Description
Book SynopsisRecent research in the cognitive sciences gives us a new perspective on the cognitive and sensory landscape. In The Multisensory Museum: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Touch, Sound, Smell, Memory, and Space, museum expert Nina Levent and Alvaro Pascual-Leone, professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School bring together scholars and museum practitioners from around the world to highlight new trends and untapped opportunities for using such modalities as scent, sound, and touch in museums to offer more immersive experiences and diverse sensory engagement for visually- and otherwise-impaired patrons. Visitor studies describe how different personal and group identities color our cultural consumption and might serve as a compass on museum journeys. Psychologists and educators look at the creation of memories through different types of sensory engagement with objects, and how these memories in turn affect our next cultural experience. An anthropological perspective on the history of o
Trade ReviewFrom 'Please DO touch the Exhibits' to 'The Museum as Smellscape,' a new book hitting museum studies shelves this spring explores how the five sense can be engaged in cultural experiences. The Multisensory Museum unites museum professionals with psychologists, neuroscientists, architects and other specialists to examine how physical interactions influence visitors' understanding of objects and exhibitions. Special emphasis is placed on discussing how museums can reach audiences that are sensorially impaired. * Museum *
This densely researched book not only invites us to see the potential of multisensory experiences in museums, but also anchors that invitation in evidence from neuroscience that they matter. The editors are pioneers in linking these two uncommonly paired disciplines, and they make a case that is impossible to dismiss. . . .Invest time in The Multisensory Museum, and I would wager that generous insights infiltrate how you create meaningful, emotional, and satisfying experiences for everyone. * Exhibition *
Curated by Nina Levent and Alvaro Pascual-Leone, is a collection of essays that “seeks to open a dialogue between modern museum science and human neuroscience.” It mobilizes experts in various disciplines – historians, architects, anthropologists, artists, curators and cognitive and sensory studies’ researchers – to investigate current strategies in galvanizing audience engagement with museums. The result is an interesting hybrid: a narrative discourse with an axiological thrust the employs sensory and marketing studies’ applicability in the museum context. The case studies are intelligibly presented, each thematic chapter being introduced by remarks on the workings of the brain and on how it decodes information. * Muse *
The Multisensory Museum: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Touch, Sound, Smell, Memory, and Space is a book with a mission: to be a bridge between two worlds, that of cognitive research and museum studies…. The book seeks to open a dialogue between modern museum science and human neuroscience. It aims to highlight today’s best multisensory practices and reflect on how new research and technology will influence museums in the future…. Reading the different visions and experiences in this book broadens your mind. It makes you realize that there is a world beyond the eyes. It also makes clear that, like the neuroscientists do, we (museum researchers) also have to deepen our knowledge about what is happening inside the brains of our visitors when they encounter our exhibits, our buildings, and our programs. Cooperating with cognitive scientists and conducting more experiments within the museum setting will give us more insight. It is also something we need to do: If we say we are about learning or reinforcing cognition in the broader sense we have to connect our experiences to the existing knowledge about how the brain works. * Visitor Studies *
I heartily recommend The Multisensory Museum to museum colleagues everywhere. This book is for anyone interested in learning, the process of meaning-making, and the potential of museums. Contributors range from psychologists and neuroscientists to veteran museum educators. Each offers information and ideas of immense practical value. The Multisensory Museum offers a highly informative and inspiring combination of research data, educational theory, and case studies. This collection will expand most readers’ understanding of the integrated role sensory experiences play when people find meaning in the material world. -- Linda Duke, Director of the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art
Table of ContentsIntroduction Nina Levent & Alvaro Pascual-Leone Part I: Museums & Touch Chapter 1: Please DO Touch the Exhibits! Interactions between Visual Imagery and Haptic Perception Simon Lacey & K. Sathian Chapter 2: "First Hand," not "First-eye" Knowledge: Bodily Experience in Museums Francesca Bacci & Francesco Pavani Chapter 3: Art-Making as Multisensory Engagement: Case Studies from The Museum of Modern Art Carrie McGee &Francesca Rosenberg Chapter 4: Multi-sensory Engagement with Real Nature Relevant to Real Life Molly Steinwald, Melissa A. Harding, & Richard V. Piacentini Chapter 5: Touch and Narrative in Art and History Museums Nina Levent & Lynn McRainey Part II: Museums & Sound Chapter 6: A Brain Guide to Sound Galleries Stephen R. Arnott & Claude Alain Chapter 7: Ephemeral, Immersive, Invasive: Sound as Curatorial Theme 1966-2013 Seth Cluett Chapter 8: Soundwalking the Museum: A Sonic Journey through the Visual Display Salomé Voegelin. Chapter 9: The Role of Sensory and Motor Systems in Art Appreciation and Implications for Exhibit Design A. Casile & L. F. Ticini. Part III: Smell & Taste in Museums Chapter 10: The Forgotten Sense: Using Olfaction in a Museum Context. A Neuroscience Perspective. Richard Stevenson. Chapter 11: The Scented Museum Andreas Keller Chapter 12: The Museum as Smellscape Jim Drobnick Chapter 13: Taste-full Museums: Educating the Senses One Plate at a Time Irina Mihalache Part IV: Museum Architecture & the Senses Chapter 14: Navigating the Museum Hugo Spiers, Fiona Zisch & Steven Gage, Chapter 15: Museum as an Embodied Experience Juhani Pallasmaa Chapter 16: Architectural Design for Living Artifacts Joy Monice Malnar & Frank Vodvarka. Part V: Future Museums Chapter 17: Multisensory Memories: How Richer Experiences Facilitate Remembering Jamie Ward Chapter 18: The Secret of Aesthetcis Lies in the Conjugation of the Senses: Reimagining the Museum as a Sensory Gymnasium David Howes Chapter 19: Multisensory Mental Simulation and Aesthetic Perception Salvatore M Aglioti, Ilaria Bufalari & Matteo Candidi Chapter 20: Islands of Stimulation: Perspectives on the Museum Experience, Present and Future Rebecca McGinnis Chapter 21: The Future Landscape of 3D in Museums Samantha Sportun Chapter 22: Technology, Senses and the Future of Museums. A Conversation with Nina Levent, Heather Knight , Sebastian Chan and Rafael Lozano Hammer. Conclusion Index About the Contributors
