Expanding Impact
How Inclusive Online Museum Impacts In-Person Visiting Experiences in the Toledo Museum of Art
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Yong Huang
Recent research showed that an inclusive museum website played a positive role in increasing visitors’ curiosity to visit museum physically. Digital images and online programs can enhance the museum experience for visitors with varying backgrounds, interests, and knowledge levels (Kabassi, 2016). The Toledo Museum of Art is located in Toledo, Ohio, with over 30,000 artefacts and 45 galleries. With the question of how online museum impacting in-person visiting experience, this project is intended to evaluate both the online and in-person visiting experiences as a reference for the museum to continue improving their designs both virtually and physically. This research is conducted in two stages. Firstly, the research compares the websites between the Toledo Museum of Art and "the Twenty Best Museums and Galleries in the World" ranked by TimeOut. This comparison will be based on six categories: accessibility, navigability, breadth of information, depth of information, inclusiveness, and visual quality. Through this analysis, the website quality of the Toledo Museum of Art can be clearly identified. Secondly, through participant observations and interviews of the museum visitors, some representative samples can be analyzed with qualitative research methods. These interviewees were selected based on age, gender, education background, career, and hobby. They answer questions regarding their motivations, frequency of visiting, and personal interests. Meanwhile, they rate how helpful the museum website for their in-person visits. Through this two-fold process, the roles of online museum and its impact on physical experiences can be contributed to the future development of museum studies.
Insect Macrophotography at the Nexus of Art, Science, and Biodiversity: The Limits of Aesthetics in the Communication of Science
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Audrey Kali
The art of photography is essential for the public understanding of science, and macrophotography can work in dispelling fears and phobias about arthropods in general. As a science communicator, I photograph insects and research their roles in our ecosystem. We usually see insects from afar where they look like tiny monsters that are invaders in our private spaces, prompting us to exterminate them rather than appreciate their roles in our lives. When audiences view insect faces beautifully composed in a macro photograph, they identify with them, albeit anthropomorphically. Does a photographer composing an image with a conscious application of artistic latitude compromise the accuracy of scientific representation? Does a macro photograph of an insect necessitate realistic anatomical detail to be viable as a method of science communication? Is there a limit to how much the authenticity of the image needs to align with the subject to be worthy of scientific scrutiny? At what point does a macro photograph of an insect veer into an artist’s representation devoid of scientific actuality? This project delves into these questions as they become more pertinent in the digital landscape of post-processing, artificial intelligence, and human creativity.
Visualizing Collapse: The Symbolic Function of Computer-Generated Imagery in Contemporary Depictions of Social Threats
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kyla Van Buren
Contemporary visual culture is saturated with representations of violence and dystopia — a pattern reflected in today’s most popular media, from Stranger Things to Squid Game to Fortnite. This fascination with mediated violence and apocalyptic imagery reflects our need to simulate threats and process our ever-evolving anxieties. In this paper, I discuss how visual media uses Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) to allow us to explore our fears of the difficult-to-imagine threats of climate collapse, pandemics, and societal decline in the digital age. As threats to human survival shift from tangible (e.g., war, famine) to abstract (e.g., climate change, AI), so too does our visual language — relying increasingly on CGI to represent the immaterial. This research contributes to the fields of media studies, cultural theory, and semiotics by analyzing how image-making technologies shape our depictions of horror and violence in entertainment. I will explore the relationship between visual simulation and existential imagination and discuss the concepts of morbid curiosity, negativity bias, and Threat Simulation Theory in an analysis of popular, contemporary CGI-based works. CGI is not only an aesthetic tool but a new language of symbols for visualizing contemporary fears, enabling us to collectively prepare for disaster and to experiment with post-human futures.
