The University is already looking into the coming months and years for ways to develop technology that will enhance the experience for visitors of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, which will officially open Sunday.
“Our goal is to make the museum accessible, multisensory and interactive,” museum spokeswoman Katie Sproles said. On its opening day,
the art museum will have a computer kiosk to provide background information, enabling multimedia into
the galleries and keeping wireless
capability open to its visitors.
Already, wireless access is available throughout the building and in the Marche Museum Cafe, which opened earlier this month. Among the “interactive” features the museum will include on opening day are DVD displays relevant to the galleries. The museum’s featured debut exhibit is Andy Warhol’s Dream America, which will include videos of Warhol and footage of The Factory, where the artist worked on many of his famous pieces.
There is also a computer kiosk available in the museum’s Focus Gallery, which will feature art relevant to different University departments — the kiosk will give visitors access to background information for any of the featured art.
The first Focus Gallery exhibit, “Colorful Lanterns at Shangyuan,” is a Chinese scroll by an anonymous artist, according to the museum’s winter 2005 newsletter. The history department’s associate professor Ina Asim helped coordinate the exhibit, which contains the original scroll along with a digital version that provides better clarity than the aged original.
So how is the museum —
and other University buildings — adapting to future technology?
“We talk about new buildings in the design phase and ask users, ‘What needs are there in this building for technology?’” Dale Smith, director of Network Services at the Computing Center, said. “With the museum, we thought, ‘What does technology mean to art?’ Art really involves a variety of mediums, including interactive exhibits, that may use plasma TVs, for example.”
One example of this foresight
is a 4,000-square-foot changing gallery section in the museum, which Sproles calls a “black
box” room. It contains an unfinished ceiling so exhibits that include interactive and technological aspects can have the flexibility to incorporate any design scheme in the gallery without limitations.
Smith said that in addition to providing wireless information to guests, the museum could also incorporate technology to take inventory of the art pieces in the basement using
a Palm or Pocket PC device with a bar-code scanner attached.
In the future, Smith also wants to make a wireless device available for museum visitors that will provide information about artists and displayed art. Smith said visitors could use notebook, PDA and tablet computers to automatically update information based on the visitor’s location.
The consideration given to technology in University buildings is not exclusive to the museum specifically — other new or renovated buildings were built with future technology in mind.
Future projects for Network Services include the University Health Center renovation, expected to be complete in two to two and a half years, Smith said. Smith added that possible improvements could include wireless
access for students in the waiting room and replacing nurses’ and physicians’ clipboards with Tablet PCs.
“We’re still designing it and now in the process of thinking what technology will be like in three years when it’s opened,” Smith said. “We want to be ahead of the curve and think about future technology today so we can anticipate it. You want a building that is flexible and doesn’t preclude any future ideas.”

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