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Peereboom, M. et al., Van Gogh’s Letters: Or How to Make the Results of 15 Years of Research Widely Accessible for Various Audiences and How to Involve Them. In J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds). Museums and the Web 2010: Proceedings. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. Published March 31, 2010. Consulted April 29, 2010. http://www.archimuse.com/mw2010/papers/peereboom/peereboom.html
Read more: Archives & Museum Informatics: Museums and the Web 2010: Papers: Peereboom, M. et al., Van Gogh’s Letters… http://www.archimuse.com/mw2010/papers/peereboom/peereboom.html#ixzz0mX481a7D
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives
This scholarly article from the currently held Museums and the Web 2010 nicely dovetailed into my Olympia project, as the online Van Gogh Letters project played a part in my “inspirational bibliography.”
The paper addresses the 15 years of academic research by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam to the complete Vincent Van Gogh correspondence and documents that were “re-transcribed, annotated, dated, translated” and then digitized. The collection encompasses 902 letters (819 written by Van Gogh, 83 written to him). What makes them additionally wonderful are the sketches of his famous works that are embedded in the letters.
A cross-media strategy (in book form and on website), including mixing in new media that included a blog, an iPhone application, and a multimedia tour, the strategy was to bring access and life to Van Gogh’s letters, his world, and the man himself.
The component of the article that was most relevant to the Olympia Project was the discussion on the Van Gogh Blog and its mission to make it current and dynamic by presenting Vincent Van Gogh’s letters as blog postings to be submitted on the month and day of their original writing. What was quite edifying was their idea of how Van Gogh would address a blog today. Their answer: “If Van Gogh had been alive today, he would probably have been an active user of blogs and social media. After all, he wrote very personal letters, often several a day.” This is was exactly my thought – the critics of the Paris Salon in 1865 would have been blogging like mad, and their denunciation of Manet’s Olympia would have been viral.
The Van Gogh team used WordPress also and attempted to use as many letters with sketches to give visual appeal. Because his letters were so long, excerpts were provided with links to the Van Gogh Letters website to read further and look at the originals at the same time. New posts were given notice through RSS Feeds as well as Twitter and Facebook using twitterfeed.com to generate interest into other social network avenues. The blog was successful in generating as much interest in it as the website of the Van Gogh letters. A key lesson they learned from the process was that the blog was very time-consuming (can relate) and that a blog can attract a lot of spam (need for anti-spam plugins, Akismet).
One aspect that was not brought up in article though which I observed in visiting the blog was looking at the tag cloud. Part of my argument or idea for my Olympia blog was that the tag cloud is telling about the discussion and ideas of Olympia. The same can be said about the things that Van Gogh talked about the most and this I find most fascinating – the primary one being “colour.” Now, that was very delightful for Van Gogh is not only known for his incredibly tactile brushstrokes, but for his incredible color that sweeps over you and engulfs you. Also other primary tags were Gauguin, Millet, painting, sky and trees. How very telling. That alone can speak yards regarding the content of Vincent Van Gogh’s letters.
Nina Simon’s The Participatory Museum is an incredible resource, another jewel provided in our Museum Informatics course. She writes on her Museum 2.0 blog how she wrote this book on a public wiki (reminds me of our use of the wiki in class), how she vetted public editors, though she found most participants were only involved during the formative parts of the book. She practiced what she preached about participation: “So when people contributed, I always felt that they were helping me, supporting the project, sharing an insight or critique for me to use.”
I focused on reading Chapter 1: Principles of Participation. In this write-up, I’ve sprinkled numerous quotes from Nina Simon because they are so good and they speak for themselves. I couldn’t believe what excellent advice and information was jam-packed in just one chapter. Of course, some of these chapters are length (45+ pages), so she also offers the option to purchase the book.
She brings up the fact that sometimes museums want to just create any participatory activity or application, yet can run afoul by making a poorly-designed participatory experience. She highlights a poor one immediately in the first paragraph:
A Poor Participatory Design: An Anonymous Chicago Museum
“I’m in Chicago with my family, visiting a museum. We’re checking out the final exhibit – a comment station where visitors can make their own videos in response to the exhibition. I’m flipping through videos that visitors have made about freedom, and there are REALLY, REALLY BAD.
The videos fall into 2 categories:
- Person stares at camera and mumbles something incomprehensible.
- Group of teens, overflowing with enthusiasm, “express themselves” via shout-outs and walk-ons.”
Results: Unsuccessful.
Why unsuccessful: Museum only issued mandate to create without providing “scaffolding.”
Simon offers the wonderful quote from Orson Welles which puts it aptly: “The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.”
Now, let me compare this to an example she gives of a good participatory design…
A Good Participatory Design: Denver Art Museum – 2009 “Side Trip” Gallery for The Psychedelic Experience Exhibit
In the exhibition space highlighting psychedelic rock music posters, visitors were encouraged to make their own rock music posters in the Side Trip gallery:
“Rather than giving people blank sheets of paper and markers (and reaching a narrow audience of self-motivated creators)… visitors were offered clipboards with transparencies attached. There were stacks of graphics – cut-out reproductions from real rock posters on display… could place under transparencies to rearrange and remix into poster designs of their own choosing.” Posters took approximately 25 minutes to create.When completed, the visitor gave to a staffer who made a composite by copying it on color printer. Then, the visitor was given the final poster and provided with option to post a copy in the gallery.
Results: Out of 90,000 attendees, 37,000 posters were created. That verges to nearly 45% participation from total number of attendees!
Why successful: Visitors didn’t have to start with a blank slate. They were provided “scaffolding.”
Scaffolding:
Nina Simon stresses the critical importance of scaffolding to participatory design. We have seen in class the example of a good one in the Victoria and Albert Museums “Make an Arts and Crafts Title.” We don’t have to create from a blank slate.
What exactly is scaffolding? Simon elaborates on this and its formation from “instructional scaffolding” with its roots in education and contemorary learning theory.
Some good quotes about scaffolding:
- Instructional Scaffolding is where “educators or educational material provides supportive resources, tasks and guidance upon which learners can build their confidence and abilities.”
- “The best participatory experience are not wide open. They are scaffolded to help people feel comfortable engagin the the activity.”
- Example of an open-ended, non-scaffolded experience: “What if I walked up to you on the street and asked you to make a video about your ideas of justice in the next three minutes? Does that sound like a fun and rewarding casual activity to you?”
- An open-ended, non-scaffolded experience can “feel daunting to would-be participants.”
Another juicy gem is her presentation of the 5 stages of social participation…
The 5 Stages of Social Participation (from Me to We):
Stage 1: Individual Consumes Content
Stage 2: Individual Interacts with Content
Stage 3: Individual Interactions are Networked in Aggregate
Stage 4: Individual Interactions are Networked for Social Use
Stage 5: Individuals Engage with Each Other Socially
Simon applies these 5 stages wonderfully in the case study of the successful incorporation of all 5 stages in Nike’s product Nike+, a combined iPod/Shoe product to track one’s running. It is too good to highlight and I’d suggest if you have the time to read it. It illustrates the five stages and is directly applicable to designing the participatory museum experience.
Other good gems from this article is how she describes how YouTube is a successful participatory experience and the real reason it is successful, that encourages “diverse forms of participation.”
These diverse forms of participation are elaborated in her discussion of what participation looks like:
1. Creators
2. Critics
3. Collectors
4. Joiners
5. Spectators
6. Inactives
What is quite fascinating is that only .16% of YouTube visitors upload a video and only .2% of Flickr visitors post a photo. Wow! She stresses that although the quantity of creators are small, participation (and why social media, YouTube, Flickr, etc. are popular) and mini-creation takes place in the form of collectors, joiners, critics, and even spectators.
Attribution: Simon, Nina. The Participatory Museum. Santa Cruz: Museum 2.0, 2010.
