HW1.3 Institution Research

Cooper Hewitt
Smithsonian Design Museum
2 E 91st St
New York, NY 10128

The Cooper Hewitt uses technology in innovative ways as an educational tool and as a method for interaction.  Three of the most engaging technological programs they have are touchscreen tables, the pen, and the immersion room.

Touchscreen Tables

The large touchscreen tables on all floors of the museum use the same technology as modern smartphones and tablets to allow visitors to physically interact with the object database and explore the collection.  The tables have high definition images so that visitors can zoom in and see details of images on display.  They can also look at images that are not on display and have a broader understanding of the museum's complete collection.  Historical information is provided along with the object images.

The Pen

The Cooper Hewitt Pen is a new technological advancement for museums that allows visitors to "collect" their own set of favorite objects while visiting the museum.  The Pen is a stylus given to all museum visitors that can scan object labels and add them to an individualized collection for each visitor.  The collections can be viewed on the touchscreen tables (where the Pen can also be used as a stylus) so that visitors can remember their favorite objects and continue to learn about them.  Visitors must return the Pen at the end of their visit, but their collection is saved at an individualized url on their ticket so that they can view it from home.

The Immersion Room

The immersion room at the Cooper Hewitt is an exciting use of existing technology to display the museum's wallpaper collection.  The Cooper Hewitt has an extensive collection of wallpaper and is not able to display a large percentage of it due to space issues.  Also, their wallpaper collection consists of small swatches of wallpaper and when they are displayed they are not seen as originally intended, covering the entire wall of a room.  The immersion room addresses both of these concerns by using projectors to project images of the wallpaper swatches onto the walls of a room, making it appear that the wall is covered.  A touchscreen table in the room allows visitors to choose from the many swatches in the museum's collection and project any of them.  Visitors can also be even more interactive by using the Pen as a stylus to design their own wallpaper and project it.

Sources:
http://www.cooperhewitt.org/2015/03/05/using-the-pen/
http://www.cooperhewitt.org/new-experience/
http://www.cooperhewitt.org/events/current-exhibitions/immersion-room/
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/new-cooper-hewitt

HW1.2 Artist Research

Ragnar Kjartansson is an Icelandic artist specializing in performance art.  He created one of my favorite artworks, The Visitors.  The Visitors is a video piece presented on nine different screens within an installation space.  Each screen shows the performance of a different musician in a separate room within a large mansion in Upstate New York.  Although he is a performance artist, Kjartansson uses technology to record many of his performances, including The Visitors.  Each musician's video and sound is recorded separately.  In the installation space, there is a speaker placed above each projection that plays the sound associated with the musician on screen.  Therefore, as one walks through the installation, the different musicians' performances fade in and out as one walks past them.  Since the musicians were all in different rooms of the mansion while they simultaneously performed, the entire performance can only be viewed by watching the recordings together.  Without technology, the work doesn't exist in its final form.

Technology also allowed the musicians to perform the work simultaneously while in different rooms and away from each other.  Each musician wore a pair of headphones that connected them to the other performers by allowing them to hear what was being played in the other rooms.  Thus, the musicians were able to keep time while playing and singing in unison.

Kjartansson also uses a surprisingly non-high-tech piece of technology in The Visitors.  One of the projected screens of the work shows a group of people on the front porch of the mansion reveling as the musicians play indoors.  As the music slowing begins to crescendo, the people on the front porch and front lawn begin to load a cannon with gunpowder and eventually detonate it.  This out-of-date artillery technology commands attention in a way that the headphones and projectors never will, but the cannon is used in a casual, perfunctory manner by the people in the performance.

The Visitors lasts over an hour long and at its end, the musicians begin to leave their posts in their assigned rooms and move towards a single room, then to the porch, then altogether away from the mansion.  Along the way, while they eventually lay down their instruments and take off their headphones, they continue to sing acapella.  The contrast between the musicians' voices as they are accompanied by their instruments and amplified by their microphones and as they use only their voices and walk off into the distance illustrates the effect that technology has on the performance and highlights the change in tone once it is removed.

Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/arts/design/the-visitors-by-ragnar-kjartansson.html?_r=0#
https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2014/07/24/hipster-musicians-from-iceland-view-video-masterpiece/IYqyl5W7LNuutpPfMc55PI/story.html
http://hyperallergic.com/66988/go-with-the-slow-ragnar-kjartanssons-the-visitors/
http://www.hangarbicocca.org/exhibitions/what-s-on/the-visitors
http://www.thinkerbelle.me/2015/10/the-visitors/

HW1.1 Introductions

My name is Hannah Levine and I am a first year student in the Arts Administration program at Teachers College.  At my undergraduate institution, I took a class on the history of New Media Art.  We focused a lot on the philosophical aspects of new media and its connection to classic art historical theories, video art of the 70's, and video games as art.  I have also used a 3D Printer before as part of my job at an art museum, although I was never taught how to make a model, only to print.  Most of my favorite artworks involve some form of new media technology, especially video works.  I am also extremely interested in the conservation issues involved in New Media Art.  I think it is one of the most important concerns for museums in the future.  I do not have any background in technology as a classroom tool, but I can only imagine it to be engaging, helpful, and the forward direction for teaching.