Let’s Get Digital: Museums, Experience and Social Media (Issue Study #1 - Matthew Bergs)
Living in the digital age has augmented the capacity for our growth and understanding of the world around us. The Internet creates a space where not only incalculable amounts of data are stored and accessible to any viewer, but also a space where we can express ourselves and our reactions to said data. Art is no different; in its forms visual, audial or performative, our methods of recording and saving these works has advanced in spades as technology has developed. No doubt one can easily Google the Mona Lisa, or watch a recording of their favorite play, or listen to their favorite music on repeat. But, although the digital sphere is the most accessible means of encountering art, is it always the best means? In this issue study, we will take a look at how social media, Instagram in particular, has cemented its role in the current dialogue of our cultural experience, and how museums utilize (or are confronted by) its social power.
Take your Shot: Social Media as Engagement
Art museums aren’t the only institutions that have cultivated a presence on social media; this has been a staple of many organizations and businesses vying for the public’s attention. But museums have the unique position to use the artwork in their collection as a basis for the content they put out into the digital sphere – and the ways in which they connect that content to the casual viewer. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, for example, has a Snapchat account managed by Lucy Redoglia that shares “story” images, where snapshots of classical artwork are paired with quippy quotes from other media. Though humorous at first glance, this output also draws a younger audience in to see the new work. “These are people who may not be interested in art right away,” Redoglia states, “but might find a connection through something that we post” (1). Other museums take a similar approach in generating content, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2019 challenge to its TikTok audience to replicate or mimic figures from a work of art. The challenge wasn’t simply a fun pastime, either; the contest offered a prize of an all-expenses paid five night trip to New York, and the chance to be one of the first visitors to the the Spring 2019 Costume Institute exhibition (2). In this way, museums change the conversation around a bit: rather than being the sole creators of content, the museum challenges the viewer to create their own connection and experience to their artwork, and promises the possibility of reward from the viewer’s participation via their social media output.
The Met’s TikTok Campaign to re-enact classic artwork (Source: MuseumNext)
Why this shift towards a generation of presence on social media? According to JiaJia Fei, digital director of the Jewish Museum in New York, this is how we all experience content in the modern day (3). “Visitors want to come to museums to look at pictures, and they also want to take pictures,” Fei states (4), and this has led to museum goers trying to capture their own experience of the art in museums by photographing the artwork, in a way that appeals the most to their sense of taste. Though visitor photography in museums has long been frowned upon, the conversation of what is acceptable is shifting towards trends in what the audience wants to gain from their experience. And in the age of social media, the audience is often interested in filtering their experiences through the manageable, curated lens of their social media outreach. A 2017 study conducted by the marketing firm LaPlaca Cohen discovered that from polled participants, 81% wanted to have a digital experience be a part of their time in museums (5). Fei also observed that when visitors engaged with the process of documenting their time at the museum via photographs, they didn’t usually capture a shot of specific types of artwork. More often, their aim was to photograph themselves in the space of the museum, documenting their experience as its own form of personal art for their online presence. As Fei jokingly describes, “I came, I saw, I selfied” (4). It is this new approach to our way of experiencing art, to use it as a backdrop of recording our experiences for others, that is starting to affect the way we interact with museums, and conversely, how museums interact with us. It certainly has started creating new roles for artists to inhabit, as is the case with the Parisian Musée d’Orsay. Alongside having the standard Social Media Manager, in 2020 they brought on Jean Philippe Delhomme, a prominent New Yorker illustrator, as an ‘Instagram Artist in Residence” (6). His role involved creating social media content that draws the viewer into the lives of the artists included in the museum’s collection, via jovial cartoons depicting what the social media lives of said artists would look like, had they had Instagram access in their time. This interplay of humor and art history works twofold: While depicting a tongue-in-cheek reference to the relationships between the artist and their contemporaries, Delhomme’s contributions give just enough information for the viewer to be curious about learning more about the artist’s past.
Shaping the Museum: Pop-Up Instagrammable Museums
There is another phenomenon that is occurring in the art world due to the increase and prevalence of social media use in our current time, and that is the proliferation of what can be described as “pop-up museums”. Drawing inspiration from the immersible qualities of installation art, these “museums” create spaces that do not display artwork, but rather, are the artwork (7). Installation artwork draws its roots from before social media was ever-present, but works such as Yayoi Kusama’s The Obliteration Room gave rise to a trend of creating spaces where participation from the audience was not just encouraged, but also integral to the evolution and growth of the space. In The Obliteration Room, viewers enter a Queensland living room environment, painted completely white. Supplied with colored dots, viewers are invited to “obliterate” the blankness of the space’s white canvas by applying said dots anywhere in the room’s surface area (8). This invitation for the viewer’s participation led to works such as Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms, which further involved the viewer’s participation, simply by standing and viewing the art. This further led to other pop-up museums such as the Museum of Ice Cream, The Museum of Illusion, and the Dream Machine, to name a few (3).
The Olbiteration Room, 2011 (Source: Queensland Art Gallery)
In these pop-up installations, viewers are encouraged to capture the space in their own way, and post their resulting imagery to social media. This Instagrammability, so to speak, recontextualizes our relationship of what it means to “experience” an art installation. Is it simply enough to walk into MOMA and stand separate from Van Gogh’s Starry Night? Or is it more memorable, more interactive to be immersed in a rendition of Starry Night that envelops you in a projection of shimmering brushstrokes?
Likes and Unlikes: Social Media as a Avenue of Change.
Social media, for all its utility as a virtual scrapbook, isn’t an experiment in isolation. The very nature of using it as a means of reaching out to the populace invites the opportunity to respond and engage in what essentially becomes an unofficial, digital public forum. Sometimes, this forum creates instances of controversy, debate and disruption, which can in turn impact the real spaces that museums inhabit. One issue that museums and artists will face in using social media platforms is having to ensure their work falls into compliance with community standards, meaning that images posted to sites such as Facebook and Instagram cannot contain any explicit content, notably affecting work that depicts nude figures. Protests targeting these restrictions have been led by groups such as PEN America’s Artists at Risk and the Don’t Delete Art Coalition, advocating for the right to share their artwork, free from the censorship demanded from these online platforms (9). The Milwaukee History Museum also encountered some online pushback from its constituent community when it introduced its plans to rebuild and rehome its collection in a new facility by 2026 (10). In this instance, it was the conversation of preserving exhibits such as the Streets of Old Milwaukee, reconstructions of the city from decades past that exist as permanent structures within the museum space. Though the recreation of the exhibit would likely echo the philosophical quandary of Theseus’s ship, the dialogue facilitated through the platform of social media allowed for the community to articulate to the museum elements of their experience that they wanted to preserve.
In other situations, it is the power of social media that works against the typical operations of museums, sometimes for the accountability of improvement, and sometimes for the purpose of capitalizing on an opportunity. An Instagram account, with the username @changethemuseum began posting anonymous accounts of racist incidents in the management and curation of museums, ranging from micro-aggressions to blatant discrimination based on race and gender (11). The initiative was created in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, as a space for museum staff to share without retribution their experiences of racism in institutions that often projected their commitments to creating equitable and inclusive spaces, but were still fomenting silent yet toxic environments behind the scenes. In another recent and bizarre instance, an event meant to promote both the video game franchise Pokémon and the work of Vincent Van Gogh backfired in an unfortunate way. The collaboration consisted of works depicting creatures from the franchise, in poses, costumes and a rendering style paying homage to the Post-Impressionist Artist. Prints of the artwork, as well as other limited gift items were available to purchase at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Due to the popularity of Pokémon as a franchise, however, the opening of the event saw a cacophonous scene of visitors, likely scalpers, swarming over the gift shop items, snatching as much merchandise as they could carry and leaving with it, likely to put it for sale online at a ridiculously marked-up price (12). Even when conducted with good intentions in mind, sometimes attempts at collaboration, combined with exclusive experiential opportunities can result in a warping of the intended outcome.
Who wants a Van-Gogh inspired Pokémon painting? Apparently a lot of people…and likely not for the right reasons.
(Source: Hyperallergic)
Bringing People Together.
As I researched this topic of art museums, and the ways they use Instagram and social media for public outreach, I kept finding myself encountering the same issue. Everything about social media is curated, down to the filters and photo editing of the images individuals and institutions post. Of course museums will want to inflate and promote their presence, so their responses to interviews and articles would also be similarly curated. Could I learn more about what the development of museum social media content entails? I reached out to Siri Stensberg in Milwaukee, WI, to see what her perspective was on this process. Stensberg works in a variety of materials and forms, with some of her more recent exhibited work exploring the immersive world of installation art. Alongside this work, Stensberg also works as associate educator of youth and family programs at the Milwaukee Art Museum, and often features in video content posted by the museum. Her videos often explore the work the museum has on display, in a way that leads to a short demonstration of a hands-on art activity. I sat with Stensberg and asked her a few questions about her work at the museum, and how it prepares content for social media.
M: I am familiar with the work you have done via the MAM's Instagram page. What other forms of social media does the museum engage in? Overall, how involved are you with the social media output of the museum?
S: The museum has a Facebook page and a Youtbe channel - my role on social media is creating the 2-4 minute monthly studio videos that are posted to Youtube, Facebook, and Instagram. These videos go out to our online audience in a monthly family news email too. Nothing beyond that!
M: What, if any, are the goals that the museum strives for when creating content for its social media presence? Is it simply used for engagement and promotion of the museum? Or is there more to it, such as creative expression and educational content?
S: Generally, they do both! They use social media to promote exhibitions and special events, with the goal to bring people into the art museum. The way the museum used social media changed during the pandemic; since visiting the museum wasn't an option, they started creating segments that focused more on education and outreach (hence, my monthly studio videos were born) to reach a broader audience. For my department, which is grant-funded, we could participation / viewership of online content as engagement with our programs.
M: Follow up for 2, what specific content does the museum have in mind for output? Do they allow access to behind-the-scenes processes? Do they rely on using it for advertising upcoming events? Do they create spotlight content for artwork on display?
S: All of the above! They feature the conservation department to show behind-the-scenes on maintaining the collection. They use it to advertise events and new exhibitions. Occasionally, they have curators give short summaries of artworks on view. Really everything is content that can be used for social media.
M: I've seen your work in creating video content for the museum, and I wonder what the process is for generating that content, start-to-finish? I know you touched on it the other day a bit. I also am curious if there is a time limit you have to keep in mind (as Reels and TikTok length video content are more prevalent, is there any consideration for that time constraint when producing)
S: The process has a lot of steps and the content gets filtered through many people. It's not as simple as shooting a video; everything I say and do has to be reviewed to make sure I'm being as accurate and representing the museum in the correct way. Museums also often work months in advance because so much cross-departmental collaboration is required. I select the artwork to be inspired by the project 2 months in advance and write a script for the video. The script is reviewed by my boss and a marketing manager, they both give me suggestions and edits. The artwork credits and usage is reviewed by someone specializing in image rights and reproduction in our knowledge management department. Different artworks may have different rules and agreements on their public reproductions - especially if the artworks aren't in the museum collection and are on loan from another institution or private owner. Finally, I shoot the video with someone in our audio visual department. I often have to memorize and rehearse parts of the script! The audio visual technician edits and puts together the video (there's often images, voiceovers, sped up parts, adding music, etc) and posts the first draft. My boss and I add our edits and the av technician uploads another draft. Once the video is approved, it's scheduled for social media posting. There is no time limit, but I do my best to keep it short and concise, for myself (this is just one small part of my job!) and the viewer. The audience is intended to be people of all ages so the most direct/concise = the most accessible for our viewers. They end up being between 2 and 4 minutes long.
M: What, in your opinion, was content that you enjoyed creating the most? Conversely, what are some difficulties and downsides with creating museum-focused social media content?
S: Honestly, they all start to blur together after a while. I personally am not super comfortable being in front of the camera so this is something I've had to adapt to. It was difficult in the beginning to speak using a script and make it seem natural as I spoke. It's hard! Eventually I got a little more comfortable with the process as I kept at it. One thing that is sometimes difficult is compromising my vision with the powers around me. I have to go through approval processes, which means I can't do and say what I want to all the time. The museum image always comes first over my individuality.
M: Social media can be a place where mental health can be challenged via vapid, heated discussion between strangers. Are there any interactions that the museum has had to contend with, and how is that handled?
S: Controversies that have historically happened were larger happenings beyond social media (Interested? See this controversial piece the museum acquired from 2015 - https://time.com/3940789/portrait-pope-benedict-xvi-condoms/ (Note: this piece would indeed invite controversy! ) As far as I know they keep social media pretty neutral so there aren't a lot of heated debates there. The museum isn't posting anything particularly controversial.
M: As an employee of the museum, what is your perspective on the public's use of social media as a visitor to the museum? Some artists discourage taking photos of their work, others ask for visitors to like, share, tag, etc. Are those considerations even ever an issue with displayed work?
S: It becomes an issue when the desire for a photograph puts the art in danger of being damaged. The issue with people looking at their phones and trying to take *the* picture is that they aren't paying attention to their surroundings and often get WAY too close to the art. Sometimes, they touch it or bump into it. I'm all for taking pictures and sharing images of people's experience at the museum, but so often this happens at the expense of the safety of the art.
M: Memes: Yes or No? Memes have become increasingly prevalent as a means of relating to the general public. Is this ever considered when creating content, and if so, what approaches does the museum permit?
I don't know of the museum posting memes, but the museum has no problem following trends on social media! i.e. using trending audio, a trending idea, to promote the museum and the artwork. Maybe not memes specifically, but it's advantageous to follow trends because it means people will be more likely to engage with the content.
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