On-line Engagement and Metrics (#WMA09, Monday at 11:00 a.m.)

John Maccabee

One of the first sessions to kick of #WMA09 will be A1 Metrics Of Success: How to Measure & Account for On-line Social Engagement for Museums on Monday morning at eleven o’clock (right after the Keynote by Bob Welch).  The  panel will explore the intersection of sincere, social, on-line engagement and mission-driven value
assessment. The presenters are:

• Stephanie Almeida, Independent Museum Consultant
• Tim Hart, Head of Institutional Research, J. Paul Getty Trust
• John Maccabee, Founder & Principal, City Mystery: A Gaming Company
• Melissa Rosengard, Principal, Vision Dot Org

The conversation will be moderated by James G. Leventhal, Director of Development & Marketing, Judah L. Magnes Museum.

Tim Hart from the Getty will start.  Hart’s presentation will focus on mission-driven metrics.  And his presentation will be followed by John Maccabee.  John will take that concept one step further by presenting on his successful practice of developing Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) for museums.  These games bring together on-line communities and create a whole new level of engagement on the ground.

What are ARGs?

Below is a summary by Georgina Goodlander of the Smithsonian American Art Museum on John’s last project “Ghosts of a Chance:”

"...everybody play the game..."

In the fall of 2008, The Smithsonian American Art Museum  (SAAM) hosted an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) titled “Ghosts of a Chance.” This was the first ARG in the world to be hosted by a museum. The game offered both new and existing museum audiences a novel way of engaging with the collection in its Luce Foundation Center for American Art, a visible storage facility that displays more than 3,300 artworks in floor-to-ceiling glass cases.  ARGs are immersive gaming experiences that “deliberately blur the line between the game and the real world. Players investigate the world of the game using the same tools with which they interact with the real world such as websites, email, telephone conversations and even in-person discussions with actors playing game characters.” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_(game), referenced 15 September 2008]. Ostensibly, “Ghosts of a Chance” (ghostsofachance.com) invited gamers to create objects and mail them to the museum for an ‘exhibition’ curated by two game characters posing as employees. But the ‘game within the game’ was also a challenge to uncover

clues to the narrative that binds those objects, and to investigate the way objects embody histories. The game culminated on October 25 with a series of six scavenger-hunt-like “quests” designed for players of all ages. Over 6,000 players participated online and 244 people came for the onsite event.

At this Monday’s session, John will start to give a peak at his next, multi-institutional venture Pheon.  Pheon.  Pass it on!

Will We Be Going Inworld?

Then after spending time rollicking on the green, playing games and moving in and out of the matrix, we are going to move headlong down the rabbit hole, and explore Second Life with Melissa Rosengard and Stephanie Almeida.

A Wide-View of the Landing Spot Area at the Frank Lloyd Wright Museum in Second Life

Starting from the basics and some intros, together Melissa and Stephanie will showcase just how far along the world of museums and education are in Second Life.  There’s a “museum” in Second Life dedicated to Frank LLoyd Wright, with FLLW sites fully recreated.

And this fall, Linden Lab, the Makers of Second Life and Second Life Work announced the first statewide rollout of a virtual learning environment in the world.  The Transforming Undergraduate Education Program, at the University of Texas System, recently awarded a grant to fund the initiation of a pioneering statewide virtual learning community of students, faculty, researchers and administrators in Second Life, that offers an innovative, low-cost approach to undergraduate instruction. (source: https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/learninginworld/blog/2009/09/15/the-first-statewide-rollout-of-a-virtual-world-learning-environment-the-university-of-texas-system-in-second-life.  To read more click here.)

They Called Me Mayer July’s Second Life

By Stephanie Gabrielle Almeida

Click image to see more screen shots from They Called Me Mayer July opening in Second Life

Look no further than the nearest comfy couch or recliner for the future of Museums and Museum exhibitions.

I had the honor of attending a gallery opening at the Tachles Gallery in Second Life for the Mayer July (First Life name:  Mayer Kirshenblatt) exhibition.  I met up with others from across the world – some of the cities represented were Warsaw, New York City, San Francisco and Stockholm.

I looked at vibrant acrylic artwork alongside the other avatars in attendance, and learned the reasons behind each figure represented within the art and each design and symbol in the background of each piece.

I did this from the comfort of my living room wearing a tee shirt, track pants and bare feet with a dog sniffing elbow and an eight year old girl shoving Barbie dolls with broken legs waiting to be snapped back into place into my line of vision every few minutes.

click to see more

I learned a little bit about the town of Opatów (Apt, in Yiddish) in Poland.   During the 1930’s, about 10,000 people lived in Apt.   Of that 10,000, more than 6,500 were Jews.   The paintings, which in my opinion could be best described as Jewish Folk Art, were a study of Mayer’s experiences as a child growing up in this town in pre-WWII Poland.  I was transfixed by the use of color and the sheer number of subjects in the works we looked at.

One of the paintings that I think will stay with me forever was called “Synagogue”.  This piece depicted a synagogue with interior walls covered with stained glass windows and beautiful interior paintings including a coat of arms of the twelve tribes of Israel and zodiac signs.  This work actually contains more than one hundred and thirty people (I counted personally!) – many of them carefully painted

click to see more

with delightful facial expressions.  There is a holy ark with torah scrolls, a Rabbi, a Cantor and a host of men, women and children attending the service.  The women were separated from the men (so as not to distract them from prayer) and some of the brightest colors in “Synagogue” are found in the clothing that the children are wearing.

Another favorite of mine in this exhibition was called “Shaving the Corpse”.  It depicted more than fifty people all focused on a body outside a cemetery in the center of a village.   The note card that is given when the work is clicked on contained a story about the work.  A rich man in the town had abandoned his religion.  He cut his hair and shaved his beard, wore non-traditional clothing and attended synagogue only once a year.  The man became very ill and during that time his hair and beard grew back.  He soon passed away.  The Rabbi ordained that before the man could be buried, he needed to be groomed back to his cut-and-shaved look.  The reason for this?  God wouldn’t recognize him any other way.

Each work in this wonderful exhibition is a combination of experience, personal recollection and even a lesson in history.  There were a number of times that an avatar in attendance said “wow, I had no idea…” and I feel so strongly that art like this has an important place in every group or culture.

The Second Life exhibition of Mayer’s work was actually a simultaneous presentation of the work.  People in New York City and Warsaw had the opportunity to attend the opening in First Life (affectionately known by many as Real Life).  The images have been shown already at the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkley, CA and in Mayer’s hometown in Apt.  They are currently able to be seen in First Life at The Jewish Museum, New York and in the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow, Poland.  Some of Mayer’s works will be soon traveling to Amsterdam for an exhibition there as well.

click to see more

Of course, if you’re not a world traveler, you can see this exhibition from the comfort of your own home – just like I did – if you are ready to take the leap into a Second Life and join in the culturally rich environment waiting there for you.