The Immersion Experience
Immersive environments and interiors designed for interaction where end users actually interface with technology are popping up in more than just cutting-edge corporate offices. Public spaces, such as museums, now feature interactive exhibits to engage visitors in more dynamic and meaningful ways, and retail outlets leverage digital technology to tell their brands’ story and make personal connections with customers more effectively.
The Cleveland Museum of Art’s new “Gallery One,” designed by Local Projects, New York, is a perfect illustration of how digital technology is transforming the art museum experience. Visitors can explore digital versions of the artwork, gather ideas and see the original context of the works of art. Rather than simply reflecting on others’ artwork, visitors to Gallery One are invited to create their own works of art and thereby appreciate creativity by being creative themselves.
Jake Barton, principal and founder of Local Projects, describes the Cleveland Museum of Art as “the first reinvention of an art museum, which allows individuals to curate their own experiences, create ‘playlists’ of what they love and share them to guide people throughout the museum.”
Through interactive games, visitors can put their own bodies into the experience, matching poses with figurative sculptures or browse the museum’s collection by making different facial gestures. All of these interfaces are experiences that invite visitors to understand art and art-making through intuition, play and creativity.
Similarly, to celebrate its 175th anniversary, New York-based Tiffany & Co. commissioned 2×4 to design the architecture and technology experiences for an exhibition of archival jewelry to travel throughout China, in which a pair of distinctive touchscreen tables allow visitors to explore the history of Tiffany through a unique 3-D timeline. To fully immerse visitors in the brilliance of Tiffany diamonds, six “Magic Mirrors” provide them the opportunity to virtually try on rare archival jewelry; photograph themselves wearing these pieces; and share their photographs via email or the Chinese social network, Weibo.
Ultimately, what makes dynamic environments such as these successful isn’t as much about the technology as it is the content that goes into it, according to Stout. “I think [technology’s] biggest potential pitfall is that, if you don’t have the content to support it, it’s not going to be interesting,” she says. “It’ll be interesting for that immediate launch when everybody comes to the party, but then after that, if it doesn’t have a fresh point of view every few days or however many times you need to have someone in that space, then it’s going to feel old really quickly.”
Echoing those sentiments, Barton adds a major pitfall to avoid when incorporating technology is “focusing on gadgetry instead of meaning, storytelling and human connections. Nothing ages worse than hardware,” he notes. “The thinnest flat screen will soon enough look like a toaster oven. But if you focus on human connections, that is what will age well.”
Online Buzz
To view videos of the Cleveland Museum of Art and Tiffany & Co. interactive exhibits, view pages 55 and 57 of our digital edition.