On interactivity: Consumers, citizens and culture

Abstract

The relation between the contemporary science museum and its public is an interactive one. At the level of the institution, the museum is increasingly expected to respond to the publics demands rather than simply tell the public what it needs to know-the public needs to understand science but, before this is possible, the museum must first understand what the public wants. At the level of the gallery, museum staff aim to design exhibits which enable visitors to make choices and to experience a gallery ‘in their own way’ (Macdonald and Silverstone 1990:184).1 And at the level of the individual display, the museum seeks to develop and employ techniques which encourage greater dialogue with the visitor. As an influential Management Plan for London’s Science Museum noted: (Science Museum 1986) In exploring the proliferation of forms and techniques of interactivity in the museum of science this chapter develops three themes. The first concerns the contemporary political resonances of interaction. There is no doubt, as Mark Poster notes, that the usage of the idea of interactivity can ‘float and be applied in countless contexts having little to do with telecommunications’ (Poster 1995:33). Yet in the museum of science, interactivity can have a particular significance, drawing together concerns with, for example, both public ‘participation’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘accountability’ and with more specific questions and anxieties about the proper way to bridge the gulf between popular culture and the esoteric world of science and technology.

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