Museopunks

As former Museopunk Jeffrey Inscho leaves the museum world, we take a moment reflect on the factors that influence a decision to leave or join the museum profession. We also examine what outside organizations can gain from hiring museum professionals–and what museums can gain from those who have grown up professionally in complementary industries. Plus, we preview a soon-to-air podcast that focuses on the wildly circuitous ways through which people come to, and leave, museums. This episode is cohosted by Jason Alderman and Chad Weinard, and features interviews with Jeffrey Inscho and Ros Lawler. Museopunks is presented by the American Alliance of Museums. Website: Museopunks.org Twitter: @museopunks

Increasingly, it feels like progressive museum practice is also political museum practice. So what does it mean for a museum to take a stand, and put social just at the heart of its work? In this episode, Suse talks with David Fleming, Director of National Museums Liverpool (NML) and President of the UK Museums Association, about the social impact of museum work, advocacy as a strategic objective, and what it means for a museum service to be openly political. Plus, news about some big changes to the podcast! And quiet snorts from a new baby softly echoing throughout the interview. Museopunks is presented by the American Alliance of Museums. Website: Museopunks.org Twitter: @museopunks

Did you know that several studies in recent years have shown that when women enter a specific field in large numbers, the pay for that field declines overall, even for the same jobs that men were doing? This is one of many implications of gendered professions, which are at the core of this month’s episode of Museopunks. The Punks dig into the implications of the gendered museum, and its impact on pay and the sector more broadly with Anne W. Ackerson and Joan H. Baldwin, whose new book Women in the Museum explores the professional lives of the sector’s female workforce today and examines the challenges they face working in what was, until recently, a male-dominated field. The Punks are then joined by nikhil trivedi for a conversation about the impact of gender and masculinity on technology work, inside museums and beyond. Please note: nikhil’s interview includes discussion of specific actions men can take to dismantle gender oppression and create more supportive institutions for people of all genders. He has kindly created a supportive document with more information for those who wish to dig deeper, which we’ve included in the show notes at http://museopunks.org Museopunks is presented by the American Alliance of Museums. Website: Museopunks.org Twitter: @museopunks

Museums that want to impact their visitors are often concerned with changing their behaviors. However, before any kind of change can take place, it's important to understand visitors, and the behaviors that they bring into the museum with them. In this episode, the ‘Punks ask how museums can better understand and align their work around existing visitor behaviors. We talk to the first Neuroscience Researcher in an art museum to learn more about how the human brain understands the physical world, and how that connects to our emotions, and then connect with an experience designer whose work has focussed on social media use in the cultural sector. We also want to know: are you a museum geek who is also a fan of professional wrestling?! Reach out to us on Twitter and let us know. GUESTS: Dr. Tedi Asher is Neuroscience Researcher at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass. The position — which marks a first for an art museum — supports PEM’s neuroscience initiative and is made possible through a generous grant from the Barr Foundation. Dr. Asher earned her Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School’s Biological and Biomedical Sciences program and has spent the last 12 years gaining experience in a wide range of fields, including neuroscience and psychology. At PEM, she will synthesize neuroscience research findings and make recommendations on how museums can enhance and enrich the visitor experience. Alli Burness is currently an experience designer with ThinkPlace, a global strategic design consultancy that applies human centred design and complex systems thinking to create public value. On the side, she is a freelance digital producer, designing digital presences for artists, small arts organisations and not-for-profits. She also researches, publishes, tutors and speaks about the value of creative digital expression and social media use in the cultural sector. She previously worked in museums and galleries as a digital producer and collection manager for around 10 years. She has created content for institutions such as the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Wellcome Collection in the UK and the Powerhouse Museum and Museums and Galleries NSW in Australia. She is currently based in Sydney. PRESENTING SPONSOR: Museopunks is presented by the American Alliance of Museums. Website: museopunks.org Twitter: @museopunks

Since the 1960s, artists have been critically examining the practices of museums, at times critiquing the idea of what a museum is and how it presents its stories. One of the most influential exhibitions of Institutional Critique was Mining the Museum–an installation by artist Fred Wilson at the Maryland Historical Society, in collaboration with The Contemporary. In this episode–made 25 years after Mining the Museum–the Punks explore the role outsiders such as artists and external consultants play in driving creative change and innovation within museum practice. What can outsiders do within the institution that permanent staff cannot? What are the limitations they face? And how does a reliance on external talent impact the sustainability of progress in the museums they work with? GUESTS: George Ciscle has mounted groundbreaking exhibitions, created community arts programs, and taught fine arts and humanities courses for close to 50 years. He trained as a sculptor, studying with Isamu Noguchi. For 15 years he developed high school interdisciplinary curriculum and work-study programs for the emotionally disadvantaged. In 1985, he opened the George Ciscle Gallery where he promoted the careers of young and emerging artists. From 1989-1996 Ciscle was the founder and director of The Contemporary, an “un-museum,” which challenges existing conventions for exhibiting art in non-traditional sites focusing its exhibitions and outreach on connecting artists’ works with people’s everyday lives. From 1997-2017, as Curator-in-Residence at Maryland Institute College of Art, he continued to develop new models for connecting art, artists, and audiences by creating the Exhibition Development Seminar, Curatorial Studies Concentration and the MFA in Curatorial Practice. Jen Brown is the Founder and Artistic Director of The Engaging Educator. Through EE, her pedagogical approach of Improv as Continuing Education has reached over 25,000 people – all non-actors! Since 2012, Jen has given three TEDx Talks on the power of Improv, grown EE to three locations in NYC, Winston-Salem, NC and LA, and recently began The Engaging Educator Foundation, a 501(c)(3) which offers free and low-cost Improv workshops for educators, at-risk adults, teens and students on the Autism Spectrum. Jen holds degrees and accreditation from Marquette University, City College of New York, St. Joseph’s University and Second City. -- Museopunks is presented by the American Alliance of Museums. Website: Museopunks.org Twitter: @museopunks

Progressive museum work, particularly when focussed around community engagement, is often a form of emotion work that demands emotional labor. Museum professionals who are deeply engaged with the challenges of changing their institutions, negotiating a volatile political climate, or facilitating community work, can experience compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, and burnout. So how can museum professionals look after themselves, in order to better care for their communities and colleagues? In this episode, the Punks investigate the role of self-care in museum practice. Although the concept is often co-opted by marketing professionals as a kind of balm against open-ended anxiety, self-care first came to prominence alongside the rise of the women’s movement and the civil rights movement as radical, political act; a reclaiming of the body against a system that suggested it lacked value. Today, these ideas continue to resonate. Actively practicing self-care can help you be more resilient, effective, and empathetic. We explore how. Guests: Seema Rao, Beck Tench Show Notes: http://museopunks.org We’d love to hear from you! How do you refocus and recenter when emotionally or physically exhausted? Hit us up on Twitter (@Museopunks) and share your best solutions with us.

Don’t call this a comeback! After an almost three-year hiatus, Museopunks returns to explore progressive museum practice. How much has changed since the ‘Punks last hit the airwaves? Does Jeffrey have any new tattoos? Has Suse lost her Australian accent? In this first episode of season two, the ‘Punks unpack the trials and tribulations of trust with Dr. fari nzinga and Adriel Luis. Report after report indicates that public trust in institutions is plummeting. The 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer, which surveys more than 33,000 people across 28 countries, showed the largest-ever drop in trust across the institutions of government, business, media and NGOs. Meanwhile, the Economist’s Intelligence Unit downgraded the US to a “flawed democracy” in its 2016 Democracy Index, due to erosion of trust in government and elected officials. Museums have traditionally appeared to be cushioned against drops in trust. The American Alliance of Museum reports that museums are considered the most trustworthy source of information in America. Yet a 2013 UK study on public trust in museums showed that although museums are highly trusted, there was “a strong sense that if they started “telling people what to think” or became spaces for controversial debate, this might damage their integrity.” What does this mean for our institutions at a time when there is increasing pressure on public institutions to promote social justice, and intervene in political and social discourse? Join us to unpack these questions and more. Show notes: http://museopunks.org

On August 27 this year, the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in NYC announced that it had acquired Planetary, an iPad app, which was also the Museum’s first acquisition of code. But how can such an acquisition be conserved for the future? What does it mean to acquire these kinds of highly-networked, ‘living’ objects? As Seb Chan and Aaron Cope of the Cooper-Hewitt wrote in their blog post on the acquisition: "Museums like ours are used to collecting exemplary achievements made manifest in physical form; or at least things whose decay we believe we can combat and slow. To that end we employ highly trained conservators who have learned their craft often over decades of training, to preserve what would often be forgotten and more quickly turn to dust. But preserving large, complex and interdependent systems whose component pieces are often simply flirting with each other rather than holding hands is uncharted territory. Trying to preserve large, complex and interdependent systems whose only manifestation is conceptual – interaction design say or service design – is harder still." In response to these questions, the Cooper-Hewitt made the decision to open-source the source code for Planetary, uploading it to GitHub. In this episode, the Punks dig into some of the questions that these kinds of acquisitions and conservation processes could mean for the museum, and for how we think about objects in general. We ask how digital technologies are changing the practice of conservation? In this episode, the Punks dig into this question with the Cooper-Hewitt’s Seb Chan (Director of Digital & Emerging Media) and Aaron Cope (Senior Engineer), and Dale Kronkright (Head of Conservation at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum). Fair warning: it’s a long episode, but a super interesting one.

What happens when technical difficulties get in the way of regularly scheduled programming? The Punks make do, of course. In this episode, Suse and Jeffrey chat about inspiration, show dynamics, and their upcoming ‘Live’ shows at the Museum Computer Network conference in Montreal.

Marshall McLuhan once proposed that new technologies introduce new habits of perception, new ways of seeing and interacting with the world. In this session, the Punks and their guests will tackle this theory head-on. How do digital tools and technologies alter our habits of perception? What does it means to look at the world with one eye always glued to a screen? How is digital culture impacting our visual and written language, and are we cool with all of this? Guests: Beck Tench, Director for Innovation and Digital Engagement, Museum of Life and Science Matthew Israel, Director of The Art Genome Project, Artsy Nancy Proctor, Head of Mobile Strategy and Initiatives, Smithsonian Institution This episode was recorded live at MCN2013 on November 23, 2013. Thank you to the Museum Computer Network for inviting us to be a part of the conference.

Over the course of MCN2013, we’ll hear a lot about great #musetech projects and issues facing the sector. But in this session, the Punks want to learn about the muses and inspirations outside of the sector that help fuel and inform some of most creative work from some of the most interesting #musetech practitioners. What music, literature or extra-curricular activities inspire us? And how do those inspirations relate to our professional approach? Guests: Don Undeen, Manager of Media Lab, Metropolitan Museum of Art Micah Walter, Webmaster, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Koven Smith, Principal, Kinetic Museums This episode was recorded live at MCN2013 on November 22, 2013. Thank you to the Museum Computer Network for inviting us to be a part of the conference.

DigitalCitizenship.net cites nine individual elements of digital citizenship: access, commerce, communication, literacy, etiquette, law, rights & responsibilities, health & wellness, and security (self protection). Cultural institutions are doing well in some respects, but what about other areas? Could museum interactive experiences not only provide access to rich content, but also help increase the overall digital literacy of users? Can our digital projects travel parallel paths in pursuit of both curatorial mission and digital good? Should they? Guests: Darin Barney, Canada Research Chair in Technology & Citizenship, McGill University Kyle Jaebker, Director IMA Lab, Indianapolis Museum of Art Luis Marcelo Mendes, Communications Consultant for Museums, Fundação Roberto Marinho This episode was recorded live at MCN 2013 on November 21, 2013. Thank you to the Museum Computer Network for making it possible, and inviting us to be a part of this conference.

One of the most interesting sessions at MCN2013 was on The Future of Museum Digital Departments, which featured staff from the Tate, the National Gallery, London, Imperial War Museums, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and discussed the sometimes harsh realities of delivering a digital strategy within a complex organization. In the session, John Stack, Head of Digital Transformation at Tate, spoke about the museum’s recently adopted hub-and-spoke model for digital governance. In this episode, we break this idea down, and ask how different organisational structures can impact museums and digital organisations. How are museum digital departments integrated within broader institutional structures, and what impact does this have on digital’s place in the organisation? For this discussion, the ‘punks are joined by Stack, and Keir Winesmith, Head of Web and Digital Platforms at SFMOMA. We talk about digital strategy, organisational structure, and the impact of the evolving digital landscape on the decision making process.

Museopunks regularly digs into some of the more innovative practice in museums, but so far, we’ve haven’t tackled curating. In this episode, Suse catches up with one of the most powerful people in the world of art – Paola Antonelli (@curiousoctopus), Senior Curator of Architecture & Design, Director of Research & Development, MoMA – to find out what innovative curating looks like. What does it mean to collect the @ symbol? Do museums need R&D departments? There are more and more entrepreneurial museum projects and labs beginning to pop up, like the Spark!Lab National Network, started at the Smithsonian in 2008, or the Indianapolis Museum of Arts IMA Lab (which we discussed during our recent MCN2013 session), but what do they offer the museum? And are such projects different when approached from curatorial position, than when driven from (say) the technology department? In this episode, we find out.

Tyler Green (Modern Art Notes) recently wrote that “In the future, most American art museums — say, those with operating budgets of ~$7 million and up — will offer free general admission.” In this episode, the Punks talk to Green, and Maxwell L. Anderson, Director, Dallas Museum of Art, about just what it takes for museums to go free, and how new technologies, such as those that can collect extensive visitor data, make ‘free’ a new kind of proposition. Of particular focus in this episode will be the DMA’s 2013 decision to go free, and to offer free membership. How has technology changed the conversation around free and open source materials, and access to museums – whether collections, or the museum experience itself? Is the museum re-imagined in its public capacity when it does move from a paid model to a free one? Do the data-collection possibilities of free membership programs like DMA Friends promise to change how sector-wide museum metrics are gathered, and if so, what does that mean for visitor modeling into the future?

Discussions about 3D scanning and printing technologies have started to gain momentum in the museum world, as they seem to offer museums significant new ways to engage with their collections, and audiences. Whether its 3D Hackathons (held to some consternation) or experimentation to replicate a 19th-century statue with 21st century technology, museums are seeing new possibilities for enabling new forms of access to collections, and fresh ways to engage with the public. In this episode, the Punks talk to Liz Neely, formerly of the Art Institution of Chicago and President-Elect for the Museum Computer Network (MCN) board and Secretary/Treasurer for the New Media Consortium (NMC) board, and Tom Burtonwood, the first Ryan Center Artist-in-Residence at The Art Institute of Chicago, to unpack digital fabrication processes in museums, and discover how and why museums might want to invest in a 3D printer. For those wanting a primer on all things 3D in museums, Liz Neely and Miriam Langer’s MW2013 paper Please Feel the Museum: The Emergence of 3D printing and scanning is a great place to start.

Net neutrality is a hot topic at the moment, in light of changes proposed by US Federal Communication Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler that would allow Internet Service Providers to charge a premium for those who can afford to pay to deliver their content better and faster to their online audiences. This issue has many in the museum sector concerned, with a post by Nancy Proctor on the Museums and the Web site noting that “It’s not hard to imagine a scenario in which the only way museum content gets seen online is if the museum has done a deal with a major online publisher.” Similarly, the Museum Computer Group (UK) have written that “every audience member and institution we work with would be affected if net neutrality was lost and non-discriminatory access to information was put at risk in the United States of America.” In this episode, the Punks are joined by Titus Bicknell from Museums and the Web, and Chief Digital Officer for RLJ Entertainment, to unpack the concept of net neutrality, and find out what the proposed changes might mean for museums Also in the show: Suse shares some big news, and Jeff previews his session at the AAM Conference, on in Seattle May 18-21.

What does it mean to be a museum professional with an active online presence? How does blogging, Twitter, and other forms of social media communication give shape to a professional identity in the digital age? In this episode, the Punks talk to Nina Simon, Executive Director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, prolific blogger, and author of the book The Participatory Museum, and Ed Rodley, Associate Director of Integrated Media at Peabody Essex Museum and author of Thinking About Museums, about the impact that an active online and social media presence can have on museum work broadly, and on professional identity. What does it mean to “grow up professionally” in the public eye, or to enter into an online discourse with an already-established professional identity? How does the kind of professional discourse that social media makes possible give shape to new ways of thinking and perceiving museum work? And what are the long-term ramifications of living a professional life online for all to see?

What role does language have in dictating the way we talk and think about the future – and present – in museums? Does talking about the future hold museums back in the present? Do terms like “innovation” and “forward-thinking” actually promote the behaviours they connote? In this episode, the Punks talk to Colleen Dilenschneider, Chief Market Engagement Officer for IMPACTS, and Jeff Grabill, Professor of Rhetoric and Professional Writing and Chair of the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures at Michigan State University, about language, rhetoric, and the power of words in creating our world.

In 2008, AAM (now the American Alliance of Museums) established the Center for the Future of Museums to help museums understand the cultural, political, economic, environmental, and technological trends shaping the world, and envision how museums can help their communities thrive in coming decades. Why is this important? As CFM Founding Director Elizabeth Merritt wrote in 2011: ‘The biggest challenge in preparing for the future is imagining what it will be like. One of the most important roles of futures studies is to help people write stories of the future that, like all good fiction, tell the truth about something that hasn’t actually happened yet.’ This is one reason why Intel Futurist Brian David Johnson uses science fiction as a design tool for the development of technology and new products. In the introduction to The Tomorrow Project, Johnson writes that, ‘Each story is a kind of conversation about the future, a way to develop a deeper understanding, explore the opportunities and examine the hazards of a future that is not quite set but does get closer and closer each day.’ In this episode, the Punks go forecasting with Elizabeth Merritt and imagine what the impact of current cultural, economic and technological trends could be for museums. Also, the unexpected return of badgers!

Games are such a hot topic in museums, but the topic is a complex one. As blogger Kevin Bacon (no, not that one) points out, video games are expensive, are being made by many dedicated people outside museums, and can be a challenging vehicle for telling nuanced historical stories. So should museums invest in games? And if so, what should they be seeking to achieve? In this episode, the Punks talk to Sharna Jackson, Tate Kids Editor and the woman behind Seahorse, a digital content agency for children, and Sophia George, co-founder of Swallowtail Games and the V&A’s first ever Game Designer in Residence, about all things games and gaming in the museum. What is the difference between a game and a toy? Why are women less likely to enter a career in gaming than men? And why is ‘gamification’ such a dirty word?

News and media organizations have been undergoing similar challenges to those facing museums in the digital age, with increased competition for attention, challenges to old models of authority, and the need to develop new kinds of business models and modes of practice in response to changing technological, social, and economic conditions. So what can museums learn from news and media organizations in order to change and adapt their practices to work effectively in an increasingly online and social media context? In this episode, the Punks dig into these questions with a little help from Paul Schmelzer, Web Editor at the Walker Art Center, and Sree Sreenivasan, new Chief Digital Officer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Both Schmelzer and Sreenivasan come to the museum sector with backgrounds in the media and significant experience in journalism, and their insights reflect the importance of these skills in the contemporary museum. Does the responsiveness of social media change the pace at which museums must work, and what opportunities does it open up for new kinds of practice?

In 2012, Collections Trust CEO Nick Poole did a short analysis of 40 mission statements of leading UK museums and galleries, and discovered that the word “Future” was the third most common word used to describe the missions of the museums, double that of the word “past”. With such an eye to the future, it is little surprise to discover that museums spend some time thinking about the shape of things to come. During recent museum conferences, there have been a number of sessions that consider museum futures and how cultural institutions can prepare for likely economic, social, and technological scenarios. At Museums Australia 2013 in May 2013, Dr Stefan Hajkowicz: Leader, CSIRO Futures gave a talk on the Our Future Worlds report, which outlines six megatrends facing the world – and the arts – in the coming twenty years. At MuseumNext, also in May, Bridget McKenzie from Flow Associates examined ways in which museums might engage with communities to maintain relevance in the coming decade and the key technologies that may be influential in future planning. In this episode of Museopunks, your Punks will delve deep into the future to ask how museums can use future scanning techniques to better plan for the future, and meet their missions. As the OECD notes, ‘A solid ‘scan of the horizon’ can provide the background to develop strategies for anticipating future developments and thereby gain lead time. It can also be a way to assess trends to feed into a scenario development process.’

What role does design and design thinking play in museum innovation? In this episode, the Punks dig into one of the “secret themes” that emerged out of Museums and the Web 2013: design. They talk to web strategy consultant and design thinking facilitator Dana Mitroff Silvers and Scott Gillam, Manager, Web Presence of Canadian Museum for Human Rights, about just how museums can think about design, and what role empathy plays in this process.

In this, the inaugural episode of the Museopunks podcast, the Punks chat to Michael Edson, Director of Web and New Media Strategy at the Smithsonian Institution, and Paul Rowe, CEO of Vernon Systems, about museums in the Age of Scale. How can museums rethink their practices to work at web scale, from the smallest institutions up to the biggest?