Even if you’d been on another planet for the launch of Pokémon Go this summer, you can’t have missed the seemingly endless parade of “hot takes” on What This Means For Museums.
The augmented-reality game has turned many unwitting museums into Pokéstops, where players can turn up, throw some imaginary monsters around and then leave without so much as looking at an exhibit.
Was it a good thing making many aware of previously unknown museums in their midst, or a bad thing, like walking around an exhibition glued to a mobile phone?
One thing is for sure, as commentator Martha Henson pointed out, not only is making a game in the league of Pokémon Go light years beyond the reach of any museum, but few museums can command the sort of mass affection and loyalty of a brand such as Pokémon.
How do museums compete as a cultural experience, when even their physical presence can be overwritten on a virtual plane? If museums can’t match digital culture on the scale of Pokémon, perhaps it’s time to start thinking of museums as a different kind of space, where the digital can be turned down for a different kind of experience – less interactive, more meditative.
This need not mean wishfully looking back to a pre-digital past: living in a digital age means thinking carefully about the kinds of digital experiences we want to offer.
Danny Birchall is the digital manager at the Wellcome Collection, London
The augmented-reality game has turned many unwitting museums into Pokéstops, where players can turn up, throw some imaginary monsters around and then leave without so much as looking at an exhibit.
Was it a good thing making many aware of previously unknown museums in their midst, or a bad thing, like walking around an exhibition glued to a mobile phone?
One thing is for sure, as commentator Martha Henson pointed out, not only is making a game in the league of Pokémon Go light years beyond the reach of any museum, but few museums can command the sort of mass affection and loyalty of a brand such as Pokémon.
How do museums compete as a cultural experience, when even their physical presence can be overwritten on a virtual plane? If museums can’t match digital culture on the scale of Pokémon, perhaps it’s time to start thinking of museums as a different kind of space, where the digital can be turned down for a different kind of experience – less interactive, more meditative.
This need not mean wishfully looking back to a pre-digital past: living in a digital age means thinking carefully about the kinds of digital experiences we want to offer.
Danny Birchall is the digital manager at the Wellcome Collection, London