Breaking the Glass: How Technology Can Deepen Our Understanding of Art

In this blog, I will research the ways of extending the perception of art in museums that can help emerge into art, understand the context and meaning of the work, and connect with the artwork, its time, and its artist on a deeper level. My initial idea of expanding interaction with art was only 3D scanning and printing in a way of presenting a reproduction of the original relief, color, and small details next to the original work. So that the audience could quite literally touch the art they consume and perceive it not only with sight but touch as well, that could be a way to open more interpretations, and emotions gained from art. However, I believe it could be not only touch but other senses involved. What if you could start hearing, feeling the temperature, tasting, and touching the already existing piece of art, that was previously only seen from far?

My motivation initially stemmed from my interest in visual art. As someone interested in painting, I find many small details of art fascinating, particularly the texture and relief of the paint. Usually, in galleries and museums, it is not allowed to approach a painting closely, let alone touch it. However, I believe it would be a truly wonderful experience to touch the artwork and feel the thick, rigid brushstrokes, droplets, and highlights with my own hands. This gave me the idea of recreating the relief of the original painting so that visitors could touch the art and feel a stronger connection with the artist who lived centuries ago. However, later I realised a bigger problem and respectively a bigger idea. It is not only about the interest in touching a piece of art but deeply immersed in the history and the context of art.

Studies have determined that the average time a person spends gandering at a piece in a museum is between 15 seconds and 30 seconds. That’s plenty of time to figure out what the image is attempting to represent (or not, if you’re looking at abstraction). But that’s not nearly enough time to fully experience the work. Given this fact, we should also consider the average attention span of the adult at this day and age, which is just 8. 25 seconds. Hence, it is not a rarity to see a person not willing to read a description of the art and to just look at it for a few seconds. Sometimes we can even see people not stopping once in a museum, sometimes we see bored public yawning while listening to a guide, sometimes there are no guides or descriptions at all, only art behind a barrier and glass.

In fact, a large number of people are interested in art and want to visit different cultural sites. Of course, the percentage depends on cultural, educational, and personal factors, but the study’s 2017 edition, based on answers from 27,969 respondents, found visual and performing arts attendance overall up by 3.6% since 2012, with 132.3 million U.S. adults (53.8% of all U.S. adults) attending a visual or performing arts activity at least once in the previous year. However, a deeper understanding of art is available for visitors who have formal art education or deep familiarity with art history, the majority engage at a surface level. One of the main problems of an existing barrier to understanding is a lack of accessible or engaging information. Thinking about a younger audience we can more prominently point out the fact that they need more interactivity and technology in museums.

So what are the existing tools in museums that help get into the history and the context of the specific artwork? Let’s start with the most trial and common ones: information panels, audio guides, guided tours, talks, brochures, and booklets. Relatively new ways to explore art in museums – online databases, interactive maps online on museum apps and websites, social media posts, quizzes, and treasure hunts. Also thematic installations and interactive technologies such as AR, VR, and Interactive displays. I would like to focus on the last two categories and start a deeper research on them.

In the upcoming posts, I would like to first understand a little bit about how people behave in museums and how they perceive art in museums. Later I need to learn about the existing experiences of museums incorporating interactive technologies and analyse their success or errors. I would like to understand the technology of 3D scanning and printing, in which museums is this embodied and how and what lessons can be learned from their experience. Apart from 3d, there are plenty of other ways to interact with the public that must be studied in this blog. The question is why these tools are not widespread in the museums, how can they be enhanced to bridge the gap between seeing and understanding art?