North by Southwest: Interactive Kiosk

Part of Exhibition: North by Southwest

Topic: Culture Subtopic: General


Case Study of an Exhibit
by Jim Spadaccini: Published on July 09, 2007, Modified on July 11, 2007

Museum: Maxwell Museum of Anthropology Focus: Anthropology
Collaborating Organization(s): Ideum
People who worked on this: Catherine Baudoin (co-curator), Jonathan Lee, Kemper Barkhurst
My role: Our firm worked closely with the Maxwell to develop the electronic exhibit.

Description and goals

The kiosk exhibit in this case study shares the same name with the exhibit, North by Southwest: Bering Sea Communities, Collaborations and Collections. The exhibition is currently open at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The multimedia kiosk is divided into two main sections.

The first is an electronic version of a 1901 photo album. This remarkable photo album was created by Suzanne Rognan Bernardi, who documented her stay in Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska at the turn of the last century. We developed a custom “page turning” application that allows visitor to go from page to page. Many of the pages are vertically oriented, so we added the ability to rotate the image and caption. In addition, plain text was added, as the hand written notes are sometimes hard to read.

The second section allows visitors to pan and zoom high-resolution images of five hand-engraved walrus tusks. These intricately engraved tusks are from the same period as Bernardi’s photo album.

Both interactive sections allow visitor to see things they normally wouldn’t. The book is too rare and fragile to be out on display, while the details of tusks wouldn’t visible without some sort of magnifying device.

Exhibit Opened: April 2007
Location: Albuquerque, NM, United States
Estimated Cost: $10,000 to $50,000 (US)
Website(s): http://www.dailylobo.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&ustory_id=6dbfdabe-1e11-4dbf-8588-17d37be19af9, http://www.ideum.com/portfolio/north_southwest

Catherine Baudoin, co-curator of the exhibit "North by Southwest" at the Maxwell Museum, holds an engraved walrus tusk from early 20th-century Alaska. The tusk is feature in the electronic exhibit. (Photo credit: Javier Zamora/ Daily Lobo)

The main screen of the electronic exhibit provides a simple choice for visitors: explore the Suzanne Bernardi Photo Album or view the tusks.

Visitors can see an accurate representation of the rare 1901 Suzzane Bernardi photo book.

Visitors can see details from the book (rotated in the proper orientation) along with more easily readable text.

The Ivory Walrus Tusk section.

You can view amazing detail of the carvings on the tusk.

North by Southwest: Interactive Kiosk

Part of Exhibition: North by Southwest

Topic: Culture Subtopic: General

of an Exhibit

Museum: Maxwell Museum of Anthropology Focus: Anthropology

Collaborating Organization(s): Ideum

People who worked on this: Catherine Baudoin (co-curator), Jonathan Lee, Kemper Barkhurst

My role: Our firm worked closely with the Maxwell to develop the electronic exhibit.

Description and goals

Exhibit Opened: April 2007

Location: Albuquerque, NM, United States

Estimated Cost: $10,000 to $50,000 (US)

Website(s): http://www.dailylobo.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&ustory_id=6dbfdabe-1e11-4dbf-8588-17d37be19af9, http://www.ideum.com/portfolio/north_southwest

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