broad overview of what a museum is and what it can be

1. Giovanni- Service Design
Senior Researcher
Innella
The Museum is dead.
Long live the Museum
When preparing this
presentation I thought I could
give you an overview of what
a museum is or what it can
be, so that we can have a
discussion afterward

2. Museum as the
white cube
So to start we can look at
how the museum is defined
conventionally, which is
simply a place or institution
where artifacts with an
artistic, historic or cultural
value are collected and
displayed. So the museum as
O’Doherty defined is a white
cube stuffed with objects and
tags

3. When we look at this cube,
the box, we can’t avoid
noticing that for some reason
a good portion of the budget
goes often into the design of
those boxes. Sometimes they
are very beautiful indeed, this
is the new design museum in
Tel Aviv by Ron Arad by the
way

4. How much does the box
matter?
So the first question I ask
myself when thinking of a
museum is how much the box
matters and why. Is it part of
the content? Is it because
of identity? Is it just for
marketing? I still don’t have
an answer to that, but I know
that the usual 10 millions
budget goes into the box for
some reason

5. If we forget about the box and
we look at the function of the
museum, this is quite simple.

6. The museum works like
a time capsule, recording
information and releasing it
with a delay which in some
cases it’s long, in some cases
almost instantaneously

7. About 20% of artworks
displayed by museums
is fake(The Independent)
Surprisingly also the
information released might
contain some contradictions,
as for example in art, a
percentage of the artworks
displayed is fake.

8. Which is something
surprising for somebody,
although it’s not surprising
that for example the holy
shroud which has been
proved to be fake is visited
by thousands of visitors. But
let’s not bother Jesus Christ,
especially now that Italy is
playing (presentation given
during soccer match Italy vs.
Slovakia)

9. The only theory I could stick
to is the one of professor
John Malkovich which in the
movie being John Malkovich
states that “The truth is for
suckers”

10. “There’s a sucker born
every minute.”
(David Hannum on Phineas Taylor Barnum)
Statement that goes together
with the one of Hannum
about Barnum’s activity
“there is a sucker born every
minute”

11. This is the ORIGINAL FIJI MERMAID as
Exhibited by P.T. Barnum.
It is reported that there are currently 7 Fiji
So what was Barnum doing is Mermaids currently on display in the US.
organizing in the 19th century
exhibition with mostly fake
artefacts or people. He had
for example the Fiji Mermaid
which is just half body of
monkey stuck together with
half body of a fish. He had
many of these amenities in
his museums which were
very successful

12. But also without going that
far with scam, we just need
Cristopher Colombus has 2 graves one in San Salvador, one in
to think that Christopher Sevilla
Columbus has many birth-
places and 2 graves and they
are both visited by tourists.
One of the two obviously has
to be fake

13. How important is to
communicate true
information?
So this raises another
question: how much
information has to be
authentic?

14. There are also a number
of museum that release
information that have
Museo Guatelli
apparently no relevance. The
museum Guatelli is a good
example

15. It is also know as the
Museum of the obvious
museum of the obvious or of
the everyday, where common
objects are displayed

16. Or the museum of broken
relationships, where object
serve as medium for telling
stories of past relationships.
And they are quite
successful. Especially this
one.

17. How much information
has to be “relevant”
and to whom?
So my doubt is how much
information has to be relevant
and to whom?

18. Some museums shifted
from information to
experience
(and they are not called museums
anymore)
I wonder if it’s still information
that we are talking about,
or if it’s the experience that
matters. There is a number
of museums that managed to
make this shift

19. This is the museum of blind
Museum of blind
people
people in Rome. Basically
you being blind

20. Museum of blind
It works in a simple fashion:
you are blind folded and
one blind person takes you
around the city experiencing
people
transportation or food.
Information is very little

21. Here it’s a clear example of
information vs experience:
Museo Automobile
Car Museum in Torino is just
like a huge garage, where
you go see the cars, gets
excited if you are a male
Torino
most likely, get bored if you
are a girl... read information

22. It’s a place for fetishists
It is a place for fetishists

23. This instead is the Ferrari
theme park in Abu Dhabi,
where I’m sure there are
cars, but there is also a
series of activities that tries
to replicate the sensation of
Ferrari theme park
what driving a car is. So the
rollercoaster simulates the
performances of the car...
there is quite of a difference
in reading how fast a car can
go and actually trying it
Abu Dhabi

24. So I wonder if the same
principle could be adopted in
other cases. In Madeira they
Museu da Baleia
are working on the Museum
of the whale. Which by the
way is not finished yet and it
won’t open until october for
Madeira
some reason. It is another
box filled with information

25. At the same time it’s plenty
of small enterprises that
offer whale watching service,
although it’s not guaranteed
you’ll see the whale the
experience is engaging...
sailing the same route of the
whale hunters, being in the
same place, on a boat... I
wonder if that should instead
be the starting point for
conceiving the museum

26. Information or
experience?
So my amletic doubt is
information or experience?

27. while in Ivrea e1 was asked
to make the Castiglioni
museum. Castiglioni was
this famous italian designer,
one of the maestros or of
the dynasours, it depends
by the points of view... So
the museum had to be in
his studio and our idea
was to make 3 interactive
installations... very very
basic... Our work was
in interpreting the way
information had to be
released

28. Second encounter with the
museum happened when
I was in Design Academy
exploring the realm of
representation of design.
Let me explain a bit what I
was doing otherwise I seem
to be really a psychopatic
here. So I was experimenting
a lot with silicone as a tool
for generating objective
represeantation. I’m not going
to go too much into details for
your and my mental hygene

29. But as a synthesis I used
to spread objects with
silicon creating these
representations, the skins as
I used to call them

30. Of known design objects

31. Then I realized that museums
were also exhibiting design
objects transferring a series
of values and meanings
to the object itself. So
with my technique I was
able to create physical
representations of the
situation

32. I was looking at the museum
as a factory where physical
representation could have
been produced

33. exhibition at Droog gallery - Amsterdam making process
)
is
ir
ject
a
008
Skin of Studio Job’s piece exhibited at Designhuis Eindhoven
And displayed elsewhere in
different ways
Skin of Hella Jongerius’ vase exhibited at Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven

34. On the other hand museums
often forbid people to take
pictures, denying their role of
representation factory. What
most people don’t know is
that this sing doesn’t have
any legal value. It’s also often
displayed after you pay and
enter.

35. So I started working with a
lawyer, expert in copyrights
and intellectual property.
And she tried to inform me
on all the requirements to
really legally prevent people
from taking pictures. All that
information was becoming
like a design brief almost,

36. We could create a space that
legally generates only verbal
representations

37. and finally an architecture
was designed only by the
legal requirements

38. A come Ambiente
More recently I designed
with Id-Lab this installation
on the facade of a museum
in Italy. It’s a museum
about environment and
sustainability
Torino

39. So my approach was to open
up the white cube and let
the information flow outside
and reach people and the
environment. So these
pipes serve as a medium for
reaching the content

40. through audio

41. or through a periscopic
system, so visual.

42. During my experience in
Burkina faso also the theme
of museum came back. I
was introducing some local
to google maps, and how to
make your own map... they
were very triggered by that.
One guy started making a
touristic map of the area.
And as he was placing
placemark he would include
an unexpected information.
One telephone number! So I
asked him what he was doing
and he told me: “well i make
his map, but I can’t include
all the information and this
Call-a-guide
information about places are
not contained anywhere. Only
few people, the chiefs of the
local tribes know about the
stories of the place. So I’m
Burkina Faso
including their numbers”

43. He was imagining a system
in which improbable white
tourists would explore the
region with his map and when
they were getting to a marked
place they could reach the
local chief that could give him
Call-a-guide
a tour through the phone a
sort of low-tech augmented
reality or site human aware
application. Although it’s
not clear how it would have
Burkina Faso
worked I find it interesting.

44. That’s it