From Reality to the Kiosk

I was asked a while back why I’m so interested in Augmented Reality. To me, it’s the polar opposite of a computer “kiosk”, something I’ve hated on several times regardless of touch/multi-touch capabilities. Is comes down to a question of design intent or, more specifically, platform. Brooklyn Museum’s Shelley Berstein has written a blog post about kiosks, so I want to share some thoughts.

First, a story.

I’ll keep the name of this particular museum hidden. I use them as an example for my criticism, not to negatively criticise that particular institution. At the time, they had just gone through a massive renovation. Everything was now behind steel-framed reinforced glass and proper lighting. So the space looked good.

There was quite a large amount of objects on display. More than I would have thought necessary. Rows upon shelves of them with only very small one sentence descriptions on labels. I was no expert on the subjects and felt a little overwhelmed by what I was supposed to be looking at.

I asked a question of the people on the desk. Admittedly, I don’t think they were curators but I only asked if they had a particular object. They took me to a computer. It was broken. They took me to a another computer. That was broken as well. They told me to go home and look at the database online. I did, and found the object I was looking for as well as plenty of other information.

This is what Shelley calls a “Lose” situation; the website in a kiosk. I go a bit further and say its the “Not Better Than the Internet” situation. I went home and got something better than what the museum was offering. Even if the kiosks were working, what was I gaining from turning my head and looking at the objects?

What museums do well is material Reality. They have that sussed. Objects as authenticity is almost intrinsic to the definition of what a museum is. Even when “Intangible Heritage” was the vogue, it was still in terms of the actions surrounding objects. (This seemed to mean the conservation of dance, theatre and skills in Third World or Far East countries to stave off the impending “Western” Monoculture, if UNESCO is anything to go by).

The treatment of technology in museums is still in this materialistic Real way: The Kiosk, just another object on display. A monitor with touchscreen or a keyboard, bolted to a wall or given its own plinth, technology on display just like any other object.

Before I get hundreds of suggestion of good kiosks, I will admit that Shelley’s comment book computer is a sensible idea, so there would be good and bad kiosks just as there is good and bad AR. The point I’m trying to make is about design and, as always, the future. A kiosk approach to technology in the museum concentrates that platform into a limited space, which was fine many years ago when that was cutting edge. Without meaning to sound like a post-cyberpunk novel, but technology is now a homogenised aspect of our everyday lives.

To put it simply, my phone is better than your kiosk is ever going to be.

A kiosk also breeds a bad habit I’ve noticed in museum. They get installed somewhere then forgotten about. They are never updated and ignored until they break. This may be why I think they always look so dated. They’re as static as the objects next to them. I imagine there are kiosk-types that do update with use, like the comment book computer, if the comments are viewable by all. I admit that’s acceptable. At least it’s doing something. I think about the use of kiosks at the Mattress Factory, but I like to think they have the right idea of it being a node of technology within their overall technology overlay.

Overlay. I can stand anywhere in a museum and use my phone and get information. I could get artist’s biographies, historical articles, even news about what’s in front of me. But that’s still contained within a device. Okay, a far more mobile one that I have total control over and with less limitations. It’s still a concentrated device connected to the Other Place known as the Intarwubs. What excites me about Augmented Reality is how it can fill the gap between the superabundance of information out there and our actual lives. Updating Apps could associate huge amounts of updating information right in front of the objects the museum wants us to give a damn about. And we would be able to control it… or at least keep asking for more and ask for it in a language that won’t completely offend your intelligence.

Look at this and look at the possible future an Augmented Reality platform in museums has. What’s the latest advancement in kiosk? Now, you can use more than one finger.

Maybe Augmented Reality won’t stay on phones and we’ll have goggles or visors or contact lenses and control our infomation hallucinations with Pranav Mistry’s Sixth Sense technology (four fingers!). Maybe, crazy idea, the Augmented Reality platform could perform actions to the objects…

I spoke about Cross Reality before. The use of sensors to bridge Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality. Again, more possibilities being tested because technology is permeating every fabric of our lives and culture and dragging that funny universe on our computers into this Reality. I wonder if, through this and the increasing complexity of fabricators, the next phase of museum digitisation will be  scanning of objects into 3D models.

God knows what that will do to our authentic Museum Reality.