Sunday 21 June 2015

"Radial" to "Gyroscopic" Museum Model?


Museums have evolved employing new methods to what Wayne LaBar identifies as “four pillars”[1] of engagement which continue to dominate the sector. Objects, their display, relative interpretive information and visitor hosts/guides, he suggests, “are being used in the same way as the original forms”[2] in what he terms a “Radial Museum”[3] or museums that may utilise contemporary technology but continue to control the unidirectional creation, presentation and ownership of information which is generated in and often limited to a particular physical location – the museum. The “Gyroscopic Model”[4], according to LaBar, uses two technological innovations – the internet and mobile telephones to facilitate “communication and personal creation”[5] providing opportunities for museum visitors to easily and quickly respond and contribute to what becomes an exchange of information and content with the museum, and even more importantly LaBar contends, with each other. Mobile devices allow this exchange to happen at any time and in any place providing innumerable new ways for a museum’s mission “to impact people while on their way to work, in school, at the park or in countless other places.”[6] The ability to engage at any time, in any place, with potentially anyone connected is what characterises LaBar’s “Gyroscopic Model”. Opposed to technology’s influence on the “four pillars” of traditional museum practice applied to the methods associated with the display and interpretation of objects, the “Gyroscopic Museum”[7] provides a framework in which the mobility of internet capable devices can impact relationships between people and museums before, during or/and after a museum visit or regardless of whether they ever visit the museum’s physical location.

 



[1] LaBar, Wayne. “The Gyroscopic Museum: Liberty Science Center” In Creativity and Technology: Social Media, Mobiles and Museums. Edited by James E Katz, Wayne LaBar and Ellen Lynch. Museums Etc Ltd, Edinburgh, 2011:P383.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid:P388.
[5] Ibid:P385.
[6] Ibid:P388.
[7] Ibid:P393.

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