Thoughts on "Museums & Society 2034"

So, the Center for the Future of Museums released a report today entitled: Museums & Society 2034: Trends and Potential Futures. In lieu of a traditional blog post, I'm posting my notes and thoughts on the report. I apologize in advance if it gets kind of rambly--as per usual, this was written at 1am.

First, a little contextual info:

Reach Advisors pored over nearly a thousand articles, data sets, interviews and discussion forums to identify the trends that are most likely to change U.S. society and museums during the next 25 years. Our quarry was the emerging structural changes that are highly likely to reshape society and highly likely to affect museums.

The first point had to do with the aging Baby Boomers. The report posits that the aging Boomer population means museums should consider ways to address their needs and, in essence, cater to them more. They plan on responding by having:

“Exhibit labels have bigger print and museums are easier to navigate with a walker or wheelchair.”

And getting them to become volunteers:

And just as 2008 witnessed a presidential campaign that reinvented civic involvement for a new generation of young adults, museums will take the lead in reshaping civic involvement for a new generation of aging
citizens.

Why are museums focusing on looking backward rather than forward? Why do they think that innovation and innovative platforms are reserved for those trying to reach the youth market? Sure, this may be largely plausible, but the Baby Boomer generation is one that's pretty comfortable and familiar with technology and the internet--after all, they witnessed some of the biggest leaps and bounds in the world of computer technology and the [social?] web. It seems narrow-minded and short-sighted to assume that the only way to meet their looming geriatric needs is by increasing the font size on wall displays and installing wheelchair ramps. Perhaps an aging population's decreased mobility will increase the time they spend online, and therefore museums might benefit from having more virtual exhibitions.

Next point ventured into the ethnographic. Citing a population composition that is apparently headed for a “minority majority” and acknowledging a clear lack of minority museum goers at present (while minorities make up 34% of the population, only 9% are active museum visitors), the report asks:

If 5 to 9 is the critical age for converting children into lifelong museumgoers and advocates, how can museums attract minority children in this age range whose support they want in 2034?

One seemingly obvious way to do so is to target schools and develop engaging education programs. Technology in the form of educational computer games and kid-friendly exhibits (the Whitney’s recent Alexander Calder exhibition comes to mind) could be one way to do so. Exhibitions with strong cultural ties that address issues within specific minority communities could also help bridge that divide. The Brooklyn Museum’s current The Black List exhibition is one good example of this. Watching the YouTube video testimonials from this exhibition, it’s clear that minority visitors were pleased to see works that they could identify with on a more personal level--things that spoke to them and their experiences. Turning a curatorial eye towards that might not be a bad idea, too.

The report then gets into the rising cost of gas and energy consumption/prices. I’m not going to quote the stats here, I feel like we’ve heard them countless times before. Let’s just sum it up this way: outlook = grim. How do the researchers over at Reach Advisors think this is going to affect museums? Well, people will probably be traveling to them less--which could foreseeably become a problem for small, out of the way destination museums too obscure to make most people’s “life lists.”

Now, I’m not sure if I’ve been brainwashed by all the social media advocates I’ve been interacting with lately, but this seems like an instance where a strong online and social media presence could really help change the relationship people have the museum and it’s collection. Speaking from my own personal experience, developing a relationship with a museum, or rather, a person assuming the voice for the museum and its content via a microblogging site like Twitter has developed a sense of loyalty and curiosity in me.

Prior to starting this project, I had never heard of Pittsburgh’s Mattress Factory museum. Now, after a month or so of tweets and interaction with Jeffrey, who runs the museum’s Twitter account, the museum has made my “life list.” To be fair, I think I initially responded so positively to @MattressFactory because Jeffrey reached out to me regarding some common interests that we have (I think he saw a tweet of mine about the Brooklyn band, The Hold Steady, and sent me a picture he took of them at a show the month before), but my interest and relationship with @MattressFactory has evolved over time as I’ve been keeping track of the projects they have going on, the blog posts and YouTube videos and other links that Jeffrey posts. And, in all honesty, that initial random personal interaction probably shouldn’t be discounted as arbitrary or irrelevant either. I mean, it did work, didn’t it?

I guess my rationale is that, if you’re doing cool things and the content is quality (felt tempted to write “Content is King” right now, but thankfully regained my better sense of judgement in time), the real challenge is just getting that content in front of the interested parties, or at least, people who could potentially be interested. Despite what I or anyone may say about digitizing collections, art is still, fundamentally it seems, something that people want to experience in real life. They want to be around it. They want to see the way it interacts with its space. They want to be able to get up close and see things like texture and shadow and the interplay of color and light. When it comes to art, I think that if you can make a connection with someone in the digital space, it will only inspire a desire in them to take that connection into the physical space. But maybe that’s just me?

So instead of setting up “outposts” in suburban areas, I would argue that it would be wiser (and more economical, both financially and in terms of energy resources) to set up virtual outposts where museums can interact with and convert fans online.

As if finally deciding to get to the point, the following pages start to deal with the digital/tech side of things.

we have witnessed a dramatic structural shift in the expectations of the public (particularly among young adults), which now expects anything that can be digitized to be digital—and usually free.

Uh. Yeah. Duh.

According to research by the Institute for Museum and Library Services, 43% of museum visits in 2006 were remote, predominately via museum websites.

And this, to me, seems like it should have been the thought that framed this report:

This generation grew up with a broad palette of digital tools and creative resources; as a result, they are
demonstrating an extraordinarily high level of creative output and creative consumption.

The following closing point also brings up some interesting food for thought, though I'm not sure if it needs to be quite as alarmist as it comes across here:

we’re also seeing increasing backlash to the proliferation of technology in our research for museums and among the general public. Instead, our consumer research is finding indications of a longing for a retreat, particularly among women over 50 years old, a sentiment that we expect to expand as technology advances. The challenge will be the balancing act of positioning museums as exciting and engaging places to go, while providing a special spot to disengage from the day-to-day.

As someone very actively engaged in the "virtual" world on a daily basis, I can definitely attest to the occasional need to "unplug" and disconnect. I guess if I were to be honest with myself, I would have to admit that I do probably tend to view museums as a respite from the hectic digital world I find myself so often a part of. My only concern in conceding this point is that this kind of thinking seems to somehow vilify technology and could contribute to further skepticism and reticence on the part of many cultural institutions to embrace and adopt innovative technologies in their exhibitions and online presence.

Comments

[Beth Dunn]

Nice analysis, Julia, and I enjoyed talking about this report with you when we met tonight in NYC (which was great, and thank you!). I agree that the closing thoughts should have framed the whole report, and that the thought of creating suburban outposts is misguided. It seems to me to be a replay of the urge that had many museums creating retail outposts in area malls for their museum stores as a way of extending their brand. Incredibly expensive to maintain, such outposts drain resources from the central mission of the institution, and rarely play to the organization's strengths.

I think the main hurdle here is a mental one, and an imaginary one, pure and simple. People who are engaged online in a seamless and pervasive way (and this includes members of all generations) increasingly see and feel no barrier between the "virtual" and the "real." Interactions online are emotionally and cognitively exactly as "real" as those experienced face-to-face. So if a museum wants to extend the "real" interactions it has with its audiences, it can choose no better medium, no better "location" than an online one. And online interactions offer far better opportunities for contact retention (i.e., getting contact & demographic info from audience members) and for conversion to an action step (i.e., "become a member" or "buy your ticket today" etc.).