As new technologies become an increasingly important part of everyday life they beg new questions for museum presentation and exhibition design. This symposium will consider these questions in relationship to the BGC Focus Gallery exhibition The Interface Experience. This exhibition offers visitors a unique opportunity to gain a better understanding of the design and material experience of computers by encouraging them to ask personal questions about how their interaction with these devices has influenced their lives. Including presentations by both curators of technology and technologists working to create compelling exhibition experiences about technology, the symposium will open up conversations about how technology fits into the study and display of material culture in the twenty-first century and the role of computing interfaces in those areas.


April 6: Experiencing the Interface


Kimon Keramidas
Assistant Professor and Director of the Digital Media Lab
Welcome and Introduction


Deborah G. Douglas
Director of Collections and Curator of Science and Technology, MIT Museum
Tech’s Museum/Museum Tech: Challenges for Presenting Technology at MIT


Jonathan Dahan
Developer
Dusting Off the Stacks


Panel Discussion
Deborah G. Douglas, Jonathan Dahan, Kimon Keramidas, Jennifer Foley, Koven J. Smith


April 7: Digital Interpretation: Screens and Devices as Didactic Media


Kimon Keramidas
Assistant Professor and Director of the Digital Media Lab
Welcome and Introduction

Jennifer Foley
Director of Interpretation, Department of Education and Interpretation, Cleveland Museum of Art
“Oh, what’s this button do?” Connecting Spaces, People, and Collections


Koven J. Smith
Director of Digital Adaptation, Blanton Museum of Art
Becoming Authentically Digital at the Blanton Museum of Art


Focus Gallery Presentations

Kimon Keramidas
Assistant Professor and Director of the Digital Media Lab

David Jaffee
Professor, Head of New Media Research


Panel Discussion
Jennifer Foley, Koven J. Smith, Kimon Keramidas, David Jaffee, Deborah G. Douglas, Jonathan Dahan