High Tech meets Human Touch

Opening keynote at the 2017 Museums & Galleries of Australia Conference, Brisbane:

”New landscapes are emerging that blend technology, architecture, and the people that inhabit them in increasingly complex ways. How can such museum experiences be designed to foster meaningful human connections and interactions?

This question is central to the work produced by Local Projects, an experience design firm, based in New York, USA. The studio has won multiple awards for groundbreaking projects that integrate architecture and digital media, including the 9/11 Memorial Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and Gallery One at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Their work has enabled visitors to browse an art museum’s collection with facial expressions, monitored brain activity as visitors explore a science museum, and turned visitors into designers with an interactive pen.

To create captivating innovative environments that remain sensitive to the human scale, Local Projects leverages emotional storytelling, visitor participation, and shared social interactions. Their interdisciplinary team of architects, designers and technologists design experiences that encourage visitors to fully engage with body, heart, and mind.

John Ryan, Creative Director and Director of Interaction Design at Local Projects, will share the studio’s groundbreaking projects and investigate the design principles that have informed them, examining how such experiences can be both innovative and meaningful.”

Transcript

1. High Tech meets Human Touch
   John Ryan, Local Projects
   @johndryan, @localprojects
   

   View Slide

2. View Slide

3. View Slide

4. Museums + Technology
   

   View Slide

5. Google/British Museum
   

   View Slide

6. VR Scout
   

   View Slide

7. View Slide

8. View Slide

9. Double Robotics Marketing Video
   

   View Slide

10. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Developer Conference
    

    View Slide

11. View Slide

12. View Slide

13. View Slide

14. View Slide

15. Technology in service
    of human stories and emotion.
    

    View Slide

16. “What does it mean to be human in the
    age of intelligent machines?”
    — Dov Seidman, LRN in NYTimes
    nytimes.com/2017/01/04/opinion/from-hands-to-heads-to-hearts.html
    

    View Slide

17. How do we make
    experiences more human?
    

    View Slide

18. TOOLS
    CHAPTER I
    

    View Slide

19. Acheulean Hand Axe
    

    View Slide

20. The most significant step that
    ever was taken in human history,
    the thing that turns animal into
    man was making tools…
    — Louis Leakey, Paleontologist
    

    View Slide

21. View Slide

22. Cooper Hewitt
    National Design Museum
    EMPOWERING WITH TOOLS
    

    View Slide

23. View Slide

24. View Slide

25. View Slide

26. View Slide

27. View Slide

28. View Slide

29. Walker Evans
    

    View Slide

30. Brett Victor
    

    View Slide

31. A tool addresses human needs
    by amplifying human capabilities.
    — Brett Victor, Designer
    

    View Slide

32. Brett Victor
    

    View Slide

33. The goal was to make the
    technology invisible.
    — John Lasseter, Pixar
    

    View Slide

34. Pixar’s Toy Story
    

    View Slide

35. STORIES
    CHAPTER II
    

    View Slide

36. Lascaux
    

    View Slide

37. The Universe is made of stories,
    not of atoms.
    — Muriel Rukeyser, Poet
    

    View Slide

38. 9/11 Memorial Museum
    FACILITATING STORY-TELLING
    

    View Slide

39. View Slide

40. View Slide

41. View Slide

42. View Slide

43. View Slide

44. View Slide

45. Give visitors tools to 

    craft their own narratives.
    

    View Slide

46. Facilitate a conversation
    between institution & visitor
    

    View Slide

47. One World Observatory
    FACILITATING STORY-TELLING
    

    View Slide

48. View Slide

49. View Slide

50. View Slide

51. OBJECT & PLACE
    CHAPTER III
    

    View Slide

52. The environment is part
    of our cognitive system
    

    View Slide

53. Acheulean Hand Axe
    

    View Slide

54. Museum of the
    City of New York
    MAKING IT TANGIBLE
    

    View Slide

55. View Slide

56. View Slide

57. View Slide

58. Our tools are trapped
    inside tiny rectangles.
    — Brett Victor
    

    View Slide

59. Cooper Hewitt
    Immersion Room
    MAKING IT TANGIBLE
    

    View Slide

60. View Slide

61. View Slide

62. MIRRORS
    CHAPTER IV
    

    View Slide

63. Photograph by Nickolas Muray
    McCall’s magazine, 1938
    

    View Slide

64. Yaroslav Segeda
    

    View Slide

65. Van Gogh self-portrait, 1889
    

    View Slide

66. Cleveland Museum of Art
    MIRRORING THE VISITOR
    

    View Slide

67. View Slide

68. SLIDE TITLE
    Slide Subtitle
    68
    

    View Slide

69. View Slide

70. View Slide

71. View Slide

72. View Slide

73. COLLABORATION
    CHAPTER V
    

    View Slide

74. cbsnews.com/news/millennials-admit-smartphones-are-sapping-their-happiness
    

    View Slide

75. popupcity.net/smartphone-zombies-please-stay-out-of-the-fast-lane/
    

    View Slide

76. “The best interfaces don’t
    connect us to technology; they
    connect us to other people.”
    — Amber Case, Calm Technology
    

    View Slide

77. ARoS Aarhus Art Museum
    FOSTERING COLLABORATION
    

    View Slide

78. Olafur Eliasson, Your Rainbow Panorama
    

    View Slide

79. View Slide

80. View Slide

81. View Slide

82. PLAY
    CHAPTER VI
    

    View Slide

83. Source Unknown
    

    View Slide

84. Thinking happens
    in your hands
    

    View Slide

85. I hear and I forget.
    I see and I remember.
    I do and I understand.
    — Confucius
    

    View Slide

86. Cirque Calder
    

    View Slide

87. View Slide

88. “That is the way to learn the
    most, that when you are
    doing something with such
    enjoyment that you don’t
    notice that the time passes.”
    — Einstein
    

    View Slide

89. New York
    Hall of Science
    INVITING PLAY & DISCOVERY
    

    View Slide

90. View Slide

91. View Slide

92. Make it as real as possible,
    as fast as possible.
    — Amit Pitaru, FiftyThree
    

    View Slide

93. View Slide

94. View Slide

95. View Slide

96. View Slide

97. View Slide

98. A man of genius makes no mistakes.
    His errors are volitional and are the
    portals to discovery.
    — James Joyce
    

    View Slide

99. View Slide

100. View Slide

101. View Slide

102. Apple Keynote
     

     View Slide

103. View Slide

104. I. TOOLS
     II. STORIES
     III. OBJECT & PLACE
     IV. MIRRORS
     V. COLLABORATION
     VI. PLAY
     

     View Slide

105. Movie Her
     

     View Slide

106. Spotify
     

     View Slide

107. “Man vs. machine is no longer a useful
     distinction in terms of how we build stuff.
     This is an algorithmic recommendation
     but it’s humans all the way down. People
     are inspiring what’s happening.”
     — Matt Ogle, Spotify
     

     View Slide

108. “What does it mean to be human in the
     age of intelligent machines?”
     — Dov Seidman, LRN in NYTimes
     nytimes.com/2017/01/04/opinion/from-hands-to-heads-to-hearts.html
     

     View Slide

109. “If machines can compete with people in
     thinking, what makes us humans unique?
     The answer is the one thing machines will
     never have: ‘a heart.’”
     — Thomas L. Friedman, NYTimes
     

     View Slide

110. View Slide

111. View Slide

112. View Slide

113. John Ryan
     @johndryan • john@localprojects.com
     www.localprojects.com
     Thank You
     

     View Slide