Interactions - September/October 2011

two screens, they were visible to other people, who could respond and comment. In this manner, the communication and dialogue were instantaneous and collective, creating social engagement between the participants at the installation. The concern was no longer the museum’s curated story to the audience, but rather the visitors’ own stories, contributions, and reflections (to others) around the theme of the exhibition.

Through a series of actions, selections, reflections, and communicative acts, the audience related the specific content and issues of the exhibited materials to themselves and their lives, and then contributed these reflections to the exhibition. In this way, Google My Head created modes of engagement that encouraged dialogue and participation between individual visitors and potentially much larger and unknown online audiences. Using and mimicking the language of social media, the installation created hybrid connections between the exhibition and the audiences’ daily lives.

Through both Google My Head
and DJ Station, the audiences
connected with the cultural heri-
tage of a specific group of people
by means of their own physical,
social, and emotive resources. The
language of social media was the
key to creating the connections
and dialogical spaces between the
museum space and the everyday
lives of the audience. This room
for co-creation clearly allowed the
audience to gain an important role
in the exhibition through physi-
cal gestures, individual choices,
and social engagement. Formal
or authoritative knowledge about
the theme of the exhibition was
never the goal of exhibition design.
Rather, fragments, possible connec-
tions, and arbitrary meanings were
ingrained in the actual installa-
tions and the materials presented.
Each installation thus demanded
the involvement and reflections
of the audience to create mean-
ingful experiences—experiences
created precisely in the encoun-
ters between matters of cultural
heritage, the language and design
of the installation, and the active
engagement of the audience.

and beyond the museum space. Using social media in the design of exhibitions can thus create more inclusive, non-hierarchical spaces for experiences and expressions of cultural communication that dissolve the boundaries between institutional heritage and living heritage, reconnecting museums and heritage to audiences’ lives in new ways.

Acknowledgements This research has been funded by Center for Digital Urban Living (the Danish Council for Strategic Research, grant number 2128-07-0011). We acknowledge the collaborating partners of the Digital Natives project: Center for Advanced Visualization and Interaction (CAVI), the Alexandra Institute, Moesgaard Museum, Innovation Lab, and the young “Digital Natives” involved in the realization of the project.

eNdNotes:

1. castells, M. Museums in the information era: cultural connectors of time and space. In Museums in a Digital Age. r. parry, ed. routledge, London & New York, 2010. 2. Giaccardi, E. things we value. interactions 18, 1 (2011). 3. Ito, M. Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media. MIt press, cambridge, MA, 2009. 4. prensky, M. Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon 9, 5 (2001). 5. Jordà, S., Kaltenbrunner, M., Geiger, G., and bencina, r. the reactable. Proc. International Computer Music Conference. International computer Music Assoc., San Francisco, cA, 2005.

An Experience-Centered Approach
to Social Media in the Museum

The many transformations brought about by the digital era challenge museums as cultural institutions to find ways of communicating that reconnect them to the everyday practices of their audiences. Social media can act as a strong means of transforming museum communication from formal and linear knowledge production to living intersections between museums and audiences’ everyday lives. Social media fosters both individual experiences and collective social action in the ongoing (re)production of cultural-heritage meaning. It can incorporate and distribute both heritage “content” and ongoing interpretations from the audience, inside

About the Authors
rachel charlotte Smith is a ph. D.
student in social anthropology
and interaction design at Aarhus
University. She is studying how
digital technology can provide
new ways of engaging audiences
in cultural heritage.

Ole Sejer Iversen is an associate professor of interaction design at Aarhus University. His research focuses on theory and practices of designing engaging interactive technologies for children, with children.