Museums Coming to Life: Brett Peterson and Exhibition Interactivity

Brett Peterson is Director, Exhibition Media and Interactives at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, which is at the forefront of engaging audiences and making exhibitions memorable by the creation of accompanying original, responsive digital media. In this episode Peterson describes the shifting expectation of visitors regarding technology. He tries to find new ways to evoke emotions and heighten works on display, including magical digital and physical pairings. He asks, "How can I add meaningfully to what people already love about museums?" and "How can you make the visitor feel like this exhibition is for them?" The interview ends with Peterson's predictions how fine art museums and other related public institutions will embrace interactivity for richer and more personalized experiences.

But also, we've got these great family videos of me building scuba gear out of two liter bottles in my grandparents' backyard, or like a raft out of the skinniest bamboo you've ever seen. Spoiler: neither of those worked out so well. But I was always interested in building things.

And it kind of drove the passion for me to think about what I could make and what I could do.

I had a really early interest in technology. I don't know when that first was sparked. I remember playing with my parents' typewriter as a kid and things and getting into computers. I think that was just the right age and the right time for me. I took a programming class in high school, and I realized I could build things with a computer. And that was really fascinating to me. It really kind of opened up this world of thinking about digital creation, and making things that people wanted to use, wanted to experience with fun.

So I started looking into programs. I did take a very practical course in college at BYU, it was in the Marriott School, the business school. So it was Information Systems. It was PATH programming classes, database design, tech classes, things like that. And then an equal amount of business classes like business writing, ethics, accounting, I had to take a few accounting classes. It was very practical, it was very practical, but it was also– I wasn't very passionate about it. I always preferred the coding. But I was like, you know, I'm going to do this, I'm going to go work at a consulting firm, and I'll be there till I'm a director. And then the ultimate goal being like a CIO, somewhere.

I think even back in undergrad, the fact that I was preferring the classes where I got to make stuff and not the other classes probably was a hint that that wasn't going to be the path for me. I thought that that was the right thing to do, that that would be a good career and a good way to make money and support a family and things. And so I started on that. I ended up interning and then working at PWC in their identity and access management group. It was a lot of sitting in conference rooms looking at the Excel spreadsheets. And I think the hardest part was that I wasn't building anything. So I didn't last long.

I jumped and ended up getting a job as an engineer at Verizon for a couple of years. And that was interesting. I was in their innovation center, we were building a system with you know, it was kind of the rise of app stores. So Verizon had their own app store on Android, and I made a process that could automatically test a bunch of apps and help people internally be able to process the applications that were submitted. But we kind of wound that down, you know, it kind of went away, and I soon found myself being more of a hand model. Like, you know, holding up a little phone showing people, "Oh, these are the things that you could do. And this is the kind of innovation you can have." But I wasn't making things myself anymore again, and so I knew it was time to move on.

I have an extremely supportive wife. And she saw this too, and was like, “Okay, we need to clear your head”. We took a weekend, up the coast in California to a town called WaLaLa. Beautiful up there. We stayed in a place that had not even cell phone access, very remote in a little cabin, cleared my head, and decided I needed to do something radically different.

So I started looking for schools to go back, because when you don't know what to do, I guess you go back to school, right? And I started looking at programs. I had a huge list, and I made a shortlist, and it was MIT Media Lab, NYU's interactive telecommunication program, and Parsons has a design and technology program. And those were the three that I was looking at. I felt like MIT was very kind of put together, formal. ITP--that's the NYU program--it was much scrappier, you know, it's an art school. And it was more of a place for experimentation and just kind of playful use of technology. And I got in there, and I fell in love with it. I felt at home immediately and felt like I really could gel with the ITP ethos. And that was amazing.

I took classes on fabrication, games, like physical games and designing with code. And I took one about creating interactive pieces for museums called Playful Communication of Serious Research. And the professor that taught that worked at the Natural History Museum. And it was kind of my first taste. I was like, great, I love museums. I've always loved museums. And now I can take the skills that I have and the things that I like to do and apply that into a museum. And it was really kind of eye opening. I don't know why I had never considered that before. But, I was like, All right, this is the thing I could do. So I asked to intern. I interned over the summer between the two years that I was at the program. And I loved the work. I felt really at home, I felt like I found my people. And they liked my work. And so I freelanced my last year. And then I was really fortunate. There was one developer in the group. He left during my last year of school, moved on to a different position. And they held the job for me until I graduated. So in 2014, I started full time at the museum as a developer, and I've been here 10 years now this month.

Glen Nelson: Do they give you a special anniversary pin? 

Brett Peterson: Not for 10 years. For 25 years, they do. People stay here a very long time, Glen.

Glen Nelson: I'm not surprised. Let's describe what interactivity means for you. So what I experienced, because I love your museum, I'll give a couple of examples. Some of them were just like, you walk into the archway or the wall where a museum exhibition is going to start. So I don't know, whatever you call them, usually you have a title of the show, and whatever. And in a traditional museum it's just text, and maybe it's vinyl on the wall, and that's your introduction to the show. But you had this one, it was about the ocean or the shore or something like that, and you had taken some drone footage of where a wave hits the shore. And it was projected onto the wall, but also onto the floor. And so as people were standing and reading the wall text, the waves seemed to lap at their feet. And they jumped back. That was my experience watching them, which I thought was hysterical.

And then there was another one that was about, I think, it was again about oceans. And there were projected fish on the floor that were swimming all around. But you somehow had sensors connected with projections. And so as people put their feet down walking around, the fish underneath their feet would appear to swim away. I guess that was the first kind of experience that I had with this interactivity was mostly projection. But if you were to describe what it is to somebody what you do, is that what you would describe? 

Brett Peterson: Yeah, I think what we try to do is create memorable experiences in our galleries, in our shows. We have a lot of content, we have a lot of information that we try to convey, and sometimes our interactives do that. But more often we're trying to evoke an emotion trying to let you feel something, whether that's awe, or empathy, or wonder, you know, feel something as you progress through our exhibits. Those are great examples and ones that I love from our oceans. So you know the waves at the beginning, that set the tone for your experience there as you walk in, and it was wonderful to see people scooching back, thinking that they're gonna get wet somehow. It transported you, right? 

Glen Nelson: Well, every museum wants to have an experience that’s immersive. But this is, you know, actually immersion, a virtual version of that. But you know, so much of your museum is about education. How does interactivity help with learning?

Brett Peterson: Yeah, I mean, people learn in a lot of different ways. And especially our audience, we get people from all over the globe, we have local patrons, we have tourists from the United States, we have school groups, we have families, it really is a very broad audience. Whenever people say, "What's your target audience?" It's really everybody, it's hard to pick.

So if you think about this, how do we make an experience that works well for people who, for whom English is not their first language, or they're not reading yet, or they have disabilities that might cause them to feel less accommodated. So we think a lot about that, and how to make experiences that are great for everybody. And not to say that every experience will work great for every person, but we're going to have something for you within the exhibit. There's things that we gear towards children, things that are geared towards older people who can read and can experience this in a different way. But we really try to hone our experiences so that we can support the content, we can support the learning objectives through different modes. A lot of people, and especially kids but also adults, learn through their hands, manipulating things. And that's a fun thing to do, especially thinking about the digital context, like how do you bring physical controls to a digital experience? We've done a lot of stuff with different sensors.

We had one show about color, and we made an indigo dyeing experience where you could take blocks that represented different bundles of fabric and wood, and you place it onto a disk and it looked like a vat of indigo dye. And depending on which block you used, it would unfold a different pattern that would correspond to how that fabric would have been folded up. And it was just really kind of a magical thing. You'd take a different one and try it out and see it unfold and try a different one. And that physicality was important to the experience.

Glen Nelson: I'd love to know how you work with the museum team. I mean, your museum is a serious research place. You probably have lots of different kinds of expertise in the room. How would you describe that environment, the relationships between them and everything?

Brett Peterson: Yeah, I think that's something that sets apart the work we do at the museum from some other experiences. We have a curator, at least one curator, many times multiple, for each show. So everything that we make is scientifically vetted. And that can pop up in surprising ways. You know, I don't know everything about these topics. We have very broad topics when we make exhibits.

And I remember one example of this was a show about pterosaurs. We had designed this experience that was really fun. It was using a Kinect sensor, a full body sensor, so you could flap your arms and kind of soar around and you'd see a pterosaur flying around based on the movements of your body. And we had built out a 3D environment, and it was kind of like looking at a shoreline at dusk, it was really beautiful. And we brought our curator in to come look at it and he looks at it, and almost immediately he's like, no grass. What? Like no, no grass. Grass hadn't evolved yet. Oh, okay, that is something that I would have never thought about or considered, right? We had looked at different drawings and things but hadn't realized that grasses hadn't appeared yet. So yeah, everything is kind of scientifically vetted and checked to make sure we're being accurate in how we're portraying things and delivering the content that we need.

Glen Nelson: I love those stories. The reason I find this really interesting is that when I go to museums, I'm watching that visitors are struggling on how best to engage with what they're seeing. So much of their daily life now takes place online, and they don't know exactly even what's allowable at a museum. Can they take out their phones and take pictures? Can they talk to curators about what's on display? Do visitors get to invite social media followers into their experience? All of those things. Museums are wondering how to capture the imagination of visitors whose attention spans are narrowing. That's another problem. I would imagine. Would you say that that's accurate? Some of those issues that are at play?

Brett Peterson: Yeah, absolutely. We'll be lucky if an experience can hold people's attention for three minutes. That's kind of the maximum. Sometimes we can push that. We make games sometimes that can, if we've got objectives and things, there's a lot of completionists or people that want to do all the things and so they'll be able to last longer. But a lot of our experiences are very quick. So we have to think about how we can get something meaningful to our visitors in the amount of time that they'll stay at each piece. And hopefully it kind of wraps up into something bigger as you go through an exhibition and not just, you know, have one place that you can interact with something or one place that you can learn something.

Glen Nelson: When you go to a museum other than your own, what expectation do you have regarding interactivity?

Brett Peterson: Yeah, I'm kind of ruined for the experience. I'm always on when I'm at a museum, I'm looking around, I'm seeing, "Oh, how did they put this together?" I have been known to be looking under tables or taking pictures of projectors, and trying to see what's going on. But it's true. I do. I do think about that all the time when I'm at places and I think, oh, what would I have done if I was given this brief? Trying to imagine all the considerations that go into it being on this side. There's a lot, a lot of considerations. people are always like, oh, why isn't it like this? And there's usually a laundry list of reasons for why things are the way they are, including budgets and time and staff. But yeah, I do. I look at it and I think about, what ways would I want to engage in this? And the little people that are with me, my family, in what ways are they looking to engage in the experience or the art that's there?

Glen Nelson: You and I live in New York City, and fine art museums here have tremendous websites. I mean they're really, really incredible. That's different, a little bit from what we're talking about today. But it's related. The Met's site, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, for example, their site is as encyclopedic as the collection is. I mean, anybody can look up any artwork in their collection, and get just a tremendous amount of information. I mean, it's like a master's degree worth of information, in some cases, on their sites. The Whitney and the Modern have brilliantly provided lots of different kinds of materials to a wide audience. Those are just a couple of examples.

I've seen materials for people who are visually impaired and audio presentations aimed at children, teens and adults. Some have brought in children and recorded their responses to art and used them as prompts for young visitors - the Whitney does this brilliantly. Legacy museums like these are especially good at creating websites that range from a full repository of everything that's ever happened at the museum - and the Modern really, is killing it in this - to providing new experiences for current exhibitions. But I wouldn't say that the act of being on one of these museums’ sites, and using the technology is different from if you were just sitting across the street in a cafe and doing it. Like there's not always that immediacy. So it doesn't always add to the experience as much as serve as a proxy for it remotely. I don't know if you would agree with that, and have any thoughts on that?

Brett Peterson: Yeah, because we're making a lot of our stuff, you know, our media pieces are digital, we often have the question of, oh, is this gonna go on the website, too? And some things I think work really well for that. There's definitely a place for that, especially, you know, during COVID, a lot of school groups were doing virtual field trips, or they were sending students just to museum websites to do like you were saying, browse through the collections and explore. And so I think there are definitely experiences that we create for the galleries that can work well. Touchscreen experiences can work well there. But it's a different experience being in the gallery. And when we're designing our pieces, we're really focusing on what makes those experiences unique, what makes them unique to be there. What can you do in an exhibit on site that you can't get sitting on your couch at home, or at a desk at school, right? So we think about the ways that it's unique.

Scale, that's a big one. If we can make things feel immersive and large, and that you're a part of something larger than you, that's something we can do in the museum. Most of our visitors are in a small group, at least. So how can we provide experiences that you can share with your family or with the people that you've come with? This collaboration is kind of a unique thing. I mentioned digital and physical pairing. Instead of just having things on a touchscreen, that's something that you can do differently in the museum, you can use manipulatable tools or objects. And you can see the real objects in the collection, which I think there's something magical about that.

The Natural History Museum is still known for its dioramas. That's what people come for. That's what people know about. And that's magical. It's transportive. I think those experiences, they're not easily replicated on a website. But I think websites can enhance a visit and can provide other context. The Cooper Hewitt had those pens, I don't know if you remember those. They had these digital pens that look like a pen, and you could go around and press it onto little tombstones next to artwork and collect it. And then at the end, you'd go to a website that was on your ticket and it would be all the things that you had collected and you could look at it in more detail and see more about the artist or the collection. And it was really kind of a nice way to try to bridge that visit — the visit doesn't start and end, when you enter the doors. It's when you're first thinking about going to the museum. And then when you're thinking about after you left and how you felt at the museum. Are there ways to still engage with people after the fact? That's what websites can really do well.

Glen Nelson: Well, the thing, in my view, that they do the very, very best is help people who don't have access to go into the museum. 

Brett Peterson: Absolutely.

Glen Nelson: I grew up in this really, really small place. And you know, I couldn't even imagine what it would be like to step in a museum. We didn't have anything remotely close to us to do that. I don't want to denigrate websites. I think they're quite extraordinary, and they really have an amazing purpose. But before I met you, maybe a year or two before I met you, I had an experience on vacation about museums and interactivity. And it so primed me for the final meeting of you and finding out what it is that you do. So I'll describe it really briefly, because I think it explains how it's possible to use some of these tools in a museum setting. So I was in Barcelona, and they have a shipbuilding museum there. That's where all the great Spanish ships were built, right? Anyway, everybody in the museum, visitors to the museum all wear a lanyard. And the lanyard has some digital thing. As you walk through the museum, the exhibits - which would just be a combination of things on the wall, or objects and so on - they read you, they scan you, and they know in what language to offer information. And you've given them a few hints about who you are. And they can kind of tailor some of that to you. There was one exhibit there that was the size of a dining room table. It was basically a giant computer monitor. And it had all of the pieces of an ancient ship in a puzzle. And so you dragged it in the right order. That was kind of learning how ships are built. But as you wandered through the museum, there were all of these things. Like you would walk by a thing, and then a video would pop up and start talking to you in your language. And it would give you examples of history and whatever. And so I thought, well, this is great. I've never seen anything like that.

Technology has to blend into the culture of the museum now. Somebody personnel wise has to be able to do it, and curators, they're not always trained to do that kind of thing. Don't you think that's the case? They couldn't just hire specialists and add that layer. I don't know. Maybe they could, but it has to be in the DNA of the museum to want engagement of a certain kind.

Brett Peterson: Yeah, I think that's true. I think that's true. And something that's rare about my position and our group, our media group, is that we are an in-house team. We work closely with the education and the curators and the science staff, where a lot of museums don't have that opportunity. They need to hire outside contractors that can come and do the work. And it's something that I really appreciate and feel really fortunate about.

Glen Nelson: Well, I would imagine, working with your team, they also trust that you're not going to go far afield from the goals of their exhibition, for example. That might not be the case if you were hired, let's say as a freelancer, to go to another museum. They would probably be a little nervous, like, how is this gonna work? Is this gonna be additive or not?

Brett Peterson: Yeah, yeah. Agreed. 

Glen Nelson: The American Museum of Natural History has a long history of showmanship. And I think it's led in a straight line for expectations of what you do with interactivity. Would you say that that's more or less true? 

Brett Peterson: Yeah, I do. 

Glen Nelson: I have a little bit of a history to share, because why not? So before it opened in 1871, Manhattan had the P. T. Barnum's American Museum, which was immensely popular in the 19th century. It was filled with curiosities, real and fake. I mean, they had one exhibit of a cat head that was sewn to a fish body. Barnum's museum was so popular, I was reading online, that more visitors paid for its admission fee, which was 25 cents, than there were people in the entire nation. When the museum burned down in 1868, the American Museum of Natural History filled the void. And at first it was full of wonder cabinets and other oddities of nature. But as science evolved and practices of what a museum should and shouldn't display evolved - and that's a process that continues even now - the museum also evolved until now as a leading research facility. So Brett, you're part of a team that's been creating interactivity in exhibitions at the museum. Is it fun? 

Brett Peterson: It is. It is very fun. I always say that there's still job-y parts about the job, right? I think that's inescapable, but it's the best I've had. And I really enjoy the work I get to do. You know, thinking about my previous jobs and this one, something that I appreciate here is that I can believe in the mission of the work I'm doing. That's something that I– I've always been passionate about education. And the fact that we can try to bring fun modes of learning to the public is just a hugely impactful thing for me. I feel grateful that I'm able to do that. It is really fun. And I think people that come to the museum, as much as this is a research institution with serious scientific staff, it's also a place of entertainment. People come here on vacation. They're coming here to spend their time and see something that they haven't seen, or that hopefully challenges them in a way that's meaningful and useful, to think about the world around them differently. And so it is fun, it's very fun to do this work.

Glen Nelson: You know, I can tell by talking to you that it is fun. And the thing that strikes me is there could be a lot of ways where this museum could be as boring as possible. It could be a stuffy, old, dusty, let's walk by a dinosaur. Let's walk by a case to see how a tree grows. And that's the danger. That's the danger in a museum like yours. But we could extrapolate, that's the danger for all museums, that they could be boring and stuffy. Your museum has been pretty great for a while with this stuff. But in 2023, it really kicked up a notch with the opening of the Gilder Center, an expansive addition to the museum with many opportunities for technology and visitor interaction. A tremendous success, almost to the level of Barnum. In just the first three months after opening, the museum had 1.5 million visitors. I mean, I was there. Well, I tried to get in for a while. But it was like one of those lines-around-the-block things. And a lot of it has to do with the new building itself. But the way that you couldn't help but be involved in the exhibition regarding interactivity. Your website has a kind of long and cool description of one exhibition, Invisible Worlds. And I was thinking maybe I would read it. But now that I'm just chatting with you, maybe I don't want to do that. Instead, thinking of that show, Invisible Worlds, could you describe it, and then describe some of the effects and techniques that are involved from your side of the chair?

Brett Peterson: Yeah, so the Invisible World experience, it's a 360 degree projection. And that's kind of the crown jewel of the thing. There's an intro gallery that you wind through in the beginning, and then you're in this hockey arena sized–

Glen Nelson: Like IMAX, if IMAX, we're all the way around. 

Brett Peterson: Yeah, yeah. It's projections all along the walls and the floor, exploring the hidden connections that bind all living things on the planet. So we talk a lot about the different ways that we and animals are connected through their DNA, through evolutionary paths, through food webs, through communication. And we do that in a very visual way. We're traveling from underground and then through the rain forest and the oceans, and right down into Central Park. There are places throughout the piece that you can interact with. There's floor projections that as you wander around, it tracks you, tracks all the people in the gallery and sees their movement, and it projects responses and movement onto the floor. At the beginning of the gallery, we walk you through those connections, those forms of connection. We have this ribbon that kind of winds through the space, and we have projections on there that explain the ways that we're connected and highlight some of these interesting moments. And there are interactives, touchscreen interactives, that have very short, quiz type interactivity. One of them is about how closely related you are to other creatures. Yeah, it'll be things like, are you more related to a slime mold or a mushroom? And then we tell you what you are. And some of those can be very surprising. And I think it's really fun to see people interacting with this.

Glen Nelson: There's so much movement and video. How does that work though, the sensors? I think people who are listening to our interview today can understand projection really well, but how do sensors work?

Brett Peterson: They’re basically cameras that see in infrared. They're mounted on the ceiling and looking down at the people on the floor. And it can see outlines of shapes where people are. That's really what it's tracking. It’s just seeing those. It's called blob detection, it’s seeing those people on the floor. And then as they move around, you can track the directions that people are walking, and be able to add projection to that. So the program that's running is making flourishes if there's sparkles and bubbles and things that follow you as you walk around the floor. 

Glen Nelson: Everybody listening is gonna say, “well, I want to see that.” So your website has a pretty cool introduction to that. And their website is just the acronym of the institution. So it's amnh.org. Then look up Invisible Worlds, and there's a video that kind of describes it. I don't know, Brett, if I've ever had such a sense of wonder, after seeing that. Let me ask you, though, about success. How do you determine whether your projects at the museum are successful? 

Brett Peterson: Yeah, it's a good question. In the past, we’ve done evaluations for whether or not the content has been delivered. So we asked people about what they knew coming into a show and what they learned coming out of the show. And now we've rolled in a lot of our media pieces into that as well to see how people's attitudes might have changed or how they might feel differently about a topic based on their experience. And we ask them about their experiences with the media pieces as well. So for example, the Insectarium. That's one that we wanted to know, how do people feel about insects before coming to the Insectarium? You know, are they gross and scary and weird? How do you feel about it? And hopefully, while you experience the Insectarium and come out, you'll understand their importance, and that they're not so scary, or understand the vital impact that they have in their environments and also for us humans. And to do that we have media experiences that are built to increase empathy and to let you see these amazing things that insects do. And we track that. We see, are these experiences, are they working? Are they delivering that content, first of all. And then also, are they fun? Do people enjoy them? Are they useful additions to the gallery? When we're designing something, it's always a trade off of what we're going to put where and how much we're going to allocate for different experiences. So, are these media experiences paying off in the experience as well? 

Glen Nelson: Well, I assume that part of the design is what can go wrong. I imagined that visitors can break things and that technology can become out of date. So can you talk about any of those issues? 

Brett Peterson: Sure. Yes, our visitors are very hard on our equipment, sometimes. 

Glen Nelson: They're hands on, and they have tough hands. 

Brett Peterson: Very hands on. Yeah, I've learned a lot about that as I've been developing media pieces, about how robust they need to be and how we need to use industrial components and things that will withstand the use. But yeah, technology does change fast. That's something that when I'm going to other museums, just by the shape of the screens, I can usually pick out what decade that media piece was created. So we do. We think about that, the future-proofing. It's something that we are looking at and trying to both make our pieces flexible as we're developing them now and also thinking, how can we retrofit media into our existing galleries and existing spaces? Are there ways that we can do that isn't so in your face, but is seamless or in more magical ways?

Glen Nelson: How do you stay current with the technology? I mean, I'm sure it's evolving so fast, not just the technology, but also all the devices and platforms and so forth.

Brett Peterson: Yeah, like I said, I've always had this love of learning. And so for me, it feels a little natural. I'm constantly looking for what else is out there, what's next. I like to go on field trips. We get a group and we go to other museums and go to other experiences here in the city. We're lucky that we got lots around here to go to. And I also find inspiration from outside the cultural sector. I think there's a lot of interesting and great stuff going on in theme parks that can be applied to museums in ways that are meaningful. And even in small nature centers and other public places where people gather. There's lots to be learned from those experiences. I also, just on the technology side, I'm constantly looking to see what’s going on and what's useful in video games. There's a lot of inspiration that we draw from in video games.

Glen Nelson: Let's say there's a new exhibition. How early are you brought into the discussion of the show and how it's going to be presented?

Brett Peterson: Right from the start.

Glen Nelson: Really?

Brett Peterson: I'm part of our directors group, and we are responsible for brainstorming ideas for the show, coming up with topics. Sometimes they come from our leadership, sometimes they come from our scientific staff, sometimes they come from us. But I'm in those meetings right from the start to say, OK, what can we use to drive this experience? What can we use to sell this experience of wanting our administration and our visitors to be excited about this topic? And I think that's a really big strength in how we work in our department, being able to have those discussions right from the start and not coming in later in the project. 

Glen Nelson: OK, what about AI? Is that coming into your processes too? 

Brett Peterson: Yeah, a bit. I've seen some interesting uses for it, some ways that we probably won't use AI in our museum. But definitely, in thinking about tools and the process of how we're working, we're starting to see some great uses for it. Simple things like being able to transcribe videos quickly. You know, you can now plug it in and say, give me an open caption for a video, and it does a pretty good job. It still needs a lot of human finessing, but it does a pretty good job. We're also using it for starting to generate images for backgrounds and things. Doesn't do so well at scientifically accurate imagery. 

Glen Nelson: That's my guess is that the science people are rather precise, so they're gonna want it to evolve enough that they can have confidence in it. 

Brett Peterson: Absolutely. But I think for things like texturing and other things, we can leverage those tools in a way that makes sense. And I'm excited. I'm excited to see what else we can do with it and how it can augment the work that we do. 

Glen Nelson: I was at the Museum of Modern Art last year. I don't know if you saw this. But the entrance gallery was given over to an artist, Rafiq Anadol, using generative AI to mix the museum's collection with elements happening live. You're nodding your head.

Brett Peterson: Beautiful.

Glen Nelson: It was cool because it also shifted based on the sounds in the room, the temperature outside and other things. And he interpreted the works. He was basically given all the images in the museum's collection. And it drew from it in real time and created new images that were ever shifting and morphing. I don't know when you saw it, but when I saw it a few times, probably was there four times and saw this show, it was packed. There were people sitting on those couches in front of it, and they just wouldn't leave. And so I had some relatives in and we included teenagers and younger, and afterwards they couldn't talk about anything else other than that. Seeing Picasso at the museum, eh, whatever. But that AI piece, you know. And there were people in that group who were not art people, quote un-quote, who said, well, maybe there's something going on here. Maybe there's something more. 

Brett Peterson: It's captivating. 

Glen Nelson: Yeah. Was that your experience or potentially what might happen with other people who try to duplicate this kind of feel? 

Brett Peterson: Oh yeah, I think it's, how should I say this, it's the power of being able to unlock a collection, right? Thinking about all of the data that we have and having a way that can synthesize that data and explore it in an interesting and unique, novel way. That's what I think is really fascinating. You know, how can we do that? What kind of surprises can we find in combing this data, this collection that we have? We've got millions of objects in our collection, both digital and physical. What can we find through these tools that would take humans a very, very long time to do? 

Glen Nelson: I mean, there's a Barnum aspect of it. You couldn't, let's say, sew a cat's head to a fish body today, but AI could. AI could play around with stuff and the viewer would think that was really funny. They wouldn't see it as science. They would see it as this kind of wild thing and they would have fun. And I think visual arts, like fine arts, could also do this. I'm hopeful that what you're doing can start appearing more in other institutions, different kinds of institutions. So let's shift a little bit and talk about fine art engagement with technology. So if you were hired by a fine art institution, how would you go about upping the interactivity levels with a forthcoming exhibition, for example? 

Brett Peterson: I really like to think about that. How can I add meaningfully to what people already love about museums? Not trying to make a brand new--throw out everything and start anew, but how do you add to what people are already going to a museum for? So if that's an art museum, how do you add to that experience of what people are looking for when they go to an art museum? That seeing something new or interesting or challenging, and experiencing that firsthand, right? I think that you talked about this a little bit with that museum, the shipbuilding museum, but how do you personalize the experience? I think that's fascinating, and especially for art and fine art institutions, how can you make the visitor feel like it's for them? That it takes into account what they're interested in, what they want out of an experience, out of a visit, and personalize it. And I think that's where technology can really be a meaningful addition to an exhibit. 

Glen Nelson: I think museums want to be careful that the exhibition experience doesn't lose the traditional fine art viewing feel, but I'm not sure viewers consider it so sacred. 

Brett Peterson: I think you're probably right. 

Glen Nelson: At The Metropolitan Museum of Art right now, the Costume Institute exhibition, Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion, is using technology to show how items that are too fragile, even to be placed on mannequins, can be experienced anew. It's kind of like this. That's the resurrection, reawakening part of the show. There's a section that provides sensory experiences to the clothing. You hear the rustle of the fabric, and you even get to smell the cloth. There are holograms and projections and animations and recreations. I think this is an excellent example of what's possible, but it's not like window dressing, so to speak. The interactivity takes you deeper than merely looking at the exhibition than traditional vitrines and wall texts could accomplish. And I think it has a behind the scenes and educational component, very Brett like, if I might say so. Do you think that's kind of an interesting example of how museums might play around with these techniques? 

Brett Peterson: I do. I do, absolutely. And I think that visitors are expecting that more and more. Rather than just seeing static displays, they're expecting that interactivity. They're expecting things to be in motion and have life brought to those gallery spaces. I think we're looking to match those expectations and exceed them, trying to figure out how we can add more to these displays and make them come alive. 

Glen Nelson: I guess the subtext of this entire discussion for me is trying to get institutions who haven't played around with this to consider it. There are some barriers, I'm sure. I'm sure it costs money. I'm sure it takes time. I'm sure there's personnel. In your view, are those three barriers insurmountable? 

Brett Peterson: No, you can do a lot with a little. And I would encourage people to dip their toe, you know. Try something out and see how it goes. There are small interventions that you can add to an exhibit or to a gallery that can really increase the engagement from visitors. I think also those tend to be the things that are written up about. You get good publicity. Often our media pieces are what ends up being on the advertisements for a show. Right now we have Secret World of Elephants and we've got a projection on the side of an elephant showing all the internal anatomy and a baby. And that's what's on the bus stops and in the subway ads right now. So I think, yeah, it's worth it to try out adding media to traditional displays. 

Glen Nelson: We should probably wrap up. I have two last questions, though, for you. The first is about your work at the museum. What's your favorite part of the job? 

Brett Peterson: My favorite part is–I have two. Despite how hectic it is, I really enjoy the installation process because it's kind of an all hands on deck situation. We've got a few weeks where we're just getting stuff done. Everything from a bare gallery to everything being on display and looking great. It happens really fast and it feels– there's an energy to that. There's an excitement. I really enjoy it, even though it's very long days and unexpected problems always arise, it's fun. I really enjoy that. I also really like the prototyping aspect. I like being able to have an idea and say, okay, I think this could work, but I need to test something. I need to make a small prototype, a small test to try this out. So whether that's like a paper prototype or building something small, writing a little bit of code and projecting something up. I really enjoy that process of quick iteration and trying to see if an idea is going to work and if it's worth pursuing. 

Glen Nelson: And finally, if you could predict the future regarding museums and technology, including fine art museums, where do you think we're headed? 

Brett Peterson: That's a great question. I do think that there's a little bit of tension between throwing all media– there's a lot of these projection experiences where it's just projections, right? Projections everywhere. And not to knock it, but I think that there will be a time when that becomes so normalized and standard that that's not an exciting thing in itself anymore. So I feel like the combination of digital and physical is really where things are headed. I've seen a lot with virtual reality, and I think augmented reality is interesting in that it's combining your own environment with the digital, right? And I think that's what we'll see more and more in our exhibitions as well, is how do you augment and add to instead of just wholesale replace them with projections. 

Glen Nelson: So I'm grateful to you, Brett, for this discussion. It's so exciting to be able to get a new look at ways of showing art and objects. Listeners, you can learn more about Brett's work by going to his website, brettjpeterson.com. He has some examples of public installations, physical computing, gaming, design, and fabrication that he does on the side, let's say, from his day job. I'm not sure that you've put the most recent works that you're working on, but still, there's quite a lot of cool stuff in there.

You can learn more about the Center's work by visiting our website, centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org. Today we're unveiling on our website a new 360 degree interactive museum experience. It's a virtual tour of the current exhibition at the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, our exhibition Materializing Mormonism: Trajectories in Latter-day Saint Art. Actually, it was really cool, Brett. I have a friend who's an architect, Tim Boyle, who lives in the neighborhood. And I talked with him about this, thinking of you. And he said, well, at my firm, we have these 360 degree cameras. Why don't I just go in there and take a shot of all of the stuff. And then later on, he layered it. So you're quote-unquote walking through the show and you can stop and you can click on a button and up comes the wall text and you can slide things around. You feel like you're in control. And that was kind of, I mean, I don't want to say that he didn't have to work hard, but that was kind of an easy ask. And it didn't take a lot of time and it didn't take a lot of money either. So again, back to my goals of getting museums to consider some of this stuff. In this case though, it really was an example of, well, a lot of people don't live in Mesa or want to go to where it's 110 degrees right now. I happen to know. So they can tour this virtually, which I think is pretty great. And of course you and I are working on something else. There's more more to come with that. So do you have any final comments, Brett? 

Brett Peterson: No, I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. I love what I do and I love talking about it.

Glen Nelson: Thanks again, Brett. And thank you, listeners. Goodbye.

[Transcription by Erin Eastmond]