Remote presence and public interaction as means of exploring cultural heritage sites
In 1897, Stockholm hosted a renowned art and industry fair, which, with its 1,5 million visitors over six months, is one of the largest public attractions in Sweden ever. The fairgrounds, located in a park area called Djurgården, constituted a pavilion-city specifically designed for the event. Both in form and content, the numerous buildings expressed high expectations and ambitions of a new, modern Swedish society, displaying industrial, societal, architectural and artistic innovations (Fig 1).
The fair included a half-scale replica of the medieval city of Stockholm - “Olde Stockholm” - where visitors encountered modern inventions placed in a historic setting (Fig. 2). The fair is well documented but most buildings were taken down and very few visible traces remain today. Due to its importance in its time, the large number of visitors and wide-spread souvenirs, the 1897 fair still reverberates in public memory. This part of Djurgården was frequently the setting for cultural events, also before 1897. It is today a very popular recreation area but, contrary to what its historical importance would imply, it is not at all recognized as a cultural heritage site.
During two weeks in the summer of 2008, the Museum of National Antiquities was extended by means of video mediated communication to a public archaeological excavation site of the remains of “Olde Stockholm”. This is today an abandoned little island reclaimed by nature and it is very difficult to imagine the scale and amount of buildings that occupied the site in 1897. Guided by professional archaeologists, the general public was invited to participate in the excavation searching for remains of “the lost city”.
The event also included an exhibition in the museum as well as an appeal to visitors, inviting them to contribute with oral histories and objects relating to the 1897 fair. The exhibition design included outdoor features to connect the two spaces. For example, a grass-green carpet and a park bench and road sign, identical to the kind used on the outdoor site were used inside the museum. A “Mediated Window”, located by the bench, allowed museum visitors to see, talk and attend the excavation remotely. Approximately 7000 visitors took part in the event, either by extension from the museum exhibition or by visiting the excavation (Fig. 3 & 4).
The project constitutes a pilot case study for the recently formed Mediated Museum research group (http://www.mediatedmuseum.se). This is a collaboration between researchers in archaeology, architecture and media technology aiming to inform cultural heritage pedagogy and museums practices by exploring the contribution from new participatory design contexts and public archaeology, involving media and communications. In combining our different research methodologies we strive to develop an interdisciplinary research strategy to this field of research, based on a participatory action research framework within archaeology; and based on research by design; user observations and design-driven innovation from the fields of architecture, design and presence research. The pilot study has explored the relationships between on the one hand prevailing museum theory and practices such as visitor interaction, collection processes, heritage definitions and on the other hand new practices of a participatory excavation framework and collection process as well as an interest in collective memory by developing:
- innovative forms of communication between a museum and its visitors (The Mediated Window, video mediated spaces, design of immersive environments)
- public participation and access to cultural heritage sites (public archaeology, participatory action research)
- the definition and collection of modern cultural heritage sites and artefacts
The extension of the museum to the 1897 cultural heritage site by means of the Mediated Window enabled an increase in public access and sense of presence, also for new categories of visitors and those participating from a distance, as well as an increased understanding for cultural values. The experience of presence was supported by the design of the Mediated Window which enabled eye contact and embedded features from other disciplines, such as architecture, theatre and film, designs which requires combined skills in architectural design, user interaction and media technology.
The public excavation, in conjunction with the invitation to contribute with personal accounts, souvenirs and memories, engaged a wide range of people. Hereby questions were raised regarding cultural heritage as well as the value of a site, an artefact and of collective memory processes. Such interactive processes may contribute to a renegotiation of the relationship between the museum and its users and, in turn, inform museum practices.
The pilot study has illustrated the potential for disseminating knowledge in a new context. In the future we aim to use similar user studies:
- by further exploring modern cultural heritage sites and collective memory collection processes;
- by designing prototypes that enable remote presence through larger mediated windows and walls, and involving several locations, hereby addressing the concept of mediated architectural extensions of museum buildings;
- by selecting sites and artefacts which (1) are currently unattainable for visitors, either because they are geographically separated and cannot be moved; or because they are inaccessible to visitors; and/or sites which (2) have the potential to address important issues for cultural heritage practice
The pilot case study was carried out as a collaboration between the Museum of National Antiquities of Sweden and The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and has received funding from the Swedish National Heritage Board, the Swedish Arts Council and the Royal Court of Sweden (Kungl. Djurgårdens förvaltning).
