Museum 2.0

AUGUST 6, 2014

This was the question at the heart of last week''s MuseumCamp. MuseumCamp is an annual professional development event at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History in which teams of diverse, creative people work on quick and dirty projects on a big theme. We encouraged teams to think like artists, not researchers. To be playful.

Experiment 52

Experiment Impact Social Museum 52

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

Writing my masters thesis for Gothenburg University’s International Museum Studies program while also working four days a week as the Director of Community Programs at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History this spring was certainly a challenge but also an incredible opportunity.

Museum 49

Museum Program Participatory Community 49

Museum 2.0

APRIL 25, 2011

This post shares some of the most interesting questions I've heard throughout these experiences. Feel free to add your own questions and answers in the comments! BROAD QUESTIONS ABOUT AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION 1. Have you seen attitudes in our field about visitor participation shifting over time? The Museum 2.0 The Museum 2.0

Question 49

Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Museum 2.0

MARCH 11, 2015

I''ve been grappling with this question as we enter the final month of a massively crowd-sourced exhibition at my museum called Everybody''s Ocean. We wanted to reflect this diversity of identities by inviting all kinds of artists and artworks into the gallery. But some visitors--especially some artists--hate it.

Professional 20

Professional Artist Museum Arts 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 21, 2014

I''ve now been the executive director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History for three years. Over the past three years, we''ve tripled our attendance, doubled our budget, and, most importantly, established deep and diverse relationships with community members, artists, and organizations across Santa Cruz County.

Museum 49

Museum Director History Teen 49

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 3, 2012

Beth Harris and Steven Zucker's content about art history is social and dialogue-based in format. These instructors aren't teaching you the equivalent of a high school course in math or art history. This is an epic moment in the history of education, who wouldn’t want to be part of it? the way the best museums do.

Learning 55

Learning Free Museum Online 55

Museum 2.0

MAY 27, 2015

I have an unusual education for the director of an art & history museum: a degree in electrical engineering. You'll burrow down rabbit holes of gorgeous videos, cerebral reading lists, and provocative artist talks. I can identify artworks by famous artists. Diane is teaching me how, when, and why artists use the word.

Course 20

Course Artist Museum Learning 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 13, 2015

Visitors in front of the African Elephant Diorama at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHMLAC photo) This guest post was written by Karen Wise, Vice President, Education and Exhibits at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. “I History exhibits with hundreds of objects and no coherent story.

Los Angeles 20

Los Angeles Museum History Artist 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 31, 2017

This is the eleventh in a series of posts on the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History ( MAH )'s development of Abbott Square , a new creative community plaza in downtown Santa Cruz. We had 2,000 t-shirts to give away, 850 balls to drop, and over a hundred artists, accordionists, salsa dancers, taiko drummers, and bubble ladies ready to go.

Open 37

Open Brain Press Museum 37

Museum 2.0

APRIL 29, 2015

These are the slides and notes for the talk I gave at the American Alliance of Museums conference on Monday, April 27 about the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. When I became the director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History four years ago, I took this work with me. We exist for people who live in Santa Cruz County.

Build 20

Build Community Museum Artist 20

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 24, 2012

I like to ask myself this question periodically, challenging myself to find substantive ways for visitors to contribute to our museum. Visitors can comment on how we can improve or what they would like to see. How do community members make your institution better? To that end, our exhibitions are full of participatory elements.

Platform 41

Platform Open Museum Participatory 41

Museum 2.0

JULY 17, 2013

Several campers commented to me that their favorite part of camp was the diversity of the campers'' backgrounds and frameworks. If we were to do this again, I would ask one additional question of applicants: age. Or they might have chosen to make up a fictitious narrative around history artifacts. Thanks for all the memories.

Museum 49

Museum Arts History Professional 49

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 25, 2015

The ideal candidate has a good grasp of our local artistic assets in Santa Cruz County, a knack for participatory placemaking, and enthusiasm about putting on a show. But in the case of Abbott Square (the plaza in question), we''re building something new. creative placemaking design Museum of Art and History programs public space'

Public 20

Public Activities Active Activism 20

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 9, 2010

I was surprised by her question. History Museums OPPORTUNITIES - History museums are in many ways the best-suited for visitor participation. For this reason, I see history museums as best-suited for participatory projects that involve story-sharing and crowdsourced collecting (e.g.

Museum 29

Museum Difference Participatory History 29

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 18, 2012

When talking about active audience engagement with friends in the museum field, I often hear one frustrated question: how can we get adults to participate? We've been trying to actively combat this at The Museum of Art & History (MAH) in Santa Cruz.

Interaction 47

Interaction Design Museum Participatory 47

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 14, 2013

We recruited folks and designed software that texted them five times a day for thirty days, asking one question, "Rate your mood 1 (low) to 10 (high)." We ran with it and have since generated data about decision-making, cooperation, competition and negotiation for scientists (and also some artists) to play with.

Museum 51

Museum Roles Game Participatory 51

NTEN

JUNE 21, 2011

The speakers for this panel include: Tracy Fullerton - Electronics Arts Game Innovation Lab Ruth Cohen - American Museum of natural History Elaine Charnov - The NY Public Library Jason Eppink - Museum of the Moving Image Syed Salahuddin - Babycastles Elaine Cohen: The New York Public Library 100 Years of the flagship library in New York.

Game 52

Game Culture Change Museum 52

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 13, 2010

Nothing warms my heart like seeing outtakes of a guy trying to scale the walls of MSI, or a man spinning a yarn about his family's long history sleeping in museums. I hope you'll weigh in with your own favorites and observations in the comments. In general, I liked videos made by artists, but some got overly poetic.

Museum 34

Museum Contest Video Chicago 34

Museum 2.0

MAY 3, 2011

Lots of museums these days have video comment booths to invite visitors to tell their stories, but how many of those booths really deliver high-impact content? We invited a cross-section of artists, filmmakers, and advertisers to join us for a think tank. So what did you do next? The website for the stories is beautiful.

Story 53

Story Interview Museum Audio 53

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 19, 2015

One of my favorite comments on the first post in this series came from Lyndall Linaker, an Australian museum worker, who asked: " Who decides what is relevant? That's a more complicated question. It's a question of HOW we decide, not just WHO makes the decision. My answer: neither. The market decides what's relevant.

Teen 20

Teen Museum Voice Collaboration 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 4, 2015

Across the museum field, the questions about visitor participation have gone from "what?" Over the past four years, I''ve been running a small regional art and history museum in Santa Cruz, CA. If you are reading this via email and would like to share a comment, you can join the conversation here.' and "why?" to "how?".

Participatory 20

Participatory Museum Empowerment Facilitation 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 5, 2009

We started with a brief presentation of the basics of each project, and then spent about an hour responding to questions from the audience, using illustrative images and documents to support the discussion. Some of the most interesting questions included: how do you verify the accuracy and authenticity of visitor-contributed content?

Slides 20

Slides Participatory Museum Children 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 14, 2011

In 1990, educator and cultural critic Neil Postman described a museum as "an answer to a fundamental question: what does it mean to be a human being?" It is, in short, the best multimedia history project I've ever seen, and I wish more museums were pursuing projects like it. It makes you contemplate your own connection to history.

History 43

History Museum Sound Voice 43

Museum 2.0

MAY 4, 2007

The first one opens with these comments: If I have an all encompassing desire for any computer game I play or themed attraction I visit, it is this: Take me to a place that: Lets me go somewhere I could never go. The unifying story is espionage, and the game-like question: “Do you have what it takes to be a spy?” Where am I?

Game 20

Game Storytelling Lesson Museum 20

Bloomerang

NOVEMBER 13, 2021

But most importantly, we love for these sessions to be interactive, so feel free to chat in your questions and comments along the way. There’s a chat box and a questions box. If you use the questions box, it might be a little bit easier to call out your question, but we’d love to hear from you.

Report 78

Report Measure Impact Process 78

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

DECEMBER 16, 2010

Last month, I heard a talk by author Jonathan Salem Baskin about his soon to be published book, “ Histories of Social Media.&# The book looks at social media concepts and ideas, asks is this really new? The technology tools certainly are, but history provides a context for every behavioral quality of new media.

Measure 96

Measure Fund Impact Minnesota 96

Museum 2.0

JUNE 12, 2012

Helene Moglen, professor of literature, UCSC After a year of tinkering, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History is now showing an exhibition, All You Need is Love , that embodies our new direction as an institution. A wall on which people can write answers to the question: "What's the craziest thing you've done for love?"

Participatory 51

Participatory Museum Blackboard Game 51

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 6, 2012

We tested five versions of the prompt sheets--some with instructions focused to the subject of the exhibition (artists' takes on nature), others with more open-ended instructions designed to encourage a broader range of responses. Our colleagues in the Museum of Natural History were eager collaborators.

Museum 45

Museum Arts Problem Design 45

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JANUARY 28, 2013

Presentations should cover 5 areas: (a) General overview: goal, history, timing of the failure; (b) What went right? (c) California arts organizations conducted 28 experiments to achieve new relevance for audiences, communities and professional artists with support from The James Irvine Foundation. c) What went wrong? (d)

Learning 115

Learning Impact Culture DC 115

Whole Whale

DECEMBER 9, 2023

Post fill-in-the-blanks and ask users to respond with their answer in the comments. For presentations, have speakers add a slide to their deck asking users to tweet questions, photos, and videos from the presentation. Quiz time Ask quiz-style questions, and have users comment their guess in the comments.

Social Media 98

Social Media Ideas Media Social 98

Have Fun - Do Good

SEPTEMBER 26, 2008

This week's Ask Britt question, sent in by a reader, is, "How can I combine the creative arts with social impact? Great question! Examples of socially rousing photography permeate our history: Vietnam, Rwanda, 9-11’s Ground Zero. I'd love to hear your examples in the comments!

Arts 40

Arts Impact Photography Artist 40

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 13, 2009

Earlier this year, the New Museum and Creative Time commissioned a traveling piece by artist Jeremy Deller called "It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq." I got lost in these videos, and I started to question my expectations about what makes an exhibit like this successful.

Iraq 28

Iraq Challenge Museum Library 28

Museum 2.0

JULY 31, 2007

In recent email correspondence about this issue, Elaine commented: The other problem is that there is a disconnect between what non-Native Americans wanted to see and what the Indian people wanted to tell them. Again, Elaine comments today: The first, where NMAI suffered, is in repetition. Was it possible to create new ones?

Culture 20

Culture Storytelling Challenge Museum 20

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 22, 2008

This is not to say that science centers are more censored than art or history museums—every kind of museum has its own hang-ups. And so my question is, why are we keeping them away? I encourage you to add your own examples and thoughts on this list to the comments. Why aren't we developing our audiences?"

Museum 20

Museum Professional Teen Map 20