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Articles
been abandoned due to cost. However,
AV has become far more accessible
over the past 25 years: as part of the
project, the museum rehabbed the
physical installation to accommodate 3
AV programs: a slideshow ‘arming of a
knight,’ video footage of armor in
action, and a touchscreen mini-quiz
that answers common visitor
questions in a simple yet compelling
game format.
Where the previous timeline
display had clocked very little
dwelltime with visitors, the new
installation has become one of the
museum’s most popular features. A
large part of this is predictably due to
the AV content, but this content does
much more than entertain a 21stcentury
‘YouTube’ audience: these
Visitors perceive the
Higgins Armory as a
‘museum of knights’ and
a ‘museum of the Middle
Ages,’ a fact familiar to
us anecdotally and
confirmed by a series of
visitor interviews
undertaken at the outset
of these projects
installations address some of the most
pressing visitor interests about how
armor was actually worn and what it
was like to wear.
Perhaps the most striking feature
of this exhibit was its total cash cost to
the museum: $1683.33 (the largest
line item was $511 for the
touchscreen). This was possible
thanks to creative collaborations
between curatorial, exhibits, and
building staff in rehabbing existing
vitrines; strategical temporary exhibit
planning that generated content for
long-term use (such as the
touchscreen miniquiz); recycling
outdated computer hardware (old
screens and computers are just fine
for looping a video file); and access to
AV and computer resources through
Worcester Polytechnic Institute that
allowed us to produce our AV content
through staff and student work.
The ‘Knights’ exhibit was
completed in 2010; as of March 2011
the Higgins has opened its new exhibit
of Non-European Armor, which will be
covered in the next article in this
series.
46 MAGAZINE ISSUE 06