12/06/2014

On Saturday Billy and I met again to talk about our final assessment. We went over on how well our exhibit when and who was in charge of what in the final assessment. I was put in charge of the changes or adjustment we made to improve our exhibit. We plan to have our part of the final assessment done on Tuesday so we can meet and put everything together. The stressful part of the exhibit project is now over and we just have to finish up the final assessment. 

December 6th

Today was the final meeting between my partner Xiong and I. We discussed the things that we thought went well with the exhibit, but also couldn't help but self criticize certain things that could have gone better. Hind sight is 20/20 I suppose. After discussing what else was required to finish this entire project i.e. the Reaction paper, we came up with an outline of what things we were going to address in our paper, as well as recalled details about the exhibit experience that we could use. We then divided up responsibility in regards to who was going to do which portions in the Reaction paper. This meeting was the shortest one that we had had all semester, only lasting about 30 minutes. Once we had divided up the responsibilities, we decided to try and have all of the components ready to be assembled by Tuesday, so that we both could have a significant amount of time to work on the assignments that finish out the rest of the semester.

December 2nd

Today was the day that my partner and I had been working towards for the past several weeks...implementation day. We had made adjustments to our exhibit according to the critiquing that we received during the in class presentation of our exhibit, and we are both very happy with the results of the adjustments. Mostly what we had done was to make the intended path that the participant is meant to take to perform their interpretation much more clear. Adding a few more arrows, making the individual instruction steps clearer, and other things of that nature. We set our exhibit up at 8:00 in the morning, and took it down at 7:00 at night, and we were present mostly from 11-1, with brief visits during different times throughout the day. Overall, the number of participants that participated in the activity was a bit disappointing, but we were very pleased with the level of interest, and the amount of time spent by the participants at our exhibit. It was very difficult sitting there for those two hours, watching people pass by, look at the exhibit, then keep walking. There were moments when I would have liked to start flagging people down, but due to my reserved nature, thoughts didn't turn into actions. I am glad that the project is now almost at a close, and also glad that the exhibit that Xiong and I had worked so hard at was not a complete flop. In the future, if I were to do something like this again, I have a few adjustments that I would make, but I think it would definitely be easier to create an interactive exhibit that people could enjoy with my newly found creative skills for this type of endeavor.

November 20th

Today was the in class dry run of our exhibits. The experience was very insightful as to things that we could do to improve our exhibit, and make it easier for the participants to get the most worthwhile experience. The primary critiques that we received from the 3 individuals that viewed our exhibit thankfully were not so much on content, they were more directed at making the exhibit easier to understand the progression of events that the user needs to take. There was a lot of good feedback as to putting more instruction as to what steps to take first so that the patron doesn't accidentally start in the wrong place. The individuals who reviewed our exhibit were very interested and intrigued by the premise behind our exhibit, which is the main goal that we were looking for, instilling interest. I have several notes of alterations to make to the exhibit, and with the feedback that was received today, hopefully the final draft of the exhibit will be very successful.




                                                 This is what the first draft looked like

Looking Outside the Museum Field for Inspiration

The first thing that comes to my mind when thinking of non-museum context that encourages active engagement and audience participation is the TV show Dora the Explorer. This came to mind because my little sister is always watching it. The engagement structure is really simple. Dora or the host ask a question and gives the audience a little time to answer the question. Then later praised the audience for doing a great job. I think this is a poor design for the contributor because the contributor doesn’t really know if the audience is really participating. But on the other hand, it’s more for the audience so it works out. Like children TV shows, talks show also encourages audience participation. For example like Jimmy Kimmel Live talk show. One of the engagement is usually they ask the audience to video tape them doing something “horrible” to their love ones and then post it up on YouTube. Unlike the children’s TV show they actually get to see the engagement and then analyze the engagement for entertainment. I don’t see any principles here that applies to my partner and my work but the contextual of our class room could. In our class room we are encourages to participate with each other and then the whole class. How the class room is set up is we usually work together in a small group or by ourselves and then as one big group and go over the context we were assign. Then at the end of class we should have fully understood the context we were assign. This is kind of like our exhibit because we don’t have a rule that the participants can’t work together. After the audience analyze our exhibit they can flip up the sign and see the truth behind the image. This is kind of like our class room engagement because they work together if they chose to and then find out the true importance at the end. 

11/17

Over the pass few weeks Billy and I have been working on our project every Saturday. I haven’t had time to post much stuff as I should have but I found some very interesting Hmong history that I haven’t heard of. They pass week I try to collaborate with Hmong Student Association but they haven’t gotten back to me yet. I know this time of the year is very busy for everyone so if they don’t replay within the next few days then we’re going imply that we try but it just didn’t work out. The Hmong cloth we chose was the history of the Hmong people. The good news was that the cloth was owned by Billy’s wife so there isn’t going to be any copy right issue.  I wanted to get a basic understanding of the Hmong history and went across this video on YouTube that I found really interesting and helpful. The video was by Christian Khang an undergrad at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at the time. This video gave me a much better understanding of Hmong history and where the Hmong people first from.

Link to video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t3hNpeRgpA

November 18th- Assignment

When looking outside of the museum context for examples of events or shows that encourage active engagement and audience participation, I immediately think of the workshops that are held at the Beaver Creek Reserve in the Fall Creek Area. These workshops are designed to educate the participants about the different natural resources that are found throughout the area, as well as helping them to learn about the local plant and animal life. The workshops are part instruction, part hands on learning activities, designed so that the participants can get a glimpse at aspects of nature that they may never have known existed. The activities can range from demonstrations of the capabilities of birds and other animals, to an examination of “owl pellets.” The principles that might be applied to my own exhibit are those of guiding the participants on the path that has been set up for them, and then standing back to let them explore on their own. This is very similar to the concept that is at the foundation of our own exhibit. I feel that if people are left to discover things on their own, after a brief amount of education, then they are able to think of things and make discoveries that the director of the activity may never have thought of. They are also much more likely to retain information that they came up with themselves, as opposed to having everything laid out for them, with instructions on what to do, how to do it, and so on.

November 15th

Today my partner and I met for the final time before the implementation paper is due, to bring all of our materials together and get a full understanding of what our finished product will look like. I had taken some pictures of some story cloths that my wife and I have, and sent them to Xiong to see if he wanted to use either of them. He really liked one of them, so we decided to use a photo that I had taken instead of one found on the internet. This would make the issue of copyright much simpler as far as the story cloths are concerned. We looked over everything that we had done so far, and began to put them together. Xiong indicated that he had made an attempt to collaborate with one of the on-campus Hmong associations, but had not heard a response back yet. If they do not respond by the time the product is due, we will have to note that in our implementation collaborators section. I guess sometimes things just don't go according to plan sometimes. Now I just need to finish up with the research portion of the paper, put the display together, and I think that should meet all of the necessary criteria for this phase of the project.

November 11th

Today I met with my former American Indian Studies Professor, Professor Moody. I explained to her the project that I have been working on and asked for her input as to which interpretation of the image does she think is the most accurate. She was very helpful in explaining that many of the Haudenosaunee Nations had similar creation stories, and that it might be a fun idea to see if the participants can figure out which ne is the most correct. I loved this idea because it helped me get a little more of an idea as to what the incorrect stories for our exhibit can be tailored after. Professor Moody also indicated the different Haudenosaunee Nations that I might want to start looking into first, so I will have an easier time coming up with the comparable stories. The Professor was very enthusiastic about the idea that I had proposed, and offered her assistance if I need to seek her guidance again.

November 1st

Today my partner and I met for the last time before our proposal is due. We both had been working on materials and research separately, and now it is time to put our ideas together, revise them, and make any final changes that we need to. We discussed what our next steps are going to be, and some possible alternative images if the ones we have chosen don't work very well. We also discussed what we have learned about the images, the cultures, and other tid-bits of information we have uncovered while researching. With all of the combining done, we call it a day and make plans for Tuesday morning regarding who will print out the finalized version to hand in in class.

October 29th

Today I went and met with my American Indian History Professor to learn more about the best ways to be respectful when portraying Native American Images. He was incredibly helpful in letting me know that the particular image and story that my group has chosen was from a Native American group that encouraged the telling of its stories, as long as it is done accurately and respectfully. He also brought up the possible idea of a backup if the creation story didn't pan out the way that was hoped. He showed me some print materials, and a website that deals with winter-counts, indicating that they could be something else that would be interesting to have people interpret. He offered his assistance for any other future questions that I may have about the Interactive Exhibit Project, and gave me the links and titles to the resources for the winter-counts, if I should choose to use them.

 

This pass tow weekend my partner and I had narrowed our exhibit down. We have chosen to display two different images that tell a story. These two images will not have anything to do with each other. The main reason for us to display two different images is because it gives our audience a chance to evaluate one or the other or both. We want to attract as much audience as we could but we don’t want to put too much research work on us because there are only two of us. So we went with two images because it seems reasonable. We choose to display an image of the Native American creation story and an image of the Hmong story cloth. We choose these two because we were kind of familiar with them or at least my partner was. Also they both had a historical story behind them.

I have been given the duty to do the research about the Hmong story cloth. There’s many different story cloth and each cloth may or may not have the same story. We chose the classic Hmong story cloth which tells the story of the Hmong migration to America. The Hmong didn’t have any kind of writing system back then so the story cloth was a way of tell story/history.

We chose to go with this Hmong story cloth

Creative walk

On Wednesday I went on a creative walk around my neighborhood to see how my neighbors added their own version of beauty to the local landscape. As I made my way through my neighborhood; I didn’t see much differences between homes. Every house looks similar with a few jack-lantern sitting outside their front door as a decoration for Halloween. There were a few houses that had some interesting artifacts that add something a little different than the other.

for example this unusual mailbox

 

Also this house that was filled with wagons and other artifact which made it feel like to old west. I do know that this home has horses too so probably their theme was the old west.

 

 

 

 

There was this other house that had some old antique looking object. I can’t really make out what it was but it look like a smaller wagon or some farm equipment. Also this house had a statue sitting on top of a rock that made me feel like it was a quiet and peaceful environment.

 

 

October 25th- Meeting

October 25^th- Meeting

 

Today my partner and I met to discuss our new direction for our exhibit project. After going through our general idea of creating an exhibit that people can interpret the meaning for themselves, we then began to work on figuring out exactly what images we were going to have the public interpret. We searched on Google for images. We knew that one item we wanted to have the public interpret would be a Hmong story cloth. The problem is finding one that has a big enough picture so that when we blow it up, it won’t become pixelated. We also had to find one that had an accompanying description of what it was portraying.

            Once we found what we were looking for, we began searching for the second image. This was difficult because we didn’t really have any real direction as for what to use. We decided on a Native American creation story image that I am familiar with. Now that we had the images, and a general understanding of what we were going to do, it was time to begin dividing up the workload to suit each person’s strengths. My partner decided to research the Hmong story cloth, and I am going to research the Native American creation story. We wrote up a brief outline of what our intended project was so that we both could come back to it later in case we forgot something. Finally we divided up the portions of the proposal that each of us is going to do in regards to the pieces that we are researching. We also discussed who felt the most comfortable doing what as far as completing the other parts of the proposal paper, and we ended our meeting. Both of us agreed that we had a good feeling about the direction that our project was now heading, and are excited to see how it will turn out.

    This is the Native American Creation story that we have finally chosen to display. It was created by an Iroquois artist in the 1930's       

 

October 25th- Creativity walk

Today I went on my creative walk to get an understanding of how individuals use creativity to transform their own space in interesting and unique ways. The first house that caught my eye had done something very unique to their front yard. They had turned their entire yard into a garden space to grow crops. This is a very good idea to not only lessen the amount that you spend on groceries, but also is a great way to do something very different with the limited space that you may have. The creative ideas that I would take from this display would be that it is perfectly okay to have a unique idea and to implement it, even if it is incredibly different from everything else around you.

 

Another example that I found multiple different examples of was the use of natural shrubs and plants to form a living fence. I think that the use of natural plants to create dividers within a space is a great way to maintain your privacy, for a fraction of the cost that a traditional fence would cost to achieve the same results. The creative quality that I would extract from this idea is to always look at multiple different ways to solve a problem, instead of just the way that it is traditionally done. You never know whether thinking a bit outside the box will yield a better result.

 

 

The final things that I noticed during my creativity walk, were little embellishments that people made to their yards or homes to either add aesthetic beauty or functional art. There were many different examples if these. There were small benches made out of stones to sit and relax. There were pieces of ornamental glass arranged to filter colored light inside of the home. There was even a clothesline stand mounted on someone’s roof because they had a very small yard. The creativity and diversity within this small neighborhood helps me to realize that you don’t need to always use things in the ways that they were designed to be used. Find other functions for ordinary spaces and objects, and you can have an incredible array of results.

October 23rd

Today my partner and I met briefly after class period to discuss our project. During class several new ways of thinking about the project, and the criteria for the project popped into my head, and I wanted to get my partners feedback on it. During our discussion we decided to scrap the original exhibit idea, and head in a new direction. The switch came partly because of a better understanding of the criteria for the project, and partly because the new idea sounded a bit more fun to create and implement. We decided that instead of creating a “choose your own history exhibit,” we were going to create an exhibit where the public could test their own interpretive skills. We are going to be meeting again this Saturday to figure out more details.

October 18th

Today was the first meeting for my partner and I to begin brainstorming on our Interactive Exhibit Project. During this brainstorming session, we essentially attempted to get a better grasp of the assignment, as well as attempting to have a definitive direction to move on our project. We began by discussing possible exhibit ideas that we could do, deciding that we are going to attempt to create a “choose your own history adventure” exhibit. We will set up stations within a specific area and have multiple different pictures of historical events, with narratives below describing what is occurring in the picture. There will then be two covered cards underneath the description, which the patron can use to decide where they are going to go next. If they choose the correct event that happens next in the sequence, they will be able to continue on towards the end. If they are incorrect, they will either be redirected to the beginning, or on a path that has an incorrect outcome. The details of that part haven’t been figured out yet.

            Having a general idea of the kind of project that we would like to do, we then began to brainstorm ideas for the historical theme we could use. Two choices that we thought would work well were to incorporate major U.S. historical events, with Presidential Information. This way the exhibit should be able to be interacted with by the majority f people. A third choice we came up with but rejected was Hmong history. We rejected this idea because even knowledgeable participants may have no knowledge of many of the events. We are going to begin to gather information that we could use to create our plaques over the next couple of weeks, by first studying a timeline of U.S. historical events, and deciding which ones we feel that the general public would have knowledge of.

            We are undecided as of yet about the target audience. It will either be college students found on campus, or a more controlled setting such as a third grade class at Lakeshore Elementary School. Initially we had thought of performing the exhibit with my wife’s first grade class, but after speaking with her about it, she felt that the first graders wouldn’t be very good at this kind of activity. Whichever of our possible target audiences that we choose, we felt that having some form of incentive for a successful completion of the exhibit might be a good idea to help get people motivated. Something along the lines of a candy or treat.

            After about an hour of brainstorming, we walked over to Davies Center to look at a possible location to hold our exhibit. We then parted ways, and are going to continue meeting on Saturday afternoons, perhaps more often if needed.