Ever since museums have existed, directors have tried to imagine the best way to arrange and illuminate the objects on display. But now art museums are getting some help from science. KPBS sci-tech reporter Thomas Fudge has this story about an experiment that tries to determine what museum goers really want to see., or LACMA, shows museum visitors at a pottery and ceramics exhibit.
“Then we use the computer to characterize certain movements that people make. Like pointing. Or standing in front of an object for some extended period of time. Or turning and talking to a friend who came to the museum with them,” Albright said. Albright’s specialty as a neuroscientist is to study visual cues and learn how they are processed by the brain and affect our behaviors. He is known for his forensic research into eyewitness evidence and testimony in criminal cases; evidence that can be very unreliable.
She said for all the anecdotes they’ve heard and observational studies they’ve done, she thinks this study will provide much more comprehensive information on how to engage museum visitors. Diamond Column, by DeWain Valentine, is clearly the star of the exhibit. As you enter the gallery it’s the first thing you see. It is translucent and changes color as you move around it and as the gallery’s natural light fades or brightens.
And, she said, you’ve got to put a sculpture in a place where a visitor isn’t going to back into it when they’re looking at a painting on the wall.“Because in my experience visitors navigate the museum in their own idiosyncratic ways. But it would be helpful to know the pace at which people are moving through the gallery and how often artworks really do serve as conversation pieces,” she said.