian Community of Gardens is a digital archive hosted by Smithsonian Gardens in partnership with Archives of American Gardens and created through the contributions of the users through images, videos, and stories. Community of Gardens wants to communicate the meaning and value of gardens to American life ‐‐ today and in the future. Community of Gardens is the Smithsonian's digital home for sharing and preserving the stories of gardens and the gardeners who make them grow: https://communityofgardens.si.edu/


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sustained engagement both within and beyond the museums’ walls have been realized in mobile apps that

use crowdsourcing, peer‐to‐peer learning, and collaborative creation.205

4.1. Access American Stories

An example of this process is the app Access American Stories. Developed on Roundware, the platform

created by Halsey Burgund for Scapes, it allows visitors of the exhibition ‘American Stories’ to contribute

with verbal descriptions of the objects on view to ensure access to some of the most iconic artefacts of the

collection to blind and partly‐sighted visitors.206 One of the most important findings that emerged from a

usability study on the app conducted in 2012, is that everyone enjoyed the verbal descriptions contributed

by visitors. In fact, both listening to and contributing descriptions of collection objects ‘opens the eyes of

sighted visitors to the museum as well.’207

Figure 3: Main Screen Access American Stories

The interface of the app is very similar to Scapes as the splash screen gives the user two options: “listen” or

“speak”. Since interior positioning is not present in the building, the app serves the user with a basic map of

the room that filters content based on the chronological era the exhibition is divided into. Comments can

205 Proctor, Nancy. "Smithsonian Mobile 2013 Review, Strategy & Planning." Smithsonian 2.0. N.p., 21 Oct. 2013. Web. 07 June 2014. <http://smithsonian20.si.edu/2013/10/21/smithsonian‐mobile‐2013‐review‐strategy‐planning/>. 206 Leafsnap. For more information: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/leafsnap/id430649829?mt=8 207 Proctor, Nancy; Burgund, Halsey. "The Access App Platform." Smithsonian 2.0 16 Nov. 2013. Consulted 01 June 2014. <http://smithsonian20.si.edu/2013/11/16/the‐access‐app‐platform/>


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be also filtered between visitors’ or staff’s. By tapping on “listen”, comments are streamed in a constant

loop. Upon recording a message, users are asked if they want to describe an object, give suggestions on

additional objects that may be included in the exhibition, describe their experience or respond to

something they have heard. As in Scapes, recorded comments are immediately assimilated in the system.

Users that listen to the stream can flag or “like” descriptions in an attempt to crowd‐source moderation: if

they hear a comment that is inappropriate they can highlight it for review.

The exhibition ‘American Stories’ opened on April 12, 2012 at the National Museum of American History. It

uses over 100 historic and cultural objects from the Museum's collections as entryways to stories of people,

inventions, issues and events that have shaped the American experience. American Stories is designed as

an introductory experience to American history.

Highlights include:

• a fragment of Plymouth rock

• Benjamin Franklin's walking stick

• Abraham Lincoln’s gold pocket watch

• a sunstone capital from the Mormon temple at Nauvoo, Illinois

• Dorothy's ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz

• Bob Dylan's jacket

• Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves

• Archie Bunker's chair

• Kermit the Frog (during the timeframe in which this research was conducted, Kermit the Frog was

substituted with Miss Piggy, the popular Muppet character).

The exhibition contains many elements that are meant to trigger an emotional state. On one hand, the

topic, the iconicity and the familiarity of the objects, want to engage visitors with personal memories and

stories. On the other, “immersive” elements, such as music placed in particular spots and elements of the

design, want to sustain a state of remembrance, pride and personal memory.

Furthermore, the space includes an area in which visitors can make suggestions for objects that may be

particularly representative for the American culture and they may want to include in the display. Evaluation

of the exhibition, which included surveys as well as qualitative interviews, revealed that American visitors

were given a sense of pride and patriotism toward the explored content.208

In some way, the context in which the app taps into, is already geared toward the creation of an emotional

state as well as the creation of an environment in which audiences can have a shared experience. Adding

208 A Study of Visitors to American Stories at the National Museum of American History. Smithsonian Institution Office of Policy and Analysis, July 2012


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onto a usability study conducted on the app209, the writer carried out ten qualitative interviews to the on‐

site users, focused on understanding whether the mobile tool could “augment” that emotional state

making the experience more meaningful.210 Visitors were asked to roam the exhibition without using the

app, and later were given a device, asked to go through the space a second time using the mobile

application. The interviews focused on a comparison between the two experiences. Overall, interviewed

visitors shared positive comments about the exhibition, finding connections with familiar objects and

stories. In most of the cases, the app enhanced this feeling, adding an engaging and inspiring personal

touch to their understanding of the objects. The majority of the interviewed visitors, defined the mobile

experience as ‘an audio tour with emotions’. This element is confirmed by the recordings that can be heard

through the app: many comments, although focusing on the description of the objects, includes personal

views, memories and perspectives. As for example, ‘I am standing in front of the Apple computer from the

1980. This is the first computer that I have ever programmed on. […]’;

‘I am visiting the museum with my grandfather and we thought it would be cool if you had one of the first

edition of the Obama Spiderman comic book. […]’;

A narrative component is also present in some of the comments, that invite listeners to share the way they

look at and “feel” the objects.

‘Take a look at the wedding dress. […] Stand back for a moment. It might look normal. Walk closer, and

guess what king of fabric that is: silk?. What do you think is made out of? […] You would never think that

this dress is made out of a parachute’.

‘I’m looking at a typewriter […] it is almost like a piece of furniture it must have been difficult to write on it

if we think about modern computers’.

It is interesting to note how many of the surveyed visitors declared that they made use of interpretative

tools (labels and panels) when visiting the exhibition without the app. While the experience of the exhibit

appealed them toward known or attractive artefacts, when using the app they were conducted to objects

that they wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. In fact, contents are served randomly as visitors can’t control

which kind of story they can hear within a certain section. In the usability analysis this lack of control was

seen as a major limitation, however, it lead visitors to explore the exhibition searching for objects and in

some cases this determined unexpected encounters. This component can be connected to what Elizabeth

Neely discusses: ‘when visitors are given a choice (for example dialing the number of the object so they can

209 Access American Stories App, Final Report Usability Study. Smithsonian Institution Office of Policy and Analysis, December 2012 210 Gasparotti, Valeria. Series of qualitative interviews to the on‐site users of the app Access America Stories, March 2014


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listen to the associated content), they tend to look for what they know and this may limit possibilities for

engagement with less known collections.’211

Successful engagement with the content of the app was also determined by highly iconic pieces toward

which the vast majority of visitors could relate. Personal interests and beliefs highly influenced the

perception of the content. Cultural background also seems to influence reactions. Not‐American users were

highly engaged with objects that represent more general ideals, such as the wedding cake top that

celebrate the introduction of gay marriages. Visitors were enthusiastic to hear descriptions and were

prompted to record a message as well. American visitors, on the other hand, were attracted by a variety of

stories, including those related to historic objects. This element confirms how emotional responses are

culturally influenced and mediated.

Motivation to contribute was less uniform among the surveyed users. Only two of them decided to record a

message. Their main motivation was helping the Museum in verbally describe objects for blind visitors. It

can be argued that the lack of explanation on the main purpose of the app, may have influenced visitors’

understanding of the project and thus impacted the number of contributions. Visitors who decided not to

do so, in fact, declared that they didn’t know enough about the objects to be able to contribute in a

meaningful way.

As Nina Simon points out, in online participation, the “90‐9‐1” principle applies. ‘This principle states: “In

most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little,

and 1% of users account for almost all the action’. More broadly, even within gallery context, there are

some people who are drawn to create, but many more prefer to participate in other ways, by critiquing,

organizing, and spectating social content.212 While Nina Simon encourages to design contextual and diverse

types of participation to satisfy different degrees of involvement, Ed Rodley points out that ‘recruiting

visitors to be collaborators, and not just passive consumers of the museum’s knowledge and content’213 can

be a more effective way to engage with them. In this sense, engaging visitors in doing something useful and

helpful for the museum should trigger participation.

Locating the objects in ‘American Stories’ was a major limitation, as also identified in the usability research.

Upon hearing the stream of comments, all the surveyed visitors were prompted to go stand in front of the

described artifacts, looking for a multi‐sensorial experience. Orientation resulted to be very difficult and

limited a seamless immersion with the content, as visitors couldn’t find the artefacts described in the app.

211 Neely, Elizabeth. Series of interviews on mobile tours take‐up rates. Valeria Gasparotti, April 2014 212 Simon, Nina. The Participatory Museum. Santa Cruz, CA: Museum 2.0, Feb. 2010 213 Rodley, Ed. “Looking Around vs. Looking down: Incorporating Mobility into Your Experience Design” in Proctor, Nancy and Jane Burton. Mobile Apps for Museums: The AAM Guide to Planning and Strategy. Washington DC: AAM, 2011


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It is interesting to note how the usability study revealed that some users felt not interested in the

comments, as they would have expected curators’ contributions. The writer’s study, on the other hand,

didn’t report any of these complaints. This can probably be related to the fact that in the usability study,

information about the project were not provided to the surveyed users, while the users surveyed by the

writer were approached with a description of what the apps is. Some of the users from the first study

declared that they were not satisfied from the provided information: in other words, they expected the

content that a traditional audio tour would provide: curated and informative, rather than personal and not

homogeneous. This discrepancy proves the role that marketing and communication of a mobile product

have in impacting the experience and should inform practitioners in thinking about communication as an

integrated piece in the release of mobile tools. Furthermore, it acknowledges visitors’ diversity in

consuming experiences: for some visitors, in fact, the personal aspect of the recordings can be highly

relevant and facilitate a connection with the objects, for others, facts and information may represent the

primary interest.

Through this app, the unidirectional model of the audio tour is transformed, and used to achieve a broader

access of the objects on exhibition. A number of others Smithsonian apps make use of the same platform,

experiment with crowdsourcing on different topics and with different aims. Leafsnap identifies tree species

from photographs of their leaves, and in the process help create a biodiversity map of the US eastern

seaboard; The Will to Adorn214, gathers oral history about the choices someone makes every day when

dresses for school, work, fun, or special occasions. Chris Andersen points out how by enlisting ‘citizens

curators’ the Smithsonian would become the Wikipedia of the physical world. However, it can be argued

that these mobile experiences do not only collect facts and information but rather add a more complex

layer, a personal one, that can’t be defined with information transmission only. By collecting stories,

impressions and feeling, the Institution is not just acquiring the multifaceted narration of an object, but

also its ‘emotional footprints’. In this sense, the notion that the human brain can be conceptualized as

either ‘affective’ or ‘cognitive’, ‘does not represent how people react and think as they go through a gallery.

As they think and feel simultaneously’ 215 while being influenced by cultural backgrounds and different

elements of their visits. Thus, a mobile experience designed to be used in a specific space should act in

concert with exhibition design to accommodate this dynamic. It can be argued that knowledge and

meaning have to be convergent rather than thinking about the first one as a consequence of the second.

214 The Will to Adorn. For more information: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the‐will‐to‐adorn/id645183356 215 Watson, Sheila. "Emotions in the History Museum." Wiley Online Library, 07 June 2014. <http%3A%2F%2Fonlinelibrary.wiley.com%2Fdoi%2F10.1002%2F9781118829059.wbihms992%2Fpdf>


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4.2. Stories on Main Street

The Museum on Main Street (MoMS) program is the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service’s

initiative that involves small town audiences. The program, started in 1991, creates, produces and ships

Smithsonian travelling exhibitions to rural communities in the United States in their own Main Street

museums, historical societies and other cultural venues. Exhibitions usually focus on broad topics related to

American culture and history, such as music, work, migration and traditions. In 2011, MoMS developed an

app, Stories From Main Street, to record and collect the stories of audiences living in these rural

communities. The mobile app was the result of MoMS reflections on possible technology integrations of

the exhibition ‘The Way We Worked’. The show was focused on the history, developments and diversity of

the American workforce, which shapes the culture and results in migration, advancements and societal

transformations. The team wanted a solution to gather videos and materials from the communities the

exhibition would have travelled to over the years. Roundware offered them the possibility to record stories

through audio, along with the flexibility of the mobile platform, as opposed to video kiosks and other more

expensive solutions. The app was initially built for iOS and in 2012 an Android version was released as well.

A website, which includes the possibility to add videos and photos, other than audio recordings, was also

fairly recently implemented.

When the app was built, basically by re‐skinning the Scapes app, five iPads were sent in the first tour in five

different locations. Connectivity was one of the main challenges for the team, as many of the rural

museums the Institution works with don’t have WiFi connection available, so they had to add a data plan to

ensure that everything would work. Furthermore, the app was integrated in the exhibition as a docent‐led

activity. People would found a docent explaining the app and handing them the device to contribute, rather

than having to download it on their phones and rely on personal data plan. But the MoMS team faced an

unexpected result: rather than being primarily used by people in the host organizations, the app became a

success among the general public. In fact, audiences used it well beyond the wall of the museums and the

boundaries of the exhibition. A determining factor, in this sense, was marketing: the app was featured in

the App Store for about two weeks and was listed in the section “What’s hot”.216 Over the first two weeks,

it was downloaded three thousand times. As explained by Robbie Davis, Project Director of Museum on

Main Street, ‘more than half contributions in the first 6 months were from the general public, probably 5%

was from the people at venues. Of that group, more than half identified themselves as young people’. This

was particularly surprising as MoMS main audience is in a higher age range (50‐60) and the exhibition

didn’t featured any content specifically targeted to youngsters.

216 The section Featured of the App Store includes staff’s pick and apps that are particularly new or original. As a staff curated section, it allows great visibility with consequent impacts on number of downloads


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Figure 4: Main Screen Stories From Main Street

Over the years, questions from other exhibitions were added framing the app as a cross‐exhibitions show

rather than connected to a specific one. The app has its own brand and this might impact expectations of

the users toward it, as claimed by Robbie Davis: ‘in a number of occasions we thought about re‐skinning it

as part of a specific exhibition, but we decided not to sacrifice Stories From Main Street identity. I think

keeping it independent, means that people don’t expect an audio tour’217. In this sense, questions served

by the app upon recording a story, are very general and aimed at understanding different aspects of the life

in a small town, as they relate to the themes of different exhibitions. As opposed to Scapes, where the

prompts for participation are phrased to provoke emotional responses, and Access American Stories, where

the broad questions and the immersion of the exhibition environment triggers personal ways of viewing

objects, Stories From Main Street explicitly asks for stories and memories. ‘What is your favorite memory of

living in or visiting a small town?’; ‘What person, place, or object in your locality do you find culturally

significant and why?’; ‘What recipes are passed from generation to generation?’; ‘What role does music

play in your life?’; Besides being significantly more than the ones in the other two analyzed apps, the

questions have a very different aim: gathering oral history, information, although very personal ones. As

Robbie Davis explains, ‘the difference is proximity to the object or the exhibition in question. Stories From

Main Street is a lot more open‐ended and general. There’s no question in the app that prompt people to go

in front of an object, […] we are not asking people to make some sort of other type of intellectual

217 Davis, Robbie. Interview conducted by the writer on 25 June 2014


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commitments.’218 Thanks to this component, people can use the app beyond the exhibition as its content

are more related to universal experiences. This aspect, in particular, makes this project very different from

the ones analyzed before. Location and contexts a very important component in the analyzed mobile

experiences. Either Scapes and Access American Stories are contextual and their usability is deeply

intertwined with the space they are built for. The most successful engagement happened in the cases in

which visitors were standing in front of the object, the spot, the place. But although the MoMS app

functions beyond the location ‘museum space’, it can be argued that the experience it triggers is still about

places (of the mind): the memories. In reflecting about how museums present stories and histories from

the past, we can include the concept of the lieux de mémorie introduced by Pierre Nora. The French author

defines a lieux de mémoirie as ‘any significant entity, whether material or non‐material in nature, which by

hint of human will or the work of time has become a symbolic element of memorial heritage of any

community’219. Peter Knevel looks at them in a double perspective. On one hand, ‘instead of “celebrating”

or just duly presenting the familiar “grand narrative”, the proper use of the lieux de mémoire concept helps

to place cool questions‐marks’. In this sense, museums should rethink ‘the history and identity of a nation,

a city, or groups, by questioning many of its presuppositions and manifestations’. Kenevel continues by

saying that the concept combines ‘low‐ and high‐culture, of textbook and connoisseur examples, is their

highlighting of the unexpected’. It can be argued that Stories From Main Street does exactly that, in

providing a multi‐vocal representation of what sites, traditions, history ‘have meant in the past and still

mean today.’220

Motivation to participate and record a story in Stories From Main Street, is very different from Scapes and

Access American Stories. As we have seen, in Scapes comments align with the aesthetic experience of the

park, while in Access American Stories, users are prompted to help the museum with verbal descriptions, to

ensure access to blind visitors. The experience for Stories From Main Street is rather solitary and supported

by different intentions. Users ‘are storytellers’, says Robbie Davis, ‘I don’t think there is a deep seeded

interest in museums behind the motivation […] I think egocentrism is a big part of it.’221 Although

comments are immediately incorporated in the stream, users don’t get to hear their contributions right

away, as the selection of the feeds is random. Although some of the main features of the mobile medium

are exploited in this project, it can be argued that the social aspect is probably lacking: as Davis points out,

in fact, as voices disappear into the stream there is no real awareness for sharing it. However, MoMS has

plans to develop this and other features in the future.

218 Ibidem 219 Nora, Pierre. “From Lieux de mémoire to Realms of memory. Preface to the English language edition”, in: Realms of Memory: The construction of the French past. Columbia University Press 1998 220 Knevel, Paul. ‘The "Lieux de Mémoire" or a Plea for more Historiography in City and History Museums’, in: T. van Kessel, R. Kistemaker and L. Meijer‐van Mensch eds., City Museums on the Move: A Dialogue between Professionals from African Countries, the Netherlands and Belgium. Amsterdam, 2013 221 Davis, Robbie. Interview conducted by the writer on 25 June 2014


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As Nina Simon points out, participatory strategies can be seen as ‘a way to enhance, not replace, traditional

cultural institutions.’222 In this sense, Stories From Main Street provides a model for museums that actively

seek the points of views of visitors beyond the authoritarian boundaries and sees the value of those

multiple perspectives. As argued by Robbie Davis, ‘for Museum on Main Streets exhibitions it’s really

important that there will be the introduction of the human voice. There is no necessary to introduce the

level of scholarship. We are pretty committed to that, in general, we have that approach in our

exhibitions.’223 Thus, a participatory approach is embraced by MoMS beyond the app itself, and the

institute sees new technology as a way to enhance it. In the cell phone tour for ‘The Way we Worked’, in

fact, four stops are recorded by the curator of the exhibition, and the other four can be produced by the

host institution. Contents are recorded by the community itself: it might be the major, an announcer for a

local radio station, or even the person that greets the visitors at the entrance. ‘They are authorities in their

local histories’ – continues Davis – ‘The Smithsonian doesn’t know these stories, these people do have

expertise, they do have scholarships, simply because they are there and we are not. Authority rests at a lot

of different levels. There is a place for that and is part of MoMS to make people understand that the

Smithsonian appreciates that.’224 And the Institute is taking this concept to an even more interesting level:

for their newest exhibition, ‘Hometown Teams’, related to the expressions of culture into sports

manifestations, iPad will be used to collect materials (video, pictures and audio), connected to local teams

and sport events. Throughout the different tours of the exhibition, the local material will be added on the

ones that was featured in the previous location, collecting stories and impressions from town to town. This

approach is an augmentation of the memories: a multi‐vocality that will benefit and enrich the museum as

much as the visitors that will experience it over the years. The different approaches that MoMS employs,

can be connected to the concept, expressed by Manuel Castell, of museums as ‘cultural connectors of time

and space’. The author highlights how the transformations brought by technology have led connections to

be realized on a global level, detaching the local one. In this sense, museums can become the glue between

different identities, setting themselves on different temporalities while maintaining an historical

perspective. In other words, they ‘can connect up the global and local dimensions of identity, space and

local society.’225

222 Simon, Nina. “ Participatory design and the future of museums”. In Adair, Bill, Filene, Benjamin, Koloski, Laura. Letting go? Sharing Historical Authority in a User‐Generated World. Pew Center for Arts & Heritage; 2011 223 Davis, Robbie. Interview conducted by the writer on 25 June 2014 224 Ibidem 225 Castell, Manuel. “Museums in the Information Era: cultural connectors of time and space”. In in Parry, Ross. Museums in a digital age. Leicester Readers in Museum Studies. Routledge. 2010

5. Learning and meaning making through immersive mobile experiences

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5.1. Museums and experiences

‘Museums are, at their core, learning environments, and much of the work of museums professionals,

administrations, curators, educators and designers alike, is to understand and support the learning process

in our visitors and ourselves.’226 In pursuing approaches that go beyond the simple ‘information

transmission’, to more complex ways of experiencing collections, learn and connect in meaningful ways

with them, an analysis of what are the components of a museum experience is necessary.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines an experience as:

1: practical contact with and observation of facts or events

2: an event or occurrence which leaves an impression on someone

The emotional or sensorial element expressed by this definition is highlighted by Shedroff, who defines an

experience as ‘the sensation of interaction with a product, service, or event, through all of our senses, over

time, and on both physical and cognitive levels.’227 He also underlines that experiences are often

characterized by boundaries: ‘while many are ongoing, sometimes even indefinitely, most have edges that

define their start, middle, and end.’ These three stages are the attraction, as the initiation of the

experience, the engagement, its course, and the conclusion, its necessary resolution.228 Yi‐Fu Tuan, on the

other hand, identifies the start of an experience with the tension between cognition and emotions.229 In

other words, when something happens, sensations and conceptions run together, generating feelings that

are assessed by the subject as positive or negative. The limbic system is responsible of elaborating

experiential information and stimulus. This part of the brain includes the hypothalamus, regulating the

main functioning of hunger, thirst, pain, pleasure; the amygdala, which controls stronger emotions such as

the fear; the hippocampus, converting short‐term memory into long‐term memory, as well as controlling

emotions and spatial orientation. It can be noted how memory is fundamentally connected with emotions:

experiences that are characterized by strong emotions, in fact, tend to be remembered.

Is the term ‘experience’ a buzzword? Today, it particularly emerges in marketing and branding contexts, as

more and more businesses strive to offer experiences rather than simple products. As Joseph Pine points

out, experiences are a distinct economic offering, as distinct from services as services are from goods.

226 Adair, Bill, Filene, Benjamin, Koloski, Laura. Letting go? Sharing Historical Authority in a User‐Generated World. Pew Center for Arts & Heritage; 2011 227 Shedroff, Nathan. Experience Design 1.1 ‐ a Manifesto for the Design of Experiences. S.l.: Nathan Shedroff, 2009. Www.experiencedesignbooks.com. 228 Ibidem 229 Tuan, Yi‐Fu Escapism. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 1998


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‘When someone buys a good, he receives a tangible thing; when he buys a service, he purchases a set of

intangible activities carried out on his behalf. But when he buys an experience, he pays to spend time

enjoying memorable events that a company stages to engage him in a personal way.’230 In this sense,

everyday experiences can become memorable and transforming. But as we live surrounded by events that

happen all around us, through sounds, sights, smells and tastes, one could wonder what can make an

experience really memorable? Emotional responses play a great role in this sense. As already mentioned,

there is a direct correlation between what we feel as well as what and how we remember what happens to

us: in other words, memories are ‘emotionally tagged’. The framework of the four realms of experiences231

created by Pine and Gilmore classifies them according to the kind of engagement that they generate:

cognitive absorption, emotional immersion, active or passive participation. In an esthetic experience, for

example, the participant remains inactive, although surrounded by an immersive environment; while in an

entertaining one, as could be watching a video, he/she absorbs the content in a passive way. Lastly, a

combination of immersion and active participation generates an escapist experience. As the authors point

out, the best experience is provided in the “sweet spot” where all realms meet and generate a rich context

in which the participant can move.

Figure 5: Framework of the four realms of experiences – Pine and Gilmore

230 Pine II, Joseph B. “Museums in the experience economy” Vels Heijn, Annemarie, (Ed.) The future of museums, the museum of the future. Amsterdam. Nederlandse Museum Vereniging. 2002 231 Pine II, Joseph B, Gilmore, James H. The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage. Harvard Business School Press 1999


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It can be argued that a good experience should be also rewarding and pleasurable. Elements of surprise

should be included as ‘when we are challenged to rethink possibilities (when our beliefs and expectations

are confronted by the evidence in front of our eyes), we can have a profound reaction.’232 Furthermore, the

social component provides a context in which the experience can evolve. In this sense, the element of

reward can be deeply intertwined with the social dimension. An example of this dynamic can be found in

the standard practice of online gaming to represent achievements as badges or trophies. This tendency has

been expanding to eLearning as well, in which a growing number of activities provide badges for learning

goals. Studies that explore the concept of gamification233 identify how recognitions and achievements

leverage on ‘basic psychological urges, such as competition, goal‐setting, and status/reputation seeking’234,

elements that are socially mediated.

5.2. Experiencing worlds: reality and virtuality

In describing the realms of the experience, Pine points out that museums deliver educational activities. In

these, there is active participation through which the content is assimilated. Cultural institutions also

deliver esthetic experiences, in which the visitor is surrounded by a visual environment but can’t intervene

nor interact with it.235 But nowadays visitors expect more from visiting a museum. They do not simply want

instructions and notions but a range of services and memorable moments that include visual and sensory

components, learning, recreation, sociability, celebratory and enchanting experiences.236 Judith Mastai

underlines how budget cuts push institutions to look at their visitors as customers applying marketing

strategies to all levels of the processes. The author highlights how the ‘need to better understand

audiences has risen […] to attract the customer and gain their allegiance through membership, while

ensuring they spend as much money as possible each time they visit the museum’237 In this sense,

museums are encouraged to come up with solutions to remain relevant and ensure their sustenance. Pine

makes a similar point when he states: that ‘as consumers get used to wonderfully engaging experiences not

only while on vacation, but whenever they shop, dine, or go out for the day or evening, they will demand

that every experience they have ‐ even those‐they've been doing for years ‐ engage them just as

232 Shedroff, Nathan. Experience Design 1.1 ‐ a Manifesto for the Design of Experiences. S.l.: Nathan Shedroff, 2009. Www.experiencedesignbooks.com. 233 Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification 234 Antin, Judd and Elizabeth F. Churchill. "Badges in Social Media: A Social Psychological Perspective." 13 June 2014, http://gamification‐research.org/wp‐content/uploads/2011/04/03‐Antin‐Churchill.pdf 235 Pine II, Joseph B. “Museums in the experience economy” Vels Heijn, Annemarie, (Ed.) The future of museums, the museum of the future. Amsterdam. Nederlandse Museum Vereniging. 2002 236 Kotler, Neil. “Delivering Experience: Marketing the Museum's Full Range of Assets”. Museum News. AAM, Washington, May/June 1999 237 Mastai. Judith “There is no such thing as a visitor” in Pollock, Griselda and Zemans, Joyce. Museums After Modernism: Strategies of Engagement. Wiley‐Blackwell, 2007


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much.’238He continues encouraging museums to explore all of the experience realms, providing immersive

environments in which visitors can be active participants through their own actions. As already mentioned,

new technologies offer possibilities to museums in this sense. In particular, the creation of multisensory

and immersive contexts are being discussed in Trendswatch 2014, the latest publication by the Center for

the Future of Museums, which identifies them as one of the most important trends. Integration of

multisensory design in exhibitions and programs, such as the ability to (virtually) touch objects through

haptic technologies, or the possibility to replicate smells, are being looked at from museums as ways to

engage the public. ‘And as the technology for capturing and (re)combining sensory experiences becomes

more common and more effective, people may become less interested in traditional experiences that

appeal primarily to one sense at a time.’239

But how escapism and immersion can be defined in relation to the emergence of increasingly complex

digital worlds and what does this entail for mobile interpretation?

The escapist dimension of an experience ‘is based on the assumed existence of two comparable contexts

for activities: “daily life,” comprising work, studies, and chores, and activities that escape it such as

watching television, reading a book, or playing a computer game. Escapism can therefore be defined as

simply relieving stress or breaking the mundaneness of daily life.’240 In an increasingly technological society,

in which basic physical needs are satisfied and ‘customers are getting used to get exactly what they

want’241, escapism can be seen as a negative phenomenon. As theorists like Tuan242 and Evans243 have

observed, it is often viewed as an avoidance of the ‘real’. Baudrillard further highlights this negative

association by stating that the New World Order is in a Disney Mode244 and referring to the cannibalization

of the real by the virtualization, ‘which distorts time, space and culture.’245 In the digital age, the real

appears in fact in contrast with the virtual, seen as artificial. Such an opposition is explored by Marie‐Laurie

Ryan who identifies two perspectives on the virtual: the ‘virtual as fake’, characterized by a negative

238 Pine II, Joseph B. “Museums in the experience economy” Vels Heijn, Annemarie, (Ed.) The future of museums, the museum of the future. Amsterdam. Nederlandse Museum Vereniging. 2002 239 Center for the future of museums, Trendswatch 2014, http://www.aam‐us.org/docs/default‐source/center‐for‐the‐future‐of‐museums/2014_trendswatch_lores‐with‐tracking‐chip.pdf?sfvrsn=0 240 Warmelink, Harald, Casper Harteveld, and Igor Mayer. "Please Enter or Escape to Play Deconstructing Escapism in Multiplayer Gaming." Consulted 14 June 2014 <http://lmc.gatech.edu/~cpearce3/DiGRA09/Wednesday%202%20September/245%20Press%20Enter%20or%20Escape%20to%20Play.pdf> 241 Pine II, Joseph B, Gilmore, James H. The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage. Harvard Business School Press 1999 242 Tuan, Yi‐fu. Escapism. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 1998 243 Evans, Andrew. “This Virtual Life: Escapism and Simulation in Our Media World”, Fusion. 2001 244 Baudrillard, Jean. ‘Disneyworld Company’. Liberation. March 4, 1996, here quoted from: http://www.uta.edu/english/apt/collab/texts/disneyworld.html 245 Ibidem


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connotation, and the ‘virtual as potential’246. This latter concept doesn’t see the virtual in opposition to the

real but as a fundamental component of it. In fact, ‘the virtual is a powerful and productive mode of being,

a mode that gives free rein to creative processes.’247Pine, Gilmore and Korn reinforce the emergence of an

integration, rather than a conflict, between real and virtual realms. The authors talk about the model of the

‘multiverse to create new and wondrous experiences that fuse the real and the virtual together.’ They

argue that reality is formed by the trinity of time, space and matter, and they analyze these components

against their opposite of no‐time, no‐space, no‐matter, which form virtuality. In this sense, augmented

reality is an enhancement of the reality from matter to no matter. Alternate games (experiences that use

the real world as playground) develop in the real space but in no time. Virtuality can be acted upon,

augmented, by reality, by the physical world. 3D printing, for example, represents the physical virtuality,

creating actual objects starting from a digital scan.248

In the dawn of the acquisition of Oculust Rift by Facebook, the New York Times argues that ‘virtual reality is

the natural extension of every major technology we use today — of movies, TV, videoconferencing, the

smartphone and the web. It is the ultra‐immersive version of all these things, and we’ll use it exactly the

same ways — to communicate, to learn, and to entertain ourselves and escape.’249 Immersive Virtual

Environments (IVE) merge the realms of the multiverse described above in one multifaceted experience. As

described by Lok250, IVE are ‘systems that allow participants to experience interactive computer generated

worlds from a first person perspective as opposed to pre‐rendered videos, movies, or animations.’251

Different authors describe presence as one of the core attributes of these kind of environments. Presence

is in fact represented by the involvement of as many senses as possible ‘to give the viewer the strongest

impression possible of being at the location where the images are. This requires the most exact adaptation

of illusionary information to the physiological disposition of the human senses.’252 Heeter deepens the

relation between presence and sensorial involvement. She breaks down the concept of presence

identifying three dimensions that can support or enhance its occurrence. Personal presence is in face based

on simulating real world perceptions. Social presence, on the other hand, is connected to the premise that

social interaction enhances the ‘reality’ of the virtual world. Lastly, environmental presence, is connected

to the responsiveness of the surroundings: the more the user can act on it, the more immersive the

246 Marie‐Laure Ryan. Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2000 247 Levy, Pierre. “Becoming Virtual”. Plenum Trade, 1998 248 Pine, Joseph B., Kim C. Korn, and James H. Gilmore. Infinite Possibilities Creating Customer Value on the Digital Frontier. Berrett‐Koehler Publishers, Aug. 2011 249 Manjoo, Farhad. "If You Like Immersion, You’ll Love This Reality." The New York Times. The New York Times, 02 Apr. 2014. Consulted 14 June 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/technology/personaltech/virtual‐reality‐perfect‐for‐an‐immersive‐society.html?_r=0> 250 Lok, Benjamin C.. Toward the merging of real and virtual spaces. Communications of the ACM, Vol. 47 No. 8, 2004 251 Pine, Joseph B., Kim C. Korn, and James H. Gilmore. Infinite Possibilities Creating Customer Value on the Digital Frontier. Berrett‐Koehler Publishers; Aug. 2011 252 Grau, O. Virtual art: From immersion to illusion. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004


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experience is.253 Tied to the concept of presence is the feeling of ‘being there’, as emerges in the definition

given by Witmer and Singer: presence is ‘the subjective experience of being in one place or environment,

even when one is physically situated in another.’254 The authors also determined, through a series of

questionnaires, that interaction and user’s control affect immersion and thus the feeling of presence.

Together with Heeter’s analysis, they confirm how user’s control can help him/her feel within the computer

generated world, and thus, living that world directly, having a more meaningful experience.

But presence and, more in general, immersion, is not exclusive to computer mediated environments. It is in

fact argued here, that the emotional impact of an experience plays an important role in generating the

feeling of presence. To generate a sense of place we only need a representation of a world we can believe

in, good enough that we can act as it were real.255 In this sense, narrative can be an important element in

structuring the physical context with analogue and technological tools: much like a story, experiences need

an attraction, engagement, and conclusion, as already highlighted. Narrative particularly supports

emotional factors as it enables visitors to place themselves into the story. Researches suggest that we

engage with stories to the extent that ‘the same brain regions that are active in real‐life situations fire up

when a fictitious character encounters an equivalent situation.’256

In this sense, Ryan describes immersion by creating a parallelism between the one triggered by virtual

reality and the one caused by being lost in a book, transported somewhere else. The author defines three

levels of textual immersion: spatial, in which the reader develops a sense of place feeling like being in the

space where the narrative occurs. Temporal immersion, on the other hand, is related to the suspense, the

desire to know what happens next. Lastly, emotional immersion, is the occurrence of personal attachment

to the characters.257 All in all, it can be argued that sense of place, unexpected elements that generate

surprise and emotional connection, seem to be the core values of immersion, regardless the medium.

As we have seen, these elements are intertwined with the characteristics and opportunities that mobile

technologies embed, particularly in museum contexts. As already discussed, exploit the full potential of

mobile means allow devices to respond to where we are, and getting them to respond to our context and

personal interests. As argued by Nancy Proctor, in digitizing their collections, museums liberated them from

the physical locations ensuring access from anywhere. However, today, ‘location based services restore a

sense of the importance of place and time to museum encounters.’258 Hence, personal devices can become

253 Heeter, C. "Being There: The subjective experience of presence," Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, MIT Press, fall, 1992 254 Pine, Joseph B., Kim C. Korn, and James H. Gilmore. Infinite Possibilities Creating Customer Value on the Digital Frontier. Berrett‐Koehler Publishers; Aug. 2011. 255 Ibidem 256 Marshall , J. “ Gripping Yarns .” New Scientist , 12 February 2011. Quoted here from Watson, Sheila “Emotions in the History Museum” in The International Handbook of Museum Studies Wiley Online Library 2013 257 Marie‐Laure Ryan. Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2000 258 Proctor, Nancy. "Smithsonian Mobile 2013 Review, Strategy & Planning." Smithsonian 2.0., 21 Oct. 2013. Consulted 07 June 2014. <http://smithsonian20.si.edu/2013/10/21/smithsonian‐mobile‐2013‐review‐strategy‐planning/>


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the medium through which a user navigate the ‘enhanced’ reality, by becoming the very interface of the

experience and discovering environments that respond to ‘who, where and when they are.’ As Pine and

Korn highlight, ‘all of these devices are prosthetics, extending our sight and, increasingly, our other senses –

and our mind as well. When viewed through the lens (pun intended) of digital prosthetics, this realm of

experience also create great potential for extending, even transforming, our very selves.’259 We have also

seen how mobile devices can sustain different kind of narratives, linear or non‐linear. If ‘explanation is the

killer of wonderment’260, the kind of storytelling that mobile devices can support, multi‐vocal and

participatory, goes beyond the information transmission model of labels and traditional interpretative

tools, setting the stage for discovery and highly personal and emotional experiences.

5.3. Learning in museums: a framework for immersion through personal, connected and social mobile

tools

The aspects described in the previous chapter can aid museums in the use of immersive environments and

other digital technologies. In particular, the processes of meaning making need to be analyzed against the

fundamental elements that support learning and users’ experiences.

What are the elements that come into play in talking about museum experiences and how do these

elements influence learning and memory? Falk and Dierking broadly define the museum experience as all

that transpire between the ‘person’s first thought of visiting a museum, through the actual visit and then

beyond, when the museum experience remains only a memory.’261 The authors have conceptualized the

museum visit as an interaction between three different contexts that overlap and connect with each‐

others: the personal, the sociocultural and the physical context.262 Each of them will be analyzed in

convergence between theories of learning and experiences in museums. Furthermore, reflections on how

learning and engagement can be sustained with mobile tools throughout each context will be conducted.

259 Pine, Joseph B., Kim C. Korn, and James H. Gilmore. Infinite Possibilities Creating Customer Value on the Digital Frontier. Berrett‐Koehler Publishers; Aug. 2011 260 Chan, Sebastian. "On Sleep No More, Magic and Immersive Storytelling." Fresh Newer RSS. 23 May 2012. Consulted 14 June 2014. <http://www.freshandnew.org/2012/05/sleep‐more‐magic‐immersive‐storytelling/> 261 Falk, John H. and Lynn D. Dierking. The Museum Experience revised. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast, 2011 262 Ibidem


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Figure 6: The interactive museum experience – Falk and Dierking

The personal context: how affection and personal dimension affect learning

The personal context not only includes the unique variety of pre‐existing knowledge about a museum and

its content, but also preferred learning modes, interests, needs, beliefs and expectations. As highlighted by

Eilean Hooper Greenhill, ‘people come to museums carrying with them the rest of their lives, their own

reasons for visiting and their specific prior experience.’263 The identity‐related motivation framework

provided by Falk and Dierking, acknowledges visitors’ diversity and boil down the variety of visitors types

and motivations into seven categories, already mentioned in the previous chapters. The personal context

starts with the decision to go to the museum, which is often framed as a leisure experience, designed to

meet identity‐related needs.264 It is important to highlight how these categories are not absolute but rather

change and overlap, influencing the experience accordingly. Furthermore, studies have shown how, except

for specialized and experts visitors looking for specific information and motivated by the need to fill a

knowledge gap, the vast majority of museum visitors have different needs. Through browsing, scanning and

serendipity museum visitors create a more unstructured connection to the provided information by using

play or creativity. In this sense, the diversity of the audience generates a variety of tastes and cultural

experiences, motivated by feelings, expectations and stimulation rather than by a specific research of

263 Greenhill, Eilean Hooper. Museums, Media, Message. Psychology Press, 1999 264 Falk, John H. and Lynn D. Dierking. The Museum Experience revised. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast, 2011


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information. In this sense, Falk and Dierking argue that ‘traditionally, museum professionals have failed in

recognizing that visitors create their own museum experience.’265

The personal context is particularly important when analyzed in the perspectives of constructivist learning

theories. Before exploring them, it is important to reflect on the distinction, introduced by George

Hein266about theories of knowledge, that consequentially, informs theories of learning. Hein has developed

a diagram that maps theories of knowledge and learning in a common space. The vertical axis places two

theories of knowledge at its extremes.

Figure 7: Theories of Learning and Theories of Knowledge ‐ Hein

Museums, schools, and other educational institutions have been traditionally approached education

through a realist approach. This rises from the platonic idea that true reality is outside us and is there to be

discovered. In other words, knowledge is a preexisting entity that is transmitted to the learner. The other

side of the spectrum, the idealist approach, considers reality as men‐made. Knowledge is thus primarily

constructed by the learner through personal experiences, building on them and adding to or adjusting

knowledge based on new ideas, participation, and interaction with others. These two opposite views have

generated different theories of learning, that cross together and give place to different models placed into

quadrants. Constructivist learning, in particular, will be explored for the scope of this thesis. Constructivism

265 Ibidem 266 Hein, George. Learning in the museum. London: Routledge. 1998


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is an umbrella term that incorporate different notions and outlined as we move forward. Piaget267, famous

for his research on psychological development of children, argues that knowledge is assimilated within a

very slow process and very often is accommodating, assimilating and not very clear cut. Piaget reconfirms

that pre knowledge is a base for further learning. Constructivist views see active learners assimilating

experiences in existing mental schemes and adapting or changing existing ideas only if they enable them to

face new challenges in a better way. In this sense, new knowledge must be related to previous experiences

or knowledge to become accessible. Constructivist learning environments should also offer diversified ways

to engage, allowing learners to create their own paths, and draw their personal conclusions, confronting

them to those of their peers or experts.

But learning is not just about facts, learning is an emotional experience as what we feel has a strong impact

on what we remember. The determination of different ‘learning modes’ implies that different visitors

would be more or less engaged with collections through an approach as such. In this sense, experiential

learning provides a framework, developed by David Kolb268 and consisting of four stages, that gives place to

different learning modes. Kolb’s model shows how experience is interpreted through reflection into

concepts. The first stage, concrete experience, is where the learner actively experiences or feel. The second

stage, reflective observation, includes a reflection back to the experience, while the third stage, abstract

conceptualization, is where the learner thinks and conceptualizes what has observed and assimilate it into a

theory. Lastly, in the fourth stage of active experimentation, the learner tries to assess a model or theory or

plan for a forthcoming experience. Kolb identifies four learning styles which correspond to these stages.

The styles highlight circumstances under which ‘learners learn better’. The assimilators are analytics learner

as they tend to absorb facts when presented with logical theories to consider; convergers, prefer being

provided with practical applications of concepts and theories; accommodators, prefer “hands‐on”

experiences; divergers, are imaginative learners who tend to learn more effectively when allowed to

observe and collect a wide range of information.

A further important element in constructivist learning environments is motivation. There are two broad

categories of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic. The former, implies that the motivation for learning derives

from within an individual, for example from personal interests and affinity toward the subject. John Falk

and Lynn Dierking269 describe learning in museums as ‘free‐choice’ learning environments, considering the

role that intrinsic motivation plays in connecting visitors to deep experiences. The latter, conceives

267 Atherton J S Learning and Teaching; Piaget's developmental theory [On‐line: UK] 2013. Consulted 15 June 2014 http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm 268 Kolb, David A. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Prentice‐Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1984 269 Falk, John H., & Lynn. D. Dierking. “Free‐choice learning: An alternative term to informal learning?” Informal Learning Environments Research Newsletter 2. 1998. Quoted here from: Stein, Robert and Wyman, Bruce. Nurturing Engagement: How Technology and Business Model Alignment can Transform Visitor Participation in the Museum. In Museums and the Web 2013 . January 31, 2013, consulted June 16, 2014 http://mw2013.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/nurturing‐engagement/


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motivation as dictated by external factors, such as exams or schools schedule: as already mentioned, digital

badges, can function as an example of extrinsic motivation to acquire new skills or fulfill tasks.

Research has shown that classification of visitors’ attitudes and approaches to meaning making and

experiences, aim at seeing visitors as unique individuals with complex emotional as well as intellectual

needs and capacities. In this sense, the total museum experience which starts from the decision to visit, can

be a multifaceted one, different for each person. Searching, thinking, fearing, imagining, remembering,

evaluating, planning are just a few of the mental processes that may arise once engaging with an exhibit. In

this sense, Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi describes both emotional and intellectual responses to meaningful

learning experiences. Through extensive researches, Csikszentmihalyi and his colleagues identified eight

components of the phenomenon of a flow experience, which is basically a ‘totalizing experience’

characterized by enjoyment and complete absorption:

First, the experience usually occurs when we confront tasks we have a chance of completing.

Second, we must be able to concentrate on what we are doing. Third and fourth, the concentration is

usually possible because the task undertaken has clear goals and provides immediate feedback. Fifth,

one acts with a deep but effortless involvement that removes from awareness the worries and

frustrations of everyday life. Sixth, enjoyable experiences allow people to exercise a sense of control

over their actions. Seventh, concern for the self disappears, yet paradoxically the sense of self

emerges stronger after the flow experience is over. Finally, the sense of the duration of time is

altered; hours pass by in minutes, and minutes can stretch out to seem like hours. The combination

of all these elements causes a sense of deep enjoyment that is so rewarding people feel that

expending a great deal of energy is worthwhile simply to be able to feel it.270

It is argued here that, as strictly personal, mobile devices can support and enhance experiences as such,

that are not only aesthetic, but also engaging to the extent of impacting learning and remembrance.

Nowadays, there are countless examples of learning occurring through informal channels. The web and

other new learning spaces provide exciting ways to gain skills and experiences—from online courses,

learning networks and mentorship to peer learning, volunteering and after‐school programs. Mobile

devices enormously facilitate access and opportunities for this kind of learning. It is argued here that the

personal component of mobile devices can be particularly suitable for the application of successful

interaction from a constructivist perspective. Naismith and Corlett identify five critical success factors for

mobile learning projects, among which ownership enhances opportunities for self‐initiated learning.

Furthermore, ‘using the technology for entertainment and socializing does not appear to reduce its value as

270 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper Collins, 1990


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a learning tool, but rather helps to bridge the gap between institutional and personal learning.’ 271 In

constructivism theories the learner’s guidance is about providing support and orientation rather than

pouring knowledge into the audience. The level of autonomous exploration that mobile allows let the

learner be guided through a context without losing autonomy or personal initiative. This way, mobile can

bridge learning across contexts allowing possibilities for visitors to make new connections within their

previous existing knowledge and also between elements in the exhibit.

The sociocultural context

‘Connectivity is king, content is not enough without the experience.’ This statement implies that isolated

content fails, as we need ‘mouth and ears’ to interact and connect with it and give it meaning. Research has

shown that who you are with at the museum can be more important than what you see.272

The sociocultural context includes the broader setting of the museum and the visitors. A large proportion of

visitors go in museums in pairs or in small groups, and for these visitors, interaction with their companions

is an important aspect of their experience. Social interaction, in fact, occurs within a group, with other

visitors or even the staff of the institution. Furthermore, the ubiquity of internet enabled devices has

enhanced this aspect: throughout a museum visit, in fact, visitors can also share and connect virtually with

friends and communities.

In looking at how the sociocultural dimension can influence the experience, we can say that a series of

factors intervene as it is mediated by language, body language, symbols, observation. The educational

anthropologist John Ogbu refers to the 5 components that defines culture273 : they can be used to better

understand the cultural context as well as the values system influencing learning processes in the social

context. Habits and ways of life, for example food or work; codes and assumptions, meaning the

expectations and emotions connected to behaviors; meaningful artefacts, as the products of human work;

institutions of an economic, political or social order, as all the values and beliefs constructed in a society;

patrons and social ties, as family, friends and colleagues. In this sense, the variety of socio cultural contexts

that can characterize a museum experience are endless and they would impact perception and

engagement. The interactional aspects of social conduct in museums are investigated by Vom Lehn. In

particular, he analyses how interaction happens in front of the exhibit, negotiating and re‐shaping its

meaning through social conduct. ‘People’s experience and understanding of exhibits arises in and through

271 Naismith, Laura., Corlett, Dan. Reflections on success: A retrospective of the mLearn conference series 2002‐2005. In Across generations and cultures, mLearn 2006 book of abstracts. Banff, Canada: mLearn 2006 http://telearn.noe‐kaleidoscope.org/warehouse/Naismith‐Corlett‐2006_(001486v1).pdf. ‐ Quoted here from Mike Sharples, Inmaculada Arnedillo‐Sánchez, Marcelo Milrad, and Giasemi Vavoula Mobile Learning, Small devices, big issues. Springerlink 272 Tweet from MuseumNext 2014 by @UK_CE quoting a talk by Colleen Dillen https://twitter.com/uk_ce/status/479619138600837120?refsrc=email Newcastle, 2014 273 Concept emerged during a lecture of the module Education, in the framework of the Master of Museology, Reinwardt Academy. Smith, Ruben, October 2012


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their bodily action in and upon the museum. They see and make sense of the artefacts through a range of

activities, including walking and looking, glancing and inspecting, pointing and showing, talking and

discussing and so forth.’274 To those that consider the aesthetic museums experience as a solitary one, Von

Lehn responds that opportunities for contemplation in museums often arise from and evolve in social

situations. Furthermore, bodily actions that occurs in the view space, together with fellow visitors,

influences the individual perception of the exhibits. In the age of social media, in which personal devices

represent a key component, this aspect is expanded. A recent article on the New York Times points out the

emotional aspects of what we share on social channels. As ‘people share things they have strong emotional

reactions to, especially strong positive reactions, which are strongly connected to community and personal

recognition: people build their online identities by sharing. They want people to think of them a certain

way.’275

Studies of technology in museums, and especially of use of personal mobile devices, had shown that they

might inhibit social interaction and let them focus the attention on the device rather than on the

environment.276 In looking at how social interaction occurs within the museum space, Fisher and Moser277

refer to the five categories of social interaction proposed by Nisbet: cooperation, when users work together

in pursuing a common goal; conflict, as diversity emerges through social interaction; exchange, referring to

discussion and dialogue to understand peers; coercion, convincing arguments to reach consensus;

conformity, shared experiences to reinforce social bonds. They conclude that ‘learning opportunities are

afforded across the entire spectrum of social interactions. To provide the most effective and

comprehensive informal learning experiences we must engage museum‐goers across this range.’278 In this

sense, it is important to note that the separation between the ‘real space’ and the one generated when

immersed in the use of personal devices, is more and more blurred. In fact, visitors would tend to use their

devices regardless the presence of mobile content provided by the museum. Thus, giving opportunities for

274 Vom Lehn, Dirk. Embodying Experience. A video‐based examination of visitors’ conduct and interaction in museums. Work, Interaction & Technology Research Group, Department of Management, King’s College London, UK 275 Kitroeff, Natalie. "Why That Video Went Viral." The New York Times. The New York Times, 19 May 2014. Consulted 19 June 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/science/why‐that‐video‐went‐viral.html?smid=tw‐share&_r=0> 276 Galani, Areti; Chalmers Matthew. “Empowering the Remote Visitor: supporting social museum experiences among local and remote visitors” in Parry, Ross. Museums in a digital age. Leicester Readers in Museum Studies. Routledge. 2010 277 Nisbet, Robert. (1970). The Social Bond: An Introduction to the Study of Society. Alfred A. Knopf: New York. Here quoted from Fisher, Matthew, and Jennifer Moses. " Rousing the Mobile Herd: Apps that Encourage Real Space Engagement” MW2013 Museums and the Web 2013. Apr. 2013. Consulted 17 June 2014. <http://mw2013.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/rousing‐the‐mobile‐herd‐apps‐that‐encourage‐real‐space‐engagement/> 278 Fisher, Matthew, and Jennifer Moses. " Rousing the Mobile Herd: Apps that Encourage Real Space Engagement” MW2013 Museums and the Web 2013. Apr. 2013. Consulted 17 June 2014. <http://mw2013.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/rousing‐the‐mobile‐herd‐apps‐that‐encourage‐real‐space‐engagement/>


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mobile engagement will just ensure that when they do they will be less likely to engage in activities that

enhance their visit than ones that distract from it.’279

Conversation and context are essential concepts for understanding how mobile learning can be integrated

within museum education and experiences, ‘into the conversations and interactions of everyday life.280

Certainly, the connectivity of the devices allow access to learning resources and link people across contexts.

As Nancy proctor points out, the museum is shifting from an acropolis into an agora.’281 In the age of social

media it is thus impossible to think about museums as separate spaces from where conversations,

communities and social engagement happen. Hence, the social context, not only influence the experience,

and needs to be sustained and nurtured throughout the visit, but it should be considered as a prerequisite

when designing the experience. Some may argue that the social dimension of a visit might appears in

contrast with immersion, as for example, is in contradiction with the major factors in Csikszentmihalyi’s

theory of flow —that of focus and absorption, or losing a sense of oneself and of time. However, over the

course of the immersive experiences that have been analyzed in this thesis, a shift between status of total

immersion and the desire to share and discuss the experience within a group occurred, without interfering

with each‐others. A relation of interdependence, rather than an opposition, it is thus created.

The physical context: interpretative tools as triggers of the emotional experience

Lastly, the physical context, which starts from the decision to visit the museum and includes all the steps

necessary to plan the visit (website, transportation) as well as the museum architecture, the spaces of the

exhibitions, the interpretative tools and the services available.

As Falk and Dierking point out, even though the visitor’s physical context can include a multitude of events

or features, it is generally assumed that the designed spaces of exhibition galleries have the greatest

influence on the visitor’s museum experience.

Each of them is different: ‘Each person brings his own unique personal and sociocultural context , and

likewise is affected in a variety of ways by the physical context. Each visitor is drawn to different aspects of

these contexts and make different choices about which aspects he will focus on. […] visitors with similar

entering identity‐related motivations will tend to have qualitatively similar experiences.’282 In designing

exhibitions and contents, museums create experiences that are usually based on the cognitive aspects. It

can be argued that, ‘as free choice learning settings, the public does not approach a museum experience 279 Ibidem 280 Fisher, Matthew, and Jennifer Moses. " Rousing the Mobile Herd: Apps that Encourage Real Space Engagement” MW2013 Museums and the Web 2013. Apr. 2013. Consulted 17 June 2014 281 Proctor, Nancy. "MuseumMobile." What Is the Museum? Who Is a Curator? In the Age of Social Media in Copenhagen…: 22 Nov. 2009. Consulted 17 June 2014. <http://museummobile.info/archives/284>. 282 Falk, John H. and Lynn D. Dierking. The Museum Experience revised. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast, 2011


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with the expectation or intent to walk away having learned about some specific topic.’283 In fact, ‘most

visitors do not view exhibitions in a linear fashion.’284

As rich multisensory environments, museums can leverage on the evocative aspects of physical artifacts,

promoting a museum experience that is deeply personal and social at the same time. Exhibition design and

interpretation tools that enhance these aspects, can support the creation of what Sheldon Annis calls

‘dream space’ to define place of interaction between ‘suggesting/affecting objects’ and a visitor’s

‘subrational consciousness.’

The museum is transformed into a container for patterns, shapes, colors and sounds. The visitor

moves forward, and against this abstract backdrop appears a changing panorama of suggestive

things – things stripped of their primary use and natural context […] The viewer’s mind and eye

subrationally seize upon certain objects that jolt memory or recognition and provoke internal

associations of fantasy, desire and anxiety.285

Annis argues that the dream space overlaps with two others: the cognitive space and the pragmatic space.

The former, ‘corresponds to rational thought and designed order’, while the latter can be associated to the

social dimension of the visit, depending on the ‘role’ one takes when visiting. In other words, people come

to museums for a series of reasons, ‘central to which is sharing their visit with the people they care about

and – through that visit – strengthening their bonds.’286 It can be argued that, in designing their spaces and

tools to support comprehension of collections, museums have focused on the cognitive dimensions. As

motivated by Andrew Pekarik, ‘the mental state involved in emotionally responding to the object can be

very different from the mental state involved in reading and thinking. While our desire to effectively

facilitate meaning pushes us to emphasize communication through language, many museum experiences

are firmly rooted in feelings that are not enhanced by words.’287

The emotional component of museum visits has been explored, in particular, in the context of historic

houses and history museums, in which ‘transporting visitors to another time’ is key to ensure engagement

with the content. Gatewood and Cameron labeled this component as ‘numen‐seeking’, identifying three

dimensions for its occurrence: the first one is deep engagement or transcendence, a feeling of such

concentration that the individual loses a sense of time, reaching a flow experience. Empathy, a strongly

affective experience in which the individual immerse themselves in the thoughts, feelings, and experiences,

of those who lived at an earlier time. Awe or reverence, related to a spiritual communion with something

283 Ibidem 284 Ibidem 285 Sheldon Annis, “The Museum as a staging ground for symbolic action”, in Museum Provision and Professionalism, Kavanagh, Gaynor. London: Routledge, 1994 286 Ibidem 287 Pekarik, Andrew, “Feeling or Learning?”, in Curator: the Museum Journal Vol. 45 N.4, 2002


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or someone.288 In this sense, experiencing the place, recreated in the physical context, is an important

component in supporting the numen and thus creating a deep encounter with the objects.

An emotional response is sometimes provoked by the structures in which the museum is situated. Some

architects have shown great interest in the way buildings and design can elicit emotional responses. One of

them, Ralph Applebaum Associates, declared on its website that ‘learning is inseparable from emotional

engagement.’289 Some may argue that the aesthetic dimension might prevails on the emotional one as

some visitors respond to exhibits and spaces they feel are beautiful and well designed. Csikszentmihalyi and

Robinson conducted a study identifying the main characteristics of an aesthetic experience, which ‘is

defined as an intense involvement of attention in response to a visual stimulus, for no other reason than to

sustain the interaction.’ The experiential consequences of such an involvement reminds the ones of a flow

experience, including ‘an intense enjoyment characterized by feelings, a sense of personal wholeness, a

sense of discovery, and a sense of human connectedness.’ Centered on the basic contribution of the study,

which focused on interviews to curators, educators and other members of the staff of seventeenth art

museums, the authors conclude that ‘conceptually separating the content of the aesthetic experience from

its structure – the interpretation ‐ it becomes much easier to see that while the felt quality of the

experience may be the same for every aesthetic encounter, the details that make the experience possible

are infinitely varied.’290 As Peter Samis points out in referring to interpretation of Eliasson’s work, ‘when the

body is immersed and the senses saturated, the mind may no longer feel as desperate to make up that

deficit of meaning visitors often feel when faced with a ‘mute’ artwork on a wall. It is no longer necessary

to grasp for facts to organize a story; the sensations felt in the present are fulfilling enough.’ This view

seems to reconfirm Pine and Gilmore’s idea that aesthetic experiences, which are mainly occurring in

museums, are rather passive, although occurring into immersive environments. In this sense, interpretation

is necessary to generate the interactive components and pursue the achievement of the ‘sweet spot’ Pine

and Gilmore talk about. In this sense, museums should think about interpretation as an active process.

What emerges in talking about interpretation is also the need to create an array of solutions for reading

collections and artefacts through languages that speak to a variety of visitors, different for learning styles,

needs and interests. The importance of such an approach is highlighted by Sarah Kenderdine when she

points out that ‘the future of interpretation is not constrained to a multitude of texts but subjected to

multiple readings.’291

288 Cameron, C.M., and Gatewood, John.B., Seeking Numinous Experiences In The Unremembered Past. 2003 289 Watson, Sheila “Emotions in the History Museum” in The International Handbook of Museum Studies Wiley Online Library 2013 290 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, Robinson, Rick E. The Art of Seeing: An interpretation of the aesthetic encounter J. Paul Getty Museum; 1991 291 Kenderdine, Sarah. "How Will Museums of the Future Look? : Sarah Kenderdine at TEDxGateway 2013." YouTube. Tedx Talks, 2013. Consulted 18 June 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXhtwFCA_Kc>


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The principles around interpretation structured by Tate292, reinforce this concept especially when stating

that ‘We believe that works of art have a capacity for multiple readings and that interpretation should

make visitors aware of the subjectivity of any interpretive text.’

Further points include:

‘We recognize the validity of diverse audience responses to works of art.’

‘Interpretation should incorporate a wide spectrum of voices and opinions from inside and outside the

institution.’

‘Visitors are encouraged to link unfamiliar artworks with their everyday experience.’

These statements highlight the active role that visitors have, with their personal and subjective voices, their

past experiences and stories, in the meaning making process in museums.

Samis uses the term ‘Visual Velcro’ talking about interpretative practices, and he identifies it as the capacity

of an artwork to hook into visitors’ cognitive structures and be remembered. In Eliasson’s case the ‘velcro’

is not just visual, but multi‐sensory, and thus is stronger. Samis encourages the use of ‘Visual Velcro’ in

interpretation practices (digital and analogue). ‘The work of interpretation, then, is to give cognitive hooks

to the hookless, and assure that these hooks are sufficiently varied so that they can successfully land in the

mental fabric of a broad array of visitors. Once visitors have a framework, all kinds of sensory impressions,

emotions and reflections can weave themselves into the fabric of perception.’293

As already mentioned, location based technologies allow the creation of mobile experiences that move

across spaces and physical environment. In this sense, the learning potential of these technologies is

undoubtable as they allow the experience to flow across locations, time, topics and technologies. As Duffy

points out, ‘learning always takes place in a context and the context forms an inexorable link with the

knowledge embedded in it.’294 Situated learning provides a similar approach, which includes considerations

about the necessity to provide learning in context, through active rather than passive approaches,

promoting the social exchange.295 Therefore, an abstract and non‐contextual environment such as school

learning is dramatically different to the real world environment. ‘Exploration is essentially mobile: involves

292 Smithsonian Mobile Wiki http://smithsonian‐webstrategy.wikispaces.com/Definitions 293 Samis, P., Gaining Traction in the Vaseline: Visitor Response to a Multi‐Track Interpretation Design for Matthew Barney: DRAWING RESTRAINT , in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.). Museums and the Web 2007: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics, March 1, 2007. Consulted June 18, 2014 http://www.archimuse.com/mw2007/papers/samis/samis.html 294 Duffy, T.M. & Jonassen, D.H. (1992). Constructivism: New implications for instructional technology. In Duffy, T.M., and Jonassen, D.H. (Eds.) Constructivism and the technology of instruction: A conversation. Hillsdale, N.J: L. Erlbaum Associates. Quoted here from Karagiorgi, Yiasemina, Symeou, Loizos Translating Constructivism into Instructional Design: Potential and Limitations, 2005 295 Gros, Begona Knowledge construction and technology. Journal of Educational Media and Hypermedia, 2002


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physical movement or movement through the space, linking experiences and concepts into knowledge.’

These approaches go beyond a conception of learning in terms of memorization and acquisition of

knowledge in an isolated way. Real world experiences are considered to be highly efficient for

understanding296, and mobile devices might serve as mediating tools that enrich the real‐world experience

by transferring information used in the classroom as well as the “academic” information provided by the

museum to the real world, supporting the learning process itself.297

296 Falk, John H. and Lynn D. Dierking. The Museum Experience revised. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast, 2011 297 Winters, N. 2007. What is mobile learning? In Big issues in mobile learning: Report of a workshop by the Kaleidoscope Network of Excellence Mobile Learning Initiative, ed. M. Sharples, Nottingham: Learning Science Research Institute, University of Nottingham

6. Conclusion and future work

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6.1. Summary

The thesis addressed the issue of implementation of mobile media in museum settings, stressing the

importance of using these tools to establish emotional connections with collections, rather than only to

provide informative and didactic experiences. Digital technologies, and mobile in particular, can be

powerful tools for museum practitioners to expand the evocative qualities of artifacts, otherwise static and

not always accessible, and transform them into ‘social objects’. Museums are more and more questioning

their traditional approaches and increasingly providing experiences that transform and involve users, in an

effort to pursue their learning goals. Studies have shown that visitors seek entertaining experiences and

they often value more the people they visit with than the visit itself, what they ‘feel’ rather than what they

‘learn’.298 As argued by Zahava Doering referring to a study conducted on visitors at the Smithsonian, ‘the

most satisfying exhibitions for visitors are those that resonate with their experience and provide new

information in ways that confirm and enrich their [own] view of the world.’299 In this sense, it can be argued

that provide tools that aim at educating audiences through traditional, ‘top down’ dynamics, do not align

with how audience experience museum spaces. Among the tools for interpretations, mobile technologies

have entered the institutions by offering a rather traditional approach, which doesn’t leverage on the full

potential of the newest devices but rather repeat the model of the audio tour. The thesis sustained the

concept that feelings, personal views and interpretation are intrinsically connected to cognitive responses

and thus, mobile experiences could be designed to enhance and sustain these components. In particular,

the thesis analyzed how mobile technologies can shift from being a rather ‘static’ interpretative tool to a

social and personal medium, ensuring access to collections and stories through immersion and interaction.

6.2. Considerations

Since new technologies started entering the museum environment, we have been looking at these tools as

conceptually separate from the ‘real experience’, constituted by the in‐gallery visit. Today, visitors access

the doors of the institution with personal smartphones in their pockets: we have seen how different

institutions are embracing this fundamental change.

We can’t be certain about what the next technological paradigm will bring in our daily life. However, we

can envision that some of the core aspects that were introduced by smartphones and tablets, such as the

fact of being personal and portable, will remain and evolve into more sophisticated solutions. Emerging

298 Pekarik, Andrew, “Feeling or Learning?”, in Curator: the Museum Journal Vol. 45 N.4, 2002 299 Doering, Zahava. Visitors to the Smithsonian: A summary of research & implications. Smithsonian Institution. 2002 www.tepapa.govt.nz/our_resources/National_Services/Newslink/TePapaPPT_presentation.pdf


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wearable technologies constitute a proof of this. It can thus be argued that digital and physical dimension

will no longer be separate but rather mutually enhance each‐others’ characteristics. Museum experiences

should thus be prepared to become ‘authentically digital’, as stated by Koven Smith. The author, in fact,

argues that instead of looking at the real world to inform their design metaphors, museums ‘should

embrace the limitless capacity of innovation that is found in a digital landscape. Instead of awkwardly trying

to tie digital assets to their real life counterparts, they should embrace the power of the medium.’300 This

idea has been sustained to different extents throughout the thesis.

Scapes provides a framework for the use of mobile technology that is contextual, social and immersive,

where the term “immersion” refers to a seamless and engaging experience in which the technology

component becomes invisible and visitors can interact with the environment and make sense out of it.

Scapes acted as a layer on an exhibition that inspires aesthetic and emotional responses “per se”. A mixture

of art and nature in which the visitors feel surrounded by a dreamy atmosphere, influenced by the

constantly changing details of a natural environment. Stepping into the deCordova’s Sculpture Garden is

like stepping into a work of art itself. Scapes provided visitors with a tool to express and share these

feelings.

A similar approach is explored in the declinations of the Scapes framework, explored at the Smithsonian.

On one hand, interviews from users of Access American Stories have revealed how visitors make sense out

of objects and engage with them, sharing impressions and personal feelings, rather than focusing on the

transmission of didactic information. On the other hand, Stories from Main Street, explores how personal

stories of places and traditions can be collected and exhibited through the mobile medium, creating new

ways in which the museum can extend engagement well beyond its walls. To different extents, these

experiences create hybrid spaces: between digital and real, public and private. In both projects, the themes

of the exhibitions represented a primary threshold in reaching a feeling of immersion. Although, as we have

seen, technical constraints don’t allow full immersion in using Access American Stories, the exhibition

generates a ‘disposition’ for visitors in giving an emotional and personal response. The nature of the objects

on view and the focus on shared history and memories, supports the aim of the app and facilitates the

interaction with it. By the same token, Stories from Main Street demands users to remember and share

their personal stories, prompting participations in this sense. In all these projects, ‘personal’ and ‘social’

represent key words that shape the experiences and motivate users. We have been observing how these

two components are crucial aspects of the museum visit as well as its learning outcomes. Control over the

experience, connection to the real environment, contextual and personalized access to contents, are

300 Smith, Koven. "Becoming Authentically Digital ‐ Slides from Presentation Museumnext 2014." Becoming Authentically Digital. Consulted 28 June 2014. <http://www.slideshare.net/5easypieces/becoming‐authentically‐digital>


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fundamental characteristics of the mobile medium, that are explored in different ways in the three

projects. In thinking about exhibitions or settings in which the didactic and informative aim would be more

predominant, it can be argued that addressing an emotional ‘layer’ through mobile media may represent a

challenge.

The thesis argues that there is a clear parallel between the founding characteristics of the mobile medium,

the spaces that it can generates and constructivist theories. Leveraging on these aspects museums can

provide ‘extraordinary experiences’, that intertwine with who we are and how we live and will be

remembered and cherished. The processes through which we understand the world and our knowledge,

seem to be aligned with capabilities of mobile, as they have been explored throughout the thesis:

exploration, conversation, collaborative understanding and meaning making. These elements also foster

the creation of immersive environments in which the user is transported into the action, into the stories, at

the heart of interpretation. Nevertheless, findings from these projects reveal an important challenges, that

can be summarized by the words of Sheila Watson: ‘it would appear that museum visitors and non‐visitors

alike support the notion of museums as purveyors of facts that are “scientific” in that they rely less on

emotional engagement and more on rigorous scholarship and the proof of real things.’301 Many elements in

this thesis research support this view, which reveals limitations in introducing new models for mobile

interpretation. The fact that Scapes was an art project shifted the expectations of users while in Access

American Stories, users anticipated an audio tour and didn’t understand its value. Only when explained

about the true nature of the project, they liked and enjoyed it. These component were shifted in Stories

From Main Street, where the usability of the app across a variety of contexts and the universality of its

prompts, along with an individual brand that didn’t align with any specific exhibit, dramatically shifted

visitors’ expectations. This last app is meant to be used also outside a museum: users embraced this idea

and, although acknowledging that the app is a museum medium, they treated with a totally different

approach. Observations of how users expectations influenced the perception of the tool and the actual

experience, lead us to important reflections.

Concepts explored at the very beginning of this thesis, highlighted limitations in how museums design,

create and distribute mobile products. It is argued here, that these elements affect the impact of mobile

interpretation on visitors. Considerations on low take up rates highlight how visitors’ negative perceptions

toward mobile tours are there even before the decision to take the tours. The thesis do not want to create

a recipe for developing effective mobile interpretation tools, but rather increase awareness toward

conceiving them as contextual instruments that need to draw from extensive visitors and environmental

research. Determining how best to use these information depends on the ultimate goal of an institution. If

301 Watson, Sheila. "Emotions in the History Museum." Wiley Online Library, Web. 07 June 2014. <http%3A%2F%2Fonlinelibrary.wiley.com%2Fdoi%2F10.1002%2F9781118829059.wbihms992%2Fpdf>


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it is to address revenues or visitor attendance then an awareness of the main barriers in adoption of these

tools would be necessary. But if the goal is aligned with the institutional missions to educate and engage,

then reflections on primary motivations and specific user types would come into place. Nowadays, learning

happens everywhere. The separation between digital and physical is less and less relevant as users shift

from one to the other in a fluent and integrated way. In this sense, the thesis highlights potentials for

mobile media to provide experiences that adapt to visitors’ learning paces, modes and preferences. Getting

away from the ‘click and learn’ mode, sound‐based immersive experiences move and change with the users

based on the environment.

In this sense, acknowledgment of visitors diversity and how to support experiences that talk to these

multiplicities, should make museums understand that there is no one size fits all for engagement, and

mobile engagement in particular. In this sense, museums should strive to address their projects to the right

users, reviewing how people identify and connect with objects, how they create their own meanings,

regardless of curator perspectives, as well as how they use supplemental materials to augment their

comprehension. In other words, if museums focus too exclusively on the idea of mobile as the ultimate

gadget for engagement, they can overlook greatest value of mobile potentials, as the ability for visitors to

create their own ‘personal heritage’.

6.3. Future work

In talking about usage of technologies in museums, Dierking and Falk point out the ‘potential to enhance

the quality of the visitor's experiences, will only be achieved to the degree technologies actually fulfill the

personal and social needs of the visitor.’302

Although there is a connection between constructivism, immersive environments and possibilities for

mobile interpretation, it has emerged that this relationship is both layered and complex. The idea that

permeates the literature is that every visitor’s motivations and seeking patterns are rooted into visitors

identities and experiences. In this sense, visitors are both observers and players of the experience. As the

thesis focused on a particular aspect of interpretative practice, additional research on how this practice

could be integrated should draw on further considerations on visitors diversity, preferences and needs.

Although the thesis focused on components of mobile experiences that go beyond the traditional audio

tour model, there are still visitors that do prefer that traditional approach. An investigation of their

preferences and how these could be supported in the light of technological advancements, deserves some

attention.

302 Falk, John and Dierking, Lynn, “ Enhancing visitor interaction and Learning with Mobile Technologies” in Tallon, Loïc, and Kevin Walker. Digital Technologies and the Museum Experience: Handheld Guides and Other Media. Lanham: AltaMira, 2008


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With regard to the fast pace at which technology evolves, it has been highlighted how the state of the art

for interior positioning and other elements that support a seamless experience, is still not satisfactory. In

this sense, total immersion for mobile interpretation can’t be yet achieved in museum contexts as

interfering elements arise. But as technology advances and new tools are being provided, the quality of the

experience they can offer will change accordingly. Further questions may arise in this sense, in the light of

what the museum experience will have become.

Appendix A – Interviews to professionals from the audio tour/mobile media industry

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List of names

Agnes Alfandari ‐ Louvre

David Asheim – Guide By Cell

Sara Bodinson ‐ Digital learning MoMA

Sebastian Chan – Smithsonian Cooper‐Hewitt

Matthew Cock – British Museum

Robert Cutler – Narrowcaster

Ilaria D’Uva – D’Uva Workshop

Liz Filardi – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Lindsay Green ‐ Frankly, Green + Webb

Tony Holzner – Art Processor

Laura Mann ‐ Frankly, Green + Webb

Liz Neely – Chicago Institute of Art

Charles Outhier – Museums2Go

Nancy Proctor – Smithsonian Institution/Baltimore Museum of Art

Michael Suswal – Acousticguide

Chris Tellis – Antenna Audio

Main questions addressed during the interviews

1) What are the reasons why mobile media are subjected to strict limitations on take up rates? Is there, in

your opinion, a main factor that affects visitor’s decision not to take a tour? (eg. bad content, lack in

marketing, paid tours vs free tours etc.)

2) Could you describe one or more notable cases that you recall in which the take up was significantly low?

Specific information about the following features were asked:


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Platform, context, conditions (paid/free), content (linear/random access)

3) Could you describe one or more notable cases that you recall in which the take up rate was high?

Specific information about the following features were asked:

Platform, context, conditions (paid/free), content (linear/random access

Appendix B – Interviews Access American Stories Users

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Methodology and approach

Users Subjects were approached within the exhibition space. The Access American Stories project was

presented to them, focusing in particular to an explanation of why their participation would have been

helpful. Subjects were then asked to roam the exhibition by only relying on interpretation tools present in

gallery (labels and signs), and by focusing on their own knowledge and personal background to make sense

out of the objects. During this part, subjects were observed to understand their dwelling time in front of

specific exhibits and later asked a series of questions to get a sense of their experience.

‐ Could you describe the experience of the exhibition? / How do you feel after having seen the exhibition?

‐ Did you make use of provided interpretation tools (labels, exhibition set up)?

‐ Are there any particular objects you felt particularly engaged to (for a personal connection, a particular

memory etc.)? Can you point them out and briefly explain why?

‐ Are there any particular objects you didn’t felt connected to? Can you point one of them out and briefly

explain why?

‐ Were there any particular elements of the exhibition that influenced your experience of the objects? (e.g.

a particular set up, lighting and other immersive factors that impacted the perception of the artifacts)

Secondly, subjects were given an iPad or asked to download the mobile app on their mobile devices in one

of the free Wifi spots within the exhibition. They were then asked to roam the exhibition again using the

app. Although support was provided in using the app when necessary, subjects were left free to use it as

they felt like. In particular, they weren’t asked to record a message and they were free to explore the app

at their own pace.

A series of questions followed their experience with the app.

‐ Could you describe the experience of the exhibition using the app?

‐ How would you describe the stories that you listened to?

‐ Where were you while listening to a particular story (standing in front of the described object, roaming

around the room etc.)?

‐ Could you point out one story that was particularly relevant to you and tell me why?

‐ Could you point out one story that was not relevant to you and tell me why?


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‐ Did these stories influenced in some way your experience of the objects? (e.g. felt compelled to go in

front of the object and look at it more closely)

‐ Did you record any messages? For which object/s? What prompted you to record a message?

Appendix C – Transcripts Interview Halsey Burgund

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What is the why behind Scapes? What did you want to explore/discover/experiment with? How did you

get there? Is there any particular event/fact that lead you to that reflection?

‘Scapes is about exploring different things. How people experience places, how that locations changes over

time. How people experience them over time. I have always wanted to capture those things and bring them

all together, tied them all in one place. This was a very fascinating thing for me, gather up the history of a

place in a micro community of people that have been there. Taking different people that don’t know each

other and have been in the same space, and put them in conversations. I have always been fascinated by

this as well as the music. I started before the iPhone. The first Roundware was built on tiny little Nokia

tablet computers. Nobody had that. The intention was to give people sort of a democratized people’s

opinion about artworks […]. Then the iPhone came, I couldn’t use it for a while because the App Store

wasn’t there. GPS also added another layer. And the internet, of course.’

There are other apps that use a similar dynamic, the same model Scapes employs. How the museum

setting impacted the project as compared to those similar projects set in different environments?

‘These projects have three different settings. For an artist was great to have the ability to experiment with

such different contexts. The sculpture park has sort of a selective audience. You have to drive to go there.

The piece for Cambridge, Round:Cambridge, is a very broad and very inclusive situation where you don’t

have to be somebody who is interested in art to experience the app. The campus for Mountain Ghost was a

beautiful space. A school, many of the students were young people, many of them were tech‐savy. For

Scapes in particular the fact that influenced its outcome was that it was sort of a destination, an art

museum and that means that you have to deal with an audience that is already interested in contemporary

art. They go there, they drive there, they pay to see the art and experience. It is a much smaller audience

but a much more focused one.’

In all these projects very few negative comments were recorded. Why?

‘The audience is already inclined to have respect for art, contemporary art in particular, and are there to

have the experience. There are also elements, reasons that are built into the system that encourage sort of

behaviors, participation and contributions that I wanted to get. I wanted to do whatever I could to give

people the encouragement to participate with respect and positivity. Questions were very important, to ask

things that encouraged a certain response. You hear what people before you had done. People get a feel

for what happened before them and align to that. The music makes a big difference too. A music layer

brings everything into a greater whole. Inserting yourself in a greater whole in a way that is productive and

respectful is generally what people want to do as opposed to ruin something. Comments were immediately

assimilated to the piece. If they would have recorded something bad, it would have been there

immediately and they would have heard to their own stupidity, that’s discouraging. By allowing them, by

saying, your comment will become part of the piece is as to say that I trust them. People when they are told

that they are trusted are much more willing and act in a way that is worth that trust.’

You declared in many occasions that ‘There is a beauty in the chatter of human existence’. Do you think

that in museum visits there is too much silence? People think about things but they don’t always say

them. Do you think that the museum setting scares them?


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‘Silence, as a musician, I think a lot of it. Silence is a beautiful thing, can be used to great effect. That say, I

have a feeling that there is too much silence in a museum visit. Is not that silence is a bad thing, I think the

balance is more important. This fear of acting inappropriately is something that prevents people to speak

up when visiting a museum. They lack the confidence to be able to explore and be themselves and to take

advantage of what museums have to offer as much as could be done. And I think that’s a shame. I think

that a lot of it is changing. That’s the impression I have, but you know worst is in art museum than science

museums. Science is for sure, science is fine. But then again, to me is more the balance I would never want

that an art museum should be a place similar to a science museum. […] Museums are so wonderful and

have so many stories.’

Comments in Scapes are really emotional. They go with the music, the tone of voice is hushed and

sometimes even moving. What prompted people to be like that?

‘Definitely the location. The park is a very idyllic, beautiful place that does encourage the self‐reflection.

The nature and the view, with sort of man‐made beautiful works of art, plus the music makes a difference.

The music is an augmentation to that physical environment that goes in that, augment the general feel of

the place to me. You know is not, crazy pop song, you know. Plus, the questions that I asked, I tried to

phrase them in a way that make people sort of think. If you say and ask a question, if you ask “tell about

somebody you wish was here with you …” that encourage you to sort of think in a slightly different way.

Questions were intended to get people to open up a little bit.’

To what extent do you think the questions served in the app before recording a message prompted the

responses? Do you feel that without giving users some guidance on what to say, they would have

contributed anyway?

‘They would have been dramatically different. One question was “scape is an excuse to talk about

yourself…” is kind of a funny way to tell people “say whatever you want”. If you would asked a question like

“Describe the sculpture you see”. There’s nothing wrong with that. I think it wouldn’t perhaps get people

sort of out of there, extend their present state of mind in a way that is interesting to me. Is interesting to

me that people bring their past experiences and bring themselves to this place rather than just sort of

reflect the place. The questions that I was asking were hopefully willing to encourage that. But I didn’t do a

research project, which I think it would be really interesting. Changing the questions and see how people

respond to that. In any case, I think the result of the whole piece would have been completely different.’

Storytelling is one of the “buzzwords” in the museum field right now. Do you think that Scapes can be

considered as a form of storytelling? Is this desire for experimentation with different kind of narratives a

proof that museums lack a level of emotional connection in their interpretation?

‘To me, and I tend to define things broadly as an artist, Scapes, in the Roundware framework, is certainly a

form of storytelling. A very non‐linear form of storytelling, which I think is very interesting. I think is

absolutely in the broader sense storytelling. There are scale levels. There are small individuals telling

individuals stories in a certain specific spots, that can be a 30 seconds thing, then you have the group of

people sort of tell their stories. Is not saying “once upon a time” but is like saying this is something about

me, that I bring into this place which is like a micro‐story. And then you look at the whole project as kind of

a story of that space over that period of time. And that is something you can’t experience in a linear, direct

way. Rather in an infinite numbers of ways. Building a sort of a similar or related experience. I talked to a

lot of documentarians and they find Scapes to be really fascinating. Something they want to move toward

as well. A film is sort of a set thing. Is a linear story, experienced the same way all the times you look at it.


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Something that people are trying to experiment with now. Roundware has provided different points of

view in this sense. How could be different? A documentary is not a film, is a particular place, it’s an open

field about the value of whatever happened.’

With new technologies and user generated contents in museums, there is a lot of debate around the idea

of authority. Institutions are traditionally accustomed to talk through the “expert voice” and any other

voice may be accepted, but not looked at with the same reverence. To what extent do you think that

visitors are also subjected to this idea, expecting and wanting to get primarily straight facts when visiting

an institution?

‘Scapes and the other projects suggest is that there is an untapped dimension that could encourage a lot of

change, that sounds like museums could be interested in changing. It’s very clear from the outside that is

an artwork. Something that is an artwork generate different attitudes as opposed to something that is built

as an interpretative experience. People are more open and willing to give part of themselves, because is

not that they are giving that to some institution that is going to, you know…Disembowel them and use

them for your advantage. Is an art piece, so it’s a much more friendly and emotional. Mutual bio‐directional

scenario I think is really key in getting this to work, and getting the museum be in sort of a similar position

as an artist, is more of a challenge. Getting that sort of equality. Museums aren’t the authority. Museums

certainly know more about something. But certainly there are some people that has really useful

information, stories, experiences to show that can augment the space. Setting that up, setting up that

feeling, it is truly though. There are centuries of presence and tradition, and that is hard.’

Do you feel that if Scapes would have been the official audio tour of the park, impact would have been

different? Scapes was a work of art itself. To what extent do you think this made it more “acceptable” for

the museum as well as for visitors to have “not conventional” interpretation?

‘[…] people understand if a work of art itself is not the voice of the museum. It’s the voice of the artist and

that I think is different that the voice of the museum, than something as an audio tour or build as an audio

tour. I think If Scapes would have not been sold as Halsey Burgund piece, but as a regular audio tour,

people would have listened to it for a second and then would have gone back to the desk saying “This is

completely wrong”. Honestly, a lot of that is marketing. If people arrive in the right mind‐set. Saying is an

art work is a way to quickly flipping people mind set to receive and accept something non‐traditional.

Again, is a big challenge for museums.’

Scapes turned the experience of the park into a richer multisensory one as opposed to traditional audio

tours. In some way, we can consider Scapes as an “immersive experience”, as connected to the idea of

flow: contents are triggered automatically according to the listener location, augmented reality with

sound etc. What was the component (either technical or strategic) without which this result wouldn’t

have been achieved?

‘Immersivity’, that is a word that nailed it in a lot of ways. One of the key components is that you don’t

have to continue to interact with something in an active way, don’t have to have a screen in front of you,

you don’t have to act in a way that takes you out of the experience and guide you. The only guide with

Scapes is just walking around, is very natural. This contributed to the ‘immersiveness’. To me the other

thing that makes Scapes totally immersive is that there is a continuous music. I think of it as the continuous

music or sort of like the ocean and the voices are sort of like the creatures that live in the ocean. So having

an experience where the ocean is always around you, is always there, in a sense that you hear a music

rather than something you are seeing, going in and out every time there’s a shark. It’s still there’s ocean,


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the feel that you are in. And then you run into these inhabitants, these Scapes voices. If the voices existed

without the ocean, as soon as you are not listening to something you would have been out of the

experience, and then back in. Back and forth is very frustrating to me. And I think that that’s a really key

point. From a technological stand point, that is the problem that we want to, significant technical challenge

that we had to overcome. […]’

Do you think that this degree of immersion could have been achieved through another media?

‘Audio is so great as it make your eyes free. Scapes became a living changing environment that is

experienced in a unique way by every person. And audio allows you to do that. A lot of AR apps, require

you to hold your camera, to see what’s there, things on top of other things augmenting it. I think there’s a

lot of potential for that, but I’ve never seen that is anything more than distracting to me. Somebody is

going to figure it out, but at this point…maybe google glass will help with it.’

Over the past years, there has been a huge amount of messages that argue that mobile media are

disconnecting us from the “real” and genuine interaction as well as from the actual reality. How would

you respond to that? Do you think that Scapes, or other mobile projects, act in this sense on visitors?

‘To be honest, when I was designing Scapes, I could envision the isolation happening…people putting on the

headphones …I didn’t know what to expect. That was a concern and I am sure that happened sometimes, I

can say anecdotally that a lot of time, what Scapes did was encouraging to explore more physically and with

other people. […] That kind of interaction is really wonderful and I think Scapes does encourage perhaps

kind of bouncing back and forth between socializing and experiencing on your own. There’s no doubt that a

large part of the experience is just you kind of listening. […]’

You have worked on a number of projects that make use of the Scapes model to achieve different goals.

In particular, Access American Stories and Stories from Main Street. Have you noticed a difference in the

way users contribute and use the apps?

‘With an art project, people are more willing to be themselves. Scapes, Round:Cambridge, people were

really just rumbling a little bit, it’s a chain of thoughts. That kind of opening is something that is wonderful. I

think a lot of museums try doing that in the same way, but when you add it as a contributor, as a

participant, you really much less inclined to do sort of a stream of consciousness. Museum is authority, this

kind of official place is going to keep these things, then you all of a sudden have to treat it differently. You

don’t have to but you are inclined to do that. I listened to so many people, so many voices. I can tell for

sure when somebody wrote something down and read it. I can tell if somebody thought about what they

were going to say before they say it. It’s a qualitative different things. In other projects people sort of

prepared as opposed to a stream of consciousness. That is easier to obtain in the context of an art project.

Being a museum and official in this sense, that’s a big challenge.’

Appendix D – Transcript interview Robbie Davis

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Why Stories From Main Street? How did you get started with this project?

‘[…] We didn’t have an app in mind at first. We wanted some kind of technology enhancement for an

exhibition that would have been travelling from 2011, “The Way We Worked”. We were thinking about

providing video kiosks that would include in some way videos and contributions from visitors, integrated

with the foundations of the website of Stories From Main Street. But then the budget for interactives was

too high, so we started looking at iPads. We put a lot of thoughts in it because the small museums we work

with have some technological constraints, there is often no wifi in the buildings, connectivity can be bad […]

we should have provided the equipment etc. After brainstorming with Nancy Proctor (Head of Mobile

Strategy and Initiatives) we started looking at Scapes. We basically re‐skinned that app for Stories From

Main Street and it worked extremely well for us. The interface is really simple, and even someone that

never used a smartphone could figure out how to use it.

We decided to start with audio and maybe add video and images later on. We decided to send an iPad with

each of the 5 copies of the exhibition. It was an experiment, difficult to do because of regulations of the

Smithsonian on sensitive properties. We also had to do data plan, because connectivity was an issue in

small museums. This was also costly. We didn’t build the app into the show. It was kind of a docent led

activity, avoiding somebody to run into the app and start talking to an inanimate object. It wasn’t the best

approach, but that doesn’t really have to do anything with the app but more on how we were approaching

the public. It was difficult to make the app work at the venues in the first year, it worked with the general

public in a way that we didn’t anticipate. We were featured on the app store for about two weeks, and it

was on “What’s hot”. 3 thousands downloads in the first two weeks. What was more striking was that more

than half contributions in the first 6 months were from the general public. Probably 5% was from the

people at venues. Of that group, more than half identified themselves as young people. Our main audience

are people in their fifties, along with schools. The app kind of balanced that, in a way that we didn’t

anticipate. We were getting stories from young people and we didn’t have anything in the exhibition that

was really targeted for young people. It was interesting to get that kind of response.

We did two major upgrades, in 2012 we were able to feature questions from other exhibitions, and then

we had the Android version. Then we introduced a web based version that kind of mimics Stories From

Main Street. It is not really used, we had a few browsers issues […]. So there is a note that states that users

might encounter problems so we recommend to update to the latest version of their browser.’

Through the app you gather stories from different audience, what are you going to do them?

‘An online digital repository, and that is the purpose of the website. We have to make some decisions long

terms about what that means. Right now we don’t have intentions to re‐use the content but it doesn’t

mean that we won’t do that. We informally collect stories.’

Why you use mobile devices and an app rather than a website or another kind of tool?

‘The app offered a level of portability that a website didn’t. We wanted something that could be positioned

in the spaces. The website had a specific place in the project. We were always focused on having a website.

But the app simplified the audio recording in a way that was convenient for us.’

What are the expectations from people for this app?


95

‘We really haven’t done that type of evaluation but we have always been clear to what Stories From Main

Street is. Since it is not branded with any specific name of exhibitions, it has its own identity. One of the

things we have resisted so far is skinning the app for the use with a specific exhibition. In “Hometown

Team” we integrated the app usage in the galleries. We placed a QR Code at the entrance and we ask

people to keep the app open throughout their visit. Signs inform where they should respond to a question

in the app. It is going ok, QR Codes are funky, but it was the easiest vehicle for us so. Halsey suggested to

re‐skin the app for Hometown Team, but we decided not to sacrifice Stories From Main Street identity. I

think keeping it independent, means that people don’t expect an audio tour.

And the other thing is that I would like people to have the app to recognize that they can do more with

that. You don’t have to see the exhibition to answer a question: they are very open, generalized and

adaptable to different and universal experiences. Anyone can pick it up and you don’t have to have the

physical presence, which is something that diversifies us from other things that are out there.’

What about the questions within the app, do you feel they serve as prompts for contributions and maybe

lead to a personal and emotional response?

‘I don’t know if we were driving for an emotional response… we don’t ask specifically for an emotional

response but more for a memory. Now, a memory may have an emotional component or it may be the re‐

telling of a story and the vast majority of the comments were a re‐telling of a story. Our questions are

broad enough that they don’t do that. We have people telling things in a very personal way, but there is a

distance. It is really hard to describe, there is a recognition that there is a certain emotional distance built

into out questions and I think anyone who comes to our app I don’t think they are looking for that from the

Smithsonian, they are distant from that.’

What is the main motivation in participating and recording a story? In Scapes there is sort of an aesthetic

and social aspect, while in Access American Stories there is the idea that users are helping the museum

achieving its mission. What about Stories From Main Street?

‘I think the difference is proximity to the object or the exhibition in question. Stories From Main Street is a

lot more open‐ended and general. There’s no question in the app that prompt people to go in front of an

object, we may ask a question like “What do people do to have fun in you small town?”, we are not asking

people to make other types of intellectual commitments in answering the question. I don’t think they are

motivated by “oh I want the Smithsonian to have my story”, they are storytellers, there is no deep seeded

interest in museums behind the motivation, is more like “I found something that is interested in something

that I am interested in” […] I think egocentrism is a big part of it. We had a lot of debate whether or not you

would hear you immediately after recording or you disappear into the stream. There are technical reasons

for that, also.’

Where do you think people are when they speak or listen?

‘They are at home. We can see the location in the database, but it is usually very clear where people are.

Sometimes you hear television in the background, the dog barking. Etc.’

Do you think this app leverages the main features of mobile technology (personal, sharable, mobile,

locative etc.)?

‘Even though we have the ability to tweet, text and share by email recordings, probably social is something

we fall down the most. Once you record, your story kind of disappears, the ability to be proud of what you


96

have done is not accomplished. We should improve links between app and website and social. There is no

immediate transfer between app and website, or the ability to search for your own town. The app is

actually a tool for collection, the website should be more robust in terms of creating that connection, and

facilitate the searches.[…]

Another lesson that we learned is that nothing is really ever completed. It’s ok if you don’t get it all done,

let’s put it out there, and see then how it is used, and make improvements from that. […].’

Since the stories are so personal, do you think the experience of the listener is different from the one

that he/she would have in listening to a curated content?

‘I think a curator would present the content much differently. Users talk about things in a very personal

perspective, they use ‘I’ they say ‘me’, whether the terminology of a curator is different. For Museum on

Main Streets exhibitions it’s really important that there is the introduction of the human voice. It is no

necessary to introduce the level of scholarship. We are pretty committed to that, in general, we have that

approach in our exhibitions.

In the cell phone tour for ‘The way we worked’ we have four stops for our curator, and other four that can

be made by the host institution. They could be anything, they are recorded by the community itself. It

might be the major, an announcer for a local radio station. It could be the person at the entrance of the

museum, but they are authorities in their local histories. The Smithsonian doesn’t know these stories, they

do have expertise, they do have scholarships, because they are there and we are not. Authority rests at a

lot of different levels. We are ok with shared authorities. The story of an high‐schooler that moved from

Boston to Nebraska and says “where the hell am I?”, is still a valuable experience for us. A completely

different experience, it’s his reality, it’s his truth. There is a place for that and is part of MoMS to make

people understand that the Smithsonian appreciates that. For ‘Hometown teams’ we used iPads rather

than cell phones tours. iPads are a physical part of the show, they are on a stand. We ask host institutions

to provide video or photos of their cheerleaders or marches and that kind of things. This has been a great

success, people can see something from their community, they see themselves, reflected in the exhibition.

We see the power of that. It’s more complex than a cell phone tour. Our goal is that each year we send the

exhibition to five new states, but we are leaving the content from the previous year in the app so people

are going to see differences throughout the countries’.

Appendix E – Bibliography and Resources

97


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