Hybrid Museum Experiences: Theory and Design

So you’re the one getting this gift? Lucky you! Someone who knows you has visited the museum. They searched out things they thought you would care about, and they took photos and left messages for you., This is the welcoming message for the Gift app, designed to create a very personal museum visit. Hybrid Museum Experiences use new technologies to augment, expand or alter the physical experience of visiting the museum. They are designed to be experienced in close relation to the physical space and exhibit. In this book we discuss three forms of hybridity in museum experiences: Incorporating the digital and the physical, creating social, yet personal and intimate experiences, and exploring ways to balance visitor participation and museum curation. This book reports on a 3-year cross-disciplinary research project in which artists, design researchers and museum professionals have collaborated to create technology-mediated experiences that merge with the museum environment.

Annika Waern is a ’research through design’ academic who has been researching technology-supported physical play and games for about fifteen years. Currently, she is conducting research in the areas of hybrid play in museums, children’s play in outdoor settings, and circus training to foster proprioceptic skills. Waern has authored over 100 academic articles and book chapters, and been editor of 2 books and several journal special issues. She is a DiGRA (Digital Games Research Association) distinguished scholar and a HEVGA (Higher Education Video Game Alliance) fellow. Anders Sundnes Løvlie does research on the intersection of design research and media studies, focusing in particular on experience design, locative media and play. Anders was the coordinator for the GIFT project, and has been involved in a number of design projects involving museums like the Munch Museum, Danish Architecture Center, the National Gallery of Denmark, Brighton Museum and the Frederiksberg Museums. Author of the book The Rhetoric of Persuasive Games: Freedom and Discipline in America’s Army. Leads the research group on Media, Art and Design (MAD).