Introducing meditation in to the museum experience. Would be really useful as an educational factor or ease transfer of environments.

Several problems that I’m thinking about:

  1. Traditional meditation has been greatly condensed in its westernized version, so most people in the US only know an extremely small portion of what it has to offer.
  2. It is not easy to create an intentional space for meditation, especially in a world that is progressing faster than the individual can run.

  3. There exists a stigma on meditation, when it in fact has already been developed for all sorts of cognitive fingerprints throughout its extended history.

    In particular to museums:

    1. There seems to be difficulty in effectively transitioning between different exhibits for visitors- for example, with the photography exhibit in the MIT museum, wandering around an interactive, shiny environment and suddenly being inserted into a quiet place where people can ponder can be disorienting at first. “Meditation,” in both a traditional and non-traditional sense, can be used as a method to reorient and prepare a visitor for the next experience.
    2. Entering from said speedy world to a museum, where some participants may be expected to maintain some sort of ettiquite / behavior, may be easier for those who undergo a few seconds/minutes of transition.
    3. It would be interesting if visitors could experience what those at the CPL (the photography lab??) did from their spiritual inspirations.
    4. Not only can it help with transitioning from a chaotic to a more calm state, but it can also help visitors transition from calm to an energetic state of mind. Creating a certain state of mind can greatly increase the experience, and help curators/designers create exhibits with a certain audience’s state in mind, in mind.

Audience: all visitors in a museum. Curators/exhibit designers who are interested in a more controlled audience to design for. Probably better designed for relatively older audiences, though.

Potential museum collaborators: MFA, Harvard, MIT museum, etc.

Approach: The hanging black box on the second floor of the MIT Museum is inspirational. When I stood under it, it felt like I was in a different space for a bit. A potential approach would be to have the hanging black box, and introduce different experiences for different senses with it. First, using spatial sound when visitors under it. Then, at the top of the black box, attach an incense that would start. While all of this is happening, having a set of instructions / educational on meditation playing through the spatial sound. There are different meditations to explore, depending on what curators may want. Some for grounding, others for energizing, focusing, sparking curiosity/awareness. Having options with eyes open or closed, breathing shallowly, deeply, long, short, or “catching” sounds. Each its own effect, and each something new to the typical person.

Otherwise, encourage meditative practices in that one big stairwell with a bunch of seats with the large TV. It’s literally such a good place for meditation already… I wonder what else it’s used for other than presentations…? It has a lot of potential for something like this, especially in transition to the kinetic machines and AI section that it leads up to.

Skills: Designers/UX Mechanical Engineers/Peeps who can make a box Programmers/Electrical Engineers Someone with lots of meditation knowledge (I count)

Or, just UI/UX + meditation knowledge to create a program for the big screen idea