Between Space - Exhibition Design

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Break This Exhibit

Knowledge and subversion are inextricably intertwined. Vehicles get safer by subjecting them to crash tests, architecture becomes more resilient by modeling natural disasters, and police are best at solving crimes when they can think like criminals. From simulating the fiery conditions of entering Earth’s atmosphere to studying the disintegration of pharmaceuticals in the digestive system, we are continually leveling an assault on our own products and structures in an effort to understand how the world works and how to best survive in it.

Testing construction methods at the IBHS research center

Exhibit Through the Gift Shop

There is a growing tendency for non-museum environments, like shopping malls, to incorporate museum exhibition spaces (including zoos and aquariums) into their facilities. But, there has been little effort toward exploring the potential of infusing interpretation and informal learning opportunities into retail environments. Not simply by installing exhibits into adjacent spaces, but literally integrating content into the shopping experience.

TRANSMEDIATION

This strategy of delivering content through a variety of methods and devices, designed to culminate into an understanding of, and engagement with a particular subject, idea or product is essentially what exhibition designers have been doing for years. An exhibition tells its story through a conglomeration of content delivery methods. What is different about transmediation is that its multilevel, multimodal approach escapes the boundaries of any single venue.

DESIGNING EXPERIENCE

What is particularly telling about the term experience design is that it admits to our extreme condition of immersion in a designed world. While non-designed experiences have become quite rare, it is the lack of an interrelated organization of designed experiences that makes the notion of experience design desirable.

THE VISITOR: Modes of Tourism

The distinction between “tourist and traveler” plays an important role in finding ways of turning passive museum visitors into self-motivated, active explorers. I will touch on a broad range of existing “tourisms” that occupy different positions along the tourist/traveler axes and will suggest other “designed” and “non-designed” venues that offer models of participation and may inform the movement from passive to active engagement in museum exhibitions.

THE NOVELTY OF THE REAL

Through an over saturation of media and our accelerating retreat into virtual landscapes, reality has gained an unprecedented novelty. But can reality now exist as anything other than an artifact or specimen?

SOUNDSCAPING

As the use of media and interactivity increases in museum exhibitions, so too does noise generation. Designers spend months considering the relationships between objects and images, the balance of color and light, the segues between one content area and the next, yet one of the most overlooked aspects of exhibitions today is the balance of sound-producing exhibit elements.