We've Got the Beat (or Why Percussion Makes for a Good Music Exhibit)

In the last month I have visited 19 museums. Some have had sound or listening experiences- an exhibit content area we're working on. One thing we've been looking at is how to help people fairly quickly make and share music. There are lots of approaches, from acoustic to technical, and as a part of our research, we've been trying them all.

On a recent visit to the Experience Music Project my experience was a bit like the 3 Little Bears. I tried several instrument booths until I found the right one- or rather, the best experience. 

The guitar was cool, but to follow along for a real lesson where I'd actually learn something, I'd need a couple of hours... or days. Plus my feet were getting tired (am old!). The keyboard was better- I was sitting, the experience was more isolated, and it was easy to strike a note and know I'd gotten it "right". However, it sounded... not so good. Drums however were just right: I was seated, the sound was easy to make, there was little "right or wrong" and the on-screen lesson synched with the booth experience worked well to make me sound good.

Not long after the EMP trip, I was with a group at Zeum where everyone walked up and started jamming together on some tubes for their "Pop Music" experience. They played, the got it, and they had fun– all in the space of a few minutes:

On a visit to the Exploratorium Listen exhibit, they have lots of fun, phenomena-based exhibits. However, the creative exhibits which required "playing" or making sound were primarily percussive. There was the 'Xylophone Room' exhibit, and of course, the drums. While both weren't social, they were both engaging and fostered instant mastery.

It's an interesting challenge to get the general public excited about music-making, have a sense of appreciation for the mastery, and also give them some feeling of positive reinforcement at the same time. Seems like percussion is nice for an entry point.

Art/Science – Why Now?

By Justine Roberts, Principal

This week I attended the opening reception for The Laboratory at Harvard. As an science and art venue The Lab joins the following:

• The Science Gallery in Dublin
• The Wellcome Collection in London
• Le Laboratoire in Paris
• The Leonardo in Salt Lake City
• The Art/Sci Center and Lab at UCLA

All of which have opened in just the last 2.5 years. That list does not include the discovery centers and children’s museums – such as the Austin Children’s Museum - repositioning themselves as places that bring art and science together. This incredible international explosion of interest in mixing art and science together raises the question: Why now?

As far back as Pythagoras art and science were used together to interpret and represent an understanding of the world. The two were teased apart in the 19th century with some clear benefits, as well as the rise of some new anxieties. Yet the division stuck. So why are we now working to reconnect art and science in popular culture, professional practice and the academy?

It is possible that students who want more opportunities to work across disciplines are in part driving these art/science projects. But not all of the venues are affiliated with a school, or focused on student participation. It is more likely that there is a cultural need for places that increase potential encounters with new perspectives, and which support unlikely collaborations between people from different fields. Michael-John Gorman, Director of the Science Gallery, thinks that today’s questions and problems require a new kind of creativity made possible only by interdisciplinary investigation.

If there is a critical need behind the impetus to engage the public in art and science together, then simply having the arts inform science and the sciences inform art is not sufficient. Not all artistic uses of technology, or visualizations of scientific data, are equally useful and enlightening. But it is not at all clear whether The Lab should therefore be a space for open exploration of art and science, or whether it should organize inquiry around a set of specific questions.

The Lab, like a number of the other art/science venues targeting teens and young adults, is designed to accommodate exhibitions, parties, lectures, and lounging. As described by its founders, The Lab was created to encourage conversation between the arts and sciences, with the goal of cross-pollinating ideas and fostering creativity. I came away from the opening reception questioning whether this was enough.

While I think it is critical that cultural space bring people together and serve as a catalyst for discussion and debate, I wonder whether The Lab could accomplish more. After all, as part of Harvard it has access to students and faculty as well as a large international network. It should be possible for The Lab to actively encourage collaborations and promote new solutions-oriented thinking. We will have to wait and see if The Lab is primarily a student exhibit hall, or if the University has a larger vision for it.

I think The Lab raises some important questions – for instance, how should we define “art” and “science” in the first place? And what is the common ground between them? Some people have suggested that art and science share a curiosity-driven process and a high degree of creativity. But others describe science as a way of investigating our world and art as unconstrained creativity. 

In the end, maybe the lack of clarity over what is art and what is science is the point. Although they require different training, ways of seeing, and starting assumptions, in practice the two might look very similar, making it possible for artists and scientists to share physical and intellectual space in a way that can open new opportunities for the future.

Nothing Like the Real Thing

Yes, yes, yes. The web is a wonderful tool. It provides for cost-effective virtual museum visits. When you’re talking about developing a shared vocabulary about spatial experiences however, nothing beats the real thing.

Last week we took a client on a “Bay Area Benchmarking” trip. We visited a diverse set of historic, art, science, and children’s museums.

This took many hours of discussions about exhibits and environmental relationships further down the field than any rendering or slideshow we have produced in the past.

Now our entire team has a shared vocabulary of experience around such intangibles as:

• what the tone of a particular museum was like
• how some interactives that sounded promising online are not as compelling in person
• the importance of the arrival experience
• power of materials and lighting 

...and more. This is especially important on museum projects where often you have non-spatial thinkers on a project team. They may not have the vocabulary or skills to articulate their needs, but put them in a spatial... wait, experiential context, and they become empowered.

So get off your internet and out into the world.

Scale & Context: a follow-up

By Scott Moulton, LEED AP

I was compelled to follow up on Maria's Scale / Context post. I love the way it points out both the way that design matters and has real consequence but also lives and dies by it's context or constraints. There is (or was?) a real interest in architecture to using the site as the starting point for a design. If you abstract that a bit and consider site as context, I think all good design starts from this point.

For me context includes the site or whatever existing point you are starting from, the social conditions and the client. It is the moment of deciding what you've got and what you should do that success of the project is determined. The Highline in NYC is a great example of this working. So is the good old Freitag Bag. In ways these can be seen as reuse/ recycling projects, but they go way beyond that. They are leveraging the world as it is to make the world as the designers want it to be.

Design should be more like jujutsu and less like boxing.

Part 1: the smaller of the 2

Since winter approaches, thought a quick post about a museum in Northern Iceland might be just the thing.

This summer I visited the Sigurgeirs Bird Museum on Lake Myvatn (which I touched on in an earlier post. Will come back to it). They were about to open an adjacent building created specifically to house one of the earliest boats used on the lake, and let us in take a look.

For me it was really a tribute to experience through design. This isn't a place where you want to add your story, make your mark or be a part of a larger whole through dialog. It's a place for reflection, and calm and a little sadness– all reinforced by careful editing. Note: click on the images for descriptions.

This simple, profound design etched a place in my brain that most others have not. It's left space open for me to have emotions about the experience without the cacophony of the rest of the world.

Project Opening: Columbia Memorial Space Center

By Ron Davis, Principal and LEED AP

This past weekend marked the opening of the Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey California. Gyroscope has been working on this project from its inception five years ago, and we are pleased to have seen the very first visitors enjoy the interactive exhibits at the Center. 

Downey was one of NASA's technology and production facilities and grew out of the early aerospace industry there. Among its notable achievements was the development of much of the Apollo program space vehicles, and the crew compartment of the space shuttle. The project is named as a memorial to the astronauts who died in the disastrous re-entry of the Columbia space shuttle. Though history is featured, the intention of the Center is to showcase past, present, and importantly, developing technologies. With the goal of fostering interest in science and technology in its visitors.

At the opening events, there were many retired engineers who had participated in pioneering space science developments. These developments are visible just out the windows from the new Center. 

The encounter that struck me the most was a conversation with an Hispanic mother of an 8 or 9 year old boy who really wanted her son to be inspired to pursue his interest in science– knowing that it could lead him towards future opportunities in a career that might not only fulfill his potential, but perhaps someday allow him to make his own contribution to the world. She asked if she might be able to volunteer at the center, as well.

It is extremely satisfying to see this new city-funded and city-run institution reach so many in their re-emerging community– from the aerospace workers with stories to share, to the young adventurers of the as yet uncharted future.

Slideshow:

http://lang.presstelegram.com/photos/photos.html#id=870037&num=1

Press:

http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_13636190

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=7080538

In Consideration of Scale and Context

"A dynamic moment in American architecture — the explosion of art museums, concert halls and performing arts centers that transformed cities across the country over the last decade — is officially over. The money has dried up, and who knows when there will be a similar boom."    

- Nicolai Ouroussoff, An American Architectural Epoch Locks Its Doors, The New York Times

In my last post, I wrote about the influence of city --> neighborhood --> architecture --> on exhibit experience in the context of a visit to the EMP. Mr. Ouroussoff’s recent article provides a bit of support to my thesis (but written on an appropriately lofty, grand level). He evaluates the success or failure of large cultural centers through the appropriate application of context and scale.

This lens belongs in all layers of the design process: revisiting, and continuously being mindful of these two powerful factors. It’s not just about aesthetics, but how those aesthetics create or engage “place” which forms an experience.

“But their success has as much to do with context and scale as with the quality of the architecture. Millennium Park and the Miami cultural district abut relatively healthy, historically rich urban districts. And neither is bigger than a few city blocks.

‘...the question has been not only how to create vibrant public spaces but how to repair social, racial and economic scars that are decades old.”

Makes sense that the role of good (considered) design would be thoughtfully related to the constituents of a neighborhood. If they are your audience. 

Which gets to his final point. Mr. Ouroussoff closes suggesting that consideration of scale and context is key to success, and can create a more egalitarian experience for the region a project lives in:

“The failures in Dallas and Los Angeles, in the end, have less to do with too much creative freedom, the quality of the buildings and the master plan, or even the basic concept of an arts district, than with scale and context. They reflect the long battle between those who want to tear down old barriers and those who simply want to replace them with new ones. Solving that conflict will be left to a future epoch.”

However, I think that a good master plan must take this into consideration. Determining whether those are bridges or barriers is something which ideally comes out of that process.

PS: If you don't have time to read the article, there is an historic overview of the of arts complexes here. While it includes a science center or two, the de Young (Herzog de Meuron) & Academy of Sciences (Renzo Piano) campus is conspicuously absent... along with the EMP.

Environmental Impact on Exhibit Experience

This week, I was back at the EMP (Experience Music Project). I loved the fact that I could get my hands on real gear and PLAY. 

For those that haven't visited, there is an entire zone of the museum where you can try your hand at guitars, drums, keyboards in open "pods". You can also go into sound isolation booths and "learn to play", and record.

While that was super fun, it felt a bit finished and sleek an environment for a me as a novice. The contrast between the environmental design and what I brought to the table was... dramatic. Sort of like asking me to sculpt in the white galleries of the MOMA next to a Donald Judd.

The people that created the exhibits developed cool, cutting edge, custom work. Their innovations span the visitor experience/informal learning all the way through to design and technology. They fundamentally moved the conversation ahead for all of us with their innovations.  Yet it wasn't the exhibit interactives that, err, set the tone.

My experience started with the city this baby was born in, and the immediate neighborhood it was sited in. The funder and subsequent starkitect formed the environmental capsule and set the tone. 

Those top level considerations had huge impact my resulting experience- and it's important to note that translates to impact on learning, repeat visitation, and many other things many of us are passionate about. 

In my ideal universe, we  have those conversations early on, so that's what drives the bus.