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I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

sethpurcell.com

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Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#201

Post by bluGill »

PaulHoule wrote: post #142
kleiba wrote: post #94

There is an incredible pressure on a lot of public facing endeavors to include digital , no matter whether it makes any sense at all or not. Take education, for instance - if it weren't such an important topic, it would be almost comical to observe how our schools are trying to jump through hoops to cram more IT into the classroom. (I wish the people responsible would take a look at Scandinavia though, where they are…

To be devil's advocate it is really practical to develop and roll out digital experiences. You can be a lot more creative about it than the "big tablet" experience you have at McDonald's. Some friends of mine have built experiential art installations that have things like a custom coin-op video game, Pepper's Ghost style displays, a "time machine" experience using video projectors, etc. I'd love to be able to sell lo…

A significant number of people get motion sickness from VR and thus excluded. If you don't have a problem good for you, but please remember those of us excluded. Please leave some normal no electronics places for those of us who can't enjoy what you do.

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#202

Post by dylan604 »

testaccount28 wrote: post #176
elric wrote: post #86

I had a (now defunct) startup in this space some years ago. Maybe I can help shed some light on why things are the way they are. 1. Money. Most museums have no money. They either run on donations, on subsidies, or at the whim of wealthy patrons. They are very costly to run, especially the big ones. They are often in prime real estate areas, many require tight climate control, many also require specialised lighting to…

i'm confused. in what way is this a response to the article? the article laments the sidelining of physical exhibits, in favor of software. you respond that the screens probably have an arduous and expensive procurement process. what's going on here?

[flagged]

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#203

Post by bluGill »

IshKebab wrote: post #185
c22 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just museum exhibits and kids, it's everything . I have some maintenance roles in my background and the rate at which things like paper towel dispensers get worn down and completely destroyed when interacted with by hundreds or thousands of people a day is eye opening.

I guess it's because it's waaaay too expensive to buy really robust things (like paper towel dispensers). It's not like you couldn't build an indestructible paper towel dispenser, but it would cost 10x a normal one and have 100x smaller market.

Since these towel dispensers are all over schools and other locations that likely get more traffic than that museum, either they are buying the good models which everyone in the business knows about, or they are choosing to buy the cheap ones because it is a better value despite having to replace them all the time. I don't buy such things so I'm not able to tell you which. I know that there are enough of them in the world that anything not robust would be well known quickly. (there is a possibility they bought something new that turned out bad, but then replace it once and done)

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#204

Post by dylan604 »

bluGill wrote: post #196
jmkd wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. Curators often see "taking care" of the exhibits as more important than actually exhibiting them. Not to mention they're often art/history majors with very little clue about anything digital. Museum curators used to be called keepers and this only changed in the mid-late twentieth century. The philosophy of preservation runs deep and you won't struggle to find curators whose favourite day of the week is when the…

> The philosophy of preservation runs deep and you won't struggle to find curators whose favourite day of the week is when the museum is closed to the public. Which gets back to the question - why does/should the public support a museum. If we can't see it why are we keeping it? Even with our best preservation things will be destroyed over/with time, some things quicker than others. So if people don't get to see it w…

> If we can't see it why are we keeping it?

Does one get any better sense of something from seeing the original something vs a replica of the something? Does looking at the "original" copy of the constitution under all that glass do anything different than a replica under all of that glass? Would seeing the actual David statue impart any more anything than seeing a replica of it? If you say yes, why do you think any of that is the actual thing and not a replica? Just because they say so?

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#205

Post by gecko6 »

cesaref wrote: post #15
parpfish wrote: post #4

One of my longstanding peeves is that art museums are treated as serious places for grown-ups but science museums and zoos are treated as places for kids.

There are exceptions - here in the UK we have the RI: https://www.rigb.org/ The Christmas lectures are probably the most famous thing they do, and these have definitely moved in a more 'child' focussed direction. If you were attending the Christmas lectures in the 1850s however, the audience would have been middle class victorioans, and you'd have had Michael Faraday telling you about electricity, forces, chemistry e…

Listening to the Christmas lectures was a high point of my childhood, and everyone in my family still remembers and talks about the ones we watched.

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#206

Post by jacobolus »

el_benhameen wrote: post #61
jacobolus wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Art museums could be made friendlier for kids, but they would need significant design and maintenance effort. In particular: many kids need a lot of running around, want to play with things with their hands, and get quickly bored just standing and looking at artworks. It would be nice if there were better art museums for kids though. (For what it's worth, there are plenty of non-interactive and thus boring-for-kids s…

I took my 6 and 8 year old to SFMOMA and they loved it, to the point that they’ve asked to go (and have gone) to several more “boring” art museums since. We had a talk about ground rules (quiet voices, hands to self, no running, no exceptions) beforehand, and the mood of the place helped enforce those rules. A big, crowded space can be powerful in its quietness. A lot of the weird, experimental, and experiential piec…

I took my 6 and 9 year olds to SFMOMA and they played along for about 20 minutes and then started rolling all over the furniture and complaining about being bored, despite my best efforts to engage them in discussions about the art pieces. I got them to settle for a while by playing pencil-and-paper games with them, but then I couldn't look at the art either.

A more extensive talk about ground rules wouldn't have helped. Kids aren't all the same, and most art museums aren't really designed to meet their needs.

(By comparison, they would be happy to spend all day every day at the Exploratorium, and the hardest part there is occasionally pulling one away from some exhibit so that the next kid can get a turn.)

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#207

Post by gecko6 »

bluGill wrote: post #89
watwut wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds correct about republican voters tho. And everyone suffers because of it.

Everyone suffers because you believe that stereotype instead of getting to know republicans and discovering it is false - many of them love science (who you vote for is a compromise - nobody will support everything you want them to)

Individual republicans may well love science, but the Republican party is and has been anti-science for a long time, and aggressively so.

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#208

Post by MarkusQ »

dcminter wrote: post #64
parpfish wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. They make it into a space for adults by simply removing kids and adding beer. It’s good for a casual date, but you don’t actually get adult level content. I want the actual exhibits and content to be able to teach things to adults and not just signs with “wacky trivia” meant to engage kids for two seconds while they sprint to the next thing that has a button for them to push (e.g., one of the worst genre of “…

I do recall a "late" at the London Science Museum where you could collect wristbands with the names of STDs to win prizes. Ok, still not very educational, but it was quite amusing to hear people trading gonorrhea for genital lice etc. On a more serious note they do or did offer free lectures that were much more in-depth; one of the things I rather miss now that I live abroad.

In depth science lectures would definitely be a step in the right direction. I think those are gone though:

"Our evening events cover everything from cult film screenings and live performances to gripping panel discussions and exclusive premieres—we’ve got something for everyone."

https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/see-and-do/halloween-lates

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#209

Post by card_zero »

bluGill wrote: post #179
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An ugly painting doesn't become any more interesting to me when I learn about the struggles the artist went through Personal struggles? Sure. An ugly painting that opens the door to me learning about a war or revolution or system of government I was previously unaware of? Or a style or medium enabled by a new technology of the time? That can be fun. I live near a large collection of wildlife art. I can't say many o…

That can happen, but often the story isn't interesting (at least to me). It is the same story: someone decides the world is out to get them and they won't "sell out". I don't care, I don't agree with their world view, and in any case they are not unique. If anything they need mental help - but they are plenty of other people around who also need such help who didn't paint. Do not mistake what I said for some claim th…

I saw Da Vinci's drawings and smaller paintings and they were fun, with the investigation of flowing water and (illicit?) anatomy and various devices with wooden cogs in. Not exactly educational, but historically interesting and oddly aesthetic. Does that count? I mean, art galleries can show lots of different kinds of art. It doesn't have to be monotonous self-expression.

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#210

Post by bluGill »

dooglius wrote: post #133
Apocryphon wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there are tech conventions, why not science conventions?

Do people not in tech go to tech conventions?

My company has a tech convention every year. Last time I went I played spot the tech person - most people there failed the test (they were former engineers now in management trying to pretend they were still technical). I'm a staff engineer and I was the lowest position person I saw there - not even senior engineers much less the low or mid level engineers that would benefit from talking to the seniors at a tech conference.
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