Open Museum

Programme:

14:00 Doors open

14:15 Welcome by Juha van 't Zelfde (NL) - Project manager, n8
14:20 "Open Museum." Introduction by Michiel van Iersel (NL) - Cultural advisor LAgroup, editor MuseumLab
14:45 "Sorry, we're open: the collaborative museum." Keynote by Seb Chan (AUS) – Head of Digital Services and Research, Powerhouse Museum
15:30 Public interaction

15:45 Coffee break

16:00 "Mapping and mining to tell museum stories." Fiona Romeo (UK) - Head of Digital Media at the National Maritime Museum and Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London
16:20 "Fans, Media and Museums." Paul Keller (NL) – Senior Project-Leader, Kennisland
16:40 "The collaborative strategy of the Amsterdam Museum Night." Jelmer Boomsma (NL) – Interactive Media Designer, Grrr Media Lab
17:00 Public interaction

17:15 Tea break

17:30 Yme Bosma (NL) – Manager Business Development & Partnerships, Hyves
17:50 "Connecting: people, stories, places." Dick van Dijk (NL) – Concept Developer, Waag Society
18:10 "The Good Things of Corporate Sponsorship. The Corporate Sponsorship of Good Things." Nalden (NL) - Jr. media mogul, nalden.net
18:30 Public interaction

18:45 Oxygen break

19:00 Erwin Blom (NL) – Internet Pioneer, former Head of New Media VPRO
19:30 Closing discussion

19:50 Alcohol drip

(note: we will try our best to honour this schedule, however knowing the dynamics of such events, sessions might take longer or shorter. Thanks for your patience and understanding in advance)

Outline

Opening up is essential for museums in the 21st century. With a world that is becoming more connected and transparent, expectations of how our cultural institutions should behave are changing. There is not only a demand for a more open-minded museum, there are also vast opportunities for museums to find audiences beyond their walls and websites. Understanding new media is necessary for museums to respond to this development. Understanding how museums engage with social media is equally interesting for creative minds from any professional realm. Museums are not just public containers of content, large databases of our cultural heritage, they are also physical hubs in social networks and search engines for society's curious. Long before the Internet, museums already challenged issues ranging from copyright and open access to tagging and community building.

Recent web developments have given museum upgraded tools to explore their roles in society, leaving their buildings to inhabit media space for immediate use by (new) audiences accustomed to the digital infrastructure of the 21st century. This new web, characterised by interaction and participation, can introduce new forms of acquisition, conservation, research, communication and exhibition. It can present museums outside their walls and inside networks with common interests. What if the Amsterdam City Archives would geo-tag all their images and would share them via Flickr on the iPhone? Instead of visiting the museum, the museum would visit you, using GPS-navigation (like a car using Tom Tom). You could see all the images from the archives at the place they were taken. Instead of watching you, Big Brother is giving you the tools to watch yourself.

With this in mind n8 has decided to organise Open Museum, a one-day symposium within the PICNIC Festival focussing on the opening up of museums and the enveloping dialogue with its visitors and audience. How can museums employ new media to enhance their visitor's experience and their collections' accessibility? And how can new media employ museums to take distance from current affairs and immediate needs? A selection of international speakers will represent the forefront of current developments in this field, both from within museums and from technology and media.

“The museum of the 21st century exists as a flexible structure and establishes the form in which it appears directly in media space.” - Hans Ulrich Obrist

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n8 has been responsible for the Amsterdam Museum Night since 2000, having been founded by the collective of Amsterdam museums to think about new means to engage with new and young audiences. In recent years it has worked together with companies as KPN, Hyves and Parool, developing strategies on and offline involving all kinds of media. More information on the n8 can be found at www.n8.nl

Contact Juha van't Zelfde
+31(0)20 527 07 85
+31(0)6 41 222 409
n8.nl