Poster Session
Augmenting and Cloning Museums for Engagement Onsite and Online View Digital Media
Poster Session Amelia Ijiri
Musuem 3.0 was the creation of complex communication channels that strengthened museums’ roles in communities by preserving culture, disseminating information, gathering feedback, and promoting visits to museums through platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook which allow museum-goers and potential patrons to share, comment on, and develop knowledge about artworks and exhibitions, increasing media exposure for the museum. The Covid-19 pandemic saw a rise in digital literacy and museum stand poised to encompass new technologies. Augmenting museums using AR and digital twins through immersive environments in virtual reality (VR) are the next evolution. This study walks-through practical ideas from QR codes to the affordances of virtual reality delivered through a browser or headset through case studies in Japan that work with current technologies and give insight into what the metaverse might hold for museums.
Co-designing Inclusive Museums with People with Intellectual Disabilities: A Pilot Study in Immersive Virtual Environments View Digital Media
Poster Session Noemi Del Bianco, Karrie Shogren, Catia Giaconi, Silvia Ceccacci, Ilaria D'angelo
Immersive virtual environments represent a great opportunity for museums to enhance visitor experience through edutainment. To provide an enjoyable experience for all people, including those with disabilities, virtual museums should respond to criteria of accessibility and inclusion, providing cultural equality and learning opportunities for all. To achieve this goal, there is a need to evolve into a user-centered approach where people are involved in co-designing the virtual museum experience. After a description of the theoretical framework used to define self-determination, the paper describes the importance of structuring a research context that fosters the self-advocacy of people with intellectual disabilities, and expands the procedure to support the creation of accessible museum captions, thanks to the application of Easy-to-Read guidelines. A pilot study conducted at the University of Macerata has been carried out to test the proposed method. Specifically, we are going to explore the possibility of using high-fidelity prototyping, within a virtual lab, to support co-design activities with people with intellectual disabilities useful to support design requirement definition, to ensure the accessibility of immersive solutions for museums. The results obtained suggest the importance and implications of a co-design approach in defining design requirements to ensure accessibility of immersive virtual reality applications for cultural heritage.
Haptic Feedback as a Means to Improve Inclusiveness of Virtual Museum Experience for People with Visual Impairment View Digital Media
Poster Session Silvia Ceccacci, Tommaso Santilli, Chiara Gentilozzi, Alessandra Marfoglia, Catia Giaconi, Simone Aparecida Capellini
Virtual reality technologies in the field of cultural heritage can play a central role in enhancing visitors’ experience and accessibility of artifacts and artworks. Integrating visual perception with tactile information by means of haptic technology can enhance the immersiveness of interaction between the person and the virtual artifacts, provide a medium for learning by doing, and improve the quality and inclusiveness of visitor’ experience. Though haptic devices can be a great asset for cultural heritage fruition and education, to the best of our knowledge, no research has yet explored the impact of such technologies on the experience of people with visual impairments, in museums and cultural spaces. Therefore, this study aims at bridging this research gap, focusing on force feedback haptic devices with the scope of assessing the ease of learning of this technology by people with visual impairments and its capability to support the conceptualisation of virtual object’s shapes, to ensure authentic and inclusive interactions. In this perspective, a comparative study involving both people with and without visual impairment has been carried out within the Research center of Teaching and Learning, Inclusion, Disability and Educational Technology (TIncTec) of the University of Macerata. Results provide useful insights to deepen the understanding of strengths and limitations of such a technology to support the conceptualization of virtual objects from an inclusive perspective.
Experiences and Perspectives of Multilingual Families in Science Museum Visits in the Netherlands View Digital Media
Poster Session Lucía Chisari, Mirona Moraru
Despite their best intentions, museums around the world find it challenging to be welcoming to multilingual migrant (MM) children and their families. In the Netherlands, not much is known about these families’ experiences when it comes to science museums. Because our research group plans to develop language strategies to promote MM families’ participation in science museums, in this study, we asked: What are the experiences and perspectives of MM families on a science museum visit in the Netherlands, in terms of language? The data comes from interviews with eight MM families after their visit to one of two science museums. We approached the data using the boundary crossing framework, which focuses on the socio-cultural differences that may be experienced and/or crossed by people in action and interaction. Seen through these framework, the challenges reported by MM families can be interpreted as boundaries brought about by the social and cultural context of the museum setting. Families may attempt, and even succeed in, crossing those boundaries (boundary crossing potential). The results show the boundaries and boundary crossing reported by MM families after the science museum visit. Language, for example, proved challenging when the families sought to go deeper into the content of the science museum, but families used different forms of interpreting (child or parent as interpreters) to better access content. Understanding the boundaries and boundary crossing potential that MM families experience in science museums in relation to language can help museums further strengthen their work towards more equitable access.
From ChatGPT to Knowledge Production: Using Artificial Intelligence to Foster Inclusivity in Museums View Digital Media
Poster Session William Zhou
This presentation is based on recent research on how the implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots, such as ChatGPT, has the potential to transform the museum industry by improving inclusivity and knowledge production. Drawing on Foucault's power and knowledge theory, this research examines how AI chatbots can serve as a web of power that shapes the production of knowledge in museums. The research explores the collective contributions of various power relations to the production of knowledge through the AI chatbot. The study focuses on the impact of AI chatbots on the museum industry, particularly in terms of community engagement and power relations. It considers how AI chatbots like ChatGPT can be used to improve inclusivity in museums by offering multilingual services and facilitating communication with visitors who may face language barriers. The presentation envisions implementations of AI chatbots in museums that have improved accessibility and inclusivity for diverse communities. It contributes to the ongoing and cutting-edge discussion on the role of AI in museums and the potential benefits and challenges that come with its implementation.
Featured Fwd: Museums: A Museum Journal
Poster Session Leeann Ream, Olivia Cimino
Fwd: Museums is a publication based out of the Museum and Exhibition Studies MA program at the University of Illinois, Chicago. It is an annual publication and is currently in development on its ninth edition. Recognizing the need for reimagining and critically transforming museums and our cultural work within (inside and outside; within or in connection to) their spaces, Fwd: Museums publishes artwork, essays, creative writing, interviews, poetry, love letters, and other experimental forms to analyze, critique, and make space for new thinking about museums and exhibitions.
Featured University-affiliated Museums' Efforts toward Community Engagement: How my Definition of Community Engagement Evolved into Ideas of Social Care View Digital Media
Poster Session Olivia Cimino
My thesis paper attempts to evaluate and critique three university-affiliated museums' efforts towards community engagement. I use my position as a museum-worker and a student of museum studies to approach scholarship on the basis of social justice informed community engagement practices. This socio-cultural critique utilizes a post-structuralist feminist and intersectional framework all informed by social justice-based concepts of an equitable museum. I look at the question and engage multiple avenues of both qualitative and quantitative research on three university-affiliated art museums. My data collection consists of a survey posted at the entrances of the chosen museums, personally combing through museum websites, and examining the physical spaces surrounding the museums. This mixed-method approach works to analyze the four main tenets of community engagement within a museum: programming, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging. I argue that according to visitor input, both private and public university-affiliated museums need to focus more efforts toward conversational exchange between the public and the institution. My final solution to improve equitable museo-community exchanges is twofold. Firstly, to hold ‘community listening sessions’ allowing all members to speak to museum staff in a conversational face-to-face manner, and secondly, to supplement employee training with materials that correspond with these beliefs.
Collaborative Efforts to Promote a Circular Economy in the Arts: The Use of Sustainable Materials for Framing View Digital Media
Poster Session Velma Yamashita
The Isla Center for the Arts at the University of Guam is the campus art gallery and features five to seven exhibitions annually. Since 1997, the Isla Center has sponsored the Isla Art-a-thon, a program that encourages Guam’s K-12 students to engage in the arts. The culmination of the Art-a-thon program is an exhibition that features 45-60 professionally framed works of art created by the student artists. At the conclusion of the exhibition, the students receive the framed works of art. The environment, sustainability, and a circular economy are very important concerns. In light of these issues, for the 2023-24 Art-a-thon, students will be asked to create works of art that feature the environment. For framing the works of art, the Isla Center for the Arts collaborates with the Guam Green Growth Circular Economy Makerspace and Innovation Hub to design and produce frames created with locally sourced sustainable materials. This collaboration is the first science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) project in the UOG Fine Arts program that addresses environmental concerns and promote a circular economy. The poster session features the research and prototypes developed for the Art-a-thon sustainable exhibition frames. This project not only promotes the arts throughout the island of Guam but also addresses some of the environmental issues that are concerns around the globe.
