Friday links

It's been a while between drinks but here are a couple of interesting projects and sites I've come across lately...

• Have you heard about this exhibition? We're quite excited about it in Collections. It's called 'Move: Choreographing You - Art and Dance' and it's on at the Hayward Gallery in London. Using interactive sculptures and installations this show explores the intersection of dance and art over the past 50 years by encouraging people to actually dance there way through the exhibition.You can check out more about the show at this great microsite.
•  Caboodle is a fun kids/museums/digital project.You can read more about it here and here but basically it's a great way of getting kids invloved with collections by visiting museums, talking to curators, taking photos and uploading them to the Caboodle site. They can also become part of an online club and it is used both by schools and individuals. Kids don't have to interact with collections they can also draw, build, find something they want to photograph and upload.
• The site where I found out about Caboodle is also worth a look. It's called Culture24 and it's run by a not-for-profit group working across the areas of arts, heritage, education and tourism in the UK. If you haven't come across it before it's definately worth exploring and being inspired.

Teenagers and Social Participation

Image via Museum 2.0

A while ago Hannes sent through a great link to MoMA's teen website Red Studio. If you didn't have a chance to look at it then it's really worth checking out. It has lots of great interviews with artists, creators and museum staff as well as plenty of opportunity for taking part in interactive activities. It sets a pretty high benchbank for this kind of site.

Recently I've come across another couple of teen-focussed projects that provide both 'real-life' and online connections between teens. The first is the Teen Program at the Brooklyn Museum. One of the great things about this program is that the social events are programmed by the kids themselves. Inspired by the collections these nights have included everything from yoga classes and henna tatooing, to scavenger hunts and curators talks.

Getting teens to interact with each other in this way is not always as easy it seems according to Nina Simon who recently wrote this interesting post on recent research into 'Teenagers and Social Participation'. Many teenagers feel happier 'geeking out' with people online who share their own interests. A great example of this is the participatory blog run by Teen Tix, an arts access program based in Seattle for kids aged 13 -19. A Teen Tix pass entitles the holder to purchase $5 tickets to 36 different theatre companies and many museums in and around Seattle. Kids can also access free tickets through the Teen Tix site if they agree to write a review for the blog. The calibre of writing is very high and puts paid to those nay-sayers who think that such sites just end up full of crap.

If you know of any other good examples of programming for teens let me know and I'll put the links on the sidebar of our blog so that we can keep them all in one place.

Caz

Virtual Museum Experiences

Originally uploaded to Flickr on June 12, 2007by bcg8

As we struggle to get our heads around how best to present ourselves in the virtual world, the Smithsonian is, of course, light years ahead. When you have a spare moment check out these amazing online projects. The first is the Ghosts of A Chance alternative reality game which was held last year. The project was set up as a way for visitors to interact with the collection at the Luce Foundation Centre for American Art. The project ran for three months and attracted 6,000 online visitors as well as over 200 on-site visitors. It was a pretty crazy combination of creating, gaming, online communication and detective work and it takes some time to get your head around (reading about it after the fact), but what a concept!

The other project takes virtual reality even further. This is the Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum hosted on Second Life. This really is out there! Basically you set up an avatar for yourself in Second Life and he/she walks through the Museum and visits the exhibitions.
Have fun!
Caz