Notes from introductory call with DIA (April 28, 2009)
Detroit Institute of Arts and Fluid Engage
• completely reworking and reinstalling all of their exhibits at the gallery
• a shift from presenting works in strictly art historical terms, and towards more inclusive or thematic approaches to organizing works
• for example, moving from chronological to "day in the life" presentations of works
• they have great content: how can we give people technology and tools so they can take what they've done in the gallery and extend it? teachers, visitors, etc.
• they've had some success in using technology in the gallery, but it's all one-offs, and very expensive to create
- electronic books
- Rivera Court: handhelds using video and other materials, but the first generation of equipment was really difficult to use
- rich collection of documentation of these Diego Rivera murals: photos, etc.
- created AcoustaGuide: company in NYC who traditionally build audio tours; this was their first attempt at building handheld-based tour
- details are shown on the PDA; you can click through to find things you're interested in
- can get commentary from local experts, poets, etc.
- still fairly tour-based
- people wear headphones and use a Nokia 800
- really wanted to allow visitors to add their own commentary
- see Fluid Engage as a way to build the next generation, and something they can build upon
• TMS for collections database
• our own interpretive database using FileMaker Pro
• Through African Eyes, their next big exhibit in the pipeline
• generally have six or seven exhibits in various stages of development
- the length of development time is a pain point for them
- 12-16 months to do the design/development part, where you're organizing the way the show is going to lay out in the gallery, the text, educational material, etc.
• open slot in Fall 2011: that's a tight period for conceiving of a new exhibit
• DIA was an early user of TMS
- there are portions they don't use: conservation and exhibitions portions
- large collection: 60,000 objects with lots of fields and descriptions
- reporting is very limited: requires Crystal Reports
- good from a registrarial point of view, but not very useful in terms of developing interpretive materials because of the limitations of the fields
- exhibits module: limited ability to group objects and attach text, but not useful enough, especially for large collections
• wanted a tool to do exhibit planning
• TMS keeps object information
• FileMaker lets them import data from TMS and then group them together:
- which objects go together in which gallery?
- different sections of objects in a gallery: more groupings
- even information about proximity within space
- information about look and feel
- interpretive material can be attached at any level: the gallery, the section or the object
• they have a digital asset management system where graphic designers build the actual labels
- their design team is off-site; contractors
- this company gives them online access to content, letting them make changes to designs, etc.
• really interested in visitor participation:
- low-tech so far
- stations where people write postcards, etc.
- experimented a little with their website (Monet to Dali), where they asked visitors to write their own labels for works of art
- planning to do so on several new exhibits
• web site:
- changes and innovation are very expensive, because they have to go to outside contractors to change the website
- site has some basic ability to extract data from TMS, but again, every upgrade costs
- contractor is M6
- they're frustrated, feel limited by the way they manage their website
- one of the attractions of Fluid Engage is having more control and flexibility about how they deal with their website
- their contractor isn't a partner who helps them think through the best ways to implement experiences on the Web
- website run by the marketing and PR department
- they've been doing some strategic planning about how to expand and improve their website