IS THERE ANY MUSEUM LIFE WITHOUT MULTIMEDIA?
Anyone who has visited a cool museum, such as London’s Tate Modern, knows that it is a real multimedia experience and that you can spend quality time in a museum with enough interesting content. Like an amusement park for adults (and children), where you want to try everything because who knows what the next room holds. Ever since the first legend with a written explanation was placed in an exhibition space, visitors have been getting information not only by looking at works of art, but also by reading about them. And people like to know the background of a story, it’s in their nature. This is only a part of multimedia, and its various elements opens up countless possibilities for museums in sharing knowledge, improving the experience and attracting new visitors. Given that multimedia is actually a mix of several different media, computerised multimedia systems are a continuation of a long tradition of interpretation technologies and interpretation techniques such as slide shows, panels with texts and dioramas.
The multimedia database with text, images and sound can be quickly searched, and the search results can be viewed locally or made available to a user at a remote location through a network. This opens up a multitude of possibilities in all areas of museum activity, including learning activities, leadership, research and curatorial work… What was once unimaginable is now completely normal – you can enjoy a virtual tour of the Louvre from the comfort of your home. With a glass of wine. Hey, Joie de vivre!
Interactive multimedia loves an active user
Interactive multimedia enables communication between the multimedia system and the user who is controlling what he wants to see. This is the opposite, for example, of a film, which is linear and somehow implies that the viewer watches it passively from the beginning to the closing credits. Interactive media requires input from the audience. The user selects, asks questions or sets search criteria to activate the system and receive feedback. For example, there are books made as multimedia, and the information displayed depends on the choice of the reader. Interactive multimedia greatly changes the way we access information and definitely requires us to be active.
And on today’s menu… or how the user navigates the multimedia program
Some systems are constructed according to the hierarchy – the user selects from the menu until the very end of the system is reached. Others use the principles of hypertext – data are interconnected in a network, and users can search them in the system by activating links that are then recognised in different ways. Not so long ago, the only widely available electronic media for storing images and film were analog videodiscs. With the advent of digital video compression techniques, it is now possible to integrate video, graphics, sound, databases and programs in a fully digital form. We are actually living in quite an interesting time!
Multimedia is entertainment, travel and experience
Multimedia installations in museums can range from just an interactive video kiosk to a fully integrated exhibition and technologically designed space. When thinking about multimedia when designing an exhibition, it is inevitable to keep the visitors in mind. The ultimate goal of the museum is to keep visitors interested and engaged, and at the same time to attract a younger audience that is used to the touchscreen experience from an early age, so a simple panel with text will hardly satisfy them. Interactive kiosks take you, for example, on a “journey” based on your preferences. If you enter the name of the person-artist or the exhibition you want to know more about, you get access to additional information, as well as the room where the relevant works of art are displayed and continue your tour guided by further curiosity.
Instead of the already mentioned static panels, the content can be enriched with interactive videos that will give visitors a deeper insight into the content of the exhibition. Of course the art of storytelling is essential for the appeal of this kind of content. For small galleries, interactive multimedia opens the possibility to offer visitors an additional experience and thus compensate for the lack of space. Interactive multimedia is great as a kind of extended catalog of the exhibition. Back in the 90s of the last century, a computer guide was developed for the National Gallery in London, the so-called micro gallery that allowed the visitor to view what interests him, like a personalised tour of the museum. If you find yourself in a huge museum and you don’t have much time at your disposal, this sounds like a great option!
Exhibition ’71 at the Croatian History Museum in Zagreb
In January 2022, an exhibition of the Croatian History Museum called ’71 was set up in Klovićevi dvori, and we had the opportunity to participate in the realisation of part of the multimedia display. Because of the complex historical period, which is full of emotional charge, we had a good base for the most faithful interpretation and an attempt to bring the experience closer to the user.
With this exhibition, the curators of the Croatian History Museum (Mislav Barić, Petra Braun, Ana Filep and Andreja Smetko) have chosen the demanding task of presenting the year 1971 with visual, acoustic and tactile components. The occasion was the 50th anniversary of the Croatian reform movement called Croatian Spring. That year is one of the turning points in Croatian modern history, the Croatian Spring experienced its peak and collapse – for the first time the dissatisfaction of Croatian citizens with the position of Croatia in the then multi-national communist Yugoslavia was expressed openly and freely. Greater independence of Croatia, national equality in language, economy and culture was sought.
On the basis of historical facts and through the collected numerous museum, archival and book materials and personal memorabilia of the event participants themselves or their family members, for the first time an effort was made to present and interpret the story and evoke the emotions of that extremely dynamic period. The exhibition, according to the idea of the curator Ana Filep, consisted of six complex chronological and thematic units that needed to be “revived” in the exhibition space of Klovićevi dvori.
The four main exhibition units provided a chronological sequence of events during 1971 through the activities of the three groups around which the movement was created – the reform currents of the Croatian Communist Association, Matica Hrvatska and the student movement. The units bear symbolic names according to the seasons, which more symbolically than strictly calendar-wise, correspond to the development phases of the reform movement itself. The last section, titled Keeping the hope, referred to the consequences of the collapse of the movement and contained the memories of the witnesses of the time and their families, fifty years later.
Thanks to numerous borrowers (as many as 40 private borrowers and 49 cultural and scientific institutions), the Museum had at its disposal a variety of material that was presented in original or copy, as well as a certain amount of photographs, videos and audio recordings of that time, which completed the multimedia experience. The photos were digitised and entered into the kiosks and viewed via touch screens, implemented tablets and illuminated surfaces.
For audio tracks that included music, radio shows, reports and the like, visitors could use a kiosk with the option of using headphones.
Some of the videos were played on the walls in the museum space with the help of a projector, and the sound filled the room (as if the viewer really couldn’t escape the spirit of those times) or, due to the cacophony in the room itself, it was necessary to use the screen and headphones individually for the experience.
“Behind closed doors”
One of Brojka’s more demanding tasks was to make an audio recording of the meeting between President Josip Broz Tito and the Croatian political leadership in Karađorđevo on November 30th and December 1st, 1971. The meeting was not available to the public and took place “behind closed doors” and went on for twenty hours! That exhausting meeting preceded the announced 21st session of the Union of Communists of Yugoslavia from December 1st and 2nd, 1971, at which the actions of the Croatian reform leadership were condemned. Since we did not have the audio recording of the meeting itself, but only the authorized stenographic materials (official transcript), the idea of one of the curators, Andreja Smetko, was to bring the meeting “to life” through an audio replica.
A door similar to the actual door of the meeting room was physically placed in the exhibition space to encourage the visitor to really try and listen to selected parts of the conversation in almost spy manner. This would make the visitor a character in time, and the mystery of the event itself would enhance the emotional impression.
We started from the 349 page long transcript of the meeting itself. The goal of carefully selected 8 minutes long parts of the conversation, prepared by the curator Andreja Smetko, was to present the very core of the meeting. We spent some time researching the voices of selected meeting attendees to find the most faithful impersonators possible. It was not enough to find a sufficiently similar voice, but someone who would be able to convey specific individual speaking characteristics. The participants were well-known to the public: Josip Broz Tito, Savka Dabčević-Kučar, Miko Tripalo and Vladimir Bakarić. Of course, capturing the atmosphere, tension and zeitgeist was an additional challenge that required the directorial intervention of colleague Natko Jurdana, who worked with experienced speakers Nikica Viličić, Daniel Dizdar and actor Hrvoje Perc.
User, user, user
Multimedia is a phenomenon with many faces, but the success of a multimedia system depends on the content itself. Content is everything, it seems. Adults, and especially younger generations, are multimedia literate and it will only increase. The most ordinary trip to a fast food chain has turned into an interactive multimedia experience. If we take into account the speed of technical development to which we are daily witnesses and participants, we come to a conclusion that we have only seen the outlines of multimedia and that it is a very applicable and increasingly necessary component of a museum that wants to boast about the number of visitors. The limits of multimedia are somewhere between imagination and creativity.
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