My slides are here; the podcast of the talk is here. If you have comments or ideas to build on this work, there are pages on the Museum Mobile wiki dedicated to the topic:

• On mobile experience design
• My manifesto for a new mobile information architecture
• And some ideas for a new information architecture

Here is a podcast of the first one I’ve been able to edit together so far (or find it on iTunes); the slides are here. It was delivered at the conference: Event Culture The Museum and Its Staging of Contemporary Art at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art on November 7, 2009. The conference was brilliantly conceived and put together by Rune Gade and Jesper Rasmussen from the Copenhagen Doctoral School of Cultural Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies.

The conference also gave me the opportunity to visit Copenhagen and about 11 of its museums and cultural sites for the first time! My favorite was the Glyptoteket – perhaps the best sculpture experience of my life, with a gorgeous ‘Winter Garden’ courtyard. Here are some pictures; check out the crazy turn of the 20th century French sculpture, and the Louise Bourgeois that apparently moves around the museum! I love her in the Rodin gallery, as if to vindicate Camille Claudel…

The conference really made me want to go back and spend some time working with and learning from the museum professionals and academics I met there. In particular, I’m keen to visit the ARoS after hearing a presentation about it from Jesper. They are doing some really innovative things in contemporary art curation: see Sense City, where “the spectator takes center stage,” and Art City, where you walk down a city street, seeing the art representing elements you might find in a city, displayed as if in their natural places along the streets and square. No labels! I’ll add a link when Jesper publishes his paper about these installations.

Until then, thanks to all who organized and attended the conference!

He is also at the origin of another aphorism I often invoke:
“I have only made this letter rather long because I have not had time to make it shorter.” Lettres
provinciales, 16, Dec.14,1656.

Despite my fondness for this quotation, I am looking forward to having the superiority of simplicity (or KISS principle), implied here, challenged in an upcoming paper from Koven Smith. In response to Tate Modern’s Handheld Conference (Sept 4-5, 2008), Koven will be sharing his provocative insights into the future of multimedia interpretation during the Handheld Workshop at Museums & the Web, April 15-18, 2009 in Indianapolis. After years of trimming away the automatic triggering, the instant messaging and other bells & whistles to make new mobile technologies fit within the old audio tour mold, maybe we’re about to find that our handheld projects don’t even come close to being ambitious enough?

In celebration, then, and anticipation of ambitious new beginnings, I’ll lift the veil on plans for MuseumMobile.info:

If I can settle on an audio signature (or none), the first podcasts for the online course on Mobile Interpretation will come out in the next day or so. I’ve been interviewing interesting and expert museum professionals on how they develop content and use technology for audiences on the move. The last time I edited was using Super8 film and Scotch tape, so getting up to speed on digital technology has been a challenge! But it’s fun to get back to my filmmaking roots with zippy new tools, and learn some of the skills my old colleagues in the audio tour business use to such great effect. I won’t pretend to that level yet, but am inspired by the brilliant and entertaining conversations that I’ll soon be able to share with you!

In the meanwhile, feel free to shoot me questions, demos, suggestions and comments on all things mobile for the cultural world. Anything that looks useful to a broad audience I’ll post on the Handheld Wiki as part of the resources and best practices in mobile interpretation being collected there. Feel free to join the community there, or lodge your contributions on MuseumMobile.info if they are more specifically directed at me.

Yours,
Nancy