The NEW On the Cusp

Back at the IMA, there’s lots going on, including an experiment with a motion activated bird cam in 100 Acres, our Art and Nature park.  We’ve been working with our Grounds and Horticulture staff for the past couple of months, trying to capture some of the wildlife on our campus.  In the upcoming year, we will see the construction of a visitor center and countless installations of site specific art.  We’ll be documenting all of this, as well as much of the natural environment.  Hopefully wildlife interacting with art.  In the meantime, enjoy the video below, which includes several shots, of – you guessed it, woodpeckers.

The Facebook/Twitter call to arms went surprisingly well and I got some ridiculous, funny, relevant and interesting suggestions.  Here are a few,  including…

• how about a commentary about Kanye West and his supposed status as an artist…
• how about “what is an online exhibition” we don’t talk about it but we should because physical ones are not always possible
• post ideas: what consistently surprises you at IMA / what’s your long-term plan / How have visitors responded / best project

So here are some of my responses.

how about a commentary about Kanye West and his supposed status as an artist…?

I’m not messing with Kanye.

how about “what is an online exhibition” we don’t talk about it but we should because physical ones are not always possible?

Online exhibitions are projects that make sense but aren’t often implemented.  The superb Vogel 50/50 program is an incredible concept and this site will become a great example of an online exhibition (it’s still under development by the National Gallery of Art) – but will beautifully pull together much of the 2,500 works of art from 50 States.  Tradtionally, the IMA focuses on physical installations of exhibitions.  New Media’s role in this is to provide interpretation online – working closely with curatorial, marketing, education and more.  Our focus is always on the story telling.   The curator is primarily focused on the actual installation.  But, there is room for more collaboration and new types of exhibitions to emerge, especially on the web.  Brooklyn Museum’s Click! should be a sign of things to come across the art museum field.  The possibilites at the IMA are endless, ranging from a traditional online exhibition of art not available in galleries, art too fragile too install, and other factors.  I’m most excited about the possibility of one day developing from scratch an online exhibition in complete collaboration with curator and artist.  We’ll see …but surely, the future of the online visitor/museum experience online will include more web-focused exhibition.  Right?

Vogel 50/50 site

what consistently surprises you at IMA / what’s your long-term plan / How have visitors responded / best project?

I most surprised that we keep coming up with ideas and that we have the freedom to implement them.

The long-term plan is to be brilliant at developing digital projects and content.  It’s hard to have a long-term plan in this field though, things change quickly and it’s a big mistake to assume that our visitors will buy into our plan.  Agility is essential.

The visitors that interact with us online have been overwhelmingly positive.  We want to interact more and hear from everyone – even if it’s not positive.

My top (3), favorite projects I’ve been lucky enought to work on at the IMA have to be – Roman Art from the Louvre Webisodes, Nature Holds My Camera: The Video Art of Sam Easterson, and ArtBabble.  Having said that, I could also easily create a Top-100 list.

Speaking of ArtBabble, check out the new section called Goodies, and have a little fun.

I’m signing off, but I would love to hear your input on anything in this post – online exhibitions, IMA projects, woodpeckers, ArtBabble Goodies, even Kanye.

Despi and I headed to Brooklyn to have lunch with Shelley at Juniors. [Quick side note: do you realize I ate cornbread, a fried chicken breast, mac and cheese, and mashed potatoes with gravy?] The food was absolutely delicious and it was a chance to catch up with Shelley about museums, technology and our projects. It’s rare to spend time with someone that is so honest and open and willing to collaborate or share experiences. That is what Shelley has done at Brooklyn and it’s that same spirit that we try to follow in Indianapolis.
This is not the first time the Brooklyn Museum has been mentioned in an IMA blog post. We routinely plug other institutions we admire, envy or _______. But in the world of museum technology and the visitor experience, Shelley and her team are simply brilliant, and I’m not ashamed to say that I really look up to them.

So – I’m not going to bore you with a complete transcription of our lunch conversation (although it actually would be pretty funny), but I will recap some of things we discussed and I really do want to highlight some of the Brooklyn projects. Yes, I am sending you away from our site – it’s very Web 3.0 of me. Here are few quick projects -

I tend to raise an eyebrow when people go nuts about Web 2.0 applications, etc. but flickr is a site I LOVE. And of course the Brooklyn Museum showed us (the museum us) how to successfully use it. So check out there page here or their Brooklyn Bridge group here. BTW, ours is here.

Facebook, Facebook, Facebook. What happens when you develop an application for Facebook that pretty much any museum can join? Well, ArtShare brings works of art from Brooklyn, IMA, the Met, the Walker and many more museums directly to your Facebook profile. Thank Brooklyn for that one.

When we were devising the IMA blog, guess who we looked to and called? Check out the Brooklyn blog. Multiple authors, lots of imagery, and frequent posts. It’s the only way to roll.

And finally, Shelley and others are organizing a community focused exhibition called Click! that is going to be a smash hit. Remember you heard it here second, so check it out here.

That’s the quick recap. We also talked about our IMA projects – but we always mention those in our blogs, so I’m taking a break today. I know this is a very surface level overview of our meeting, but sorry – I’m in New York, and in between meetings and shooting video, I’ve got to go find a cannoli. I’m sure Despi and Shelley will chime in.