Nathaniel Longcope and Aidan O’Connor test out the live stream
As video-streaming technology becomes more ubiquitous, we’ve been antsy to try a walkthrough of an exhibition at MoMA. Department of Architecture and Design curator Juliet Kinchin and curatorial assistant Aidan O’Connor have been brave enough to be the first.
“I like boring things.” – Andy Warhol
As we prepared for the Andy Warhol: Motion Pictures exhibition, we struggled with how to create an online experience for the exhibition. Our colleagues in Graphic Design came up with a simple and elegant idea: a site where people could submit their own “screen tests” in the style of Warhol’s iconic works, and view others’ submissions. The site is live at MoMA.org/screentests.
Still from MoMA's video The Painting Techniques of Mark Rothko: No. 16 (Red, Brown, and Black)
At the beginning of the video on the painting techniques of Barnett Newman that we produced for MoMA’s Abstract Expressionist New York iPad app (and the exhibition’s website), Corey D’Augustine, a conservator and instructor of the on-site and online course Materials and Techniques of Postwar Abstract Painting tells this story:
Photo: Jason Brownrigg
With the recent launch of the MoMA AB EX NY app for the iPad, and the new update just released with additional content, we thought we’d take a moment to talk with various members of the team involved. First up, we have Deep Focus, who designed and programmed the app. We spoke with CEO Ian Schafer; lead developer Jason Garrett; group creative director Ken Kraemer; associate art director Dave Kroner; and senior interaction designer Dave Irons.
Screenshot of a webinar taught by Lisa Mazzola and Beth Harris
I’ve never considered myself particularly “tech-savvy,” but recently I began to rethink that notion. Over the past year or so, I have been experimenting with technology. At first the whole process seemed counterintuitive to what we try to do as museum educators. For me, the appeal of teaching has always been the engagement with people and facilitating meaningful interactions with works of art and with one another. I was not sure if that could actually be accomplished online, but I was willing to explore the possibilities.
If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you may already have the sense that a lot of people are involved in putting together an exhibition. Curators, preparators, conservators, exhibition designers, registrars, security, and others all have critical roles to play in what you see at the Museum. But what happens when you take the same approach when putting together an exhibition app?
The end of summer often means time to go back to school. For those of us at MoMA, it also means a slew of new exhibitions. And this fall we have quite a bounty, many of which are accompanied by a special online feature. For today, we present five websites for five exhibitions:
Independent Conservator and Instructor Corey D’Augustine demonstrates Jackson Pollock’s painting techniques in the online course Materials and Techniques of Postwar Abstract Painting.
MoMA’s Education Department prides itself on crafting personal experiences with works of art for our visitors. In exploring new ways to enhance these experiences, we were surprised to find that video has a remarkable ability to help us focus our gaze in a way that is often very difficult to do in the galleries. It might seem like a strange concept—that looking at a work of art on your computer screen would help you to look and think about art more deeply—but this is precisely what we discovered as we developed two online courses over the last year.
As is the case with most Web designers, producers, and graphic designers, I have an unhealthy attraction to infographics, whether it be the work of the Almighty Edward Tufte, the non-stop hit factory of The New York Times (here’s my all-time favorite), or the rich annual reports of Nicholas Feltron.
The sequel is a notoriously dicey—though sometimes brilliant—film enterprise, be it Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Empire Strikes Back, or my personal favorite at the age of twelve, The Karate Kid, Part II. After the first round of 30 Seconds videos, in which MoMA staff and members created short videos with filmmaker Thilo Hoffmann, we invited Thilo back late last year. The results are in, and you can now see selected videos by staff and members.
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