Blueprint Book Club Part 3: The Future of the National Vending Machine

This post is the third and final in a series of reactions to Blueprint, a book chronicling the rise and fall of the Dutch Museum of National History (INNL) in 2008-2011. This guest post was written by Geert-Jan Davelaar and Anna Tiedink, educators at the Zuiderzee Open Air Museum in the Netherlands, the museum that "adopted" the INNL's National Vending Machine project after INNL's closure. The Vending Machine project was one of my favorites; you can learn more about it here. 

After INNL was forced to close its (mostly virtual) doors, the National Vending Machine, one of the projects the Museum of National History had set up, was transferred to the Zuiderzeemuseum. How is the exhibit living on at the museum and what is it like to take over someone else’s project? We’d like to share some thoughts and ideas in this guest post.

 The National Vending Machine is an actual functional machine, which, instead of traditional Dutch snacks, contains different everyday objects and souvenirs visitors can buy for a small sum. Information on a label and a short video clip informs the buyer about the history behind objects including a tulip, fishing boat, licorice and tea towel. Online, participants can share why they bought the object and suggest a new object for the machine.

A vending machine is actually a pretty good metaphor for the process of taking over the exhibit from INNL:

• It was convenient: without going through the process of initiation and development our museum was treated to a very attractive exhibit, all set up and ready to go. 
• It was well stocked: not only did we have about 60 objects and their stories; the whole project was well documented as well. 
• It was solid: in the 1.5 years the exhibit had been presented at four different locations across the Netherlands, it had proven itself to be a great tool in engaging the public with historical objects. 

But the National Vending Machine, as most of INNL’s projects, is a prototype. Consequently, soon after the transfer, our discussions focused on the objective of the machine in its new context: what purpose does it have? Where should we place it and how do we want our visitors to engage with it? 

Zuiderzeemuseum is an open-air museum that focuses on a specific region in the north of the Netherlands. Originally, we placed the vending machine in the car park ticketing area, where about 60% of our visitors wait for a ferry to come to the museum itself. After exhibiting the vending machine in our entrance building, we found it was used by a cross-section of our audience: families, day-trippers, pupils and students. We also noticed about 30% of the exhibit's visitors by-passed the registration procedure, choosing to buy an object without creating a user profile. This focus on buying the object was also reflected in the fact that none of the registered participants responded to the objects online. The vending machine itself was popular, but the secondary experience around it was not.

So now, we are trying to come up with a way to go beyond the convenience of the quick sale and seduce our audience to have a deeper engagement with the histories behind the objects. We want to have a conversation with our audience and facilitate storytelling. We want to increase the offline and online participation and go beyond what can be seen as a gimmick: buying an historical object in an unexpected way.

While we are interested in facilitating deeper experiences, we also plan to start tweaking the usability of the vending machines to make buying an object as easy as possible. Why should a visitor go through a laborious registration procedure to get a RFID card when it has no other use for him or her? The RFID card was intended to be the entrance ticket for INNL, so it made sense in that context during their planning. For us, the card is less useful. Also, just like any vending machine, objects get physically stuck in the system. Rethinking the design and the technology used is an important part of this ongoing process.

Being an open-air museum presenting the past, present and future of a specific region in the north of The Netherlands, our discussion of what regional objects we should include in the vending machine goes deeper. Are we the ones who should curate the items that tell people’s history? We don’t think so. Most importantly, we see the Vending Machine as a catalyst for co-creation, giving our audience greater influence and a greater voice to a shared history. The Vending Machine will travel to different communities in and outside our region. We would like to link with other organizations, institutions, individuals and neighborhoods and have them decide which objects represent their history and belong in the exhibit. This project will result in new objects for the Vending Machine as well as our coming new main exhibition. The vending machine could even be a message in a bottle: going from one place to the other spreading its stories as it moves.

So, we’re back to our original vending machine. In a way we are like our visitors, standing in front of the brightly lit National Vending Machine, coins in our hands, 80 different compartments to choose from, trying to make our decision as we would an actual vending machine. We're left wondering what aims can be relevant for this exhibit and our museum. Which compartment would you open?

Blueprint Book Club Part 2: Museums as Battlefields in the History Wars

This post is the second in a series of reactions to Blueprint, a book chronicling the rise and fall of the Dutch Museum of National History (INNL) in 2008-2011. This guest post was written by Regan Forrest, exhibition developer and visitor experience researcher at the University of Queensland in Australia. Regan was struck by the similarities between the controversy around the Dutch Museum of National History and the issues that surrounded the National Museum of Australia when it opened ten years ago. 

As someone who has worked on several “ground-up” museum projects, some that have made it to fruition, others not, I was particularly interested in the background context of INNL rather than the specifics of the planned museum. In my experience, there is often very little difference between the design and content of those that make it and those that don’t: it’s all about politics, economics, personalities and timing. A new national museum is a particularly ambitious undertaking, because what is being created is a highly visible and long-standing statement about national identity, national priorities and a projection of self-image to the world at large. Anyone with such a brief in this day and age has their work cut out for them. The days of the unidimensional grand narrative are behind us, replaced by ongoing debate and disagreement. It’s a far more complex picture to present.

The dismissal of the INNL’s plans as a ‘post-modern mish-mash’ (Blueprint, p219) immediately jumped out at me as something that might have been said in some quarters about the National Museum of Australia(NMA) when it opened in 2001. The NMA was a key battlefield in Australia’s “History Wars," a continuing national debate about how we recognise, teach and interpret the knottier aspects of Australia’s colonial past. The NMA was accused of presenting a “black armband” view of Australia’s history (i.e., dwelling on the predations of colonialism rather than celebrating national achievements).

Due to the political climate of the time, a review of the Museum was commissioned in 2003 to determine whether the museum had complied with the requirements of its charter. The 2003 review found that, while accusations of systematic political bias were on the whole unwarranted, there were considerable issues with respect to both the museum’s physical and conceptual orientation. Signage was inadequate and gallery titles were ambiguous and confusing. The outdoor courtyard was an ‘overwhelming’ expanse of concrete, with symbolism that was incomprehensible without considerable prior knowledge or the presence of a guide.

The review’s authors emphasised the importance of narrative (if not Grand Narrative) as a communication tool. In this sense, the NMA was deemed to have missed a trick. The linking themes and narratives of the museum were insufficiently explicit in many places, making the experience feel disjointed. In some cases, the lack of a strong collection to support the storylines emphasised narrative weaknesses. On the other hand, the review of the Museum’s programs was mostly favourable and the museum’s online presence was praised.

In response to the report, the NMA produced a Collections and Gallery Development Plan to address the issues highlighted. Changes to exhibitions and visitor orientation have been made, the museum’s programs continue to evolve, and there is a redevelopment to the building currently underway which will expand the public spaces and make it possible for the museum to display more of its iconic objects.

The history wars may not have ended, but they have moved on to other battlefields. Overall, the 2003 review recognised that the NMA was a work in progress. There was an acknowledgement that institutions need time and space to evolve. The expectation that everything should be bang-on right from the time of ribbon cutting is widespread but unrealistic.

So when considering plans on paper for a museum that didn’t even make it to the ribbon stage, some latitude is warranted. We don’t know how things would have evolved from opening day. How would the competing views of Dutch history have played out? To what extent would changing political tides have influenced the outcome? Would the interlocking storylines have made sense to the average visitor? Would it have captured the imagination of audiences? Would visitors have left feeling energised, or overwhelmed?

These questions may remain points of conjecture indefinitely. But if, as the authors hope, the museum eventually becomes reality, we may well have a chance to find out.

Blueprint Book Club Part 1: How Do You Create a Future-Thinking History Museum?

Note: If you have read the book and would like to write a guest post for this series, please contact me.

Imagine you've just been tasked with developing an innovative, future-thinking national museum for your country's history. Where would you start? How would you decide what to include, what tone to take, and how to present the material? How would you navigate the political minefields of such an endeavor?

Blueprint is the story of a group of people who tried to create a Dutch Museum of National History (INNL). In 2008, when this group was assembled, they had political backing, financial support, and an energetic approach to their work. By the end of 2011, the House of Representatives withdrew its political and financial support. The staff was fired, the digital projects divvied out to other institutions, the plans for the physical museum shelved. The Museum directors released Blueprint as a showcase for these plans. Still seething from the outcome, they didn't mince words; in the foreword, they state that "the rise and fall of the Museum of National History will be recorded as confirmation of a range of Dutch deficiencies." These guys won't be running for office anytime soon.

Blueprint is a maddening sketch of the museum that might have been, one that alternates between shaky and bold strokes. The majority of the book is a tour of the conceptualized physical institution, with smaller sections devoted to the political history of the project and the activities (mostly participatory, distributed, and digital) that the team undertook from 2009-2011 to start building their constituency. The root of my frustration with the book is not that the project never came to fruition. It's that the project, which was pitched as a whole new approach to museum-making, seems inconsistent. The media strategy is impressive. The early participatory projects are terrific. But the interpretative plan for the physical site seems incredibly ordinary.

The gallery and building descriptions make the museum sound like an early-2000s multi-media production in the model of the International Spy Museum, the Newseum, or any number of Gallagher & Associates or Ralph Applebaum creations. Immersive design. A mixture of chronology and thematic approaches. Hooks based on popular culture. Few objects surrounded by supporting media. Lots of screens. Limited interactivity. Starchictecture. There's nothing wrong with this kind of museum, but we've all seen several like it. It's hardly a model for an entirely new approach to museum design. There's barely a peep about the balance between exhibitions and programs, the role and use of public spaces, or the relationship between the institution and its communities. Beyond being media-rich and object-light, the plan has little to distinguish it from traditional museums.

In contrast, the activities undertaken to promote and launch the museum are truly inspiring. In three years, INNL created a series of fresh, exciting approaches to engaging communities with history. These include:

• New Greetings From... - a national competition in which 8,000 people submitted photographs to represent the iconic image of the Netherlands. 
• Freedomtrain - an exhibition about the history of liberation in 20th century Netherlands that was housed entirely inside a train that traveled the country throughout the spring of 2010.
• Xwashier - a Foursquare-style mobile app in which people could encounter historic sites throughout the country and retrieve multi-media content about the history while onsite.
• One Minutes - a film competition in which students and young filmmakers made one minute films on the theme of "where history begins."
• National Vending Machine - a travelling vending machine that invites people to connect with everyday objects that represent various aspects of the Dutch experience and history.

Each of these projects is people-centered, invites meaningful participation, and interprets the idea of a national history in a novel way. I was surprised, shocked even, that the plans for the physical museum included almost none of the ingenuity I saw in these planning projects. The description of the building is a straight-ahead depiction of gallery content, with almost no discussion of who the museum is for, how visitors will engage, and how they will interact with each other. There are hints of innovation--mentions of a digital backbone, an individualized content delivery system, a few games, a central forum--but those elements are footnotes to long descriptions of push media experiences in highly themed traditional exhibition spaces.

What are we to make of the difference between what INNL planned for the physical site and what it created in the digital and distributed world? To me, there are at least three plausible interpretations of the disconnect:

1. Their brilliance was inconsistent. The team was highly innovative when it came to new media and national awareness-building projects, but when it came to planning an actual museum, they fell prey to existing formulas supplied by architects, consultants, curators, and designers. They focused too much on the admittedly challenging question of how to reposition the content of Dutch history and not enough on the question of how to reposition engagement with it in a museum setting. A team that was superb at relevant, audience-centered work outside the institution couldn't find a way to bring their fresh thinking inside.
2. The book misrepresents the effort. The team was highly innovative, period. The plans for the museum are not representative of what they actually would have built based on their track record. For the purposes of the book, they focused on discussion of the objects, the scenes, and the building, but in reality, they would have built something much more distinctive and in keeping with their activities to date. This perspective may reflect overly wishful thinking; I realize it does not align with the museum plan as presented.
3. The planning activities were just marketing. This is my most cynical interpretation, and I assume it's not true. But there is a strange undercurrent of "brand building" that runs through the whole book, and you could interpret the participatory, experimental projects as marketing ploys to prop up an otherwise traditional museum. In some ways, I am impressed by the INNL's strategy to launch targeted "awareness campaigns" to "stimulate a fascination with and involvement in the history of the Netherlands." It's clear that INNL had a truly broad scope and multi-media approach to connecting people with history. But given the traditional nature of the museum's interpretative plan, I wonder if citizen participation is a strategy that they saw as fitting for digital/marketing projects, but not for the serious work of a museum.

Was INNL a project to build a future-thinking museum of national history? What's your interpretation?

Upcoming Museum 2.0 Book Club: Blueprint

Once there was a project to design a national history museum in the Netherlands. There was a location, a budget, and a flurry of planning. The team developed some highly innovative digital projects and approaches to history. Three years later, at the end of 2011, the project was canceled.

What happened? While not wholly explored, that question reverberates throughout a new book, Blueprint, that shares the plans for the Dutch Museum of National History. The book walks readers through galleries that never existed, and then steps back to tell the story of the project, the underpinning goals, the experimental projects along the way, and the pain in closing.

I chose this book for our next Museum 2.0 book club for three reasons:

1. The experimental projects of this museum-in-process included some of the most innovative participatory initiatives I've ever seen, especially in a discipline--history--that is often staid.
2. The book was released just four months after the project was officially canceled. My early skimming suggests that it is very much a "hot" history of a recent event and probably less prettied-up than most accounts of the politics of museum planning.
3. It's about Europe. Most of the books we've explored on this blog in the past focus on museums in North America. A lot is changing in European museums--especially when it comes to money. 

This book club will work like the others (see the "Book Discussion" keywords on the right to access past ones). Starting a month from now, on Wednesdays, the blog will features a mixture of my thoughts along with guest posts from you reflecting on how the book is useful in your own work. Because it might take a little while for you to get the book, we won't start until mid-May--likely May 16.

If you'd like to participate...

• Get your hands on a copy of the book in the next few weeks. You can buy it here, and yes, it is in English. To order, click the red arrow-shaped button that says "Bestel" on the upper left. Or see Jasper's kind comment below offering to help you buy one. Read it (or a large chunk of it). 
• If you are so motivated, fill out this two-question form to let me know you want to write a guest post or participate in a group discussion about the book. I'll be looking for guest posters who represent different types of institutions, countries, and approaches to the material. You don't need to be a museum professional to be eligible--just a good writer with an interesting perspective to share. 

For four weeks starting in mid-May, each Wednesday there will be a Museum 2.0 post with a response to the book. I'd like to write one or two of these at the most. The goal is to make the blog a community space for different viewpoints. Happy reading!