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

In this podcast, Peter recounts his experiences with mobile multimedia at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) from 2000/2001 to the present day. He also speaks candidly about the future of mobile, companies and business models in the industry, as well as the ‘open source’ project that’s being pursued collaboratively on the Museum Mobile wiki. In closing, he answers questions from Dave Patten of the Science Museum in London, MoMA Learning (Beth Harris, Director of Digital Learning), and educator at the St Louis Art Museum and Michael Mouw from the Minnesota Historical Society.

Be sure to check out SFMOMA’s multimedia programs, podcasts, and in particular, writings by student contributor, Radford Leon, from Herbert Hoover Middle School, celebrated by Peter in this interview.

Peter & I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback on our conversation!

Compare it to Chris Alexander‘s solution for the San Jose Museum of Art. I’m interviewing Chris & Ted on Sunday May 17, 2009 – you’re welcome to post your questions for them here!

Join the opensource ‘Museums to Go’ collaboration on the wiki, and check out our ‘parent’ wiki as well with a wealth of resources collected around the 2008 Tate Handheld Conference. Both museums and vendors are contributing their best practices, solutions and code to the community with the aim of improving access and interpretation to collections around the world.

Nina Simon with Morris Louis's Faces, 1959, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

In January 2009, I got to revisit that painting and many other artworks in the American Art Museum, including an exhibition of Frank Gohlke’s photography, with Nina as we talked about our experiences and aspirations for mobile interpretation. Along the way we recalled Peter Samis‘s trope of ‘visual velcro‘ in describing how interpretation can be essential to helping visitors connect with certain artworks in particular. We talked about the power of dialogue and the conversational tone, as exemplified in the SmartHistory.org podcasts. Our views of cellphone tours and headphones got tossed around, with an idea for podcasts that can work both as gallery tours and as learning experiences beyond the museum. And we shared our enthusiasm for games and how they can bring adaptive learning experiences to museum interpretation, referencing Jane McGonigal’s talk for AAM’s Center for the Future of Museums.

Thanks to Nina, I got to look at the art museum for the first time through the revealing lens of the science museum. She pointed out that science museums often invoke their visitors as scientists or researchers, helping them make discoveries and relive in some way the subject as professionals experience it. Why, she asks, do art museums not position the visitor as an artist, curator, or art historian? How can we all – visitors and museum staff alike – give ourselves license to create and innovate within the museum experience?

Hear the podcast…

‘Random access’ to tour content, allowing visitors to chart their own route through the museum or gallery, became possible as digital audio technologies replaced cassette tapes. But even as digital audio players increased museums’ ability to offer a wide range of tours and languages on a single device, ‘information on demand’ audio design obviated certain kinds of theatrical and narrative engagement. With the visitor moving between two minute ‘stops’ in no predictable order, the tour could not develop a complex story over time, nor immerse the visitor in a continuous soundtrack to accompany the museum’s visuals. “There are always trade-offs as technology advances,” comments Torgersen. As new 21st century technologies continue to shape the nature of what you can do with content, “you have to decide what story you want to tell first, and then choose the best tools to tell it,” counsels Hardman.

From short-range radio systems and IR triggers to iPhones and GPS – with a short stop to hear how the first movie projector was put on tour – follow two of the pioneers of performative sound as they trace the development of their understanding that “all these technologies are tools; it’s the content that makes them valid.”

In this first podcast, Chris Hardman, founder and Artistic Director of Antenna Theater, which became the global audio tour company, Antenna Audio, talks about ‘writing the rules’ of audio tour creation with David Torgersen, the senior sound designer for Antenna Theater for 15 years and producer of more than 300 audio tours around the world.

Stay tuned to hear about the pros and cons of linear versus random access technology, the impact of new 21st century platforms on audio tour content design and use, and the emerging role of ‘citizen curators’ as the world becomes “an audio tour waiting to happen.”

A vodcast evaluation of MoMA Wifi and MoMA Audio coming up next. More about MoMA Audio and MoMA Wifi on MoMA’s gorgeous new website!