going on

We are on this brainstorm. It’s still very open. We are thinking about how people can collaborate with the institutions, how the institutions could be collaborating with each other. Last Thursday we visited once more the museum, the archive and the library to try to figure out the fundamental question of each of them. Why they want to change and what they want with it? Later we had an on-line chat: Hereby, you have a synthesis of what came out of the discussion:

The museum is eclectic in its collection; it shows they are open for changing and experiments. The archive seems to have a lot of treasures in side shelves inside buildings. They want to have more audience, with time and interest to go further on their researches. It is often through publications and external exhibitions that a wider public can see the contents of the archive.

So…one of the main questions is: How to create lasting connection with visitors?

The collaboration between the three institutions can really create an interesting flow … the people who go to the archive to research add new content to the museum and find background information in the library. Apparently they have plans to collaborate on an educational level and have the building of the chapel in front of the archive rebuilt to this purpose: a place were an educational / contemporary art space would be housed.

Last skype meeting we had the idea to start something very VERY simple like a cultural space, like a cafe and show some things, let people come…and then see what unfolds from that. The chapel seems to be an ideal location; it’s a building they are familiar with. But it is however a building site - mud floors, no electricity, although it would not be impossible to get the space up and running. We are starting an inventory of suitable spaces so if you have ideas Lyndsey will add a section on the blog to start to compile this info - so empty buildings/ community centre etc. for user access...

Marc brought some ideas about possible ways to do something with objects in museum, what opened a new brainstorm. Could be to tag the objects (rfid, or just visually) and let visitors add other data (stories, thoughts, photos) to them that subsequent visitors can view and comment on. These whole set of meta-data could also exist online or in another (virtual) space (kind of web2.0) in the physical world. It also applies to the archive. The museum already does that from an expert viewpoint, but the audience could also do it from a personal perspective, with objects/situations from THEIR everyday life. Perhaps we could fill the empty text board by that, or replace them with lcd screens. We could also think of an augmented reality tour through the museum, while the tour the visitor would pick up the meta-data (audio/video clips) on a handheld or wearable device as he pass the art-objects. Could even be with the visitors’ own mobile phone or something extravagant as VR-glasses. Could also be drawings/notes or other paper based work left by previous visitors in the card- holders. We could also mount small devices with proximity sensor next to the objects or just a pair of Bluetooth headphones. In some cases mobile phones would be enough already, but headphones have the advantage that you have hands free and can just listen to stories that other people had to say about this/that object. In the library we could place a device that reads the already present rfid tag in the book, and displays audio, video that other people attached to this book. "the object as a key to the data".

We are thinking of a meaningful project in general and about how to make people really WANT to join it. It's obviously important to contextualize the artworks and make it more interactive. We have to make it a good experience. Both context and experience can co-exists and interact.

For now we can fantasize but very soon we will have to come to reality, it means, thinking about all the aspects of practicality on the project. Still, for Tuesday 22, we have an assignment to make our personal ideal fantasy project for Gouda. I thought about a festival and an art residence program sustained by the three institutions and with the support of the local government. It would be based a Lab in Gouda and the artists would stay for a period to develop an art work witch would stay on the city as part of the cultural acervo of the city. It could include urban art, installations or performance, as well all kind of electronic art.