Teen spirited
Getting teenagers into museums and galleries has always been a challenge. Aaron Davies reports on an English Heritage property that has created a computer game to capture their interest
Teenagers are awkward at the best of times; bundles of unfocused energy, contrary desires and infuriating inconsistencies. There are so many distractions, from playing computer games to drinking cheap booze in the park, that it is difficult to get them through the doors of museums, galleries and stately homes. Most will visit only as part of school trips.
Even taking enforced educational visits into account, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's national survey for 2005-06 shows that only 35 per cent of teens had visited a museum or gallery in the 12 months to July 2006.
They are in danger of being forgotten as museums focus on younger children and adults. To compound the problem, if they aren't enticed through the doors now, then museums will have to work twice as hard to recapture them as adults.
English Heritage has tackled this issue with Maps and Skins, a project to create a computer game based on Belsay Hall in Northumberland. Crucially, the organisation hasn't just devised something that it thought would appeal to teens, but has involved local teenagers.
"It was very important for the kids to own the project," emphasises Steve Manthorp, a computer-game designer who worked with the teenagers. "In any sort of project, and particularly a technological one, it is easy to lead them along by their noses. I wanted them to conceive the game - not just produce eye candy for it."
Lynne Minett, English Heritage's education manager for the north of England, says: "We gave them an open brief, but did set them boundaries. The game had to be family friendly, accessible and non-violent. When young people come to the site, I want them to appreciate who lived here."
Classical quest with a local twist
Supported by Manthorp and computer-games company Lateral Visions, the teenagers from Ashington Community High School came up with an adventure game. As Belsay's designer, Charles Monck, was inspired by ancient Greece, they decided on a quest based on objects from classical mythology.
As the protagonist, you march round a virtual Belsay Hall solving puzzles and collecting objects ranging from Pandora's box to Medusa's head. In the process, you learn the stories of the characters, who include Monck's maid and a German prisoner of war.
The game is rich in detail, from the intricate wallpaper patterns to the crunch of gravel as you walk up the driveway. There are three meticulously re-created levels; the house, the garden and the castle.
"The 3D visualisation is nearer to the experience of visiting the place than 2D computer games," says Carl Gavin, the managing director and co-founder of Lateral Visions. "It is as close as you can get without actually visiting it.'
The game takes about 45 minutes to complete, but several hours can be whiled away exploring the house and grounds. It is designed to be used by teenagers on-site and to provide a taster of Belsay Hall for visitors to the website, who can download the first level.
Minett says there are two aspects to the project. First, it was an opportunity for local teens from a deprived area to learn about the process of creating computer games and their local heritage. Second, it is reaching out to people who wouldn't normally come through Belsay's doors.
"At the launch, I had one woman say to me, 'I didn't think places like this were for us'," says Minett. "To me, that shows that people have come to Belsay, and gained an appreciation of it, who wouldn't have otherwise. As heritage providers, we need to be relevant to people, and if being relevant involves computer games, podcasts and handheld devices, we should be looking very hard at them."
It is too early to see whether there has been a sustained impact on the number and type of visitor at Belsay. But if the teens involved with the project are any indication, English Heritage are moving in the right direction.
"Museums and galleries are better and more interesting than I thought," says 15-year-old Ryan Tait. "Similar projects at other galleries would attract people like me because they'll get to understand heritage isn't just about old things - it's fun."
Local participation
Minett regards the project as a way to bring in a more local audience. "They are the people who will come and come again," she says. "Tourists will always come, regardless of a computer game. The local people are the people who can get more from the site because it is their local heritage."
In 2003, Manthorp worked on a similar computer-game project at Cartwright Hall in Bradford. They did things slightly differently, in that rather than bring the game to the museum, they took the museum to the game. The hall was used as a location in the online game Unreal Tournament, which pitted players against each other in various locations around the world.
"After the Unreal Tournament, attendances went up something like 25 per cent," he says. "Our audience analysis wasn't sophisticated enough to find out whether that was the cause, but it is hard to see it as anything else, and that lift was maintained."
The online response has been positive, according to Mark Suggitt, Bradford's head of museums, galleries and heritage. "The number of downloads is in the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, in the four years since we did it," he says.
The tournament was part of a larger focus on teenagers at Cartwright Hall, where they held teenage-friendly exhibitions and improved their interpretation tools. Manthorp credits this as one of the reasons that they have sustained the new audience. "It is really important that when they go there for a second visit, they still feel enfranchised," he says. "If they go and there is nothing else there for them, then you've lost them."
This is something of which Minett is all too aware. Part of the reason that Belsay Hall was chosen is that it is a venue for Picture House, a changing exhibition of contemporary art - so there is always something new to see.
Minett sees the project as potentially the first stage of something bigger. She is looking into the idea of partnerships with local educational institutes to create more levels and bigger games, and to spread the concept out to more sites.
Minett regards Maps and Skins as a great example for potential funders of what can be done on limited money - the project cost just £50,000, most of which was spent on marketing.
Large institutes such as Tate, with their Tate Tracks and Young Tate initiatives, are working hard to reach out to teenagers through computer technology. And, with projects such as Belsay Hall, the whole sector is waking up to the importance of using teen-friendly technology.
Aaron Davies is a freelance journalist
Even taking enforced educational visits into account, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's national survey for 2005-06 shows that only 35 per cent of teens had visited a museum or gallery in the 12 months to July 2006.
They are in danger of being forgotten as museums focus on younger children and adults. To compound the problem, if they aren't enticed through the doors now, then museums will have to work twice as hard to recapture them as adults.
English Heritage has tackled this issue with Maps and Skins, a project to create a computer game based on Belsay Hall in Northumberland. Crucially, the organisation hasn't just devised something that it thought would appeal to teens, but has involved local teenagers.
"It was very important for the kids to own the project," emphasises Steve Manthorp, a computer-game designer who worked with the teenagers. "In any sort of project, and particularly a technological one, it is easy to lead them along by their noses. I wanted them to conceive the game - not just produce eye candy for it."
Lynne Minett, English Heritage's education manager for the north of England, says: "We gave them an open brief, but did set them boundaries. The game had to be family friendly, accessible and non-violent. When young people come to the site, I want them to appreciate who lived here."
Classical quest with a local twist
Supported by Manthorp and computer-games company Lateral Visions, the teenagers from Ashington Community High School came up with an adventure game. As Belsay's designer, Charles Monck, was inspired by ancient Greece, they decided on a quest based on objects from classical mythology.
As the protagonist, you march round a virtual Belsay Hall solving puzzles and collecting objects ranging from Pandora's box to Medusa's head. In the process, you learn the stories of the characters, who include Monck's maid and a German prisoner of war.
The game is rich in detail, from the intricate wallpaper patterns to the crunch of gravel as you walk up the driveway. There are three meticulously re-created levels; the house, the garden and the castle.
"The 3D visualisation is nearer to the experience of visiting the place than 2D computer games," says Carl Gavin, the managing director and co-founder of Lateral Visions. "It is as close as you can get without actually visiting it.'
The game takes about 45 minutes to complete, but several hours can be whiled away exploring the house and grounds. It is designed to be used by teenagers on-site and to provide a taster of Belsay Hall for visitors to the website, who can download the first level.
Minett says there are two aspects to the project. First, it was an opportunity for local teens from a deprived area to learn about the process of creating computer games and their local heritage. Second, it is reaching out to people who wouldn't normally come through Belsay's doors.
"At the launch, I had one woman say to me, 'I didn't think places like this were for us'," says Minett. "To me, that shows that people have come to Belsay, and gained an appreciation of it, who wouldn't have otherwise. As heritage providers, we need to be relevant to people, and if being relevant involves computer games, podcasts and handheld devices, we should be looking very hard at them."
It is too early to see whether there has been a sustained impact on the number and type of visitor at Belsay. But if the teens involved with the project are any indication, English Heritage are moving in the right direction.
"Museums and galleries are better and more interesting than I thought," says 15-year-old Ryan Tait. "Similar projects at other galleries would attract people like me because they'll get to understand heritage isn't just about old things - it's fun."
Local participation
Minett regards the project as a way to bring in a more local audience. "They are the people who will come and come again," she says. "Tourists will always come, regardless of a computer game. The local people are the people who can get more from the site because it is their local heritage."
In 2003, Manthorp worked on a similar computer-game project at Cartwright Hall in Bradford. They did things slightly differently, in that rather than bring the game to the museum, they took the museum to the game. The hall was used as a location in the online game Unreal Tournament, which pitted players against each other in various locations around the world.
"After the Unreal Tournament, attendances went up something like 25 per cent," he says. "Our audience analysis wasn't sophisticated enough to find out whether that was the cause, but it is hard to see it as anything else, and that lift was maintained."
The online response has been positive, according to Mark Suggitt, Bradford's head of museums, galleries and heritage. "The number of downloads is in the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, in the four years since we did it," he says.
The tournament was part of a larger focus on teenagers at Cartwright Hall, where they held teenage-friendly exhibitions and improved their interpretation tools. Manthorp credits this as one of the reasons that they have sustained the new audience. "It is really important that when they go there for a second visit, they still feel enfranchised," he says. "If they go and there is nothing else there for them, then you've lost them."
This is something of which Minett is all too aware. Part of the reason that Belsay Hall was chosen is that it is a venue for Picture House, a changing exhibition of contemporary art - so there is always something new to see.
Minett sees the project as potentially the first stage of something bigger. She is looking into the idea of partnerships with local educational institutes to create more levels and bigger games, and to spread the concept out to more sites.
Minett regards Maps and Skins as a great example for potential funders of what can be done on limited money - the project cost just £50,000, most of which was spent on marketing.
Large institutes such as Tate, with their Tate Tracks and Young Tate initiatives, are working hard to reach out to teenagers through computer technology. And, with projects such as Belsay Hall, the whole sector is waking up to the importance of using teen-friendly technology.
Aaron Davies is a freelance journalist