Personalisation of the Museum Experience
/It was six months ago I investigated PhD topics and came up with one which was accepted, but it was not possible to do without financial support. The experience has been rewarding and I plan to do some amateur researching and reading to develop the idea;
Personal space in the museum: the role of technology in the gap between viewer and object
The area between the museum visitor and object is where the object is viewed, it is where the curator communicates with the visitor and it is where the visitor engages, therefore it is the most important space in the museum. It also equates to the four feet ‘personal space’ or ‘personal distance' as classified by Hall (1969) founder of the study of proxemics.
My aim is to investigate what impact using technology in this gap has, and consider what impact emerging technologies have on the viewer and curator.
Rather than propose the introduction of a physical barrier of technology between the viewer and object, this research will investigate and evaluate the role of technology in this space and its effect on the respective relationships between the viewer, object and curator.
I have been using the term "personalisation of a visit" and the practicality and possibilities of this were confirmed at Google I/O in May 2013, where they announced a new version of Google Maps which would make restaurant, shop, destination suggestions based on the user's previous locations, as noted by The Next Web below:
The Next Web summary of Google I/O
We take our devices everywhere and if you tell it what you thought of the experience when seeing Sunflowers 1 by Van Gogh in London and then see Sunflowers 2 in Amsterdam three months later, the smart device could remind you of seeing Sunflowers 1 and repeat what you thought, helping you remember the experience, reflect, build on the learning or review what you actually do think of the work, artist, subject, etc.
The revised Google Maps app has been released this week but doesn't mention the personalisation yet. It may be because such an ideas is ubiquitous already through search results being tailored to our web behaviours.
Still, I am interested to see how this would work for my topic in the museum and will share the research and plans as I progress and would be interested to hear of any projects out there which may be considering similar lines of enquiry.