Virtual Visits and Access
A museum may
be visited in various ways, either alone or together with a party of others or
virtually. Technology today makes this possible and visitors have the
opportunity to visit museums from their own home.
Visiting
museums on the web may be very useful in preparing for the real visit, but the
spirit of a work of art as described in a museum may be lacking in spite of HD
technology resembling closely reality as we know it.
Yet sometimes this is the only way for some of us to be
able to visit a museum ! Having “access” to a museum means efficient
technology to overcome barriers which may prevent access to visitors who are
unable to reach a museum physically. This would greatly reduce differences and is
sometimes the only possible solution for some art lovers and museum visitors.
Virtual
visits: creating interaction
The inevitable limit of virtual tours is the lack of a
certain atmosphere and emotion created by being there, and the personal and
social interaction. The great difference between visiting a museum really and
visiting it virtually, is the lack of human interaction.
The human element cannot be reproduced by virtual
reality, unless the idea of virtual is adapted to new kinds of communication
used by the social media. This is the idea at the root of the #smallmuseumtour
project which simulates a museum visit throughTwitter. Its main feature is not
high definition images, but the emphasis on dialogue within a virtual community
interacting exactly as if each member virtually visiting the museum on site in
different locations were all one party. The social aspect is perhaps the most
important feature when it comes to overcome obstacles and inequalities. Bearing
this in mind, we also considered institutions for the disabled, prisons and the
like, while we worked on this project.
Museums
staff and Visitors : two worlds meet
Overcoming barriers was not the only target of
#smallmuseumtour. The formality between the public and staff attracted our
attention. Excepting certain special occasions, in some museums the only staff
in touch with visitors was Security staff. Thus, the “behind the scenes” was
hidden or left to the imagination.
Yet whoever has visited a museum and conversed with the
museum curator or other qualified staff would agree that they gained deeper
knowledge and made new discoveries that otherwise would not have been made in
an ordinary visit. Only rarely does close contact occur, and this is where we
step in to offer precisely that kind of interaction through the medium of the
social network on the web. We aim to create a close and exciting relationship
with museums and the marvelous treasures they contain.
The
#smallmuseumtour project
#smallmuseumtour has devised to this effect a plan to
promote museums through dialogue and social interaction. The first of its
cyclical virtual visits which took place May 12th to July 28th 2014on a weekly
basis ; we involved twelve museums of various kinds and different forms of
ownership. We avoided ‘tweet’ counts and other web statistics which usually
determine the "success" of a hashtag, because our aim in fact, was to
perfect virtual museum visits rather than create a web trend. We aimed at
creating as closely as possible the reality of a visit to a museum, especially
for those who were physically unable to admire real life collections and at
creating a dialogue with museum curators, staff and followers.
Other opportunities have been introduced on the Web in
various forms, as for example #AskACurator day, but #smallmuseumtour offers
exclusively and for the first time, a virtual visit to one single museum at a
time. Thus, closer attention is given to a further dialogue between curators
and followers.
#smallmuseumtour step by step
In order to achieve the best results in terms of a
virtual museum tour using Twitter as a social network, certain rules had to be
applied: virtual visit duration is 60 minutes; eight pictures are chosen by the
curators for each visit, and under special circumstances according to advice
from the museum curators themselves, the number may be more. During visits, the
Twitter accounts of National Association of Small Museums act as curators
“assistants”, tweeting pictures at regular intervals. Museum curators commented
each picture and answered questions put by the followers at that very moment.
In some cases the tour takes on a livelier turn by adding quizzes and video.
Future Prospects
A second cycle of virtual tours is planned at November 2014.
