Museum
Technology
Supported by
the Knight Foundation
Launched with funding from the Knight Foundation, the Museum Technology Track ran for three years (2017-2020)—Years 4, 5, and 6 at NEW INC. Building on our work during those years and with continued support from Knight Foundation, we launched our Cultural Futures track in Year 7.
Over the course of these years, track members have included creative practitioners with backgrounds working in interaction design, technology, art, game design, creative strategy, academia and museum administration. In support of their work, members in the Museum Technology Track were provided with a fully subsidized, year-long Dedicated Desk membership at NEW INC, and were invited to participate in topically relevant workshops, guest lectures, mentorship and bi-weekly meetings, and also stipends to support research, prototyping and wider participation in the field. Each year, track members have worked in close partnership with cultural organizations from Knight cities to realize new, creative experiments at the intersection of technology and culture.
In our first year, the Museum Technology track, members engaged in a field study where we traveled to Miami, Detroit, and Philadelphia and met with over a dozen institutions to learn about how the museum sector uses technology. Through our travels, we met with museum leadership, educators, exhibition directors, IT staffers, and development and marketing teams to learn about both the successes and challenges of employing technology in a museum setting.
During years two and three of the track, members worked with a museum partner outside of NYC to research, design and prototype accessible, off-the-shelf technology solutions for bringing museums into the 21st century. For these two years we framed our work through the following problem statement: The advent of low-cost B2B technology products has left the museum sector behind, limiting access to the latest technology to museums that can afford costly, bespoke services. Meanwhile, it is more critical than ever that museums implement scalable means for engaging their visitors, and without the technological resources to do so, small and mid-sized museums are in a tough spot. Case studies created as part of this track linked below.
CASE STUDIES
MUSEUM TECH ALUMNI
Year 5
Mover and Shakers and Abstract Nomadic Media are working on AR apps that will make it easier for curators and educators to create and share content related to works on view.
DOT DOT is working on a VR solution that will make it easier for small and mid-sized museums to host VR experiences.
The team at Micah Walter Studio is making it easier for museums to share their digital collections with the general public, art historians and others.
Bika Rebek is building Tools for Show, a cloud-based exhibition design tool.
Dome is rethinking the visitor experience to make it easier for museums to learn about their visitors.
Year 4
Digital Museum of Digital Art (DiMoDA) commissioned an exhibition in their VR-based museum.
Jason Eppink prototyped his tool for captioning any video work in any language.
Luxloop developed their technology for context aware AR.
Rapport Studios worked with museums to make their content more accessible for young people.
Raycaster worked with the Queens Museum to find a curate a digital collection from across the web.
Studio TheGreenEyl used machine learning explore different interactive models for bringing digital collections into the physical space.
Header image credit: All At Once, Studio TheGreenEyl