JHU Seminar: 3/23/2017 The Zoo and Hillwood

Let’s take stock.

My fitbit tells me that I took 24,000 steps today.
My only thought is…Am I in shape yet?

nope.

Oh thats right…this is supposed to be a blog…
The visit to the Zoo was absolutely fascinating, and the challenges facing zoo workers is fairly unique in the world of museums.

That being said, we discovered that there is a sense of accessibility in a zoo that is often just not found in a traditional museum.

A Zookeeper does for the animals what a museum curator does for the collection, yet the keepers come out and engage with the public on a daily basis, something that often does not happen in a traditional museum unless there is an event.

There is something to be said about the  accessibility and availability of the keepers that enables a more personal connection to be made at zoos than often occurs in a museum.
That all being said it was actually a statement made at Hillwood that struck me most deeply today

I spoke about how I loved the way the audio tour introduced me to a room, then once I became comfortable in the space It revealed that that room was a hidden movie theater, and could transform into a theater.

My reaction was one of delight, “How Wonderful!”   

The curators revealed this was quite intentional on their part as they had embraced the idea of trying to create moments of  “Guided Serendipity.”

I love this idea! Letting the visitor discover these wonderful moments on their own, but having them set and ready to be discovered. The joy of discovery is that of the visitor, but the discovery was planned.  

The funny thing is this is an idea used to great effect in a brand new video game “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.”  

The game takes place in a large open world which can be explored in any way or any order, but all around are things that catch the eye: a lone rock on a hill, a tree that looks different that others, something “interesting” in the distance. The player is motivated to look at these places and is constantly having little moments of discovery. The game does this so well, it has already become one of the highest reviewed games of all time.

“Guided Serendipity” is a major part of the charm of that game, and being able to mimic in a way that sense of discovery and learning in a museum setting would be invaluable to creating deep and meaningful experiences.

Guided Serendipity it is! What the next planned/unplanned thing that we are going to run into tomorrow?