Dr Ross PARRY (Senior Lecturer, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester, UK) Dr Ruth PAGE (Reader, School of English, University of Leicester, UK) Alex MOSELEY (Educational Designer, Course Design & Development Team, University of Leicester, UK) Dr Erik KRISTIANSEN (Assistant Professor in Performance Design & DREAM, Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies, Roskilde University, Denmark) Even as museums continue to push content out to the network and support experiences at a distance, the threshold to the physical museum endures as a highly visible and symbolic space, where trust and expectations are built, protocols established and affordances noticed. But, today, are these threshold spaces still fit for purpose? Is the use of media within these spaces appropriate for modern modes of visiting? Are the informational metaphors (such as the architectural plan) sensitive to today’s media literacies? Does visitor connectivity suggest new types of encounter? And does visitors’ experience of playing, buying, discovering and learning in other parts of their lives point to alternative means of scaffolding the museum threshold event? Drawing upon the work of two connected research projects (in the UK and Denmark) this paper shows how museum threshold media might be influenced usefully by other sectors that (arguably) have more evolved concepts and practices around ‘threshold’, ‘orientation’ and ‘initiation’ – specifically retail, gaming and performance. The paper will also explain how three experimental media interventions (using these new conceptual lenses) were tested within three real museum contexts – the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology (London), New Walk Museum and Art Gallery (Leicester) and Chatsworth House (Bakewell, Derbyshire). Finally, the paper concludes by rethinking the idea of museum ‘threshold’ (defined, instead, by intention and action rather than physical parameters, perhaps more by time rather than space), and ends by reflecting upon the influence that the web is having on the conceptualisation, strategic use and design of our physical museum entrances.

1. Museums and the Web 2014  Baltimore
On A New
Threshold:
Experiments In Gaming,
Retail And Performance Design
To Shape Museum Entrances

2. Museums and the Web 2014  Baltimore
On A New
Threshold:
Experiments In Gaming,
Retail And Performance Design
To Shape Museum Entrances
Dr Ross PARRY
(School of Museum Studies,
University of Leicester, UK)
Dr Ruth PAGE
(School of English,
University of Leicester, UK)
Alex MOSELEY
(Course Design & Development Team,
University of Leicester, UK)
Dr Erik KRISTIANSEN
(Department of Communication,
Business and Information Technologies,
Roskilde University, Denmark)

3. there are alternative (mature)
frameworks for designing thresholds
that deserve our attention;
museum thresholds might better be
understood as intention/action, rather
than as a physical boundary (as time,
rather than space);
digital media can encourage
reconceptualization of other (non-digital)
aspects of museum provision.
Our work on ‘Transforming Thresholds’ suggests:

4. Multiplying thresholds

5. Multiplying thresholds

6. Multiplying thresholds

7. Multiplying thresholds

9. Enduring iconicity

10. Enduring iconicity

11. Enduring iconicity

12. Enduring iconicity
historically resonant
sociologically complex
interpretatively meaningful
pivotal to the visit event

13. digital being naturalised within the
museum’s vision and articulation of itself
a preparedness for a post-digital
organisational structure
actively recruiting blended roles
the presence of ‘digital thinking’
digital being part of the generative
and ideation moment
blended production
strategising for a multiplatform future
no need for digital to be strategised separately
The postdigital museum
Ross Parry, 'The End of the Beginning: Normativity in the Postdigital
Museum', Museum Worlds, vol. 1 (2013), 24-39.

15. Alternative scaffolding

16. Alternative scaffolding
Retail Studies

17. Alternative scaffolding
Retail Studies
Game Studies

18. Alternative scaffolding
Retail Studies
Game Studies
Performance Studies

20. the charette

21. the charette

24. the retail threshold

25. the retail threshold
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology (London)
‘Salient Signs’

27. the retail threshold
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology (London)
‘Salient Signs’

28. the game threshold

29. the game threshold
Chatsworth House (Bakewell, Derbyshire)
‘Augmented Signs’

31. the game threshold
‘Augmented Signs’
Chatsworth House (Bakewell, Derbyshire)

32. the performance threshold

33. the performance threshold
‘Human Signs’
New Walk Museum and Art Gallery (Leicester)

36. the performance threshold
‘Human Signs’
New Walk Museum and Art Gallery (Leicester)

37. Retail
Threshold

38. Game
Threshold
Retail
Threshold

39. Game
Threshold
Retail
Threshold
Performance
Threshold

40. Game
Threshold
Retail
Threshold
Performance
Threshold
Chatsworth
House
(Bakewell, Derbyshire)
Petrie Museum of
Egyptian Archaeology
(London)
New Walk Museum
and Art Gallery
(Leicester)

41. Game
Threshold
Retail
Threshold
Performance
Threshold
Chatsworth
House
(Bakewell, Derbyshire)
Petrie Museum of
Egyptian Archaeology
(London)
New Walk Museum
and Art Gallery
(Leicester)
‘magic circle’
‘explorative play’
(Kristiansen, 2014)
‘saliency’
‘servicescape’
(Harwood, 2013)
‘Invisible theatre’
‘real life rehearsal’
(Human, 2013)

42. Game
Threshold
Retail
Threshold
Performance
Threshold
Chatsworth
House
(Bakewell, Derbyshire)
Petrie Museum of
Egyptian Archaeology
(London)
New Walk Museum
and Art Gallery
(Leicester)
‘magic circle’
‘explorative play’
(Kristiansen, 2014)
‘saliency’
‘servicescape’
(Harwood, 2013)
‘Invisible theatre’
‘real life rehearsal’
(Human, 2013)
‘Salient Signs’ ‘Human signs’‘Augmented Signs’

43. Game
Threshold
Retail
Threshold
Performance
Threshold
Chatsworth
House
(Bakewell, Derbyshire)
Petrie Museum of
Egyptian Archaeology
(London)
New Walk Museum
and Art Gallery
(Leicester)
‘magic circle’
‘explorative play’
(Kristiansen, 2014)
‘saliency’
‘servicescape’
(Harwood, 2013)
‘Invisible theatre’
‘real life rehearsal’
(Human, 2013)
‘Salient Signs’ ‘Human signs’‘Augmented Signs’
Point-of-view
recording
Visitor tracking /
performer
researcher
Aerial
recording

44. there are alternative (mature)
frameworks for designing thresholds
that deserve our attention;
museum thresholds might better be
understood as intention/action, rather
than as a physical boundary (as time,
rather than space);
digital media can encourage
reconceptualization of other (non-digital)
aspects of museum provision.
Our work on ‘Transforming Thresholds’ suggests:

45. there are alternative (mature)
frameworks for designing thresholds
that deserve our attention;
museum thresholds might better be
understood as intention/action, rather
than as a physical boundary (as time,
rather than space);
digital media can encourage
reconceptualization of other (non-digital)
aspects of museum provision.
Our work on ‘Transforming Thresholds’ suggests:


46. there are alternative (mature)
frameworks for designing thresholds
that deserve our attention;
museum thresholds might better be
understood as intention/action, rather
than as a physical boundary (as time,
rather than space);
digital media can encourage
reconceptualization of other (non-digital)
aspects of museum provision.
Our work on ‘Transforming Thresholds’ suggests:


47. there are alternative (mature)
frameworks for designing thresholds
that deserve our attention;
museum thresholds might better be
understood as intention/action, rather
than as a physical boundary (as time,
rather than space);
digital media can encourage
reconceptualization of other (non-digital)
aspects of museum provision.
Our work on ‘Transforming Thresholds’ suggests:


48. there are alternative (mature)
frameworks for designing thresholds
that deserve our attention;
museum thresholds might better be
understood as intention/action, rather
than as a physical boundary (as time,
rather than space);
digital media can encourage
reconceptualization of other (non-digital)
aspects of museum provision.
Our work on ‘Transforming Thresholds’ suggests:

49. there are alternative (mature)
frameworks for designing thresholds
that deserve our attention;
museum thresholds might better be
understood as intention/action, rather
than as a physical boundary (as time,
rather than space);
digital media can encourage
reconceptualization of other (non-digital)
aspects of museum provision.

50. Museums and the Web 2014  Baltimore
On A New
Threshold:
Experiments In Gaming,
Retail And Performance Design
To Shape Museum Entrances
Dr Ross PARRY
(School of Museum Studies,
University of Leicester, UK)
Dr Ruth PAGE
(School of English,
University of Leicester, UK)
Alex MOSELEY
(Course Design & Development Team,
University of Leicester, UK)
Dr Erik KRISTIANSEN
(Department of Communication,
Business and Information Technologies,
Roskilde University, Denmark)