When I was living in Paris at the beginning of this year, I went to a minimum of three museums a week. While this luxury was made possible by the combination of an ICOM card and unemployment, it was founded on a passion for museums. Looking back, some of my favorite museum exhibits were on topics that were originally uninteresting to me, but they all exemplified some level of data visualization use, such as interactive maps and information design. After researching digital initiatives and data visualization in museums, I came to the conclusion that in addition to enhancing the in-person experience, data visualization can further be used to enhance the digital experience, and even as a brainstorming tool for curators.

当我今年年初住在巴黎时，我每周至少去三个博物馆。 尽管ICOM卡和失业的结合使这种奢侈成为可能，但它建立在对博物馆的热情之上。 回顾过去，我最喜欢的一些博物馆展品的主题本来对我来说并不有趣，但它们都例证了某种程度的数据可视化用途，例如交互式地图和信息设计。 在研究了博物馆的数字计划和数据可视化之后，我得出的结论是，除了增强亲自体验之外，数据可视化还可以进一步用于增强数字体验，甚至可以作为策展人的头脑风暴工具。

数字化馆藏 (Digitalizing Collections)

With museums closed nationwide due to COVID-19, visiting museums’ digital collections has been the safest and often only way to visit museums. Digitalization of museum collections didn’t originate during the COVID-19 era, however. Last year, the Cleveland Museum launched an open-access project allowing a website-viewing of their collections. Visitors can search by department, work type, etc., and even by how many views and clicks each piece has received as if it were a popularity contest. Other notable digital initiatives include the State Library of NSW that has an experimental, bird’s-eye view of their collection, Tate Museum with their online digital collection and collection dataset available to download, and the Cooper Hewitt, where you can search the collection by nontraditional methods like “tallest,” “shortest,” “widest,” etc. Digitalized collections not only allow prospective visitors to strategize their visit but also make collections accessible to wishful visitors at antipodes.

由于COVID-19，博物馆在全国范围内关闭，参观博物馆的数字收藏馆是参观博物馆的最安全且通常是唯一的方式。 但是，在COVID-19时代，博物馆藏品的数字化并非起源。 去年， 克利夫兰博物馆启动了一个开放式项目，允许在网站上查看其藏品。 访客可以按部门，工作类型等进行搜索，甚至可以按每件作品获得人气和点击次数进行搜索。 其他值得注意的数字举措包括具有实验性鸟瞰图的新南威尔士州州立图书馆 ， 泰特博物馆及其在线数字馆藏和馆藏数据集可供下载，以及库珀·休伊特 ( Cooper Hewitt) ，您可以在其中以非传统方式搜索馆藏诸如“最高”，“最短”，“最宽”之类的方法。数字化馆藏不仅使准参观者能够制定出他们的参观策略，而且还可以使对立的如意参观者可以访问馆藏。

Going digital now could have huge implications for the future in terms of potential income revenues and creative curation. Beyond accessibility, digital collections could serve as preparation for a disaster similar to COVID-19. Museums were hit hard, and it’s not difficult to imagine various monetary gains from novel digital museum ventures: from paid guided visits to online membership catalogs for viewing collections, which would be akin to exhibition catalogs that are features of every museum bookstore. Digitalizing collections is furthermore the first step toward globally visualizing collections. This alone is powerful, as it allows viewers around the world to not only view collections but explore them and draw relationships between different pieces. These two points tie into a larger benefit: it’s an avenue for creativity, innovation, and exploring stories untold and lurking in museum collections.

就潜在的收入和创意策划而言，现在走向数字化可能对未来产生巨大影响。 除了可访问性以外，数字馆藏还可以为类似于COVID-19的灾难做好准备。 博物馆受到了沉重的打击，不难想象从新颖的数字博物馆事业中获得的各种金钱收益：从付费导游到在线会员目录以查看藏品，这类似于每个博物馆书店都有的展览目录。 此外，对馆藏进行数字化是使馆藏全球可视化的第一步。 仅此一项功能就很强大，因为它使全世界的观众不仅可以查看收藏，还可以浏览它们并绘制不同作品之间的关系。 这两个方面带来了更大的好处：这是创造力，创新和探索博物馆藏品中不为人知的故事的途径。

发展新故事 (Developing New Stories)

While navigating digital collections permits the visitor to hop between rooms, so to speak, in-person visits are not much of a choose-your-own-adventure. If you begin an exhibition, you step into a curated experience that leads you through a story, usually concluding in the gift shop. More often than not, the story thread is time, and subplots could be art movements like cubism, or impressionism, or even a particular artist. Can you think about the most unique museum exhibition that you experienced? What was unique about it?

在浏览数字馆藏时，可以允许游客在不同房间之间跳动，可以这么说，亲自参观并不是您自己选择的冒险活动。 如果您开始展览，您将进入策划的体验 ，引导您完成一个故事，通常是在礼品店中完成。 故事情节通常是时间，子情节可能是立体派或印象派之类的艺术运动，甚至是特定的艺术家。 您能想到您经历过的最独特的博物馆展览吗？ 它有什么独特之处？

My first taste of creative curation was during a visit to the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), in California. I’ll be honest that I didn’t have high expectations. I expected local artists, and at least one Picasso reject, organized by time or artist. Instead, the curators pulled from nontraditional relationships. Rather than group them chronologically, the curators arranged the works by subject or basic theme, as light; pieces separated by hundreds of years were compared instead of contrasted.

我对创意策展的初衷是在访问加利福尼亚的伯克利美术馆和太平洋电影资料馆(BAMPFA)期间。 老实说，我没有很高的期望。 我希望按时间或艺术家组织本地艺术家，并且至少要有一位毕加索作品被拒绝。 相反，策展人摆脱了非传统的关系。 策展人没有按时间顺序对它们进行分组，而是按照主题或基本主题将这些作品安排为浅色。 相隔数百年的作品被比较而不是对比。

This decision allowed me to spot relationships between works that I might’ve missed had they been divided by walls and space. Although I’m unsure that BAMPFA used data visualization for ideation, data visualization techniques can be used to clearly view relationships that might not seem obvious at first. Being able to compare multiple works side by side or to filter through massive museum collections with the press of a button facilitates conceptualizing relationships between pieces.

这个决定使我能够发现如果被墙壁和空间分开，我可能会错过的作品之间的关系。 尽管我不确定BAMPFA使用数据可视化来进行构想，但是可以使用数据可视化技术来清晰地查看起初似乎并不明显的关系。 只需按一下按钮，就可以并排比较多个作品或筛选大量的博物馆藏品，这有助于概念化作品之间的关系。

A beautiful example of this is the Codex Atlanticus, which allows viewers to explore drawings and writings of Leonardo Da Vinici by subject, topic, year, and numerical order. Applied to a museum collection, such a system allows easy access to experimentation with the entire exhibition malleable at the touch of your fingertips. Like BAMPFA, other methods of content organization such as color, topic, substrate, etc. are all too easy to discover with data visualization techniques.

大西洋法典(Codex Atlanticus)就是一个很好的例子，它使观众可以按主题，主题，年份和数字顺序浏览Leonardo Da Vinici的绘画和作品。 应用于博物馆馆藏，这样的系统使您只需轻触指尖即可轻松进行整个展厅的实验。 像BAMPFA一样，其他内容组织方法(例如颜色，主题，底物等)也很容易通过数据可视化技术发现。

Whereas data visualization alone is more exploratory, designing infographics is all about telling a story. If more curators implemented infographics, they would be therefore forced to ask themselves, “What story do we want to tell?” and “How can we best tell it?” While a “traditional” approach may be appropriate, such as using chronology as the underlying story thread, this might not always be the case. Data visualization techniques could thus be beneficial to brainstorming during the ideation and exhibition development stages.

数据可视化本身更具有探索性，而设计图表则只不过是讲故事。 如果更多策展人实施信息图表，那么他们将被迫问自己：“我们想讲什么故事？” 和“我们怎样才能最好地说明这一点？” 尽管“传统的”方法可能是适当的，例如使用年表作为基础的故事线索，但情况并非总是如此。 因此，数据可视化技术可能有助于在构思和展览开发阶段进行集思广益。

Giorgia Lupi’s Draw Your Visit With Data workshop that was hosted at the SFMOMA demonstrates one such method. During the session, attendees explored an exhibition with works linked only by chronology and were instructed to find their own story by using data. Connections ranged from concrete information like the artist’s demographics to their own subjective feelings. Curators could use a similar technique to promote ideation and realize relationships between works. The existence of a digital collection or preexisting data set and some data visualization skills would only ease this exercise.

SFMOMA主持的Giorgia Lupi的“ 用数据吸引您的访问”研讨会演示了一种这样的方法。 在会议期间，与会人员参观了一个展览，展出的作品仅按年代顺序排列，并被指示使用数据查找自己的故事。 联系的范围从艺术家的人口统计等具体信息到他们自己的主观感受。 策展人可以使用类似的技术来促进构想并实现作品之间的关系。 数字收集或预先存在的数据集以及某些数据可视化技能的存在只会简化此练习。

展览经验 (Exhibition Experience)

Upon entering an exhibition, you are following the curator’s story and logic. In an exhibition on Native American history, for example, you might find a map with tribes’ locations, whereas in an exhibition on Ancient Egypt, you’d find a timeline documenting its golden years and its fall. Curators often use maps, chronologies, and other infographics to fill in story holes or to provide ample context. I was especially grateful for infographics when I visited the Tolkien exhibition at Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris. Next to an overwhelming timeline of Middle Earth that spanned at least 10 feet was a map projected on the wall that cycled through Middle Earth’s races and the location of each population. The use of supplementary material not only added depth to the exhibition, but furnished a foundation, and context, regardless of the visitor’s background. It is additionally useful for capturing attention from afar and making traditional textual content more attiring and skim-friendly.

进入展览后，您将遵循策展人的故事和逻辑。 例如，在有关美洲原住民历史的展览中，您可能会找到一张带有部落位置的地图，而在有关古埃及的展览中，您会发现记录其黄金岁月和秋天的时间表。 策展人经常使用地图，年表和其他图表来填充故事空缺或提供充足的背景信息。 当我参观法国巴黎国家图书馆的Tolkien展览时，我特别感谢信息图表。 在跨越至少10英尺的压倒性的中地球时间表旁边，是一幅投影在墙上的地图，该地图在中地球的种族和每个人口的位置之间循环。 不论访客的背景如何，补充材料的使用不仅增加了展览的深度，而且提供了基础和背景。 此外，它还可以吸引远方的注意力，并使传统的文字内容更加时尚和易于浏览。

Interactive visualizations go one step further. Despite my love for museums, I am not one to spend all day at one. In fact, my visits tend to last only an hour or two. I reach a point where I can’t absorb any more text, and everything blurs together despite my 20/20 vision. Interactive exhibitions are a well-deserved break from digesting heavy material by providing contact with the content to allow for a more immersive experience. This type of information exploration can be done alone or collaboratively, thus supporting a solitary or sociable museum visit alike. Beyond recognizing the social aspect of museum visits, implementing data visualization can invoke a deeper curiosity and an incentive for deeper exploration of the content.

交互式可视化更进一步。 尽管我热爱博物馆，但我不是一个整日呆在一起的人。 实际上，我的访问往往只持续一两个小时。 我达到了无法吸收更多文字的地步，尽管我的视力为20/20，但所有内容却一起模糊了。 通过提供与内容的接触以提供更身临其境的体验，交互式展览是理应摆脱消化沉重材料的突破。 这种类型的信息探索可以单独完成，也可以合作完成，从而支持单独或社交的博物馆参观。 除了认识博物馆参观的社会方面，实施数据可视化还可以引起人们更深的好奇心，并激发人们更深入地探索博物馆的内容。

Data Visualization isn’t confined to supplementary materials but can serve as the feature of an exhibition, as notably demonstrated by Giorgia Lupi and Accurat, the data visualization studio that she cofounded. The SF MoMa purchased her and Stefanie Postavec’s Dear Data journey, while the XXII Triennale di Milano exhibited Accurat’s The Room of Change in their Broken Nature exhibit. The latter exhibition is composed of a “data tapestry” representing environmental changes in the past few centuries. Instead of illustrating the trends, the exhibition replicates its pattern so that the visitors can experience the change rather than passively view it. By employing data visualization’s storytelling and aesthetic techniques, this intersection of art and education can be a powerful tool for conveying information. Instead of being limited to a piece of paper that you analyze, the data becomes an experience, resulting in a bigger impact.

数据可视化不仅限于补充材料，还可以作为展览的特色，由她共同创建的数据可视化工作室Giorgia Lupi和Accurat尤其展示了这一点。 SF MoMa购买了她和Stefanie Postavec的《 亲爱的数据》旅程，而第二十二届米兰三年展则在其《 大自然的破碎》展览中展出了Accurat的《变化的房间》 。 后者的展览由代表过去几个世纪环境变化的“数据挂毯”组成。 展览没有显示趋势，而是复制了模式，以便参观者可以体验变化而不是被动地观察变化。 通过采用数据可视化的讲故事和美学技术，这种艺术与教育的交汇点可以成为传达信息的强大工具。 数据不仅限于您要分析的纸张，而是一种体验，可以带来更大的影响。

支持快速思考和慢速思考 (Supporting Fast and Slow Thinking)

Visualizations can support both fast and slow thinking: integrating visual elements help the viewer to get a quick overview of the data or phenomenon, however complex. Incorporating data visualization into museums therefore not only enriches the museum experience with supplementary material or as a storytelling technique, but I believe it can also aid the exhibition curation. It allows us to see common threads that might not have been visible before, such as organizing works by shape or substrate. Nevertheless, “data” has strong algorithmic, or scientific connotation and can scare those unfamiliar with it. We thus need to mold it to speak our language.

可视化可以支持快速思考和慢速思考：集成可视元素可以帮助查看者快速概览数据或现象，无论多么复杂。 因此，将数据可视化整合到博物馆中不仅可以通过补充材料或讲故事的方式丰富博物馆的体验，而且我相信它也可以帮助展览策划。 它使我们能够看到以前可能不可见的常见线，例如按形状或基材组织作品。 但是，“数据”具有很强的算法或科学含义，可能会使不熟悉它的人感到恐惧。 因此，我们需要塑造它以说我们的语言。

Human-centric data visualization is exactly as Giorgia Lupi advocates:

以人为本的数据可视化正是Giorgia Lupi所倡导的 ：

“We are ready to question the impersonality of a merely technical approach to data, and to begin designing ways to connect numbers to what they really stand for: knowledge, behaviors, people.”

“我们已经准备好质疑仅采用技术方法处理数据的非人格化，并开始设计将数字与它们真正代表的东西联系起来的方法：知识，行为，人。”

If museums are collections of humanity, data visualization can be a powerful tool that enhances creative curation and offers new potential for an immersive, impactful museum experience.

如果博物馆是人类的收藏品，那么数据可视化可以是一种功能强大的工具，可以增强创意策划，并为沉浸式，有影响力的博物馆体验提供新的潜力。