Storytelling the Information Age

The Science Museum’s new Information Age gallery looks at the last 200 years of information and communication technologies, inviting visitors to take a long view on our ability to generate, share and store information. We focused the gallery on six technological ‘networks’ and chose transforming events – or moments in history – that show how people have created and shaped each new wave of social, economic and technological change. Information Age moves away from a chronological, technocentric approach to interpreting science and technology, focusing instead on storytelling, audience engagement and personal accounts of cultural, economic and social change through technology. The gallery aims to enthuse visitors through personal accounts and distinctive stories, and in doing so required a fresh approach in its use of new media. Information Age represented a game changer for the museum in terms of its historic collections, placing over 800 objects on show, many of which had not been on public display. These were not displayed to act as illustrations of technological progress, but as actors in history which brought people together, supported existing hierarchies and disrupted other social structures. Through the gallery we had to find new ways to work with technology and invite visitors to consider the objects in new ways. This paper gives an overview of the storytelling approach in the gallery, focusing on one specific development using innovative transparent screen technology to develop a modern day form of a traditional museum interpretation, the diorama.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Tilly Blyth

Anne Prugnon

Conference

Publication date: July 2015

Publication date (Print): July 2015

Pages: 342-349

Affiliations

[0001]Science Museum Exhibition Road, London, SW7 2DD, UK

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/eva2015.39

SO-VID: 74ced482-f1b5-4943-b87d-b30b35756b47

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Electronic Visualisation and the Arts (EVA 2015)

Conference acronym: EVA

Conference number:

Conference location: London, UK

Conference date: 7 & 9 July 2015

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Electronic Visualisation and the Arts

History

Product

1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/eva2015.39

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

W Benjamin 1969 Illumination: Essays and Reflections Schocken Books
J. P Degoutte 1997 L’utopie cinématographique Esssai sur l’image, le ragard et le point de vue Editions de l’Harmattan Paris
C EamesR Eames 1973 A Computer Perspective Harvard University Press Mass
J GelsthorpeL Souter 2014 Transparent Screen display Prototype 3: Evaluation findings Science Museum London, UK
G Lawrence 1996 Museums and the spectacular Museums and the Late Twentieth Century Manchester University Press Manchesterp69 80
K McSweeney 2012 Object Engagement: Research with Adult visitors at the Science Museum London, UK
A Nahum 2010 Exhibiting science P Morris Science for the Nation Palgrave Macmillan London
T Teixeira 2009 Audiences and Objects in Museums: An overview Audience Research and Advocacy. Science Museum London, UK

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[1] W Benjamin 1969 Illumination: Essays and Reflections Schocken Books

[2] J. P Degoutte 1997 L’utopie cinématographique Esssai sur l’image, le ragard et le point de vue Editions de l’Harmattan Paris

[3] C EamesR Eames 1973 A Computer Perspective Harvard University Press Mass

[4] J GelsthorpeL Souter 2014 Transparent Screen display Prototype 3: Evaluation findings Science Museum London, UK

[5] G Lawrence 1996 Museums and the spectacular Museums and the Late Twentieth Century Manchester University Press Manchesterp69 80

[6] K McSweeney 2012 Object Engagement: Research with Adult visitors at the Science Museum London, UK

[7] A Nahum 2010 Exhibiting science P Morris Science for the Nation Palgrave Macmillan London

[8] T Teixeira 2009 Audiences and Objects in Museums: An overview Audience Research and Advocacy. Science Museum London, UK

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