The photographer experience

Abstract

The Nederlands Fotomuseum is the Dutch national museum for photography and its archive has the biggest collection of photographic material in the country. Currently, the visitors of the museum have a rather passive role and are merely subjected to the visual artworks in the museum. The museum desires to give the visitors more insight in the world behind photography, such as the photographic process, the invention and developments of the photo camera or the process of developing photographs in the dark room. This project explores the possibilities to let the visitors of the Nederlands Fotomuseum experience the world behind photography in an active, co-participatory way. First an analysis of the context is made: The museum’s vision, goals and ways of working. The way other museums handle interactive, educative installations. The desires of the visitors and motivation for coming. The way photographers work and what they desire. The principles of the photo camera. This is followed by an exploration of three promising scopes. Resulting from the analysis, the design goal is re-defined as: “Design an educational interactive experience for the visitor of the Nederlands Fotomuseum with a rechargers motive and no experience with photography. This experience needs to make this target group take a longer and better educated look at photographs to let them experience what it is like to be a photographer and what it takes to make a photograph”. The developing stage shows the creative process towards coming up with a design proposal fulfilling the design goal and meeting the requirements. This is done through a process of ideation, conceptualization and validation. Next, the design proposal is given, consisting of a presentation of the total design, an explanation of the envisioned co-participatory interaction, and a more detailed design of the mechanical part of the design proposal. Finally, the project is concluded by evaluating the design proposal on the requirements, discussing the feasibility, desirability and viability, and posing the recommendations for further research and development.