"The Tech," as The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose is lovingly called, today launched a virtual replica in Second Life - kind of. The building may look familiar, but the mission is to encourage the re-thinking of museums, exhibits and to explore the next iteration of "the museum."
The grant that made the virtual initiative possible mandates that it be a service to the museum community, according to Nina over at Museum 2.0. To that end, the project is actually both a web space and a Second Life space to prototype exhibits, collaborate, or propose exhibit ideas. As an incentive to get collaborators collaborating, there is a $5000 award being offered to an exhibit deemed "spectacular" enough to be carried out in the real world museum. The exhibit must be in the "Art, Film, Music and Technology" category and created during the incentive period which ends in June.
The initiative is a combination of a web community site, called the Museum Workshop and Second Life, tightly integrated. The web site allows members to post a proposed project and recruit others to join the project. It allows collaborators to have a project wiki, share project assets and publish a project task list. Second Life is used to build, co-create and prototype the exhibit projects. There is an idea area for those who aren't creator-types. The accompanying blog is an update and conversation space. Everything is made available under a Creative Commons license.
Nina says the space will have a full slate of programming such as classes, design reviews, Q&A sessions, and tours. There is a tutorial on interactive exhibit design (business communicators this is a great opportunity to learn about interactive design!). Tours are every day at 11:00 a.m. SLT, and scripting and building classes every Thursday at noon SLT.
The space is not populated with exhibits, as the hope is it will be filled with the collaborative projects in progress.
This is a project that certainly has an awful lot of the right ingredients, and one that is on the radar to watch the progress.
The project was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Involve, Inc. developed the virtual version of The Tech.
For lots more information, read Nina's post about the project.
The Museum Workshop is on the web here.
The blog is here.
Visit The Tech in Second Life here.
Read the official press release here.
December 11, 2007
That is a great way to advertise on another medium.
Posted by: Wanda | Feb 19, 2008 at 01:33 PM