Is the future of museums in ideas from the past?

“In 1627 the scientist and philosopher Francis Bacon described an imaginary science centre designed for both amusement and hand-on investigation of scientific phenomena in his unfinished book The New Atlantis. This dream did not become reality until 1969 when the Exploratorium was founded in San Francisco by the US scientist Frank Oppenheimer. It was this place that inspired Professor Richard Gregory, CBE, of the University of Bristol, to start up the Exploratory in 1983 – the first hands-on science centre in the UK. By the time The Exploratory closed finally on September 1st 1999 it had attracted over two million visitors.” exploritory.org.

It is interesting that 1999 is sited as the closure of The Exploratory.  It did not close through lack of popularity, in fact the opposite was true.  It was one of the only science/nature exhibitions which was self sustaining.  Rather than government grants it survived on entry fees and donations alone.  In 1987 visitor numbers had reached 100,000/year and by 1989 had doubled to 200,000/year. There were stories of school kids who visited talking about it for weeks.

In around 2005 The Exploratory became part of a consortium which won a large amount of Lottery Funding.  As part of this full control of The Exploratory was handed over to the consortium.  When Explore @ Bristol was launched the mechanical ‘plores‘ of The Exploratory were replaced with multimedia exhibits.  This was not supported by Professor Gregory, indeed everybody who had originally been involved with The Exploratory were not retained by the new organisation.

“‘Plore’ is coined because there is no existing word having the required meaning. The equivalent museum words ‘Demonstration’, ‘Working Model’, ‘Artefact’, or the most commonly used, ‘Exhibit’ (which one may note can be used as a noun or a verb) are far too passive in meaning and specifically associated with passive viewing; but we wish to include the touching, handling and generally active exploration which is the essence of the Exploratory. So we call our hands-on models, experimental apparatus, puzzles and games-against-nature ‘Plores’ – to be explored in the Exploratory by Explorers.” exploritory.org.

This was partly a sign of the times, in the late 90s everyone was exited by computers and museums and science exhibits saw computers as the was forward to capture visitors imagination.  Looking at modern Museums (e.g. M Shead Bristol) the multimedia components seem uninspiring to me.  I think the main problem is that they do not give us anything than computers at home can.  In some ways they give us less than the internet. They also are not much good for spectators.  Tom Bennet, a Pervasive Media practitioner biased at the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol talked about not only the direct participants but also the spectators should engaging with exhibits.  He was talking about installations in buildings (such as stately homes) but this also seems true for museums and science exhibits. It is one thing for an individual or small group to be engaged by an exhibit, if it is also engaging for spectators it could be seen to be of far greater value.  In the M Shead, Bristol there are large screens with big buttons which when pressed  play various videos on a large screen (which video depends on the button).  This may not be very interactive but I did find others in the area sometimes were also watching the screen, so to some extent the spectators were also participants.

For me the best experience in the M Shead was sitting in the old double decker bus which plays stories about Bristol (some related to buses) through the speakers. Having large old vehicles in a Museum may seem like a dated idea but it is using the physical space to give you an experience that you would not otherwise have.  The Museum of Aviation in Belgrade is a good example of this.  Visitors are allowed to touch and clime on exhibits, there is even the wreckage of a F-117 Nighthawk (stealth bomber) you can prod.

Museums may be designed to teach but it is the ludic qualities they have that seem to work best.  Simply being able to go inside, look at and physical interact with exhibits satisfies what Roger Caillois referes to as Ilinx (vertigo) ludic qualities.  The Exploratory and it forerunners capitalised on other ludic qualities.  As well as the ludic vertigo qualities of the mechanical exhibits, or plores, could cover quite a range of other ludic qualities.  They were designed as experiments which had elements of chance and simulation.  If the exhibits are designed as games with a score this adds composition to the mix.  At this point we have all four of Caillois’s ludic qualities.

For physical museums and exhibitions where they can differentiate themselves from online or multimedia is the ability for them to have vertigo ludic qualities.  There physical nature seems there biggest asset.  Keyboards and screens may be a good way for us to explore the physical objects but if you are going to have a physical museum not having physical objects seems like missing the whole point.

I am not saying computers and modern technology do not have a place in these types of spaces, but that they should be combined with something that is physical (e.g mechanical) to create a experience that engage the senses and is good to watch others doing as well as doing oneself.  The Exploratory managed to do incredible things with little funding.  Using its ideas and adding modern technology should create exhibits that are engaging for both adults and children alike.  So rather than having multimedia exhibits should we not return to the philosophy started by Francis Bacon and used to make The Exploratory such as success.

We are Cyborge, is Pervasive Media cybonetic

Recently I have been pondering the idea of Cyborg in Gaming and how this relates to Pervasive Media but first lets take a step back and start from a look at Interactivity. Oxford Dictionaries defines Interactive as ‘allowing a two-way flow of information between a computer and a computer-user; responding to a user’s input:a fully interactive map of the area‘.  This is a very computer orientated detention and an alternative wider definition is ‘reciprocal action, effect, or influence‘ (Dictionary.com). For the origins of the word Interaction it simply states the word Interact which it defines as “act in such a way as to have an effect on each other:all the stages in the process interact”.  The origin of Interact seem to step from the prefix inter-  “a prefix occurring in loanwords from Latin, where it meant “between,” “among,” “in the midst of,” “mutually,” “reciprocally,” “together,” “during” ( intercept; interest );” (Dictionary.com) and action “the fact or process of doing something, typically to achieve an aim” (Dictionary.com).

So the word Interactivity (A derivative of interactive)  seems to refer to a direct cause and effect relationship between a person and another entity (i.e. a computer). In new media this can be seen as “Technically the ability of the user to intervene in computer processes and see the effects of the interaction in real time” (Lister et al 2009: 424)1 and this text goes on to say “Also used in communication theory to describe human communication based on a dialogue and exchange.”.  Up to now all the definitions seem to be describing a cause and effect type of interaction.  The person does x and y happened.  There are taking about and action rather than a chain of events.  Although they do not explicitly prohibit the action to be a chain of events these definitions do not talk about it.

Although Games are defiantly interactive in nature to describe them as simply Interactive seems inadequate.  In the early 1990s Peter Lunenfeld  distinguishes between two paradigms of interactivity, extractive and emersive.   The extractive model refers to such activities as accessing information from a website.  We request information (by clicking on a link) and it is returned to us.  He seas operations such as interacting with 3D worlds emersive an this isccloser to the model for modern digital games.  ‘Emersive interaction will also include the potential to explore and navigate in visually represented screenspace‘ (Lister et al 2009: 22)1. So far I have been considering modes of interactive that are cognitive rather than kinaesthetic.  ‘The idea of a disembodied spectator/viewer/reader is a fiction subject created by a particular ways of conceptualising the relationship between “texts” and “readers”.  This fiction is founded in the Cartesian model of perception whereby consciousness is seen as a separate and distinct form of embodiment’(Lister et al 2009: 24)1. 

If the term Interactive is inadequate to define the high levels of real-time interaction where not only are the exchanges consent but the state of the media is changing.  Talking about ‘configuration‘ rather than ‘interaction’ (Aarseth 2001,Eskeline 2001, Moulthrioe 2004 in Lister et al 2009: 22).  ‘Woolgar defines configuration as designers’ attempts to “define, enable and constraign” the user’ (Lister et al 2009: 24)1, however for games, and other highly immersive digital media products, they have become cybernetic in nature and the user/player relationship as one of cyborg.

‘The term itself (cybernetic) began its rise to popularity in 1947 when Norbert Wiener used it to name a discipline apart from, but touching upon, such established disciplines as electrical engineering, mathematics, biology, neurophysiology, anthropology, and psychology. Wiener, Arturo Rosenblueth, and Julian Bigelow needed a name for their new discipline, and they adapted a Greek word meaning “the art of steering” to evoke the rich interaction of goals, predictions, actions, feedback, and response in systems of all kinds … [Wiener 1948]. Early applications in the control of physical systems (aiming artillery, designing electrical circuits, and maneuvering simple robots) clarified the fundamental roles of these concepts in engineering; but the relevance to social systems and the softer sciences was also clear from the start. ‘ (Pangaro.com).

In popular culture the terms cybernetic and cyborg are seen as introduction of hardware to a person/ or other sentient biological system.  The Borge (Starttreck) and Cybermen (Doctor Who) are examples from science fiction.  But many feel that it is more to do with the mode and level natral real-time interaction that what hardware is used and how it integrates with people.  Freedman talks of the cybernetic loop, ‘the perpetual feedback between a player’s choice, the computers almost- instantaneous response, and so on – is a cybernetic loop’ (1999).

An understanding of this can come from strange places, ‘Meet Donna Haraway and you get a sense of disconnection. She certainly doesn’t look like a cyborg. Soft-spoken, fiftyish, with an infectious laugh and a house full of cats and dogs … Beneath the surface she says she has the same internal organs as everyone else … Yet Donna Haraway has proclaimed herself a cyborg, a quintessential technological body…For Haraway, the realities of modern life happen to include a relationship between people and technology so intimate that it’s no longer possible to tell where we end and machines begin … Being a cyborg isn’t about how many bits of silicon you have under your skin or how many prosthetics your body contains. It’s about Donna Haraway going to the gym, looking at a shelf of carbo-loaded bodybuilding foods, checking out the Nautilus machines, and realizing that she’s in a place that wouldn’t exist without the idea of the body as high-performance machine. … Haraway’s world is one of tangled networks – part human, part machine; complex hybrids of meat and metal that relegate old-fashioned concepts like natural and artificial to the archives. These hybrid networks are the cyborgs, and they don’t just surround us – they incorporate us.‘ (You are Cyborg, Wired). So if we look at people as cyborg it does not seem so strange that we talk about digital games as cybernetic as they could be seem as being a good examples of us demonstrating our cyborg self.

So to what extent can Pervasive media be thought of as Cybernetic.  The cybernetic nature of computer games is due to the cybernetic loop mentioned above.  Players actions create interactions which change the state, behaviours and data contained within the media and this can happens many times a second.  The experience can cause us to become immersed ‘Inside the Game’.  In (especially module phone based) Pervasive Media the input device (touch screen) is slower in use to the keyboard/mouse and it often needs to send and receive data over the mobile network that can be slow.  If it is cybernetic then so is the internet.  In a way maybe we need a new language. In Pervasive media it is not so much the technology we are interacting with it is the world we are interacting with (through the technology).  This idea may help to formulate working definition of what pervasive media is. Other Pervasive Media Devises give a much more tightly integrated experience for the user where user actions almost immediately produce some sort of (i.e. audio) feedback.  The question Is Pervasive Media Cybernetic? may not be a useful one as it very much depends on how the hardware/software elements integrate with the user. As bespoke interfaces develop and applications mature there will no doubt become more cybernetic in nature but Pervasive Media is a relatively new field and is still maturing. The very nature of Pervasive Media gives it a high propensity to be cybernetic and this is what makes the future of Pervasive media so exiting, all we need now is to find ways of unlocking its potential.

Regerences

1. Lister, Dovey, Giddings, Grant & Kelly 2009 New Media ,A critical Introduction(2^ndedition), Oxon: Routledge
2. Aarseth, Epsen ‘Computer Game Studies Year One’, in Game Studies: The International Journal of Computer Game Resurch, vol 1, no 1, (2001).
3. Eskeline, M. The Gameing Situation in Games Studies: The International Journal of Computer Game Resurch, vol 1, no 1 (2001)
4. Moulthrope, Stuare 1992 ‘Towards a rheotrc information texts in hypertext’, Proceedings of the Accosiation for Computing Machinary, New York, 1992
   

What is Pervasive Media?

From first hearing about the Pervasive Media Studio around six months ago I have been trying to work out ‘What is Pervasive Media’.  A talk by a Calvian at The Festival of Ideas Pervasive applications helped somewhat.  It seemed to revolve around applications that used actual location or location relative to somewhere/someone.  Google Maps and Foursquare being examples.  It seemed to me that the applications broadly fell into two camps.  Those that used GPS and were not bound to any particular location (Google Maps) and those that required technology to be added to a location and only worked in this location (Oystercard, Krstl). Granted Google Maps may not work on 100% of the planet but it is designed so it could if the maps existed.

“Pervasive Media is basically any experience that uses sensors and/or mobile/wireless networks to bring you content (film, music, images, a game…) that’s sensitive to your situation – which could be where you are, how you feel, or who you are with. Oyster Cards are a simple pervasive device: so are audio guides at tourist attractions, which can give you extra information according to where you are and which bits you’ve been to already.” Pervasive Media Studio

More recently briefly discussing this with Seth Giddings on the MA led to a slightly wider definition.  Pervasive media is media which transcends the constraints of the traditional computer system.  In this context the traditional computer system would be made up of screen, keyboard, mouse (and possibly printer, graphics tables, trackball).  I don’t think the size of the system necessarily makes things pervasive, it seems to run pervasive apps on a mobile phone they need a GPS or the ability to triangulate position from the mobile phone masts they can see.

There seem to be a new wave of pervasive devices with the ability to interact with the environment rather than know where they are locationally.  Is a ball that when you press areas on the surface plays sound and flashes lights pervasive? It does not seem to adhere to the definition of pervasive media on the Pervasive Media Studio’s website but does fit very well into the wider definition.

Do welding robots used in car plants have any relation to Pervasive Media?  Probably not, they follow a set of predetermined movements and while they affect their environment they do not react to it as such.  So can we say Pervasive media should react to something that a person or persons do? Does it have to have a level of interactivity? Do people have to be involved?

So is XBox kinetic Pervasive.  It does have a sensor that senses people and the applications it uses to react to what the people are doing.  It certainly uses location and reacts to what the user does which seem to be at the the roots of pervasive media, so I guess so.

Pervasive media is a new and developing area so maybe trying to pin down a definition is not productive and if we do it may quickly be superseded.

Maybe rather than talk about if media is Pervasive Media or not it may be more useful to talk in terms of levels or degrees of Pervasiveness or what Pervasive elements exist in a media product.

Fundamentals of Play

We all know what play is,or we think we do.  It is ingrained in us from childhood, but coming up with a solid definition is not spright forward. The problem is that is is used in do many ways coming up with a all encompassing definition is close to imposable.  The origins of the word are ‘Old English pleg(i)an ‘to exercise’, plega ‘brisk movement’, related to Middle Dutch pleien ‘leap for joy, dance’ (OED). From a cultural and perspective the book ‘Homo Ludens : A Study of play-element in culture‘ (Johan Huizinga,1935) discusses the importance of the play element of culture and society (It can be read online here). It has however come to be used in numerous ways:

Playing with, playing at, play someone for (a fool), at play, in play, put into play, bring/call into play, come into play, make a play for, not playing woth a full deck, play both ends against the middle, play something by ear, play by the rules, play one’s cards close to one’s chest, fair play, play fast and loose, play the field, play for time, play the game, play god, play havok with…. (Oxford Dictionaries)

And that’s just half way down the list.  Many of these talk about some type of plan or scheme being played out (call into play, come into play, play the field) or the way it is played out, play both ends against the middle, play something by ear). There is a very strong relationship between play and games and these uses of the word play seem to refer to characteristics and ideas in gaming.  The other group of uses of play refer to playful activities (both mental and physical), or in other words ludic activities.  ‘Play the fool’ is an example of a ludic use of the word play and ‘come into play’ has gaming as its root, it is not necessarily ludic.

Roger Caillois (1913-78) Identifies 4 patterns of (ludic) play:

• Agon (competition) – chess -
• Alea (chance) – luck – snap – slot machine
• Mimicry (simulation) – role playing
• Ilinx (vertigo) – doing, movement – rolecoster

(For more information See The Challenge of Agon, The Rituals of Alea, The Imagination of Minicry and  The Joy of LLnx)

Within this a continuum of Ludus to Paida.

• Ludus – structured play with rules and a winner/winners – chess
• Paida – unstructured play, anarchistic, messing around – word association, Mornington Crescent

(Further Reading The Complexities of Ludus).

It is not so much if a media product is ludic or not but how ludic it is as many forms of media that are not considered to be playful have a ludic element, even the news has its funnies and humor is often used to break tension in the most serious drama.

Caillois was concerned with creating a sociological model to define ludic activities and they tell us a lot about what play is. It is not done solely for acquisition of wealth of goods. Therefore activities that seem playful (playing second life) may not be so. It is the motivation for doing something that makes it playful, not the activity itself. Gold Farming in second Life may be in a play environment but if it is done solely for profit (18 hour days) it is not play.

Ludic is activities, or approaches to activities, that are not necessary (in terms of Maslow’s hierarchy or needs) for our physiological or safety needs but do help to fulfill the higher needs (love, esteem, self actualization and self transcendence).