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Hey Gene:

I think the whole RFID/bar code visitor id stuff is worth mentioning.  The genetics lab at the Tech, where you put glowing genes into jellyfish cells (do I have that right?) and then check a web site later was a cool experiment.  The Sony Wonder Lab has technology that follows you through the exhibition, which reminds me a bit of the Firesign Theater Future Fair (based on the 1964 worlds fair, in which the Hall of Science--recast as the Wall of Science--figures largely..."Hello Uh-Clem")

various participatory online projects, like Brooklyn Museum's photo project that Shelley Bernstein did http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/click/

Online collections databasing and images are huge among collections based institutions, probably the most important change in the use of technology in museums in the past decade or so.  Again, you can see Brooklyn Museum's  http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/collections/  Not sure if that meets your criterion.

I am interested in gesture based technology, which has not turned out to be all that influential, but Peggy Monahan pioneered that a decade ago at the Tech with the Imagination Playground exhibition
http://www.thetech.org/about/press/archive.php?id=12

E

  
On Jan 13, 2011, at 11:31 AM, Brewster Buttfield wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
> *****************************************************************************
> 
> Eugene
> 
> I would consider the use of digital technology in the "Spectrum of Life" at the 
> American Museum of Natural History to be influential. This dramatic and visually 
> appealing exhibit works because of the computer stations that the visitors uses 
> for identification of species. I often reference it when discussing the 
> successful use of technology in museums. It is certainly influential in the 
> application of technology. Whether it is influential in the broader exhibition 
> field outside of technology is another question.
> 
> Brewster
> 
> Brewster Buttfield 
> Prospect Design 
> 424 Fore Street 
> Portland, Maine 04101 
> 207-749-7400 
> [log in to unmask]
> www.prospectdesign.me
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Eugene Dillenburg <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Thu, January 13, 2011 10:56:32 AM
> Subject: [ISEN-ASTC-L] Influential uses of digital technology in exhibits?
> 
> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
> *****************************************************************************
> 
> Please excuse any cross-postings.
> 
> I started teaching my Exhibits class this week and, as always, I gave the 
> students a brief history of exhibits, borrowing heavily from Marjorie 
> Schwarzer's chapter on "Twelve Influential Exhibits" in the AAM centennial 
> book.  She lists Carl Akeley's dioramas, the coal mine at MSI, the Holocaust 
> Museum, and others as exhibits that have had a broad impact on the field at 
> large.
> 
> During the discussion afterward, one student asked if there were any 
> technology-based exhibits that were also considered influential.  I thought of 
> Science on a Sphere, which is popping up in several science centers, and the 
> AMNH biodiversity hall which has a computerized ID system that has received a 
> lot of attention.  But for the most part, no, and I came up with three reasons:
> 
> 1) Digital technology simply hasn't been around long enough to for any 
> individual application to impact the field in the same way that the 
> Exploratorium model or Mathematica have;
> 
> 2) Digital technology changes so rapidly that, even if there was something with 
> the potential to create such an impact, it would be out of date in a few years; 
> and
> 
> 3) Exhibits have such long lead times, and tight budgets, that they cannot 
> easily incorporate cutting-edge technology.  (I suppose that's a summary of 
> points 1 & 2).
> 
> However, I have been wrong before, so I thought I'd put the question out there: 
> have there been any exhibits whose use of digital technology has had a wide 
> influence on the exhibit field?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Eugene Dillenburg
> Exhibit Developer, Science Museum of Minnesota
> Assistant Professor and "Scholar," Michigan State University
> 
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> For information about the Association of Science-Technology Centers and the Informal Science Education Network please visit www.astc.org.
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