Mediation, specialization, high tech and open source: we have talked about and discussed the mix of ingredients for museums of the future in the 3 days during the Museomix Summer Camp and at the final conference of The Creative Museum project, held on the same day in Lyon.
When we set off, together with NEMECH‘s Paolo Mazzanti, Cristina Casadei from the Museo Carlo Zauli, Marco Caselli from Museo di Storia Naturale di Ferrara, Chiara Organtini from CAOS di Terni, Lucilla Boschi and Fabio Fornasari from Museo Tolomeo, we still did not know exactly what to expect, who we were going to meet or where. But by the end of our trip we felt part of a creative and innovative movement with a lot of potential, gaining momentum and general good practice for museums.
The account of the trip – with guidelines, novelties and ideas that are useful to the museums that face this project – we will leave to the Italian Museomix Community to tell. Here are just a few of our scattered thoughts about the experience and what we brought back to the office.
Let’s start with the people we met. As valuable as they are, most of the jobs they do we don’t know how to describe because they are difficult to explain and they often focus on an approach towards analyzing and explaining content and innovative methods. Museomix has had the great task of being able to merge these new professions (or even creating them) spontaneously and without boundaries. From people creating interactive and technological solutions for the creative industry, to those who have created a livinglab making digital innovation available to the cultural sector, we realized that what we do here at BAM! is rare and everyone was interested in knowing more about it. This is why many of the people that were there were amazed by the vast representation of Italian museums (5 people went to Lyon!). So in all in at’s not a given that after attending Museomix, museums will remain active within the community, ready to support those who want to get involved.
The creative process of prototypes. Among those who attended at Lyon, many of them told us about it, giving us the possibility to test some of them: 3 installations (at the beautiful Musée Gallo Romain, main player at Museomix 2012) other installations set up just for the occasion inside UrbanLab, peripheral incubator, dedicated to creating, experimentation, prototypes for digital solutions applied to public policy in the city of Lyon. Moving between such different situations, LED projections and sensors left us with a great impression and have led us to reflect on the new possibilities of cultural mediation and audience development. What attracts the visitor’s attention to the museum and what it’s handing out … prototypes are in fact born as a means and not as a means to an end, to improve the user experience, which does not just mean “making a visit fun ” or “creating new feelings”. The mix of professionalism offered by the Museomix format to build a prototype, is precisely why it is brilliant.
Creative commons, volunteers & sons of Museomix. Who do prototype rights belong to once they are created? Who can use them and make them work in their own museum? Ideally, usage licenses are free, but although Museomix has existed for seven years as an opensource box, in Lyon the debate is still more open than ever, trying to figure out how DCs work, how museums should be set up with museomixer, and how museomixer should be set up with museums. And yet, it has come to light that there are many different ideas about whether Museomix should be based on voluntary participation or not, and in the meantime there are countless by-product formats (remix the mountain, library, Nanomix, Gareremix, even remixes in the healthcare industry …). We Italians for now stop at the museums and try to do something useful by creating a partnership with Wikimedia, highly praised by other communities who, alongside us are committed to producing a common document that is already applicable to this edition of Museomix.
The Creative Museum. A final conference, many workshops and an aperitif on the incredible garden terrace of the Gadagne Museums for a European project born out of Museomix. To understand why, we would like to study in more depth the work of Makers in residence: we are looking forward to getting to know some museums that want to get started!
What’s next?
And now, hopeful for a partnership with IBC Emilia-Romagna and NEMO who made our trip possible, with new friendships and partnerships behind us that will continue through the Alps and the Atlantic Ocean, we have several goals to reach, that we are working on together:
- So many things to do with the coordination of the Italian community of Museomix, to preparare a truly unforgettable 2017 edition (The calls for museomixer have just closed but they reopen in September: do you want to apply? Do you want to give us a hand? Write to ciao@museomix.it )
- The riorganization of the Museomix intercommunity. The international community that now embraces many countries around the world needs to become more effective by finding shared solutions that ensure growth and longevity in the format
- Supporting the birth of the Spanish community that, as it is emerging, reminds us of something: an origanization specialized in project management in the cultural field that has encouraged some museums and supported them in their application, with the idea that by joining forces they can experiment at low cost and get something good out of it!
(Photo by Marco Caselli)
