Dimensions
of Information: Giles Lane & Rachel Murphy
Interactive Technologies in the Museum
Increasingly electronic and 'interactive' technologies are coming into the museum as ways of increasing opportunities for public engagement with the museum's collections, as well as (in some cases) extending the reach of the museum to new audiences who might not have been attracted by the fusty image many museums once enjoyed. This process began with audio tours and in recent years has expanded to include PDA platforms such as the iPAQ.
But these are still very much controlled and designed by the museum, authoring the user experience and the ways in which they can interact with exhibits and each other. Always from the point of view of the institution rather than the visitor, they are becoming increasingly sopisticated in their ability to enable the user to access more and more information, yet they are still bounded by the authorial and curatorial picture promoted and presented by the institution.
For instance:
- American Museum of the moving Image eDocent
- Tate & Antenna Audio
- PARC: Sotto Voce
- HP/San Francisco Exploratorium: Electronic Guidebook
