The group I’m a part of developed a project that allows visitors to interact with each other through Xavier, a statue. This interaction is essentially a free association game. To better understand this project or to simply check it out, got to: http://bit.ly/henryart
I received a question about how to develop metrics for evaluation, and I figured I’d answer it here so everyone can benefit.
Especially in the case of such a quick project and evaluation, the metrics are just the hard numbers that represent the outcomes you are trying to measure. In some cases, it’s really clear what the metrics are – for example, if one of your outcomes is, “visitors will write a secret,” then you count the number of people who write a secret. If your outcome is “25% of visitors will write a secret,” you have to make sure to count the number of visitors who don’t write a secret too.
The harder thing is developing metrics for more affective outcomes. If you have an outcome like, “visitors will engage with the activity,” you have to define the various things they might do that you would consider engagement. Is looking for more than 5 seconds engagement? Pointing it out to a friend? Talking about it? Reading what other people have done?
The hardest version of this is when you want to evaluate actions that are not immediate or readily observable in any form. While you can reasonably measure something like visitors talking to each other, it’s harder to measure whether they talk about the experience later when they’re no longer in the museum. Similarly, if one of your outcomes is that visitors will “see the exhibition in a new light,” you have to find a way to ask them that later without overly leading them.
Since this is only one part of this class, you don’t need to go wild with longitudinal studies beyond the period of the 48 hours. Figure out how your visitor outcomes can be expressed in something you can measure or count, and then measure or count that.
That said, the most powerful argument you can make that your intervention made a positive difference is if you can A/B test it – i.e. show what visitors do when the intervention is and isn’t there. For example, it WOULD be fascinating, Xavier folks, if you could measure how long people spend with the sculpture and what they do both with and without your intervention. These kinds of comparisons are what help traditional museum professionals see the positive value of participatory interventions toward heightened (and hopefully more meaningful) visitor engagement.
“We do not allow:
All types of pencils are allowed. Materials can be pre-cut and torn/folded in the galleries. Tape is permitted.
I also just had a discussion with the Operations Manager to see how else we can push/manipulate these don’ts. What we can discuss, on a case-by-case basis, is that the above materials/objects can be permitted if the activity conducted with these materials/objects is contained to a table or area of the galleries and is supervised by museum staff.
Thanks for pushing us to think about the museum’s rules. I’m really looking forward to figuring out how to permit successful and engaging participatory activities in our galleries.”
While I was planning an imaginary visit to New York I came across this neat looking mobile game that the Brooklyn Museum started last year. I attempted to search the web for reviews/mentions of it but didn’t come up with much of anything. Has anyone heard of this or experienced it? Beyond the game itself, they’ve added some other neat functions like a crowd sourced delete-a-tag function (called Freeze Tag – love it!) as well as something interesting that the video below illustrates that I’m not entirely clear on.
I wonder how a high-tech idea like that might be adapted to the low tech augmentations we’ll be working on in a couple weeks…
I know that Tag works super-well on their collection website – it’s pretty fun and easy to play. In the galleries, I think they’ve struggled somewhat to simplify their mobile app so it’s more usable by people. Gallery Tag is pretty new and I’m not sure where it’s at at this point.
Here’s a post I wrote about the tagging game (with links to try it out): http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2008/11/two-tagging-projects-that-make-sense.html
And here’s Shelley Bernstein’s Brooklyn blog post about simplifying their mobile app: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/community/blogosphere/2010/03/23/bklynmuse-failing-fast-retooling-faster-version-2/
FYI the Henry is already doing a kind of version of I Spy with Panoptos via their blog: http://hankblog.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/feeling-competitive-weve-got-a-quiz-for-that/
Glad we passed on that idea.
As the most influential expo in the video game industry, E3 is an annual trade show for the computer and video games industry presented by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). It is used by many video game developers to show off their upcoming games and game-related hardware.
E3 tends to face all audience, until recent years, when it was only targeted to a limited amount of audience: people in that industry (developers and reporters). It seems that it was less “participatory” as there were much less participators (from 50,000 to 5,000 annually) attending. However, given the decrease of attendance, participators were able to attend more joint sessions concerning more “hardcore” information such as industry development and technology updates, rather than showgirls parade and game fans wandering around. People in that industry circle can be more focused and gain more through communication, which will bring more condensed information to the general public.
I used to go to E3 as a child with my mom (she ran an educational games company). From your perspective, is there an analogy between insiders and audience at E3 and in museums? I always wondered who the showgirls were for–I think it was more for the businessmen than for the gamers, who were there to appreciate the games.
I think the showgirls are for the media to add some flavors to video games, i.e., for audience not that hardcore. From what I saw in China Joy (the Chinese version of E3), showgirls are professional towards cameras, not to audience, which is quite interesting to me, as they are insiders for outsiders’ view.
I had heard of Accomplice before, when it debuted in New York City and Neil Patrick Harris became a fan, but I was reminded of it a few days ago when I got an email from an LA based listserv announcing the premiere of Accomplice: Hollywood.
In case you aren’t familiar with Accomplice (www.accomplicetheshow.com), the tagline is “Is it a show? Is it a game? Is it a tour? It’s an experience.” Basically the production sends the audience through the streets of either New York, LA or London on a scavanger hunt/mission. After purchasing a ticket, you get a phone call a day or two before telling you where to show up. From there, you move through the city with your group, unaware of who in the group is a member of the audience and who in the group is a member of the Accomplice team.
I haven’t yet been on an Accomplice adventure, so I can’t tell you more (the mystery is part of the fun, so even the website is lacking in concrete information), but if you check out the site, you can hear Neil Patrick Harris talking about it on every talk show known to man, including a stop on Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show.
I just wanted to share with everyone an interesting experience I had at the grocery store on Saturday. I was wearing my Steelers jersey because the game was later that afternoon and I couldn’t believe the number of conversations and comments it brought (I felt like I was attracting every eye in the store each time I turned a corner)! Thankfully none were hostile. The most interesting was at the checkout where a man and woman got in line behind me and she exclaimed “Oh look, she’s wearing Polamalu!” then she tapped me and said “We’re wearing Ward! Are you going to a playoff game party? We are, you should come!” I was understandably suprised and flustered because I barely had a chance to process what she was saying, let alone decide whether or not I wanted to go to a random house for a party with nobody I had ever seen before. So, jokingly I answered that I would be fine, thank you. Maybe if they get to the superbowl I’ll join you for a superbowl party. To my surprise the woman responded “Oh, yes! Please, please do call!” and handed me her card. Ah sports fidelity… though after all, we Steelers fans are known as the Steeler nation.
Wild. I have an artist friend in Pittsburgh, Jon Rubin, who recently put on an exhibition about Steelers-mania. Check it out: http://www.jonrubin.net/work.php?x=105
I am currently (before and after I post this) working pretty hard on finishing up my sketchbook for the Brooklyn Arts Library‘s Sketchbook Project. This is significant for me, because it takes a lot of motivation and incentive for me to work on anything right now that isn’t related to my classes, my job, or my thesis. But I shouldn’t make it sound so much like work, because truthfully, making this sketchbook has been a lot of fun. I chose the theme ‘Secret Codes’ for my book, and have been sketching objects in my life that speak to me through their design (entitled: The Secret Language of Objects) and writing about my interactions with them and with other because of them, sometimes I even write those stories in code.
Other themes included: “Sorry I forgot you,” “Make mine a double,” “Great hopes and massive failures, “Nightmares,” Inside/Outside,” “If you lived here you would be home now,” and more.
The sketchbooks are all given a barcode, so you can track when yours gets checked out and see when people are seeing your book. Also, the library will digitize your book so you can view your work online and show your friends.
They also have some other projects going on now, including A Million Little Pictures (AMLP). A similar concept: participants receive a disposable camera in the mail, take photos of whatever places, objects, people, that fit in with the theme you choose – one that inspires you – and then the photos go on tour together. It’s cool, they’re going to create a mobile photo library in an Airstream trailer, and drive it across the country.
I love these projects because the provide incentive in a really simple way: you get to create something that people will see and your work becomes part of the library’s permanent collection, and the library provides constraints, limiting contributions to one sketchbook that must retain its original dimensions, or a disposable camera, etc. Mostly, it just feels good knowing you’re a part of something bigger, that people around the country and the world are working on their sketchbooks at the same time, and if the tour stops in your city (luckily, it is coming to Seattle), you can go with your friends to celebrate everyone’s work.
That’s awesome that you’re doing this. I LOVE it.
Ken Johnson writes in the NY Times on “Talent Show” an exhibition at MoMA P.S.1 in Queens:
A logical turn in the everyone-is-special movement was to include museum goers as participants in artworks. Adrian Piper’s contribution to “Information,” the influential exhibition of Conceptual art at the Museum of Modern Art in 1971, was a binder full of blank pages on which visitors were asked to write or draw whatever they liked. A selection of those sheets is displayed around the walls of one gallery. They included political commentaries, feeble japes like “You are all under arrest” and crude cartoons. The most incisive is a drawing of two people, one saying to the other, “You know Clyde, this exhibit’s better when you’re stoned.”
To a particular state of sympathetically attuned consciousness, Ms. Piper’s project might seem an inspirational, utopian work of participatory democracy; to my perception, which is not artificially enhanced, it has the high-minded odor of mandarin pseudo-populism.
A similarly dubious inclusiveness animates “free fotolab,” a 2009 project by Phil Collins, but to far more engaging visual effect. Mr. Collins invited ordinary people from around the world to send him rolls of film, which he promised to develop, print and return in exchange for permission to use some in his own work, a slide presentation of selected, anonymous images. Of the 80 pictures shown over a nine-minute period, including images of family parties, portraits of people and pets, and landscapes, there is nary a dud. But this says less about the genius of the common people than it does about photography — it is easy for an amateur to snap a striking picture accidentally. Mr. Collins’s sophisticated eye for the offbeat image is what makes the presentation compelling. As in Ms. Piper’s case, his artistic authority remains unquestionable.
My own thoughts on this show:
I was impressed with the scope of this exhibition, interested in these two artistic efforts in particular as they do require a larger participatory base for the artists’ practices, and struck by how the current iteration of these projects is situated in the act of the artist (Collins & Piper) selecting and curating the elements. Perhaps we can learn two things here:
1. Some compelling participatory design requires a multi stage process, the call for user-generation, and the careful selection of what and how to display these elements.
2. No matter that you design with audience participation in mind, you may still be accused of “mandarin pseudo-populism” or some other impressive wordy critique if the final execution of display is not ironic or esoteric.
Help me out here – I have trouble reading the ironic or esoteric correctly in text, rather than speech. I can’t tell if you’re panning these two examples as being too “pseudo-populist,” or too limited/mediated in the extent that they’re actually participatory, or if you’re saying that inviting participation into this sort of contemporary art is just intrinsically silly. Maybe the other big thing to learn here is just that some artists have a burning desire to be curators instead?
…Could you say a little more, maybe about how effective you feel these projects are at actually serving the needs of any stakeholders (artists, participants, P.S. 1, or anyone else)?
Sure, it may not have been clear, the first part was a direct quote from the article, a review of a show. my thoughts were that the art by Piper is the follow up to a 1970’s participatory element, and that the current iteration is something that we need to think about now for our own projects. If we put out a comment box or a draw your own section, there should be some arena for analysis and display of these user generated elements. The journalist did not find the (much later) display of the people’s art a useful statement, nor a true piece of work. The point was lost on him. The other work however, did get some praise from the journalist, and I actually consider it to be an interesting concept as well. It is the act of casting a wide net, we never see the images not selected though.
YES, many artists today function more as curators, and some curators function in an artistic capacity as well. The age of the hybrid is nigh!
Chris Cadenhead is discussing. 
Kai Tian and 
amandamuseum and 
youngsre are discussing. 
Playing with Henry: Participatory Audience Engagement 
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