Article
Get back to rock's roots at museum meccas
You can't visit a musical shrine without touching on the technology that has made museums interactive and fun, from Seattle's Experience Music Project to Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
February 27, 2002
For music lovers, there are few things more exciting than getting to step just slightly behind the scenes, and develop an understanding of how popular music is created.
Now a few of popular music's meccas have been transformed by technology to provide interactive experiences through kiosks.
Arguably the most elaborate music-related interactive installation is Seattle's Experience Music Project, a 140,000-square foot museum that opened in June 2000. EMP is an enormous interactive playground that its backers say "explores creativity and innovation as expressed through American popular music and exemplified by rock `n' roll."
Experience Music Project (EMP) is divided into nine sections, or "icons," which cover different areas of music history. The Compaq Digital Lab, for example, is a clearinghouse of audio and video that can be viewed at a number of workstations or from a home computer. Sound Lab allows users to interact with instruments, samplers, mixing boards, etc.
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Visitors enjoy Seattle's Experience Music Project. |
The main area is called Crossroads, a series of exhibits spanning American popular music from jazz to Jimi Hendrix.
Kara Costa, multimedia producer/video producer for EMP, said that one company produced three of the 11 kiosks in the museum. Second Story Interactive Studios, a private firm housed in a Portland, Ore. warehouse, developed those at a cost between $70,000 and $90,000 each, she said.
"The first one was about Jimi Hendrix, who was originally the focus of the museum," said Brad Johnson, creative director for Second Story. "We worked with [EMP's] staff of musicologists, producers and technologists to create a way for visitors to interact with a notebook Jimi used to write many of the songs in his last album. Users can turn the pages, drag a `filter' over the handwriting to translate it and hear demo recordings of the songs, as well as dive deeper into content narratives that address different sides of the legend, artist and personality of Hendrix."
Second Story's second contribution to the museum was a kiosk covering the lost sounds of Seattle's psychedelic era. The third was "an interactive timeline of the history of recorded sound," according to Johnson.
Speaking of Hendrix, a new exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Famein Cleveland features interactive kiosks containing previously unreleased tracks from the artist's upcoming boxed set release, "The Jimi Hendrix Experience."
The six-year-old rockers' Hall includes an assortment of interactive experiences. The main section features a bank of computerized kiosks with stories about all the inductees and almost every song each one recorded.
Costa said the EMP in Seattle is a great value for visitors. "The museum as a whole is different than any other museum you would visit, because of all the other things we have going on here," she said. "We hit a really high cutting-edge technology element, freedom of expression and how that is interpreted by different artists. We have other exhibits where you learn how to play the drums, or guitar."
The creation of the exhibits was exhilarating for those involved, Costa said.
"It was an extremely beautiful and collaborative process. We had producers in house, and the producers and I helped drive content."
A little bit country
While EMP is probably the most ambitious undertaking of its kind, other musical points-of-interest are using kiosks to enhance the experience for their visitors.
In May of this year, Nashvillians celebrated the opening of the Country Music Hall of Fame.The centerpiece of the 130,000-square foot museum is the "Archive Arcade." The Arcade consists of 10 touch-screens that allow users to browse through the museum's substantial collection of country music history. Users can listen to rare records, view photographs or watch comedy clips.
Custom CD kiosks allow visitors insert a ticket, then browse through an on-screen song list, selecting songs for a custom CD that can be picked up in the gift shop.
A cluster of six kiosks sits outside the "Songwriter's Theater," a live music hall. Each of the six units is devoted to a particular classic country artist, such as Dolly Parton or Tom T. Hall. Using the touch-screens, visitors can listen to songs and view interviews with the artist.
Walking in Memphis
At Elvis Presley's Graceland Mansionin Memphis, visitors use two kiosks to interact with the "King of Rock and Roll." One of these exhibits is an embellished photo booth allowing visitors to create and take home a souvenir picture.
"There's a background that looks like you're at the front gate of Graceland," said Bobby Davis, media and creative development coordinator for Graceland and Elvis Presley Enterprises.
The kiosk, maintained by an independent service operator, allows tourists to have their photo taken in front of this background; the photo can then be developed as a postcard, keychain or a simply photograph.
In the ticket pavilion at Graceland, visitors find a kiosk that guides them to Elvis-related attractions in and around Memphis. The kiosk, owned by the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau, features a touch-screen map of Memphis, and helps users find attractions, restaurants, and lodging.
