LECTURE 5 – DRAMATIZATION
Friday, May 30, 10:15 a.m.
RECAP:
Communicating with exhibits is like comm. in any other medium:
Start with RECEIVER (educated, middle class, social group)
Develop your PROPOSITION (single Main Message; sub-msgs)
Today: DRAMATIZATION – how to get point across
In cycle terms:
We got FEEDBACK to learn who our audience was
We ENCODED our content messages
Now, we TRANSMIT – matching message to medium
So, let’s talk a little bit about MEDIUM:
Medium is the agency through which something is communicated
Recording technology:
Sheet music – any length (Cole Porter, 19 verses)
78 rpm – common gears, motors for mass production: 3 minutes
Kenton album
33 1/3 LP (B’rama) – 20-25 min max.
arrange songs for strong beginning and end
theme / concept albums (Pepper)
CD – up to 75 min – “more” music not nec. A good thing!
program play, so “front-load” (Matthew Sweet)
bonus tracks
shuffle – TMBG / Drama
IPod? MP3?
THE FEATURES OF THE MEDIUM SHAPE HOW THE MESSAGE
IS CONVEYED.
Characteristics of the exhibit medium:
 A three-dimensional space
 Experienced physically and temporally
 Broad audience (non-expert)
 Self-guided
 Multi-modal (different types of experiences)
 Thematic (is “about” something)
 “Educational”
“Exhibit” = to SHOW. Not “to tell.” Not “to show off.”
How is it like / not like:
A book? (info; but linear, one-dimensional, non-social, exper.)
A classroom? (info, social; but formal, no choice, often not visual)
TV? (info, visual; but passive, linear, one-D, rarely social)
The Web? (info, non-linear; but non-social, one-D; non-exper.)
A theme park? (experiential, free-choice, social; but no info)
How does this affect the message?
1)
2)
3)
Some ideas don’t lend themselves to 3-D experience
Hologram analogy – each piece of exhibit should contain glimpse
of the whole.
The experience is the thing (Hamlet)
Amer. Inst. For Gaphic Arts: most people remember
20% of what they see
50% of what they hear
90% of what they do
“I see and I forget; I hear and I remember; I do and I understand.”
Brain evolved to control body and sense environment; cognitive
functions built on top. Multi-sensory experience integrates knowledge
powerfully.
Think of exhibits in terms of verbs, not nouns
Planning content, we thought in terms of what vis. will learn
Now, we plan exhibit, thinking in terms of what vis will see and do
ILE HANDOUT
Verbs in middle (go through list)
WHAT WE DO (left column)
Advance organizers
Multiple entry points
Choice and control
Leads to outcomes
BAD: linear, text-heavy, detailed / fact-based (book on wall, dead
stuff under glass)
GOOD: impressions, multi-sensory, real thing, dynamic, choices &
options
Immersion experiences – involve all senses in MEANINGFUL way
Variety – Gardner’s multiple intellgences, learning styles
REMEMBER THE VISITOR and how they use space.
Multiple entry points.
This afternoon’s field trip:
What does visitor see and do in space?
What meaning can they make of it?
DRAMATIZATION
Drama – to do
Exhibit is stage setting; visitor is actor in an improv.
Jim Sims: Elements of drama
 Interpretation – adding your own spin
 Limnal space – special, transforming
 Contingent community – audience and event
 Four-dimensional narrative – time and space
 People and scale – big, small relative to human
 Words – bridge gap, have impact, spoken
Advantages of drama:
Conflict
Ambiguity
Imaginative truth
Museums tend to be afraid of these, but they are what makes drama
powerful – what brings a subject to life.
How do we “dramatize,” bring message to life in exhibit?
1) Clarity (main message)
2) Story (memorable, logic)
3) Appropriate experience
Activities should be “Bauhaus” – not just busy work, but meaningful,
related to content
BAD EXAMPLES from GLSC, MDSC
What are each of these good for?
Text (linear, conceptual)
Video (linear, visual)
Computer (layered info)
Sound (mood)
Audio (personalize)
Models (difficult demos – size, fragility)
Touching (kinesthetic)
Flappers and Sliders (searching; multiple options)
Push-buttons (demonstration)
Levers (depends)
Mechanicals (process)
Activities (you do it!) – examples?
Kennedy – know user (diverse); know setting (fit in flow); know
meaning – all senses; non-verbal clues; appropriate for content;
prototype; floor staff.
Websites for examples:
www.msu.edu/~dillenbu/exhibits/exshell.html
www.ahha-museumservices.com/museumphotos/Museums.html
Objects – most common. Some say purpose of museums. Experience
limited to looking.
The dreaded Dillenburg poetry analogy:
Imagery is life’s blood of poetry – pieces of world we respond to.
Object is life’s blood of exhibit – pieces of world we learn from.
(“Object” define broadly, includes experience, IA)
Three types of imagery:
 Properties – carefully chosen piece of scenery
 Metaphor – not present, invoked as comparison
 Symbol – both: really present, but invokes more
Definitions clear-cut and separate.
Three uses of objects in exhibits:
 Aesthetic – object itself (art)
 Totemic – what object represents (history)
 Didactic – both: look at object, extrapolate (science)
Not as clear-cut: most objects a bit of all three.
Function determined by exhibit, how it is used.
(I thought I was so damn original, but Harris Shettel said pretty much
the same thing in 1973.)
In both, meaning is concentrated. A few words, a few objects, carry a
lot of potential meaning.
Reader moves through poem, line by line, responding, building
meaning. Poet had intention, but poem is “completed” by reader
finding / making their own meaning – understand themselves.
Visitor moves through exhibit case-by-case (skipping around a lot),
building meaning. Museum intended meaning, but exhibit “completed”
by visitor finding themselves in it – understand themselves.
Meaning is built by the relationship between objects.
Capybara / spring hare
Capybara / jungle fowl
Capybara / capybara
DESIGN:
It’s all about context.
Materials: natural vs. artificial
Light: natural vs. artificial
Colors: bright / warm / pastel / earth tones / etc.
Environment: immersion, marching cases
Sequence: what follows what
Layout: straight shot, winding
Pace: contemplative, frenetic
Activity: looking, touching, doing, watching, combination
(Dillenburg exhibit philosophy)
No such thing as “no context”
Art museums (bricks)
Exploratorium
Whole always greater than sum of its parts
SUMMARY
 The features of a medium affect how it transmits messages.
 The features of exhibition are 3-D, non-liner, visual experience.
 A successful exhibit takes advantages of these features, creating
compelling, memorable, impactful experiences.
 A bad exhibit ignores these features and tries to communicate in a
manner inappropriate for the medium (book on a wall, dead stuff
under glass)
McLean: Exhibit is the INTERACTION of objects (phenomenon) and
ideas (content) with PEOPLE.
Monday – we start putting it all together:
Wedding our CONCEPTS to our DRAMATIZATION, for the
benefit of our VISITORS
ASSIGNMENTS:
 Reading
 Main message (assigned last time) – due Monday
 Now that you know D-P-R, choose and exhibit and review it in those
terms. Any interpretive exhibit. (Better if in Lansing area, but any
will do.) DUE after next break: Wednesday, June 11. E-mail is fine.