Writing an e-book about e-books for fun and no profit: Feb 1-14, 2012

Richard, the photo wall with examples from possible and existing digital augmented reality gives me the opportunity to share my impressions of a recent visit with granddaughters age 10, to the State Museum of Art here in Copenhagen.

It was on a stormy rainy day, so getting indoor felt really nice. The building is huge and impressive, there were some practicalities around getting rid of winterly outfit in the wardrobe, some typical  and outspoken twin negociations around turn taking of the closet door with the coin insert and key, taking the stairs or the elevator, etc . Not very much attention to the fact that wthey were going to have a great time with old paintings.

The traditional permanent exhibitions are on first floor, with four posssible starting points (and free entrance). I let serendipity rule and we entered the European paintings from about 1400 to 1850 I think. The kids were instantly drawn towards a large touch screen, placed horizontally like a work table, and without asking for any sort of instruction, they just started experimenting. There were many different layers - all paintings from a certain period, related motives, or by artists who had influenced one another. by finger touch, the kids were able to browse the collection and find their own ways into this new world of art. The table had two sides with independent workplace, but some moves would influence on the whole screen. They could listen to spoken descriptions with headphones, which they really enjoyed. There were also written notes with factual knowledge about the artists and their works, but as they are both still in the phase of making sense of unknown words, this did not hate the same appeal as the image based inspiration.

After about ten minutes of exploring the digital marvel scren, they turned wround - and found the walls around them covered with paintings that they already knew by proxy! Now they were ready to walk (or run) around an explore details, ask all sorts of questions and learn a great deal of the cultural history that the painters have enriched and interpreted. We spent three full hours doing about eight large room, we ended up at the touch screen where they repeated a lot of their favorite pieces and little details -  and they did not want to go home! They did not ask for snacks or stuff from the museum sho but enjoyed granny's nice raw carrot; this was right after christmas so I guess they had had enough of all that crap.  I feel that their eyes were wide open after their intuitive exploration of the touch screen. Insight and knowledge that not the best printed catalogue would have helped them obtain. And, I had to promise that our next tour would go back to this museum. As Cecilie said: " You know - we are very curious about everything in this place!"