Download A new communication model in the natural history museum

A new communication model in the natural history museum
CHEN Hui Chuan, HO Chuan Kun & HO Ming Chyuan
Abstract
It is a discourse to argue that how a new communication model, the instigating model, is
practiced in the natural history museum of the 21st century. The variety of communication
theories are suggested in practice in natural history museum since 1968. From ńthe museum
as a communication system and implications for museum educationŅtońmuseum exhibitions
as communication media to convey ideasŅ, the communication models have shifted obviously.
Hooper-Greenhill used the metaphor of the modernist museum, the educational model (curatorcentered); and the metaphor of post-museum, the interpretative model (visitor-centered), to
describe those differences. Three models are compared in this study. Since the first two models
concern only on the learning value in the museum, no matter what the perspective was used to
develop the exhibition. This study argues that the understanding of learning process and
meaning-making are the core values of the new communication model. This new instigating
model develops the exhibition in a natural history museum from a memetic view, the
perspectives of learning involve an infection process of meme. The meme's host could be
anyone relevant to exhibition. The instigator of signal could be anything: object, artifact or text,
graphic design, specimen etc. It is the responsibility of the museum designer to create the
variety of experience aspects to instigate the active selection of culture evolution and to remove
the gap between hosts of memes. A special exhibit on Bat Legend is used as a trial ballon to
highlight the applicability of our new communication model in the natural history museum.
Key Words: communication model, natural history, museum exhibition, meme
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A new communication model in the natural history museum
Introduction
From the aspect of museum sustenance,
Neil Kolter and Philip Kolter claimed some
viewpoints of marketing at the end of the 20th
century that all new museums have to face
up today: 1. museum mission and identity; 2.
building an audience; 3. attracting financial
resources. A growing number of museums
today are reinventing themselves to adapt to
changing anticipation by the revolution of
organization, exhibition design, programs,
and services. In the beginning of the 21st
century, museums in Taiwan are going to face
up to a more immediately challenge, the shift
of the government organization to public
cooperation. Visitors in museums shift the
role to customers than as students. How to
compete with other culture industries
becomes a problem today.
If a revolutionary idea of exhibition design
can be addressed, it might be the first step for
the museum to cope with the more full-scale
interaction relevant to the social and
economic revolution externally and internally.
Fromńthe museum as a communication
system and implications for museum
educationŅto ńmuseum exhibitions as
communication media to convey ideasŅ, the
communication models have been shifted
obviously. New communication model should
be invented to create a more practical
relationship among all relevant stakeholders
of exhibition. To solve the problems coming
from those challenges in the natural history
museum of 21st century, a new
communication model of exhibition design is
addressed in this discourse. A case study is
demonstrated for a new perspective of
exhibition design in museum practice.
1. New role of museum in the age of
experience economy
Moira G. Simpson pointed out that the past
30 years have seen significant changes in the
field of museology, perhaps none as
significant as the development of the
ecomuseum and community-based museum
and demonstrated the examples of the
ņnewŇ museum paradigm. A new role of
museum has emerged within a postindustrial, post-modern society, after a
collapse of a distinction between culture and
commerce. Deirdre Stam (1993) has
demonstrated the new museology in the point
of ņinformed museŇ and stated ņnew
museologists offer less tangible metaphors to
suggest purpose: the museum can be a
forum or a dialogue between curators and the
public; or even a public access system where
visitors can assemble their own
experiences.Ň The visitor's experience
becomes, paradoxically, the more tangible
entity, to wit, the product of the museum. This
view implies that the primary product of the
museum is then not the preservation and
display of the artifact but rather the
information to be derived by the public from
the museum.
To function as the answer for the question
of ņwhat is the utility of The New Museology
for museum practice,Ň Deirdre Stam
concluded that museums must develop these
techniques as follows:
œ new methods for attempting understanding
of society and audience;
œ new ways of testing visitors' needs and
responses;
œ new organizational structures and
management approaches to deal with new
and dynamic functional relationships;
œ new ways to evaluateńproductivityŅ;
œ new communication patterns;
œ new approaches to information
management and utilization.
In the beginning of the 21st century,
information is not the only primary economic
offering anymore. An alternative and distinct
economic offering, ņexperience,Ň provides
the key to future economic growth. The age
of experience economy is emerging.
When experiences are as a fourth
economic offering, after the other offerings of
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materials, goods, services, experiences are
as distinct from services as services are from
goods. Experiences are events that engage
individuals in a personal way. As an
experience may engage customers, Pine and
Gilmore considered two dimensions of the
most important, as depicted in two axes (Fig.
1); one is absorption vs. immersion, and the
other is passive vs. active participation.
The coupling of these dimensions defines
the four ņrealmsŇ of an experienceentertainment, education, escape, and
aestheticism. In The Experience Economy,
they pointed out that the wide range of
satisfying experiences is the minimal
requirement for visitors, a surprise
manipulated by the experience and
transformation would be the end
achievement.
The satisfying visitor experiences in nine
Smithsonian museums have been explored
by Pekarik, et al. and were classified into four
categories: object experiences, cognitive
experiences, introspective experiences, and
social experiences. It may be the
characteristic experience in traditional
museums.
Neil Kotler and Philip Kotler also identify
the museum product with multiple
experiences of museum-going, which include
recreation, sociability, learning, an aesthetic
experience, a celebrative experience, and an
enchanting experience. They eventually
outlined three dimensions of a designed
museum-going experience and represented
three strategies to serve the marketing role of
the museums (Fig. 2). First strategy is
ņimproving the museum-going experienceŇ;
second is ņcommunity serviceŇ; and third is
ņmarket repositioning toward entertainment.Ň
Those dimensions roughly are corresponding
to the distinction among ņaudience goals,Ň
ņproduct goals,Ňand
ņorganizational/competitive goals.Ň
The effort of the museum exhibition is
evaluated inevitably by all kinds of visitors'
Fig. 1 The experience realms depicted by Pine and
Gilmore
Fig. 2 A designed museum-going experience outlined by
Neil Kotler and Philip Kotler
responses. The experiences as the
revolutionary product in museums cause the
developing model of exhibition design to shift.
2. New perspectives of exhibition design
To be expected or viewed as a loyal
producer, designers have to play a straight
neutral bridge between the curator/transmitter
and the visitor/receiver in the old perspectives
of the exhibition. In the traditional model of
exhibition development, curators assembled
the objects or specimens, established the
conceptual framework, and wrote the text and
labels of exhibition. The designer then
packaged the curatorial material in 3D form,
usually embodying the curator's vision.
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A new communication model in the natural history museum
Afterwards, educators prepared interpretative
materials that could help visitors make sense
of the exhibition experience. However, usually
a curator's true affections were aimed at other
scholars, leaving a majority of visitors in the
dark. In the challenging times of the 1960s
and 1970s, the curator as the voice of
authority was one of the first to be
challenged. As Kathleen McLean stated that
the dynamics of dialogue in the new age of
exhibition design will be urged inevitably by
the societies of which they are a part. The
developing model of exhibition design
inevitably will be shifted by the new
perspectives of the museum paradigm.
Eilean Hooper-Greenhill usedņnew
research paradigm: marginalizing the
museumŇas the subtitle of a paragraph. And
stated,ņa new approach to museum
audience research is becoming established
which is pushed forward partly by those who
wish to democratize the museum, and partly
by the general cultural shift towards
postmodernism and postcolonialism.Ň Part
of this cultural shift is seen in the reworking of
concepts of education and learning. She
suggested that museum communicate on site
through a range of methods which includes
exhibitions of many different types, functions,
sizes and approaches to interpretation.
Different audiences need different provisions,
and thought should be given as to how
different types of exhibition or display can be
used to attract different sections of the public.
Popular blockbuster and the small-scale
exhibitions of a local adult education group
can serve this concept without any
contradiction. In the viewpoint of HooperGreenhill, the exhibition is a piece of the
holistic approach to museum communication
and is the educational media to serve the
ńrealŅpeople, the subgroup of audiences.
The paradigm of meaning making in
museums was concerned in the 1990s; in the
meanwhile, the paradigm of constructivism
was emerging to challenge the other
paradigms that guide disciplined inquiry.
Silverman stated,ņthe concept of meaning
making is generating excitement within the
museum community. Providing an approach
to understanding visitor experiences, the
paradigm illuminates the visitor's active role
in creating meaning of a museum experience
through the context he/she brings, influenced
by the factors of self-identity, companions,
and leisure motivations.ŇJay Rounds
addressed that meaning-making paradigm,
which differs from the cultural-transmission
paradigm in some critical ways, asserts a
radically-different view of the output of the
exhibit experience-from facts successfully
transferred to meaning constructed in the
mind of visitors.
George E. Hein further clarified thatņall of
discussions of constructivism include
meaning making; but meaning making does
not necessarily imply constructivism.ŇHein
also described the constructivist museum in
the considerations below, e.g. connections to
the familiar, learning modalities,
collaborations, social interaction, and
intellectual challenge, etc.
In the perspectives ofņexhibitions as
communicative media,Ňmuseum exhibitions
are products of research, organized and
designed to convey ideas. Flora Kaplan
pointed that an exhibition that communicates
must educate and excite the mind and the
senses; when communication is optimal it
creates anńaffectŅamong spectators and
audiences. Exhibitions generally utilize the
same basic elements to tell the stories: they
employ objects either made and used by
human beings or drawn from the natural
world; they require texts, most often in the
form of label, wall panels, headlines and
banners; and they incorporate other graphic
elements, such as photographs, maps, charts
and drawings. In addition, they use lighting,
museum ņfurnitureŇ-cases, platforms,
walls-and architectural elements that must
protect the objects shown, enhance viewing
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and enclose exhibition space. Qualities of
color and texture attach to all these elements.
Sound, seating and the media of film, video,
slide projection, computers and simulation
may also be added. Live elements often
range from planting to performance-dancers,
actors and scholars, as well as lectures and
docents. This communicative media actually
is represented as an assemblage that
consists of those ņso-calledŇ basic
elements.
Although the perspectives obviously shift
among those emerging paradigms, the
characteristic of exhibition design never has a
distinguishing definition. All concerns of the
communication model are exclusively
relevant to the curator/transmitter and the
visitor/ receiver, or the relationship between
them in the position of power. It seems that
the exhibition has no interpretation involving
the designer. It is a paradoxical viewpoint to
ignore designers and their influences in the
communication model, if we expect a creative
design would be a surprise to achieve and to
win the satisfaction of the visitors' experience.
I. Theories and methodologies
1. Communication theories and learning
approaches
ńThe educational role of the museumŅ is
not only a book title of Hooper-Greenhill but
also the proper duty of all museums. She
used three words: education, interpretation
and communication, to catch on to what this
means. Museums should be the informal or
lifelong learning place is the unalterable
viewpoint, especially in natural history and
science museums.
Traditionally, the taxonomy of educational
objectives by Benjamin Bloom used in the
objective model with the setting of
predetermined goals and the methods of
formative and summative evaluation.
However, the visitor is completely different
from the student. The simple communication
model was introduced to the museum world
in North America by Cameron in the late
1960s. Cameron's emphasis on objects as
the medium of museum communication was
challenged. Knez and Wright proposed that
putting across ideas (intellectual cognition)
was the primary function of museum
communication, at least in science museums,
and their suggestions led to the modifications
in the basic communications model.
The process of communication has
evolved from the development of a simple
model to something more complex. The initial
simple description of the process of
communication was based on the idea of one
person sending a message to another,
perhaps over the telephone. Distinctions were
made at the beginning of the process
between the source and the transmitter, and
at the end of the process between the
receiver and the destination. Following up the
communication model of Shannon and
Weaver, the knowledge should be effectively
received by visitors. All of the design
problems should focus on the decrease of
noise or the increase of channel (Fig. 3). The
model can be applied to a museum
educational exhibition (Fig. 4). In this instance
the ņnoiseŇ which interferes with the
message might include anything from crowds
to visitor fatigue or others.
The influence of the model of
communication on approaches to exhibition
production is discussed by Roger Miles who
points out how this linear understanding of
the communication process is mirrored in the
linear process of making exhibition (Fig. 5).
However, Miles proposes a very different
approach to exhibition which is much more
flexible and makes use of extensive research
at all stages of the process, including market
research before the process begins, tryingout of exhibits during production and
summative evaluation after the exhibition
opens.
Hooper-Greenhill identified two broad
approaches to conceptualizing
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A new communication model in the natural history museum
source
transmitter
channel
receiver
destination
Noise
Fig. 3 The Shannon and Weaver communication model
exhibition
team
exhibition
encoded
message
objects
texts
eventss
visitor's
heads
visitor's
understanding
fatigue, crowds, workmen, poor graphics (noises)
Fig. 4 The Shannon and Weaver model applied to exhibition
transmitter
medium
curator
designer
educator
produces and
installs exhibits
organizes materials
and activities for school
and general visitors
selects objects
writes captions
receiver
Fig. 5 The simple communications model adapted as a way of understanding the exhibition process. The move from
curator to designer to educator takes place in time.
communication: the transmission model and
the cultural model. The transmission model, a
geographical metaphor is used. It is clear that
a realist and positivist epistemology and a
behaviorist learning theory underpin this
model (Fig 3). The cultural approach to
understanding communication: based on the
constructivist paradigm, communication is
understood as a cultural process of
negotiating meaning, which produces
ņrealityŇ through symbolic systems such as
texts, object, artworks, maps, models and
museums. It is the ritual or cultural view. The
view proposes that ņrealityŇ has no finite
identity, but is brought into experience, is
produced, through communication. Reality is
defined within negotiated frameworks or
ņinterpretative communicationŇ (Fig. 6).
Stephen Bitgood made a lot of contribution
to the effective exhibit and judged the
success of an exhibit in two ways-visitor
measures and/or critical appraisal by experts.
Visitor measures include behavior,
knowledge, and affection. Stopping (attracting
power) and viewing time (holding power) are
used as two indices of behavioral
measurement usually. Bicknell also worked
Fig. 6 The model demonstrated by Eilean HooperGreenhill to explain a cultural approach to understanding
communication: based on the constrructivist paradigm.
an alternative approach of goal-free
evaluation for a communication model. The
evaluations are more open-ended and
explore possible consequences rather than
the predetermined expectations of goaloriented evaluation.
Hein summarized the education theories in
four theories of teaching are located in
different quadrants (Fig. 7): pedagogy for
didactic/expository education, stimulusresponse education, discovery learning and
constructivism.
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Fig. 7 Four domains of Hein's education theories
Kelman compared the objective model and
the responsive model to be used in
evaluation of exhibition. The skill of the
ethnographic research used in order to
produce a complete picture of the learning
process. Kelman used the Hein matrix to
gather a mass of detailed information as socalled naturalistic or responsive model. This
model eliminated the tunnel vision effect in
the objective model. Responsive evaluation is
advocated by Stake, focuses attention on
program activities rather than program intent.
2. Communication approaches in memetic
view
Communication approaches in memetic
view is an alternative view to be worthy of
attention. As in Dawkins's original
formulation, memes are passed on by
imitation. The Oxford English Dictionary
defines a meme as ņAn element of a culture
that may be considered to be passed on by
non-genetic means, especially imitation.Ň
Memes have been variously suggested to
exist as ņan idea in someone's head,Ňņa
repeatable piece of behavior like a spoken
word,Ň or ņembodied in the form of
artifacts, like wheels.Ň Memes are the
replicators and tend to increase in number
whenever they have the chance.
Replicators transmit information, as Robert
Aunger says,ņthe idea that social
communication involves the replication of
information forces us to reconceptualize what
communication is all about.ŇIn Aunger's
viewpoint, he described communication
through four approaches: mechanical,
inferential, evolutionary and coevolutionary.
Mechanical approach is devoted to
communication among agents without
intelligence, such as machines. It is based on
the mathematical model of communication,
as epitomized in the work of Chaude
Shannon and William Weaver during the
1940s, and is not directly relevant to
memetics. The mechanical approach thus
sees communication largely as a process of
finding the optimal coding system to
compensate forņnoiseŇproblem.
Inferential approach sees communication
as the mutual negotiation of meaning. Single
events of information exchange, exemplified
by dialogue between a sender-receiver pair,
are standard focus of both the Mechanical
and the inferential theories.
Evolutionary approach is devoted to
describing the evolution of signaling
behaviors. The theory holds that
communication is a specialized behavior
involving the broadcast of information. It is a
question of dialogue versus dissemination.
Single events of information exchange,
exemplified by dialogue between a senderreceiver pair, are the standard focus of both
the mechanical and the inferential theories.
Dissemination suggests that the sender
tosses signals out into environment, hoping to
find one or more receivers. It is a metaphor of
message-passing story used to explain both
biological and culture evolution.
If the receiver's response to this
information is also in the sender's interest,
the ability to emit that cue will also improve.
Communication can even become an arms
race between the sender (to deceive) and the
receiver (to decipher). The transformation,
distortions, and losses of information typical
of social transmission are to be explained not
just as side effects of ņjumping the gapŇ
between brains but as the normal
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A new communication model in the natural history museum
scarcity of bat specimens and objects of bat
motif in the museum collection. It is a
successful cooperation of different parties
that included the museum staff, the freelance
architect, the photographer of art objects, the
craftsmen of exhibits, the volunteers of the
specialist, the Bat Association of Taiwan, etc.
Each party made the contribution and the
interpretation for their work equally and freely.
A case study of developing model of
exhibition design in the perspectives of new
communication theory, in memetics view, was
explored. The entire design process of
museum exhibition includes theme
orientation, team planning, content
developing, 3D & graphic design, exhibits
design and evaluation etc. Using the system
of random sampling: each subject was
selected when the first visitor crossed the
entrance threshold at a predetermined time,
with a total of 100 subjects selected.
The methods of tracking and recording
visitor behaviors/conversation were
conducted. A more open-end questionnaire
after a request was recorded as a preliminary
study, and the interview of four docents for
this exhibition was recorded, too.
consequence ofņduelingŇcommunication
itself.
Coevolutionary approach emphasized that
a consequence of successful communication
can be the replication of the information
conveyed. Communication is explicitly linked
to large-scale of social phenomena such as
cultural change through a physical
consequence of communication by dyads: the
replication of information. It is involved not
merely as a sender and a receiver, but also
as a channel and a message.
The major claim of coevolutionary
approach is that communication
simultaneously involves the sender and
receiver in two different relationships: first, as
conspecifics with potentially divergent genetic
and social interests, but also as potential
hosts to a more or less robust, parasitic
replicator with its own revolutionary interests.
The coevolutionary theory thus suggests an
additional relationship between sender and
receiver than that of cooperators or
competitors: they also share an infection.
Signals are patterned streams of particles
flowing through a channel. In Aunger's view,
signals are not interactors; nor are they
phenotypes, instead they are what he will call
ņinstigator.Ň The arrival of a signal in a brain
brings an influx of energy and information,
sparking the crucial change in local area.
Artifact, whose primary function is to serve as
a signal template, can be called a
communicative artifact.
II. Case study: Bat Legend exhibition
1. Results and discussions of the
exhibition
The venue of Bat Legend consists of six
sections A-F (Fig.8). The various options of
the visiting route are allowed in the venue,
the entrance and the exit shared the same
door. Most visitors (51%) follow the route of
turning right. (Table 1) Only 84% of subjects
completed the entire route and accepted the
interview.
3. Methods of case study - Tracking study
& interview
The exhibition: Lucky Animals vs. Night
Monsters - the Bat Legend as a traveling
exhibition was planned and fabricated during
January 2004-February 2005; exhibited
during February-December 2005, in the
National Museum of Natural Science,
Taichung, Taiwan. This theme was schemed
out for the richness of biodiversity and
cultural diversity. The only problem is the
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Table 1 The visitor tracking result of bat exhibition
Venue route options
Percentage (Total subjects =100)
Route 1: Entrance-A-B-C-D-E-F-C-Exit
51%
Route 2: Entrance-B-A-C-D-E-F-C-Exit
25%
Route 3:Various or incomplete routes excluded route1&2
24%
Fig. 9 The experience aspects of the Bat Legend
exhibition relevant to the model of museum-going
experience outlined by Neil Kotler and Philip Kotler
Fig. 8 The layout of the Bat Legend exhibition, each
section (A-F marked by different colors) was installed to
present the aspects of experience
b. Western cultural of bat myth
a. Chinese culture of bat myth
Fig.10 Poetic aspect: the second-order semiological system of Roland Barthes in ņMyth today,Ň used for bat myth in
Chinese culture (a) and Western cultural (b)
Each section consists of panels and
specimen/objects/exhibits. Panels consist of
subtitle, text and image (or extra specimen/
model). Each item of exhibition is created and
involved in more than two aspects of
experience but not complied with the
hierarchy or structure of the textbook's
content (Table 2). The complicated and
multidisciplinary aspects of experience create
a wide-ranging idea of design to instigate the
various responses of the visitors (Fig. 9).
Those aspects of experiences are as
follows,
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A new communication model in the natural history museum
Table 2 Description List of Exhibit Items
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Fig. 11 The exhibits of aesthetic aspect
a. The fiber art marked as A2
b. The glass art marked as A4
Fig. 12 The exhibits of narrative aspect
a. Text panel marked as P1-2
b. The image and video panel marked as B4-B7
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A new communication model in the natural history museum
Fig. 13 The exhibits of authentic aspect
a. The bat specimen marked as C3 in the floor plan
b. The object of bat motif marked as F2
Fig. 14 The exhibits of social aspect
a. Hands-on exhibit of bat roost
marked as E4
Fig. 15 The exhibits of imitation aspect
b. Leisure furniture of
bat motif marked as F4
poetic aspect (p): poem, proverb, legend
and tale of literature, semiotic context (Fig. 10);
aesthetic aspect (ae): objects related to bat
motif, the work of fiber art, glass craft, visual
art and furniture design (Fig. 11);
narrative aspect (n): text, image and audiovisual media (Fig. 12);
authentic aspect (au): bat fossil, mounted
specimen, objects and symbols related to bat
motif, bat images of portrait and ecological
behavior, products (e.g. Tequila) of everyday
life related to the topic of the ecological key
role of bat (Fig. 13);
social aspect (s): sensory and kinetic
hands-on exhibit, leisure furniture (Fig.14);
imitation aspect (i): magnified 3D model of
small bat and full size 3D model of big bat,
a. The statue of bat (30x) marked as C2
b. A diorama of the bats in
the roost marked as E3
artificial fruit and bat roost, etc (Fig. 15).
The feedback from the visitor study and
the interview of docents indicated that this
exhibition is very attractive, especially in two
features: the surprising feeling about the
diversity of bat and that some bats are so
good-looking enough to overthrow the
stereotype of bat/vampire (38% in Table 3
and 70% in Table 4), and the variety of
experience aspects to satisfy the visitors (the
responses of section A, B, and C, in Table 3).
The increasing proportion of the aesthetic
aspect is much more than the other
exhibitions in natural history/science
museums appreciated and emphasized (70%
in Table 4). Some visitors further took the
picture of the exhibit of glass art (Fig. 11b)
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Table 3 The visitor interview result of bat exhibition
Note: The ansewrs from some subjects are multiple choices in different.
Table 4 The visitor interview result of bat exhibition
Summarized perspectives of most satifactory/ surprised/ precious items
Summarized perspectives of unsatisfactory items
and got a replica of exhibit from the same
craft workshop to keep a concrete memory. In
the authentic aspect, to see the real thing is
still very important and is the only purpose of
a museum visit for some people. (Bat
specimen marked as C3, 43% in Table 3 and
52% in Table 4)
2. The characteristics of instigating model
The Bat Legend Exhibition appropriated
the innovative communication theory from
memetics for a revolutionary developing
model of exhibition design, the instigating
model. It isbased upon a culture-centered
criterion in experience aspects. The
preliminary result indicated that design
approach of creating a variety of experience
aspects made a big contribution to the
participation of cultural diversity and biodiversity for visitors in the natural history
museum. It also offered the pluralistic and
creative vision for the designer.
As a new theory of how we think, memetics
is a very inventing concept linked to cultural
study. It is the culture analogue to the study
of how disease-causing pathogens are
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A new communication model in the natural history museum
(A) Educational model
Visitor survey
(Front-end evaluation)
Formative
evaluation
Brief of content/
Object/Storyline
Exhibit/Media/
Graphic design
Visitor
(Viewer)
Taxonomy of
educational objectives
Designer
Curator
Authentication
& Authority
Holding & Attracting power in exhibit items
(summative and goal-oriented evaluation)
Criteria
of effectiveness
Transmission model of communication
(B) Interpretative model
Visitor survey
(Front-end evaluation)
Formative
evaluation
Brief of content/
Object/Storyline
Exhibit/Media/
Graphic design
Designer
Curator
Meaning
negotiation
Criteria
of mutual beliefs
and values
Visitor
(Viewer)
Multiple channels
in culture construction
Evaluation Matrix in communication channels
(responsive and goal-free evaluation)
Culture model of communication
(C) Instigating model
Signal-instigators interaction
Brief of content/
Object/Storyline
Designer
Curator
Visitor
(Viewer)
Variety of
experience aspects
Meaning
negotiation
Criteria of
culture
selection
Exhibit/Media/
Graphic design
Evaluation Matrix in experience aspects
(qualitative, naturalistic or interactive methods)
Evolutionary & Coevolutionary approaches of
communication model
people
principle
meme infection loop
process
information transmission loop
product
idea
gathering
Assessment
Phase
evaluation
operational
stage
production
stage
terminating
stage
Functional
Phase
Developmental
Phase
planning
stage
idea
gathering
Conceptual
Phase
Exhibition project model (illustrated by Dean, David, 1994)
Fig. 16 The diagram comparison among three developing models of exhibition design
diffused through population. This surviving
process of meme is displayed in our everyday
life and we call it popular culture. Therefore if
the wide-ranging visitor's experiences can be
created as the instigators in popular culture,
all related stakeholders of the museum
include not only the visitors, but the curator,
and the designer, may be entangled together
in the evolutionary and coevolutionary culture
in society, by the force of meme infection.
The most interesting feedback from the
evaluation of visitors is to know that some
visitors visited the venue repeatedly and
made the replicas of exhibit. The visitor
duplicated the exhibit. It is an evidence of
meme infection.
The exhibition project model of David Dean
illustrated the design developing process as
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Table 5 The Comparison of critical elements among three developing models of exhibition design
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A new communication model in the natural history museum
sequential arrangement of conceptual phase,
development phase, function phase and
assessment phase. This model and four
elements of design,ņpeopleŇ, e.g. curator,
exhibition designer and visitor (i.e.
viewer/audience);ņproductŇ, e.g. theme of
content, exhibit, and experience, etc.;
ņprocessŇ, e.g. team-working, interaction or
transmission among different parties of
people, etc.;ņprincipleŇ, e.g.
communication theories, methods and criteria
of evaluation, etc., are the illustrative foci of
three developing models (Fig. 16, Table 5).
Two loops around the instigating model,
one for information transmission, the other for
meme infection, this distinguishing character
makes up a variety of aspects i.e. poetic,
aesthetic, narrative, authentic, social, and
imitation aspect, etc. The various aspects of
each exhibit will be created and selected as
the instigator of the meme. Those ideas
(meme) compete among themselves for the
right to occupy the mental niche that is
devoted to the description or explanation of
some phenomenon. It will be the more
interesting and more active experience of
museum going. Afterwards, the result will
construct the criteria of culture selection that
the process goes on in social groups.
In this instigating model, the position of
power, the definition of message, and the
boundary of academic disciplines all are
blurred. Every visitor can have the
experience-making of museum-going and
might be inspired by some new ideas. The
exhibition serves the culture coevolution more
than the pedagogy in society. The memetics
how to interact with visitors should be
explored by the ethnographic research
comprehensively.
III. Conclusion
Natural history/science museums
conventionally are considered as the informal
educational place before the crises emerging
in ņnewŇ museum age and the competition
coming from the other cultural and/or
commercial organizations. Considering the
influence of constructivism became the
popular perspective around 1989, the
concerns of learning process gradually
dominated. The interpretative perspectives
from the marginal and various subgroups of
the visitor (real people) were encouraged to
be accommodated in museums.
Hooper-Greenhill used the metaphor of the
modernist museum, the educational model
(curator-centered); and the metaphor of the
post-museum, the interpretative model
(visitor-centered), to describe those
differences. The democratic considerations
change the hierarchy concept in exhibition
content and the communication chain in team
work. The content meaning is negotiated
between the curator and the designer in the
interpretative model. The feedback loop of
information transmission between the curator
and the visitor is considered as the active
participation of cultural society. The meaningmaking in museum is shifting from the
curator-centered (educational model) point to
the visitor-centered (interpretative model)
point.
Three models are compared in this study.
This study argues that the understanding of
the learning process and meaning-making
are the core values of a new communication
model. The first two models concern only the
learning value in the museum, no matter what
the perspective was used to develop the
exhibition. The designer only technically
played a part to improve the communicative
channels or media which were assumed is
detached from the content or the knowledge
value. Both models ignored the participation
of the communicative channels and media
which would be the interpretative participants
in evolutionary culture. This viewpoint shrinks
the vision of designer and takes away the
chance of involving into the interesting culture
of technology.
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This new instigate model (culture-centered)
develops the exhibition in a natural history
museum from a memetic view; the
perspectives of learning involve an infection
process of meme. The meme's host could be
anyone relevant to the exhibition. The
instigator of signal could be anything: object,
artifact or text, graphic design, specimen etc.
It is the responsibility of the museum designer
to create the variety of experience aspects to
instigate the active selection of culture
evolution and to remove the gap between
hosts of memes. This viewpoint reinvents the
vision of the designer in exhibition design and
instigates the active involvement of exhibition
design in cultural progress. The problem
solving in the instigating model may be more
interesting and creative more than the noise
removing in the model of Shannon and
Weaver.
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About the author
Ms. Hui-Chuan Chen 1 has worked as an assistant curator for 15 years at Exhibition Department of National Museum
of Natural Science. She has completed more than twenty projects of museum exhibition and a few research projects of
museum exhibition planning & design. She has attended the international design conferences on the topics such as
exhibition design. Her internship for the study of museum exhibition evaluation was in Natural History Museum, London.
She has received the research grant from National Endowment for Culture and Art for the study of conservation in
museum exhibition in USA. She has received both of B.S. and M.S. in biology and now is a Ph.D. student at the
Graduate School of Design in National Yunlin University of Science and Technology.
Dr. Chuan-Kun Ho 2 Education: 1) 1985, PhD of Anthropology, Washington State University, USA. 2)1977, Master of
Anthropology, Washington State University, USA. 3)1971, Bachelor of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology,
National Taiwan University, Taiwan, ROC. Professional Experience: 1) 1998-presernt, Professor, Department of History,
National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan, ROC. 2)1998-presernt, Professor, Department of History, Tunghai University,
Taichung, Taiwan, ROC. 3)1998-present, Curator and Chair, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural
Science, Taichung, Taiwan, ROC. 4)1996-presernt, Professor, Graduate Institute of Anthropology, National Tsing Hua
University, Taiwan, ROC.
Dr. Ming-Chyuan Ho 3 has worked in his field for 26 years, for reputable companies like SAMPO Technology
Corporation, which manufactures electronic products for international markets. Additionally, he has spent twelve years
as the director of various departments and centers, including his current position as dean of the College of Design at
National Yunlin University of Science & Technology, and as the President of Chinese Institute of Design. While teaching
at the university, he has been working closely with the industry and completed more than forty design and research
projects. Dr. Ho is the author of numerous publications for various academic journals of design, and has attended more
than seventy design conferences on topics such as new product R & D, user interface design, creative craft design, as
well as design strategy and management. He received both of his M. F. A. and Ph.D. in design from the University of
Kansas.
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