Monday, September 16, 2019

Still Thinking...

Hello All, 

I’m still a little unsure about a topic for my thesis. I have a couple of ideas in mind, and hope to officially pick my topic by the end of the week!

My first idea and the one I’m focusing on right now is a guided interactive experience. The camp I interned at over the summer is celebrating its 100th anniversary and I would love to do an interactive map for the event that would take individuals around the camp and blend past and present spaces. When I was at the camp I initially thought I could do something similar to this on a brochure but quickly realized that I needed a bigger space to work with. I would love visitors to be able to touch a specific place on the map, and see archival material about that particular spot, and connect it to their own memories. In an ideal world there would already be a software that I could work off of and I could build my map this way. I’ve started to contact individuals about my idea and we will see where that leads. 

If this idea does not work out I’d love to work on a topic that surrounds the theme of grassroots activism and how this might be inserted into the museum, allowing those who come into the space to engage with the project and maybe even add to it or become involved. I would love to find a local museum or library who might be working on a similar project to see how they implemented their ideas and how this might have impacted the surrounding communities.

2 comments:

  1. Monica, these sound like really great ideas! If you were to do the interactive map, do you know what program(s) you would use to create an example?

    Whatever idea you choose, I'm excited to hear about it!

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  2. Hi Monica, both of these ideas are really interesting and exciting. For the tools for the first one, consider going back to our notes and user testing from MUSE 360 & HIS 322 last spring. We used some interesting tools that might be useful for what you're attempting. And, we can discuss other ideas. For the activism theme, this is an interesting space to be working in at this moment. I suggest looking at the recent discussions through ICOM's conference (recently held in Kyoto) to bring the discussion of museums in the 21st century into the discussion. Looking forward to learning more! -- Dr. Decker

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