What will museums look like in the future?

11:33 AM on Thursday, April 4th, 2019 (Dublin, Ireland)

Over the past 7 days while exploring Dublin and Manchester, I have visited more museums than I can count, which made me reflect upon my experiences with them, both at home and abroad. What I have found, is that with the exception of particularly famous or innovative works, or perhaps unique architecture, most museums are the same. By this I mean that the way pieces are arranged and delivered to the audience is widely the same. The effect is that, no matter which country you visit, or what type of art you are viewing, you often have the same experience, and museum after museum begins to blend together in your memory. To add to this, unless you are an active art enthusiast, you will often not be inclined to visit more museums after you get the sense that they are the same(with the exception of those with stunning architecture, or specific works you would like to see). As you are repeatedly met with the same experience, you interest falls sharply over time. In that way, museums create a baseline level of interest, but have a hard time building upon it. What I mean by this is: You go to a museum. For that brief time, you are captivated by the art of Picasso, the laws that drive our world, a geology exhibit that makes you swear to pursue it. However, once you leave the museum, that interest fades away, and while it leaves a good impression in your mind, you do not revisit the interest you had while in the museum. Or, worse yet, you visit a museum, walk through, have a nice time(not a bad thing), and walk out. Following along with this event path, I postulate that the reason museums are not reaching their full potential is because they are widely the same static experience that is up to the user. The user gets out of a museum what they put in, and since they are vastly the same, it is often very little.

There have been pushes to revamp museum experiences in the past; hands on sections, audio and video clips, public demonstrations, etc. While a little bit more effective, they are also widely abused and many instances of this effort are often destroyed or out of order at museums. So, the question I now pose is this: How can the museum experience be changed so it better inspires its audience, and is a unique experience? Or rather: How do you make a museum like no other, and what will museums look like in the next century?

There are many types of museums, varying from science, art, history, and any combination of those that you can imagine, with an infinite number of sub-concentrations. For this post, since I want to keep it brief and visit one last museum before I leave Dublin tonight, I will talk about art museums.

There are a couple factors about the museum experience I want to examine: 1) How do users move through the museum?, 2) How do users consume the art?, 3) How are users engaged?, and 4) What is the X-factor attracting piece?. For the sake of time, I’m only going to touch on the first.

For the first factor, concerning how users move through the museum, I think getting the users active is key. Many art museums are simply ‘walk where you would like’, and take the stairs or an elevator between floors. Sometimes this is enhanced with a large grand staircase, or other aspects of the building’s architecture that have the ability to stimulate users. But, for the most part, it is a slow walking experience that leaves the user to decide where they go. This often means that if a museum is set up as a center point with galleries extending outwards, the extremities of the museum get less foot traffic than others. This creates an imbalance, and doesn’t use the museum’s resources to its fullest extent. Therefore, I think modern museums would be best suited to follow a path structure, in which the user walks along a predefined path from a point A to a point B. Variations upon this could also be implemented, so that museums do not once again become the same. Like a choose your own adventure game, there could be alternative points and paths, or along a path clusters of more exhibits. Besides the path the user takes through a museum, we must also consider the method with which they do it. I think implementing interactive and varying modes of movement are essential. Changes in elevation, interactive technology such as reactive lights, and obstacles, along with interesting stopping points are essential in engaging the user and keeping them interested.

For the second factor, concerning how users consume the art, we need to consider a couple different things. For classical art, you may think the methods of consumption are pretty closed. . . what more can you do than look at it? But along with this comes an interesting opportunity to point out aspects of art. Sure, you want everyone to interpret art in their own way, but by the same token you want to enrich the lives of those who maybe don’t have the economic means to to have a background in fine art. Having interactive materials that go along with the exhibit or art piece can greatly enhance engagement. Not merely simple informational videos, but experts there to talk with patrons, or interactive and interesting exhibits. Like what if there was an augmented reality experience that let you visualize the brush strokes of Van Gogh’s Starry Night?

This also goes hand in hand with our third actor, which is how users are engaged. If you can display your pieces such that the users are engaged in some way or another, you have created a successful museum experience.

I’m running out of time to get to that museum, so I’ll leave factor 4 up to you. What can museums do to get people in the doors? What would you personally like to see?

When contemplating the future of museums, an immediate answer is hard to come by. I think a great example of what museums of the future could be, lies in Dublin, within the Science Gallery. There they had 1) an interesting museum layout, 2) interactive exhibits that included activities and sensory stimulants, 3) students talking to visitors, and 4) dynamic wall pieces that interacted with the user. On top of all this, it was an art museum that integrated science into its pieces.

Going forward, I think museums will begin to adapt to function like the Science Gallery.