Shelley Bernstein, Brooklyn Museum MW2008

Blogging at the Brooklyn Museum, in the past year
by Shelley Bernstein

Visitor Video Competition - launched in October 2007
Rules for participation were posted on facebook, online

Banksy came to the Brooklyn Museum and hung his own artwork, he did this at the Met and MoMA in 2005.

She woke up at the morning and saw this video that was submitted in the : www.youtube.com "the art thief"
The BMA would never create a video filmed in the galleries about stealing art. Nor would they normally allow visitors to use the museum as a wide open target for videomaking. (Note: they do allow photography in the galleries...)

This is the first major lesson learned: LEARN TO TRUST YOUR AUDIENCE.

More lessons learned: that rules were good, and the more the better. filmmakers stated that the clearer they could be, the more understood they were about what they could and couldn't do.

Getting curators to participate, 300 words (they love word counts) and ask for their personal voice. Also, go to the younger members of the staff as they find it empowering.

Flickr - 900 members connected through the BMA, and nominated ten photographers that were active and committed to "viewing" the collection using their camera lens. BMA photographers portray the objects and holdings in the most neutral way possible, and flickr members do this by suddenly viewing the collection through their own eyes.

The video they created was set to music and stills collected from all the users contributing to the Flickr stream, including images of their public programs, their objects and their images.

The BMA could have done something like this on their own, but by utilizing content generated by users makes it so much richer. And, far more reflective of their audiences.

Facebook (and APIs created for it) ARTSHARE... contributes such as the Met, Walker, Corning Museum of Glass, Powerhouse Museum in Australia

Flickr - it's such an interesting way to get to know someone, that you instantly get an idea of what a person is like based on what they decide to display. This is about giving back.

Four Driving Forces when thinking about developing this
- Openness
- Trust
- Value
- Give

The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki

Submit a photograph that represented "your view" of the changing face of Brooklyn.

Received less than 400 submissions, and are now being evaluated by the "crowd"online.
They are being open about their process
They are trusting the audience
They are valueing their opinions, and
They are giving back to the community by hanging the work on the walls of the museum.

www.brooklynmuseum.org/click

shelley.bernstein@brooklynmuseum.org