04.20.2020 - By Ian Elsner
The modern museum invites you to touch. Or it would, if it wasn’t closed due to the Covid-19 outbreak. The screens inside the Fossil Hall at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC say “touch to begin” to an empty room. The normally cacophonous hands-on exhibits at the Exploratorium in San Francisco sit eerily silent.
Museum exhibit developer Paul Orselli of Paul Orselli Workshop says he’ll be reluctant to use hands-on exhibits once museums open up again. But he hopes that future hands-on exhibits are more meaningful because museums will work harder to justify them.
In this episode, Orselli predicts what hands-on exhibits could become, the possibility that the crisis will encourage museums to adhere to universal design principles instead of defaulting to touchscreens, and how Covid-19 might finally put an end to hands-on mini grocery store exhibits in children's museums.
Topics and Links
00:00 Intro
00:15 Hands-On Exhibits in Museums
01:00 Michael Spock
02:04 Paul Orselli
02:40 The Growth of Hands-On Exhibits
03:30 “The last thing I want to do is rush into a super-crowded museum”
04:40 “Empty Interaction”
06:50 27. Yo, Museum Professionals
07:30 The Future of Touchscreens
09:14 Universal Design Principles
10:20 The End of Mini-Grocery Store Exhibits
11:00 “Constraints Are A Good Thing For Creativity”
11:40 Archipelago at the Movies : National Treasure is Now Free for Everyone
12:15 SPONSOR: Pigeon by SRISYS
13:10 Outro | Join Club Archipelago
Museum Archipelago is a tiny show guiding you through the rocky landscape of museums. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, or even email to never miss an episode.
Sponsor: Pigeon by SRISYS