The Bubble
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interactive installation
Brief
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Mediation workshop
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2018
This project was developed in collaboration with RFI Ouest Industries Créatives, Mobilis and Stereolux. The aim of the project was to create a digital mediation device. We worked in partnership with interaction designers [Ophélie Nollet, Enzo Zouaoui], community manager [Tony Esnault from License professionnelle TIC animation de réseaux et communautés] and cultural mediator [Magdeleine d'Auzac de Lamartinie from Medit de l’IUT de la Roche-sur-Yon].
Process
We started from the observation that the Nantes Museum of Fine Arts is an impressive place due to its scenography and its institutional nature. As a result, visitors do not dare to speak and share their impressions for fear of breaking the intimidating silence. Therefore, our issue was: "How do you get visitors to discuss an artwork in a museum that is usually silent?". We conceptualized an interactive museum installation called "The Bubble". It is a structure that creates a more intimate and reassuring atmosphere in order to encourage debate and exchange between museum visitors facing a work of art. Each week, the Bubble is moved to another work of art to make visitors want to repeat the experience.
Concept
The experiment takes place in 3 phases. First, visitors sit down and are invited to press the button in the center of the structure to begin. A voice introduces the artwork, ending with a question and invites visitors to debate among themselves. Second, at the end of the debate, the voice encourages visitors to ask 3 questions to a mediator of the museum. Mediators receive questions on their smartphone, via the Museum's app, and can answer them by recording their voice. Finally, the voice suggests visitors providing a comment about their experience. The comments are shared on social networks to further the discussion with the Museum's community. This process fosters a relationship with the community and ncourages others to come to the museum. We used 3ds Max to model the Bubble, Photoshop and Illustrator to design our mock-ups. We also programmed a prototype of the button with Arduino.
