Page 39 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

Introduction
One of the aims both exhibition curators and cultural managers bear in mind when developing an exhibition’s argument is to make art and knowledge a learning experience for the people who visit their centres. It is no longer sufficient to show a group of pieces chosen and arranged according to chronological criteria or key concepts to stimulate an aesthetic experience. Today exhibition projects are considerably complex and require interweaving the various activities devised in connection with the con- cept and argument of the show. Viewers have changed, and exhibition models and methods need to change accordingly.
If we examine the broad cultural offering of
the past five years, we find that museums and exhibition venues are making a major effort to attract the interest of these new viewers – let us call them digital natives who are accustomed to interacting to some extent in the process of creating and disseminating the content they consume. It is therefore increasingly common to find a long list of cultural activities organised in connection with exhibitions. These activities feature overlaid and interlinked digital content that is disseminated through the museum’s own website or its complementary applications and encourages the spectator to play an active role.
Unit Experimental
Unit Experimental is a working group made up of researchers from the Facultat de Belles Arts de València and the Escola Tècnica Superior d’En- ginyeria Informàtica (both of which belong to the Universitat Politècnica de València), whose combined areas of interest made it possible to put together a balanced and complementary team.
We began by exploring the existing relationship between museums and technology, specifically the possibilities mobile devices can offer the field
of exhibitions as an effective means of building the exhibition’s argument.
Our aims are centred on:
• Understanding the development of inter- active museum practice from its beginnings to the present day, detecting both positive aspects and the problems derived from its popularisation.
• Analysing the conduct (cultural and infor- mational interests) of audiences in order
to generate a methodology that facilitates the achievement of significant interactive results. In particular, in order to attract the type of user referred to as “digital natives”, we use technology as a valid device for encompassing the different types of visitors to museums.
• Studying new trends and possibilities in
the development of mobile applications in cultural spaces and establishing the possibil- ities of integrating them into the exhibition environment.
• Producing digital content that provides a significant experience, making the user central to the development process.
The search for these “new ways of looking” using the possibilities of mobile devices has led the team to produce two exhibition projects which embody our intuitions and suggest new formulas. The basic premise is how to create an interactive exhibition where the artists’ work is the main focus of attention and technological devices make it possible to establish fluent and intelligent dialogue through interactive resources effectively and in a manner that complements the work.
Since our first project implemented in 2013, Pensar con las manos (Thinking with the hands) and the two versions of the exhibition Ana Juan. Dibujando al otro lado (Ana Juan. Drawing on
AC/E DIGITAL CULTURE ANNUAL REPORT 2018
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Digital Trends in Culture