Explore a Kiosk for Controversial Art
Justin Kuravackal, Museum of Glass: International Center for Contemporary Art, USA
http://museumofglass.org
As a contemporary art museum, the Museum of Glass often exhibits work that is provocative or controversial. For the exhibition Einar and Jamex de la Torre: Intersecting Time and Space, we developed a kiosk in-house to help diffuse the anticipated tension and help visitors interpret and contextualize the work. This demonstration will present the kiosk application and the story of its development by a solo web designer. Situated in the gallery as part of the exhibition and referencing imagery from the artists' work, the four-station kiosk enclosure resembled an Aztec pyramid and held a large flaming glass heart at its peak. The kiosk application presented biographical content, video interviews with the artists, research on the rich iconography used in their work, additional interpretation of each piece in the exhibition, video and text responses to the work from the community and a place for visitors to leave their thoughts. It is our hope that this demonstration will inspire others in small- to medium-sized museums with limited technical staff and funding to tackle similar projects and meet their educational goals in creative ways.
Demonstration: Demonstrations [Close-Up]
Keywords: kiosk, visitor feedback, contemporary art, user interface, Flash, video
