Motivation

My project is motivated by the desire to show the “texture and personality” of a museum collection, the creation process, and the impact exhibits have on visitors. In doing so, I hope to demonstrate that the Williams College Museum of Art is always an open question, with space for interpretation and introspection. I intend to do this by capturing the responses of museum visitors, and the effort invested by staff, through wearable sensors and data visualization. Museum visitors can’t see the effort spent curating a collection, and datasets don’t capture the emotions of exhibit participants as they move through the display.


Problem Analysis

Museums have power because they connect people to other times, places, and ideas. WCMA, through experimental and immersive exhibits, forces visitors to confront uncomfortable truths. Exploring the building - originally designed as a religious library, in the shape of a panopticon, surrounded by mechanical eyes - is an emotional process, whether visitors realize it or not. Even the least engaged visitor has physiological responses to being uncomfortable or curious, whether it is a change in blood pressure, turning away quickly, or deciding to distract themselves. There is currently no way to collect or represent the emotional reactions of visitors to museums, or record the emotional labor of museum staff as they create these exhibits.


Proposal

I propose a multi-prong approach: wearables, bluetooth beacons, and data displays in the transition spaces between exhibits. By tracking the physiological changes caused by emotional responses as they visit collections, curators will be able to understand how visitors experience object relationships as well as exhibit narratives. Once this information has been collected, it can be folded into the museum database, or turned into an exhibit. By gathering and displaying the physiological responses of people as they interact with exhibits, visitors become more than users - they become participants.

Wearables

Wearables ideally will take the form of flexable, single use, “stickers.” Imagine a band-aid, but with the WCMA logo and sensors built in to track blood pressure, heart rate, and hormones. In order to reduce costs, it is likely that two stickers would have to be used - one on the temple, one on the wrist. These devices will track specific physiological responses to museum exhibits, as well as the visitor’s location. This tracking allows physiological responses to be paired with location. Visitors can also check out wearable tech such as Apple Watch-like bracelets, or headphone-like ear hooks, as long as they place a deposit, leave a card number, ID, or other form of colateral.

Sticker sensor: stickers Watch concept: watch Over-ear sensor:

Staff Use

Staff can wear these while designing, installing, and performing walk-throughs, in order to build a “map” of their labor. Data can be paired with installation timelines, locations, and notes about the process, in order to fill the gap between “data set” and “experience.”

Bluetooth Beacons

Bluetooth beacons will collect visitor data at key transition points between exhibits, can be used to track user locations and paths through the museum, and can communicate data to data displays in the transition points.

Data Displays

Transition spaces between exhibits, or, if curators decide to create an exhibit out of this information, in a dedicated section of the museum, can display stories created from aggregate visitor data, anonymized user data, or staff data. Visitors will be able to see which pieces of art caused distress, happiness, curiosity, revulsion, fear, and any other response that can be reasonably measured through smart sensors.

Moving Forward