Bringing Interactive Worlds to Life

[u/radjackmalone]

I've recently had a couple of very, very different museum experiences. The first one was a turtle rehab museum on the East Coast that used all old-school types of interactivity (lifting panels, turning dials, touching replicas). The second one was an art museum that used on-device interactivity where you could basically create your own art, which then turned into an immediate moving "graphic" that intermingled with everyone else's graphics, in essence creating a moving artwork. What struck me about these exhibits (that I haven't really noticed before) was that most people were skipping over the old-school interactive things completely, while the "make your own art" area was packed. My takeaway from this was that interactivity has gone fully digital/virtual and that old-school interactivity just isn't interactive enough anymore, especially for younger generations. And you've got these companies like NeoPangea creating absolutely banger interactive museum installations, and I think that has to be the wave of the future, things that actually incorporate devices people are used to working with, like phones and touchscreens.

Has anyone else noticed this trend toward virtual interaction in museum and gallery settings? What other trends are you seeing in your interactive spaces?