News & Announcements, Artificial Intelligence
Ian Hawthorne
New Year, New Media - January News

January ushered in a new year with sweeping disruptions in media, journalism, and public humanities. Technology-driven partnerships, staff cuts, and mergers have redefined the online media landscape kicking-off 2025, calling into question journalism’s position in an age of generative AI. Read the highlights below. 

New Year, New Media - January News
Fundraising, Management
Ian Hawthorne
Crafting Grant Narratives - Approaches to ...

The grant narrative has become one of the most high-stakes tools of communication in the nonprofit fundraising space, driving more than $150 billion in global expenditures. As grant writers adapt their appeals in response to changing funder values, this narrative network gives shape to the nonprofit ecosystem in which many arts organizations operate.

Crafting Grant Narratives - Approaches to Justifying Arts Funding
museums, Extended Reality
Staff Researcher
Psychological Impacts of VR Experiences and ...

Exposure to nature can positively influence one’s mental well-being. As VR technology seeks to recreate elements of life, its developers and prospective adopters must keep asking one very important question: how deeply can VR impact us? And, what might the implications be for museums?

Psychological Impacts of VR Experiences and Their Implications for Museums
Arts & Technology, Digital Futures, Emerging Technology
Brett Ashley Crawford, Ph.D.
Your 2024 Favorite Reads

It is always fun to take a moment as we close out a year to compare our favorite content to the popularity contest of the web. AI, Sustainability, and Preservation with technology led the charge. Keep reading for the most popular articles and podcasts.

Your 2024 Favorite Reads
Artificial Intelligence, creative industries
Staff Researcher
Artificial Intelligence’s Involvement in the ...

As AI continues to integrate into our everyday lives, how does it impact our creativity? Many researchers and scholars agree that the technology may promote significant opportunities in this space. By introducing novel ideas and opportunities to users, it may be most effective as a tool to augment, rather than replace, human creativity.

Artificial Intelligence’s Involvement in the Human Creative Process

audience engagement

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Exploring Integration of XR in Museums to Enhance Visitor Experience

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Exploring Integration of XR in Museums to Enhance Visitor Experience

Many museums have gravitated towards utilizing XR (VR, AR, or other extended reality modes) in numerous ways to enhance visitor experience. While there are successful ways to support visitor experience, it is possible that XR can have negative impacts. This article explores case studies of two museums who have integrated XR into their exhibitions: the Cleveland Museum of Art and Illinois Holocaust Museum, discusses the positive and negative facets of these technologies on visitor experience, and analyzes implications for the arts field.

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To Stream or Not To Stream: Is that the right question anymore?

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To Stream or Not To Stream: Is that the right question anymore?

The current status of digital programming and investment varies widely across the arts and cultural sector. Some organizations have abandoned the streaming technology they experimented with, while others continue to incorporate digital programs and performances into their offerings.  The following research reveals U.S. streaming trends and audience behaviors.

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Linguistic Diversity in Opera via Technology: A Case Study of Opera Australia

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Linguistic Diversity in Opera via Technology: A Case Study of Opera Australia

Opera Australia attempts to make opera “for all” while maintaining the linguistic diversity of presenting opera in their original languages. To enhance the connection of audiences to the work, Opera Australia uses digitization and other technologies to create a holistic storytelling mechanism. This case demonstrates that (1) language and linguistic identity can advance and strengthen artistic storytelling and (2) audiences want to see linguistically diverse and accessible stories. 

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Public Art in Smart Cities: Community Connections

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Public Art in Smart Cities: Community Connections

In the context of a smart city, the goal is not simply to install digital interfaces in traditional infrastructure or streamline city operations, but rather to use technology and data in a purposeful manner to facilitate informed decision-making and enhance the overall quality of life. Public art has the potential to connect people to their city and to each other; as well as connect them to the experience of the art itself.

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Digital Stewardship is the Future for Contemporary Art Museums

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Digital Stewardship is the Future for Contemporary Art Museums

While contemporary art museums often focus on re-creating the physical experience of the museum online, there is a wealth of unexplored opportunities for creative digital engagement with art that is largely unexamined.

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2022 UX Design in Museums: How Are “Innovative” Exhibits Driving Attendance?

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2022 UX Design in Museums: How Are “Innovative” Exhibits Driving Attendance?

User Experience Designers in today’s world must discover new ways to evolve their work alongside the external challenges that they encounter. Since the Covid pandemic began, many museums have adapted their exhibits to be accessible online, allowing for continued traffic and artist exposure— from the living room couch rather than in person. How have levels of digital readiness compared to user experiences?

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POAPs: Audience Engagement and Memorabilia in the Web3 Era

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POAPs: Audience Engagement and Memorabilia in the Web3 Era

The average theater-goer walks into a performance with their ticket stub freshly procured from the box office. An usher hands them a playbill as they find their seat. Both items are unique to the time and place of the event, and available only to those physically in attendance at the performance. These forms of memorabilia offer audiences collectible, tangible tokens to commemorate an arts experience. However, today it is common practice to take a picture of the stage from one’s seat with playbill in hand to post on social media and store in the cloud, transforming a physical token of memorabilia into a digital one.

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Integrating NFC Technology in Arts Institutions

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Integrating NFC Technology in Arts Institutions

Underneath the Disney magic at its resorts is Near-field communication (NFC) technology, which has been transforming live event experiences for years. Disney Parks is at the forefront of the change, having utilized the all-in-one-device MagicBand since 2013, which renders the park into dynamic computer, streaming real-time data about where guests are and what they are buying. This “invisible” wearable technology has created a seamless guest experience where people are happier by stripping their options away. How can this technology be leveraged and integrated into arts institutions and yield the same immersive, seamless experience? This article explores NFC technology and how arts organizations can utilize it to enhance their overall service and audience engagement.

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How Video Games Can Serve as an Engagement Experience

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How Video Games Can Serve as an Engagement Experience

The expansion of technology has enabled a wide array artistic growth in innumerable forms - often taking a life or genre of its own. One artistic form that has dominated the market since technology has become common in society is video games. The materials below serve as introductory infographics for arts organizations, detailing core considerations and a streamlined video game planning process. Additionally, it lists common employees needed to conduct video game production, common engines and coding languages used and their learning difficulty levels, so that arts organizations can jumpstart their gaming creations of their already-mastered craft.

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Positive Implications of Deepfake Technology in the Arts and Culture

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Positive Implications of Deepfake Technology in the Arts and Culture

Deepfakes, one of the hottest topics to burst onto the technology scene in the last five years, have received a lot of negative publicity because of the risks they can present in the hands of bad actors. However, when used in good faith, they have many positive and exciting uses within the arts and culture sector. This report will briefly explain what deepfakes are and how they work, as well as some of their weaknesses and negative implications. Additionally, three case studies will examine the positive ways in which deepfakes can be used in artistic and cultural institutions.

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Using Augmented Reality in Classical Music

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Using Augmented Reality in Classical Music

How can the visual technology of augmented reality be used to enhance audience engagement with classical music and in the music industry as a whole? In the arts realm, AR has been used in both the classical music and popular music realms to cultivate audience engagement with visual components to the listening experience. This article provides an overview of AR as a technology and its usage in the music industry.

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Implementing Gamification for Museum Engagement

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Implementing Gamification for Museum Engagement

The pandemic changed the art ecosystem, including the use of gamification in museums. With gamification, the museum experience expands beyond the memory of looking at art or artifacts to the feelings of enjoyment that a game or activity evokes. This articles looks at examples of gamification in museums from around the world, including both low-tech and completely online experiences.

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Throwback Thursday: Reimagining the Museum Experience

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Throwback Thursday: Reimagining the Museum Experience

What will museums look like after the pandemic? As news about the Covid-19 vaccine makes us optimistic about returning to more in-person activities soon, we’re looking back to exciting innovations in museum experiences to provide some inspiration for museum re-openings and digital engagement.

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Third Place Theory and Virtual Platforms: How Arts Organizations Might Build Community Online

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Third Place Theory and Virtual Platforms: How Arts Organizations Might Build Community Online

Arts organizations play important roles in their communities beyond providing access to art itself. Arts organizations are also valued venues for human connection. In LaPlaca Cohen’s Culture Track 2017, 68% of respondents indicated “interacting with others” as a draw for cultural participation, and about half of respondents in LaPlaca Cohen’s 2020 study, Culture and Community in a Time of Crisis, revealed desires for cultural organizations to communities “stay connected” during this time. These data points demonstrate that audiences look to arts organizations to not only foster connections through art, but also nurture communities beyond the art. One way to do this is by creating virtual third places. While arts organizations are unlikely to build entire VR-based worlds for their patrons, arts administrators might consider how to adapt existing platforms to help reproduce some if not all of the socially-leveling, conversation-focused environments they’ve worked to cultivate in their physical spaces.

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Adapting to the Pandemic: The Enterprise Center and Wolf Trap

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Adapting to the Pandemic: The Enterprise Center and Wolf Trap

To investigate how the Covid-19 pandemic is affecting the live music industry, we will look to case studies of venues that normally host concerts. In this first set of case studies, we will look at the Enterprise Center and the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts. The Enterprise Center is a 22,000 capacity (for concerts) arena in St. Louis, Missouri. Located in Northern Virginia, Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts was the first National Park dedicated to the performing arts. Performances take place at the Filene Center, The Barns, and Children’s Theatre-in-the-Woods, and the foundation also operates the Wolf Trap Opera Company. Because it is currently not safe for either of these venues to operate at full capacity, these case studies will investigate technology-based alternatives.