The DigitalDay 2019 at the Letzeburg City Museum

30.04.2019

On April 25, 2019, Letzeburg City Museum hosted the presentation of the new museum guide app for Digital Day 2019. This meeting with the motto "Culture meets technology" was designed as a network meeting with pitches, keynote speeches and a concluding panel discussion. The program gave the participants time to learn about the various projects, to listen to the presentations and discussions as well as to have conversations and test the new app in the museum.

Short summary of some of the projects presented

Of course, the day was also used to present all the digital mediation projects that have been developed over the last few months. Also, some projects that are being developed e.g. at the University of Luxembourg were presented.

In the museum's new MuseTechLounge, for example, one can look at some of the museum's digital mediation projects without having to enter the exhibition (or after the museum visit). The digital 3D avatar of Count Pierre-Ernest de Mansfeld was created by Didimo (Portugal) and brings visitors closer to a portrait painting of the 16th century, which is important but rather brittle. 

Presentation of the projects by Christopher Morse
Photo: tuomi

The importance of Count Mansfeld for the history of Luxembourg is highlighted by himself, while he tells visitors about his life and residence. Here you can see the avatar. A very interesting approach, but the Avatar seems a bit wooden to me. In order to achieve nearly lifelike results, as they are known to a large audience e.g. from the game industry or from Hollywood blockbusters, most museums must invest priceless sums of money. The lounge also offers stations to browse, among other things, a digital historical city atlas, as well as armchairs and tables where museum catalogues and publications are displayed, and smartphones can be charged. 

What is interesting are the projects presented by Christopher Morse (University of Luxembourg). One of his aims is to find methods to create optimal browsing experiences for online collections. He asked the question how emotions can and should be built into online collections or the user interface.

Urban Timetravel presented his VR City Tour through the city of Luxembourg in the 19th century. As there is a lot of data available to create a very detailed replica of the city, the project gives a good insight into how the city looked like then and how it has changed until today.

The keynote speakers from Amsterdam and Frankfurt/Main

The two keynotes speeches were certainly eagerly awaited. After all, Wouter van der Horst, Educator Digital Learning at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and Dr. Chantal Eschenfelder, Head of Education and Digital Collection, Städel Museum, Frankfurt could be won as speakers.

Wouter van der Horst presented two exciting new YouTube channels: „RijksTube“  and „RijksCreative“. Both channels are designed to appeal to different target groups. With the "RijksTube" series "Is this art? Where art meets pop culture" aims to address people, who are more interested in Marvel Comics, memes or other phenomena of pop culture than in art. The videos always start with pop culture, e.g. the advertising pictures for burgers or cinema posters for Avengers films. The question then asked: "Is this art?" is then pursued by juxtaposing them with paintings from the collections of the Rijksmuseum. A very entertaining and informative series! The second channel, with a completely different pictorial aesthetic and a kind of tutorial, is aimed at an audience interested in artistic techniques. Two very exciting approaches that bring "virtual visitors" into contact with the collection. Maybe also the people who do not search for the artworks on the net, but for completely different things.

Dr. Eschenfelder presented the museum's extensive digital strategy and digital offers. It was also clear that different offers are made for visitors on site in the museum (e.g. museum app, audio guide) and for "virtual visitors" (e.g. online collection and digitorials).

The new museum app "The Luxembourg story"

After the panel discussion on "Challenges of the digital: museums, collections, exhibitions" the new app was presented at the Letzeburg City Museum.

In the first instance, the app is to be installed by visitors on their own devices, but a small number of tablets will soon be available for loan. Furthermore, the app is designed to be used in the museum, but also to provide access to the objects from anywhere else. In the museum, the Bluetooth function must be activated to obtain information via the beacon infrastructure. (Unfortunately, one is not informed that one must activate the Bluetooth function of the smartphone. If the Bluetooth function is not activated, the outdoor mode is automatically activated, i.e. visitors are shown all of the approx. 50 objects spread over 4 floors, from which they can choose independently (then without navigation and orientation help). There should probably be some improvements.) At the moment, as already mentioned, information is offered on about 50 exhibits, which are designed to be informative and entertaining, with very good picture material and partly also with videos. A constant expansion of the contents is planned. Furthermore, 2 audio tours, a kid quiz and general information about the museum are offered. All in German, English, and French.

The downloaded app worked out relatively quickly. A QR code is also available in the entrance area so that the app can be found quickly in the stores. The handling is not difficult, whereby I already find that the start page in this first version offers an insane abundance of information and possibilities that makes the first contact with the app not very clear. I have already noticed the missing hint about Bluetooth activation.

Beacons not ideal

Since the museum is in a multi-story historical complex, some of which is underground, and has rooms of varying sizes and with many corners, the use of beacons is only possible room by room. In concrete terms, this means that as soon as you enter a new room, the screen displays the objects for which information is offered. Only photos of the objects in question are displayed, which you must find independently in the room. These individual photos are then tapped to get the information. Now there is the following, known problem with the use of beacons: As soon as one leaves the radio range of one beacon and enters the radio range of the next beacon, the display changes automatically, even while one is still reading or looking. In order to avoid this situation, a different procedure has been adopted in Luxembourg: In order to receive the signal of the next beacon, users must always return to the start screen, i.e. the view in which all selectable room objects are displayed. Unfortunately, the users are not informed about this. Those who do not take this step miss the opportunity to discover more information.

But one of the two approaches had to be chosen, even if neither of them is ideal nor really intuitive. The users must deal quite a lot with "the technology".

By the way, the Bluetooth function, which has been switched on and used for a long time, has really taken its toll on my smartphone battery.

How sustainable is a museum app?

Much more fundamentally, however, there is another question: how sensible and contemporary is a digital product (incidentally without any recognizable barrier-free functions, apart from the fact that the system settings of the smartphone may be helpful under certain circumstances) that requires a download to your own smartphone and comes with identical content inside and outside the museum? Is it likely that a relevant number of users will (permanently) install the app and use it from anywhere to get information about the objects? Many well-known and recently frequently quoted studies do not suggest this (one example).

The strategies in the Rijksmuseum and the Städel also speak a completely different language, as the keynote speakers also showed. Museum apps and audio guides, also available on loan, are intended more for the duration of the stay in the museum, while offers such as digitorials, online collections or YouTube channels appeal to visitors outside the museum. Websites or social media are used here, and these services can be found, for example, via search engines and thus where people are already staying. It is not necessary to download an app to your own device.

As already mentioned, these are not new findings. One can certainly not compare the possibilities (personal and financial) that a Städel- or Rijksmuseum have with those of a city museum, but I am also concerned with the very basic question of how to address visitors in digital form and what of them actually works. The empirical values ​​that the larger houses have already been able to collect can help the smaller houses to find answers and show directions that can be more promising than developing a “one-in-all” museum app, no matter how well done is.

All in all, it was a very interesting afternoon in Luxembourg. Warm thanks for the orientation to all museum staff and the actors for the diverse input.

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