One of the amazing things for me about the process we are working through to develop the galleries for this new science centre is how much iteration is allowed for in the process. By this I mean that the exhibits, the layouts, the “design” and even the voice of the writing go through many many variations as they evolve into what you are going to see on opening day. Even then, we are trying to leave enough open ended elements so that it can continue to evolve (and so that our visitors want to come back).

I thought it might be interesting to share a quick example of how much the voice (the person you might imagine speaking what is written on panels in the gallery) for the Earth and Sky gallery has evolved. A few months ago we often described the gallery “like cutting a line from the bedrock to the aurora and being amazed by the experience of everything in between.” Some of the words associated with it were “poetic” and “beautiful.” This was a good starting point, but as we started to play that tone out something didn’t fit. The problem it turns out was that we were biasing it too much  – we are honoring our visitors if we give them space to decide what their own reactions are.  The kind of experiences we hope to cultivate in the gallery are still going to offer the possibility of noticing things that are poetic or beautiful, but we’ve tried to think of it as starting a conversation, not directing one.

As a result of this I’m now thinking of the ES graphic panels as a conversation. Imagine walking through your neighborhood (either in the city or the country) with someone you respect, and who respects you (we’ve been calling them an “elder” – like a grandparent maybe)  and having a conversation be sparked by a specific observation about the physical world. That leads to a broader “insight” (like a piece of wisdom but not too hokey) and the chance to explain more if you want. I’ll post more about this as we go, but right now I’ll leave with an example from our experiments (this may or may not end up in the final text)

-Kris

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Just over a year ago, Kris’s brother sent him a link to this video. Alberta landscapes have all kinds of patterns–from the rise and fall of the Rockies to fenceposts and telephone poles–so Kris was inspired to see if he could find a way to get  visitors would “play” the Albertan landscape.

V1: Trace the Landscape

Eugene (our in-house electronics genius) attached capacitive sensors to a MIDI board from a toy piano. Running your finger over the sensors played notes—the higher on the sheet the higher the note.

Kris printed out evocative pictures of Alberta and invited visitors to put them on the sensors and trace them, triggering sounds. Some visitors looked through and commented on the pictures, and some put them on the panel and touched them. But no one traced the landscapes or compared their sounds.

Maybe capacitive sensors were too mysterious for people to use for a non-intuitive activity.

V2: What if we reveal the technology? And make it sounds better?

Eugene modified the MIDI board to play a pentatonic scale (so tracing would make musical sounds) and Kris put the pictures next to the sensors (so the technology would be less hidden). He drew a hand on the sensor panel to cue people to touch it. Alas—they placed their hands on the outline instead of using a fingertip to trace.

He also tried incorporating MMMTSSS (a super-intuitive music program from the MIT Media Lab), but then pretty much everyone used MMMTSSS.

V3: What if we ditch the technology?

Kris made linocut stamps of trees, telephone poles, buildings and other features. He played music with a strong beat and encouraged people to stamp a landscape as they marched around a table covered with newsprint.

Once they got into it, they had fun with this set-up. But they either marched and stamped, or looked at the landscapes (some drew themselves into the picture), and still no one connected the sounds to the places.

Coincidentally, Kris is trying a new digital version this week–watch for his post on how it works.

–Katherine

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