The basis for this essay is recent visits to the National Gallery (NG) and Tate Modern (TM). Both have available interactive multimedia systems whose aims are to add value to / enhance to the visitor’s experience. We look at the two different multimedia systems available in the two London Museums and analyse the value they add to / take away from a traditional visit[1] to an art gallery.
The NG’s system, called ArtStart, is placed in the refreshments area providing a free, informative and productive way to spend 10-15 minute refreshment break. The digitisation of the entire gallery’s collection is supported by detailed information on the most popular pieces (it has a top 30) of its collection makes ArtStart a meaningful and worthwhile investment in the gallery.
ArtStart provides the user with a searchable database, using artist name, date, suggested themes, etc. It also allows the possibility to zoom in on paintings to a level that visitors can’t when viewing the painting physically, owing to security measures. The ‘30 most popular’ theme for works at the NG has the most comprehensive descriptions and information, as they are the best known, and most viewed. The whereabouts of the particular work that is viewed on the ArtStart machines is pointed out in order for them to find it. People are also able to plan their trips around the NG before they leave their home, as the ArtStart and NG website enable this functionality.
At the TM, for a cost of £2, a visitor can make use of a small and portable computer in the form of a PDA device. This contains a vast amount of information that supports and extends the patron’s visit beyond that of what is available from a traditional visit. The PDA device offers an audio tour, but extends the learning further. It encourages the user to look at certain elements, sometimes giving an insight into the meaning of the artists’ works. The device uses music, video and audio (in some cases, by the artist themselves), and has interactive games to enhance the learning. Specialist tours for children and British sign language reach out to a wider audience.
Evans and Sterry state that interactive multimedia in museums are,
‘...excellent interpreters... communicating large amounts of often complex information in a user friendly and interesting way, whilst empowering visitors to access the information they require at their own pace.’[2]
This empowering information that visitors can gain from multimedia systems can be invaluable, and make their experience of the museum visit that much more educational. TM’s evaluation of their multimedia devices ‘...show[s] that people taking the tour spend longer in the galleries, and improved their visit.’[3]
Multimedia in museums can also have detrimental effects, taking the visitor’s focus away from the works, encouraging them to interact with, in the TM example, the PDA device. This happened in another study, where visitors, ‘...invested substantial amounts of time interacting with the computer, more than with any other individual exhibit.’[4]
Multimedia can also remove the appreciation of the aura of the work. The ‘aura’ of a work of art, according to Walter Benjamin’s well-criticised essay, is defined as its ‘…presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.’[5] Benjamin also explains how the mechanical reproduction of a work of art, as is presented to visitor using NG’s ArtStart, withers its aura, because the uniqueness of the original work, in terms of place, time and space are different. The ArtStart resource does, however, help to expand people’s knowledge of art, and appreciate it more.
When looking at all the benefits the use of multimedia affords museums and galleries, it is clear that there are many enhancements, but also detractions from the visitor’s experience.
The current Government believes that there are four main priorities when it comes to museums and galleries. Those are:
1. ‘Ensuring that children have the opportunity to enjoy a vibrant cultural and sporting life;
2. Opening institutions to the widest possible cross section of people;
3. Ensuring that the creative, leisure and tourist industries provide the maximum possible benefit to the economy; and
4. Ensuring our museums and galleries are exciting, modern and provide real value for money’[6]
Through museums having multimedia installations, among other didactic offerings, the Government’s aim is to improve the educational experience for all types of audience, from children to pensioners, because they believe that, ‘...education is central to the role of museums today.’[7]
It is the aim of the museums discussed in this essay to help people to learn to appreciate art more, but everyone learns in different ways, requiring different approaches. In some cases music may help, but for others it may be annoying. Both systems allow visitors to explore difference aspects of the artworks, according to their personal curiosity and interests. The difficulty is to strike a balance between guiding (or educating) people and providing them with learning resources to explore for themselves.
The realm of the digital museum is something that is raised when thinking about accessing digital reproductions of works of art, in this case via the NG’s website or an online ArtStart. Considerations of how to present a gallery’s collections to a much wider audience invariably involve the internet, which, ‘...holds the greatest potential [here], and museums must look at ways of using its potential to build understanding of collections, cutting across institutional (and national) boundaries.’[8]
[1] By ‘traditional’ visit, it is meant that the patron will walk around the gallery at their leisure, taking in the artefacts and reading the associated information
[2] Evans, J.A., and Sterry, P., Portable Computers and Interactive Multimedia: A New Paradigm for Interpreting Museum Collections, Archiving and Museum Informatics 13:113-126, 1999
[4] Economou, M., The Evaluation of Museum Multimedia Applications: Lessons from Research, Museum Management and Curatorship, 17:2, 173 – 187, 1998
[5] Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, in: Illuminations, London: Pimlico, 214, 1999.
[6] Museums and Galleries, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/Museums_galleries/default.htm
[7] A Vision for Museum Education, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 2000
[8] Understanding the Future: Museums and 21st Century Life, Department for Culture, Media and Sport 2005
