From Analog Prototypes to Digital Drawing in the Gallery

Transcription

1 From Analog Prototypes to Digital Drawing in the Gallery m Karen G. Nelson Abstract The You Are Here digital drawing interactive is one of the most successful interpretive elements in the renovated Oakland Museum of California Gallery of California Art. This interactive grew from considering how visitors could see themselves in the gallery and how visitor awareness of the creative process could be increased. The renovation project of the Gallery of California Art included prototyping, evaluating, and developing this digital activity for the gallery. Bringing the making of art into the gallery is an important change from the usual scenario of having handson activities in a separate room away from the exhibition space. HAND-ON ACTIVITIES IN GALLERIES Visitors of all ages have been exploring hands-on or art-making activities in American art museums for years, but the activities often take place in a separate area rather than in the exhibition space itself, due to the messiness that is inherent in many creative endeavors with art materials, or to curatorial desire to display only fine art in the galleries. 1 The Oakland Museum of California s staff broke with tradition by deciding that hands-on activities could be included in the renovated exhibition. New research has shown how art-making activities can provide visitors with an awareness of the creative process that in turn gives them another way to interpret the artworks. This case study reveals the importance of the prototyping process to produce the You Are Here digital drawing activity in the art gallery. MUSEUM RENOVATION AND REINSTALLATION BACKGROUND The Oakland Museum of California opened in 1969, unifying three separate organizations with three collection galleries focusing on California art, Journal of Museum Education, Volume 36, Number 3, Fall 2011, pp Museum Education Roundtable. All rights reserved. 269

2 270 KAREN G. NELSON You Are Here digital library on left screen, drawing screen on right. Photo by author. history, and natural sciences. When staff members considered the need to renovate the museum for the 21st century, they committed to putting the visitors at the center of the thinking. Staff reflected on years of experience and reviewed the museum s past projects, including a National Endowment for the Humanities self-study, community-based collaborations for programs and exhibitions, activities with the advisory councils, and visitor research in temporary exhibitions to determine this focus. A James Irvine Foundation Arts Innovation grant award supplied a major catalyst by its requirements to, among other things, create new work, experiment with new aesthetics or develop new programming. 2 This encouraged education and art staff to work together to create innovative strategies to engage visitors in the Gallery of California Art. Staff believed that successful visitor engagement could only be achieved by rigorous testing to determine the best prompts to lead visitors to specific experiences. Staff educators and Kathleen McLean, of Independent Exhibitions, formed an interpretive team that conducted the visitor research and prototyping activities which informed collaborative efforts with the curators, registrars, and other art staff in developing new types of interpretive elements to support the project goal.

3 FROM ANALOG PROTOTYPES TO DIGITAL DRAWING IN THE GALLERY 271 GALLERY OF CALIFORNIA ART RENOVATION PROCESS Museum staff wanted to transform the art gallery into a dynamic place for experiencing art where visitors are inspired to make their own meanings and personal experiences with the artworks on view. The interpretation goal was to create a more welcoming, comfortable, and lively Gallery of California Art where diverse families and community audiences will be attracted in greater numbers, find new ways to participate in museum learning, and return often to explore and be inspired by the art and artists of California. 3 The interpretation team determined four learning objectives for interpretive resources in the Gallery of California Art: To foster skills for diverse learners to experience and interpret art in a variety of ways, to increase observation skills for experiencing art from multiple perspectives, to increase awareness of how art is made and the creative impulse in California, and to develop greater understanding of how California art reflects the human experience in our diverse history and natural environment. 4 Early in the concept phase of the reinstallation project, the team decided to divide the art gallery into three thematic areas: Land, People, and Creativity. Over the course of many meetings, curators and educators discussed the best way to approach the topic of California People. Surveys and other audience research strategies such as focus groups with general visitors, teens, teachers, and advisory committee members, as well as informal conversations with museum support staff, showed that individuals wanted to see themselves in the gallery. Comments such as, there s nothing for me here, my story isn t being told, or my culture is not represented, were common. 5 The planning team desired to represent the great diversity of California s people and to help create parallels between visitors personal stories and the California stories they would encounter in the museum. From these discussions came the concept of the California Portrait Wall. Dovetailing nicely with the large number of artworks that the curators wanted to include in the renovated art gallery, the exhibition team decided to hang the wall salon style a dense grid with little space between works. When installed, the wall presented a kaleidoscope of people and artistic styles. While curators and educators felt the concept and design were successful, visitors still asked for more activities, and particularly for multigenerational activities. Returning to the fundamental question of how to make visitors feel part of the museum, the team wondered if the wall could actually contain the faces of visitors, drawn by themselves. From these conversations grew the idea for the You Are Here activity.

4 272 KAREN G. NELSON PROTOTYPING FOR YOU ARE HERE The team developed the digital drawing activity by testing a variety of paperbased strategies in a twenty-foot-square Art Lab space for three months before the old gallery closed in December The successful activity would be self-contained and unmediated, for the gallery would not have dedicated staff to assist visitors at the interactives. Testing began with a small exhibit called Abstracting the Figure, which showed different levels of realism that artists use when they draw people. Four artworks from the collection showed a range of abstractions of a human figure. Posted on large panels on a separate wall, questions prompted visitors to focus on the artistic process. One question asked visitors to look and try: These four artists make people using different LINES. Can you draw a person using only 3 lines? Another solicited personal opinions: Why do you think artists draw people in different ways? Visitors wrote or drew their responses on small colored sticky papers with pencils. After one month, 87 visitor responses showed that this activity did not engage visitors the way the team hoped it would. In response, the team changed some of the prompts such as Can you draw a person in 5 lines? How about 3? 1? The team also added a mirror with an invitation: Look in the mirror and draw yourself here. These exercises attracted a greater range of responses from visitors and revealed that a successful activity needed to be personally relevant to be engaging. Two hundred and five people wrote responses on the sticky notes, and 662 drew by the mirror. The popularity of drawing showed us that this was an important activity to include in the reinstalled art gallery, especially with California People as one of the gallery s themes. These opportunities for making and looking both at themselves and the four figurative artworks encouraged visitors to participate in activities that related to the art gallery interpretive objectives. One individual commented, I think it is pretty fun. I like to draw, art appeals to me. Another person stated, Shows that art may look difficult in completion. But actually easy to start. These comments supported the team s objective of fostering skills for diverse learners to experience art in a variety of ways. One visitor noted, I think red is an important color because it pops up in unexpected places and adds brightness and color to the painting. In some ways, it s a shocking color, but it works in the painting. Another stated, This area gives you a chance to sit and reflect. I thought about how art takes time and no one seems to

5 FROM ANALOG PROTOTYPES TO DIGITAL DRAWING IN THE GALLERY 273 have extra time and energy nowadays. These reflections supported the objective of increasing observation skills for experiencing art from multiple perspectives. One individual wrote, I like how the kids get to draw on paper and add their ideas, showing that the activity fostered intergenerational learning. PAPER TO PAPERLESS RESPONSES The amount of paper generated by visitors personal expressions concerned both curators and educators. Visitors wrote and drew on colorful sticky pads with pencils to place on the large panels in the Abstracting the Figure exhibit. The popular activity challenged gallery maintenance during the prototype testing. The Art Lab area required twice-daily cleaning, including clearing clutter from the table, checking the supply of paper, sharpening and replacing pencils, and organizing sketches and comments. This problem encouraged staff to consider a digital solution for the final interactive. Exhibition development team members explored online drawing sites, such as Odosketch by Odopod, to determine an effective digital option. 6 The team wanted more than what this online program offered. Staff then asked the consulting reinstallation media developers, BBI Engineering, Inc., to produce software customized to the museum s design and functionality using guidelines developed by the museum s art media producer. The overall media design needed to work in the art gallery and on the museum website, and it had to present a similar and consistent screen delivery and physical housing so visitors understand what to do at the various digital stations throughout the museum. The program had to allow staff to save files on a local server and to change or add content as needed. The program had to be able to handle multiple users simultaneously, as well as user interactions with each other. For You Are Here, individuals interact on two separate screens, one for drawing a self portrait and one for reviewing the portraits of other individuals. The interpretive team also asked for activity directions in Spanish and traditional Chinese since they are, along with English, the dominant languages in the San Francisco East Bay region. Team members tested several iterations of the screen layout to evaluate ease of use and clarity and brevity of directions. Staff reviewed the layout several times to determine how many visitor options and choices needed to be included to have a successful experience. These steps took time, but ultimately allowed the museum to create a simple interface for individuals to use.

6 274 KAREN G. NELSON FINAL DESIGN Currently, as visitors approach the California Portrait Wall artworks, they notice two frames that look slightly different from the others. These contain flat-screen video monitors showing self-portraits of individuals created at the You Are Here station adjacent to the wall. The You Are Here digital interactive includes a mirror on top and electronic sketchpad. After choosing their language preference, visitors draw themselves on the bottom screen using their fingers; when completed, they can then see their sketches in the two framed digital screens as part of the California Portrait Wall. By adding the digital screens, individuals can literally see themselves in the gallery. Visitors can save their drawings to the museum computer as well as send the drawings to themselves or interested others via . In addition to the opportunity to create a digital drawing, visitors can also review a digital library of other individuals drawings on a second adjacent set of screens. When a visitor selects a sketch, the screen on top shows the physical marks the person made in the same order he or she added them to the portrait. In other words, if an individual made a portrait by first drawing his or her hair using seven finger strokes, the visitor will see the seven strokes appear in the same order they were created on the top screen. Almost seventy-five percent of visitors in a small survey in 2007 said they were very interested in seeing the responses and comments of other visitors. 7 Two screens, one for drawing and one for the digital library, placed side by side, provide a social experience for visitors who often come in pairs or small groups, as observed by staff, who have noted visitors talking with each other, pointing, and looking at each others drawings. Maintaining the digital interactive takes far less time than cleaning up paper and pencil art activities. Every two weeks for about 30 minutes staff review drawings for inappropriate images or words before adding them to the library. Rarely are images deleted for content. The digital library also randomly feeds images to the two screens on the California Portrait Wall when the drawing screen is not in use. RESULTS Since opening, You Are Here has consistently been one of the most popular and continuously used activities in the gallery. From a summative evaluation report, about 30% of visitors in the art gallery engage in the drawing activity,

7 FROM ANALOG PROTOTYPES TO DIGITAL DRAWING IN THE GALLERY 275 Self portrait by visitor. Courtesy of Oakland Museum of California. and almost 84% look at art where there are interactives accompanying the art. 8 It has increased the level of social interaction and, judging from the sounds of laughter, encouraged individuals to feel more at ease in the museum. The visitor portraits displayed on the flat monitors on the gallery wall are beautiful and at home among the prized artworks very few look childlike and most seem lively and fresh. Drew Johnson, Associate Curator of Photography, noted the juxtaposition of a range of art with visitor drawings has encouraged identification with the creative process and helped demystify art and artists. 9 The curator s observation shows that the gallery s objective of increasing awareness of how art is made and the creative impulse in California is being met. When the renovated art gallery opened, visitor comments also reflected this. One individual commented,... I like having the more interactive stuff just because it gives you you re not just using the one sense; you re not just looking but you re maybe hearing stuff or touching stuff or kind of gives you a broader sense of what it is you re looking at. Another person said... I think [the digital interactives] broke

8 276 KAREN G. NELSON it up a little bit and I could take time to it was just like a break to the eyes changed what I was looking at and so I think it allowed me to absorb it better and keep me on my toes a little bit more. 10 Because of the simplicity of the physical mechanism to draw and save a portrait, visitors feel comfortable trying it and feel successful in their creations. Therefore, the basic design and process will not change. Future plans include replicating this or a similar experience on the museum website so participants can use their home computers and contribute to an online gallery to encourage the creative process beyond the museum walls. LESSONS LEARNED To create effective gallery interpretation, education and curatorial staff need time. For this project, time was needed to discuss and agree on gallery goals and objectives, to plan and revise paper prototypes, and to consider digital options and design. Before even settling on technology as the delivery system for the art activities, team members needed to determine the interpretation framework (What do we want to do and why?). Staff listened to visitors and learned to ask them questions. Digital solutions can be expensive, so the team debated whether technology was the best solution; would an analog activity be equally effective? In this particular instance, a digital interface allowed the museum to generate a hands-on gallery experience for visitors that can be easily managed by staff. Individuals also can send their drawing to themselves, expanding the experience beyond the museum walls. Since the Oakland Museum Gallery of California Art reopened in 2010, new technology continues to expand the opportunities for visitor interactions. Museums interested in developing digital interactives may find commercial software that renders a custom-designed program unnecessary. Tablet computers and hand-held devices might better replace a computer in a gallery. Improved technology combined with a creative vision for providing gallery experiences can result in activities that engage diverse audiences to look at and think about art in new ways. The possibilities seem almost endless. Notes 1. Some students and artists have sketched or painted in galleries since the late 19th century and continue to do so when allowed.

9 FROM ANALOG PROTOTYPES TO DIGITAL DRAWING IN THE GALLERY The James Irvine Foundation, Arts Innovation Fund, our-programs/arts-program/current-arts-strategy/artsinnovationfund (accessed on August 24, 2011). 3. Barbara Henry, introduction, How We Visitors Changed Our Museum: Transforming the Gallery of California Art at the Oakland Museum of California, eds. Barbara Henry and Kathleen McLean, (California: Oakland Museum of California, 2010), Mary T. Faria and Karen G. Nelson, How We Learned to Listen: Research and Evaluation, How We Visitors Changed Our Museum: Transforming the Gallery of California Art at the Oakland Museum of California, Oakland Museum of California (unpublished visitor survey tally, 2006). 6. Odopod, Odosketch, (accessed on August, 4, 2009). 7. Oakland Museum of California, (unpublished visitor survey tally, 2007). 8. Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. Summative Evaluation: Art Gallery (unpublished report, 2010). 9. Drew Johnson, Seeing Yourself, in How We Visitors Changed Our Museum: Transforming the Gallery of California Art at the Oakland Museum of California, Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. Summative Evaluation: Art Gallery (unpublished report, 2010). Karen G. Nelson was Interpretive Specialist for Art at the Oakland Museum of California from 1989 to She participated on the team designing the renovated Gallery of California Art. She is adjunct professor at John F. Kennedy University Museum Studies program, and has worked at the Neuberger Museum at State University of New York and Fort Wayne Museum of Art. m

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