MCN 2024

Office spaces make for great recording studios. And expert voice talent is closer than you think.

For decades, audio guides have remained a staple of the museum visit. Though technologies have evolved, the core experience remains the same: Today's visitors continue to arrive at cultural institutions with an expectation of having access to expert audio commentary from curators, artists, historians, community members, and any array of voices providing a complementary perspective to the environment surrounding them.

Great audio content can be produced inexpensively and with tools that are readily available. This session will provide insights into the technical and creative aspects of creating compelling audio content using readily and easily available resources.

Presented by Bloomberg Connects, a community partner for this year's conference.

Los Luceros Historic Site sits on 300-acres of New Mexico land with apple orchards, the Rio Grande, historic buildings, and a rich queer history including Maria Chabot and Georgia O’Keeffe. This historic site opened in 2019, right before every museum and historic site in New Mexico closed due to the pandemic. In January of 2023 the Program for Interactivity and Cultural Technology (PICT) in Media Arts & Technology developed multiple installations for Los Luceros as they planned a grand re-opening.

A 3D-Interactive 60”x44” CNC engraved table was created from trees that burned during the devastating northern New Mexico fires of 2022. The table has 11 buttons that each feature something significant about the location on site they are representing. Different historic structures, animals, and iconography were also created using Blender 3D- an open-source application. Buttons and buildings were 3D-printed in Becca Sharp’s home studio. Using open source hardware (the Arduino and the Museduino- developed in-house by Rianne Trujillo and Miriam Langer) to connect the buttons and LEDs, which in turn illuminate historic buildings, the acequia madre (the mother irrigation canal), and key features of this incredible site on the banks of the Rio Grande.

What makes this table so special is the use of technology to enhance the historic site without requiring the visitor to use screen-based technology. Visitors can feel the corn-based plastic that houses the buttons and the wood that was given a second life through this project. The table also guides visitors as a way-finding tool and creates an exciting map for both adults and children to learn about all that the site has to offer.