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High Museum Uses Rich Media Technology to Enhance Museum Experience

Atlanta’s High Museum of Art is tapping into a museum trend to enhance visitors’ experience through rich media technology and digital integration. The museum’s current exhibit, “Fast Forward: Modern Moments 1913 >> 2013,” is the fifth collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. The exhibit celebrates 100 years of modern and contemporary art showcasing pivotal moments in time throughout the 20th century using a multi-media timeline that takes visitors on an authentic, artistic stroll through time.

“We felt that depicting these pivotal moments in time may be very hard for our visitors to latch on to,” said Julia Forbes, Shannon Landing Amos Head of Interpretation for the High Museum of Art. “We wanted to create an exhibit that would set their mind into these moments with a visual template that would place them in the heart of those historic events and times.”

Displayed across six, 46” monitors placed end-to-end, the eight-minute video transforms static imagery into a dynamic, ultra-widescreen experience. The linear video timeline, created specifically for the Atlanta High Museum of Art, is the first of its type utilized by the museum to heighten the visitor experience. The video integrates still imagery, graphics and audio bringing to life the brilliant artistic innovators whose vision and initiative shaped the world of art and the events, artistic movements and practices of the period.

According to Julia Forbes, “The collaborative effort between MoMA, Atlanta’s High Museum of Art and the team at Blue Marble Media was an exciting process that brought together a host of opinions, thoughts and ideas. It was great to see our vision come to reality. When you sit in the room you’re enveloped – the presentation is a powerful visual experience.”

The High Museum’s goal for the video timeline is to help visitors realize a deeper understanding and appreciation of the work of artists from different eras and how it was influenced by major historical events. Their initiative is on target with a growing trend as museums seek to integrate technology as an adjunct to otherwise motionless exhibits.

According to the 2010 Horizon Report: Museum Edition – a report that provides timely and practical knowledge of emerging technologies that museums can use to advance their missions – rich media such as images, video, audio, augmented reality and animations, are becoming increasingly valuable assets in digital interpretation. High-quality media is no longer seen as an afterthought in interpretation, but increasingly necessary as components of an interpretive plan.

In decades past, museums were not inherently participatory. That notion is quickly changing as more museums incorporate state-of-the-art technologies that reach out to new audiences to maximize learning and interpretation. According to Cara Barineau, President of Blue Marble Media, the use of video and other technology is transforming museum visits into a multi-sensory experience. “We’re embarking on a new and exciting transition as museums harness available technology to heighten the visitor experience. It’s the combination of visual and interactive learning, and not just the cursory glance, that makes the difference,” she said.

More about Atlanta’s High Museum “Fast Forward: Modern Moments 1913 > > 2013” Exhibit:
The Museum of Modern Art’s ongoing collaboration with the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Fast Forward: Modern Moments 1913 >> 2013, details six significant moments in art history since the beginning of the 20th century. Within each section, the exhibition’s curators chronicle artists’ reactions and advancements in technology in 1913, the widespread shift in artistic and cultural perspectives in 1929, the reconfiguration of artists’ canvases in 1950, the relationship between art and commonplace objects in 1961, artists’ exploration of identity and the body in 1988, and the future of art with contemporary works up to 2013. Co-organized by the High Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA), as part of the two museums’ ongoing collaboration, the exhibition will be on view from October 13, 2012, through January 20, 2013.

Hours: Saturday through Jan. 20. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; until 8 p.m. Thursdays; noon-5 p.m. Sundays. $18; $15, students and seniors; $11, ages 6-17; free, 5 and younger. High Museum of Art, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-733-4200, www.high.org.

More about Blue Marble Media:
Founded in 1995, Blue Marble Media specializes in the strategy, design and turn-key production of high-profile film, video and motion graphics content for a wide variety of traditional and non-traditional marketing, corporate and advertising uses. Its clients range from Fortune 500 companies and industry leaders to non-profit organizations and government agencies.