A Glimpse Into the Incredible High-Tech Future of Museums


This talk is from WIRED by Design, a two-day live magazine event that celebrated all forms of creative problem solving.


Museums are rushing to incorporate technology into their offerings. Designer Jake Barton has been responsible some of the most effective examples yet.


At WIRED by Design, Barton discussed how his group, Local Projects, approached their greatest challenge yet: co-designing the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City. The team sought to tell the story through the people who were actually involved in it; you can listen to testimonials from first responders and explore interactive tributes to people who died that day. To convey how 9/11 shaped the global conversation, Local Projects developed an algorithmic piece that visualizes over two million news articles from the months and years following the attack, tracking media coverage of topics like air travel and Al-Qaeda.


Barton also gave a sneak peek of some forthcoming work. For the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, Local Projects conceived of a magic pen that lets visitors explore the museum’s collection through a series of brilliant interactive experiences. Drawing a shape on one of several touchscreen tables instantly searches the museum’s archive for an object whose form includes that shape. “It’s making this formal argument…that all of design starts with that,” Barton says. “Whether it’s digital or physical, a pencil or a pen: line work. Humans are making things. And out of that comes the entire designed world we live within.”


For more, see live.wired.com.



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