Despite the abundance of dynamic websites devoted to interactive history, I still am a big fan of the “Devices of Wonder” exhibit that can be seen at the Getty Museum. One of the most frustrating part of going to a history museum (at least most museums) is that the visitor is not allowed to interact with the objects that are on display. Going far beyond the typical photographic record of the object, which is the industry standard, the Getty has taken advantage of Adobe’s Flash platform to replicate many of the “devices” from its inventory and the Flash technology allows the web visitor to try out the various devices.
Without this sort of interactivity, it would be difficult to really get a sense for what these objects did and why people would have had them in their households. Now, however, we’re able to poke and prod without the risk of damaging the actual historical object. One might argue whether Flash is on its way out or not, but it does seem like the Getty chose the perfect new media technology for the task of replicating the interactivity. A digital picture (even a 3D picture) would have been too static. A film clip of a curator demonstrating would have been too dry. The Flash interaction, however, seems to be the best of both formats.
However, the exhibit itself reveals that the Flash technology is sometimes better implemented doing certain tasks and less well suited for performing others.The item “View of the Imperial Chinese Palace in Beijing” is a great implementation of Flash. Here, the user can change the back lighting to transform the image. The “Blue Bird: Magnetic Game” is another great interactive item with which the users can even try and play the game themselves!
Others, however, are either showing their age or fall just a bit short. For instance, when viewing the “Sorcerer’s Mirror” object there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of interactivity. Here, the user simply drags an picture or painting and drops it onto the mirror. The viewer is then presented with a repeating image of what it would have looked like if that picture were reflected in the mirror. However, the potential that Flash possesses would have allowed for even more interactivity – like the ability for the user to tilt the mirror at will to see how the image changes as the mirror is moved.
Still other objects are shown as real-time low-quality video files that are difficult to see and only serves at the moment to date this exhibit (which is now about 9 years old). The Getty has a wonderful concept here and I wish that they would invest a little money to update and expand the number of objects that are here on display. This would allow the Getty to also explore newer technologies that have been developed over the intervening years – like FLEX and HTML5. I’d also like to see other museums around the world see what sorts of object they have in their collections that could get a similar treatment.