September 6-7, 2018
Detroit Institute of Arts
5200 Woodward Avenue
Detroit, MI 48202
Registration price: $150 for both days.
Description:
Some have said that it’s possible to travel the world in an afternoon without ever leaving the galleries of your favorite museum. Certainly, many of us have experienced losing ourselves amidst fantastic objects and stories that transport us to other places and times.
With the maturation of digital technologies like augmented and virtual reality (AR, VR), museums are on the cusp of creating increasingly compelling virtual experiences that extend the reach and possibilities of what a museum might become. These virtual experiences can refresh and personalize the museum space, as well as extending museums’ reach beyond their physical walls to reach and engage new audiences. A new class of “born digital” AR and VR art challenges museum staff to develop new practices for collection, preservation and rights management.
At the same time, our visitors are increasingly concerned about the dangers of privileging digitally mediated experiences over “real time” spent with friends and family. We observe that the social experience of museum-going is frequently cited as among the top motivations for visiting at all. We know that museum visitors value the authenticity of the “real thing” and despite the influences of a visually-laden social media culture, the interest and dedication of audiences to hyper-local, artisanal, and delicately nuanced physical experiences hints at a desire for the real over the virtual.
Witness the contemporaneous popularity of physically constructed immersive experiences like Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, the City Museum in St. Louis, and exhibitions like Wonder at the Renwick Gallery. What are the potential futures of digital and physical immersion in museums and how can we begin to think strategically about the nuances that define the boundary between the physical and the virtual? How can museums create compelling experiences for visitors that effectively engage them with the subject, while creating compelling and memorable experiences that can be shared with friends and family?
Join us for ‘Immersion in Museums: VR, AR or Just Plain R?’ at the Detroit Institute of Arts on September 6-7, 2018 for an exclusive convening with senior thinkers from inside and outside of the museum field to explore these questions and many others. More study day than conference, this is an opportunity to learn from each other, build networks, explore these topics and think more deeply about how these technologies will shape the practice of museums in the near future.