Museum Experience as defined by John Falk & Lynn Dierking 2013
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Transcript of Museum Experience as defined by John Falk & Lynn Dierking 2013
Rethinking Museums from a Visitor’s Perspective
Tuesday 3 September 2013
ing. Ruben Smit MA
The Interactive Museum Experience (Falk & Dierking)
Unlocking the visitor’s mindAn introduction
Rethinking Museums
Some statements…
Some statements…
“People come to museums carrying with them the rest of their lives, their own reasons for visiting
and their specific prior experience.”
(Eilean Hooper-Greenhill)
Some statements…
"(…) the multiformity of exhibitions ensures that museum visitors will interact in an almost endless variety of ways with the exhibits and with each other."
(Kathleen McLean)
Some statements…
“Fun must be part of the exhibition experience ---
or visitors simply will ignore the exhibits!”
(Chandler Screven)
Some statements…
“If you want to educate a mind
you first need to entertain it.”
(Walt Disney)
Some statements…“A museum can sparkle, kindle excitement, and be an uplifting experience, or it can be tawdry and depressing in spite of the glory of its collections. A museum environment is not neutral; its quality and atmospheredirectly affect those who visit it, (…)” (Design Team Royal Ontario Museum 1975)
Some statements…
“(Museums) can be shelters from the rain, mortuaries for dead objects, shrines to the memory of wealthy donors (…), forums for debate, repositories for community archives, centres of scholar-ship and understanding, instruments of social control, locations for recreation and reflection, sacred places where the spirits of the ancestors rest, anchor tenants in urban renewal programmes, lovers’ meets or places to lose children.” (Gaynor Kavanagh)
Museum Experience Model
The Museum Experience by John Falk and Lynn Dierking
Three contexts:
1. Personal Context
2. Social Context
3. Physical Context
Lynn Dierking & John Falk
"Traditionally, museum professionals have failed to recognize that visitors create their own museum experience, (…)" (Falk and Dierking)
1. Personal Context
personal context
1. Motivation and expectations
2. Prior knowledge and experience
3. Prior interests and believes
4. Choice and control
personal context
In it’s core learning leads to the reconfirmation of yourself…
Your identity is partly determined by what you make and understand of your surroundings.
Learning is self-confirming…
1. Personal Context motivation
Motivation to learn is intrinsic.
People are curious by nature.
Wanting to learn is what makes us human.
The need to learn, curiousity, it is all very human…
1. Personal Context motivation
Learning is not just about facts and concepts, especially intrinsic learning often is a very emotional experience.
True learning is both cognitive and emotional
1. Personal Context affection
A deeply felt interest enhances the learning process.
Interest is key to true learning…
1. Personal Context affection
Our brains are the evolutionary result that took millions of years
The oldest part (on top of the brain stem) is the so called limbic system.
1. Personal Context affection
Within that part of the brain our emotional and geographical memory is stored.
1. Personal Context affection
We now understand that the limbic system is central in our capacity to remember important things.
The limbic system is the central unit that regulates our memory.
‘Memory’ Daniel Chester French (1917-19)
1. Personal Context affection
Most people are in a higher state of alertness or even anxiety when they encounter a new situation or a new environment.
On these moments all our impressions are being filtered by our limbic system.
In the speed of light we emotionally tag and label our experiences.
1. Personal Context affection
We can assume that all things we want to remember are emotionally ear-marked by our limbic system.
In other words: memorable experiences have an emotional label.
What is emotionally experienced, will be remembered…
1. Personal Context affection
New facts always land on top of existing knowledge.
Pre-knowledge by and large determines how this new knowledge finds it’s place.
Knowledge always builds on existing knowledge…
1. Personal Context construction
The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget assumed that knowledge was assimilated.
New knowledge partly covers existing knowledge that as such is reconfirmed.
1. Personal Context construction
As such pre-knowledge is very likely a strong base for further learning.
1. Personal Context construction
“Numerous nonprofit organizations have discovered to their dismay that consumer expectations are higher than management had anticipated, and that users demand quality service from public and nonprofit organizations just as they do from private firms.” (Lovelock and Wineberg)
2. Social Context
social context
personal context
5. Within-group sociocultural mediation
6. Facilitated mediation by others
social context
People are intrinsically social.
Learning often is a social process and is not isolated.
2. Social Context learning together
You share and build knowledge with other people…
The learning process is strongly
mediated by: – spoken language,– body language, – observation, – use of socio-cultural means, – symbols, – and all of this in a historically
and culturally layered context of societal -, religious -, and shared value systems.
2. Social Context learning together
The concept of ‘culture’ is complex. In this context it is wise to see culture in relationship to learning.
Culture is not genetically transferred. You grow up in a society where the existing culture ‘moulds’ you.
The educational anthropologist John Ogbu claims that culture consists out of 5 components:
2. Social Context socialization
1. Habits and ways of life. Think about: work, food,
expressing affection, how to raise kids, marrying, etc…
2. Social Context socialization
2. Codes or assumptions, expectations and emotions that are at the base of that behaviour.
2. Social Context socialization
3. Meaningful artefacts and things the community produces.
Think about: harbours, houses, cars, chairs, etc…
2. Social Context socialization
4. Institutions of a economical, political, religious or social order.
All these form a recognisable meshwork of: knowledge, believes, qualities, behaviour that makes a society more or less predictable.
2. Social Context socialization
5. Patrons and social ties. Think about: family, school,
friends, university, colleagues, etc…
2. Social Context socialization
It does make a difference how the social context of a museum manifests it selves…
With mind-like fellow students?
2. Social Context at the museum
…or tourists in large quantities?
2. Social Context at the museum
…with elderly people?
2. Social Context at the museum
…school kids?
2. Social Context at the museum
…families?
2. Social Context at the museum
…to many young toddlers?
2. Social Context at the museum
…or with no-one present and the museum seems to be all yours?
2. Social Context at the museum
…what about front of house staff?
Policing?
2. Social Context at the museum
The security staff on the museum steps, ca 1902
Or helping and participating?
2. Social Context at the museum
…as role players or actors?
2. Social Context at the museum
What would you like to ask Gene Cernan, the last man to
step on the Moon in 1972?
Science Museum
Passive and slightly sad in a corner?
2. Social Context at the museum
Museum Guard by Duane Hanson
or…as a guide just a little too eager and as such intrusive?
Social interaction with museum staff can strongly influence the experience.
2. Social Context at the museum
All tangible reality contributes to this part of the experience. From easy access to clean toilets; from exciting exhibitions to freshly brewed coffee in the museum’s cafe; from a well-stocked museum shop to clear signposting.
3. Physical Context
social context
physicalcontext
personalcontext
7. Advance organizers
8. Orientation to the physical space
9. Architecture and large scale environment
10. Design of exhibits and interpretation / content delivery
11. Reinforcing events and experiences outside the museum
physicalcontext
Advance organizers
How do you get there?
3. Physical Context
The fysical context starts at home with leaflets or websites of the museums.
3. Physical Context
Advance organizers
Website easy to navigate? With ample but not overwhelming information?
Advance organizers
How do you get there?
3. Physical Context
Advance organizers
Are there clear signposts leading to the museum?
3. Physical Context
Orientation to the physical space
…is there a clear entrance?
3. Physical Context
Orientation to the physical space
Where do you buy your ticket?
3. Physical Context
Orientation to the physical space
Once in the building is there a clear routing?
3. Physical Context
Orientation to the physical space
Is there easy orientation within the exhibition?
What about routing and pacing?
3. Physical Context
Orientation to the physical space
How do (large) objects fit in the existing architectural space?
3. Physical Context
Orientation to the physical space
… and if they are truly small, how are they being displayed?
3. Physical Context
Design of exhibits and interpretation / content delivery
Is there a multitude of interpretation devices?
3. Physical Context
Design of exhibits and interpretation / content delivery
Is interpretation provided in different ways?
3. Physical Context
…is the interpretation passive or activating?
3. Physical Context
…are there any other means of interpretation like interactive audio-visuals?
3. Physical Context
…or hands-on?
3. Physical Context
Architecture and large scale environment
Can the visitor also sit down and rest for some contemplation?
3. Physical Context
Architecture and large scale environment
…is there a café or museum restaurant?
3. Physical Context
Architecture and large scale environment
…quality of the restrooms?
3. Physical Context
Architecture and large scale environment
…and finally is there a well assorted museum shop?
3. Physical Context
Reinforcing events & experiences outside the museum
…e.g. Post-Visit on-line feedback of recent visit
3. Physical Context
Reinforcing events & experiences outside the museum
3. Physical Context
Museum Experience Model
The museum visitor’s experience is the result of the overlapping of the physical context, the social context, and the personal context.
Museum Experience Model
social context
physicalcontext
personal context
Museum
Experience
Museum Experience Model
Museum Experience Model
“Each visitor’s experience is different, because each brings his own personal and social contexts, because each is differently affected by the physical context, and because each makes different choices as to which aspect of that context to focus on.” (Falk and Dierking)
Dream Space and its implication for museums
Discussion on Museum Experience
ing. Ruben Smit MA
(Sheldon Annis)
Sheldon Annis: “The Museum as staging Ground for Symbolic Action”
The idea of a multi-layered museum experience connects well with Sheldon Annis’ vision of the museum as an expressive medium, with visitors moving through three similarly overlapping and influential spaces:
1. cognitive space
2. pragmatic space
3. dream space
Sheldon Annis cognitive space
Cognitive space is the museum’s striving to facilitate (life long) learning. Here the museum provides the accumulated knowledge on a topic related to the collections. The museum expertly presents this knowledge in the light of the museums subject and the needs of the audiences.
Sheldon Annis cognitive space
cognitive space
Sheldon Annis pragmatgic space
Visitors are playing roles: are they there primarily as teacher, parent, partner or friend? The motivation for visiting is very often socially determined. If visiting an exhibition with a friend results in a stronger bond with that friend, the memory of the visit will be pleasant, because of that result. The content of the exhibition can have become pleasantly vague, or even completely forgotten.
Sheldon Annis pragmatic space
pragmatic space
cognitive space
Sheldon Annis dream space
“In museum dream space there is a flow of images and meanings - highly personal, sometimes lulling, sometimes surprising, more or less conscious: ‘I like this’, ‘I don’t like this’, ‘I don’t care about that’, ‘I know this’, etc.” (Annis)
Sheldon Annis dream space
“In dream space many things might tumble through our minds: bits of songs, half-written shopping lists, things left unsaid. The shape or shadow of something, its texture or colour, the operation of space and the people moving through it can be triggers to an endless range of personal association.” (Kavanagh)
Sheldon Annis dream space
pragmatic space
dreamspace
cognitive space
Sheldon Annis
pragmatic space
dreamspace
cognitive space
Sheldon Annis
“The artefacts are clearly tangible; it is the emotions that they evoke which are intangible. Experience, therefore is the intangible characteristic of the museum, (…).” (Fiona McLean)