Biennale des Bewegte Bildes (or so) was a 4 day conference dealing with contemporary narrative with a concentration on moving images. Tina and Tim from Time's Up went there to see what we could learn, copy, steal, misinterpret and generally find useful. The following is a bit of a mess of notes from the event.

Peter Delius, Canan Hastik, Peter Paul Huth, Stephan Schwan. Mode: Martin Hegel. Museum Angewandte Kunst.

Following notes, with and without attribution, scribbled during the event.

Schwann: Visitor motivation is not information, but experience. Authenticity. Outside everyday life.

New needs (Bedurfnisse). It used to be about extra information, various perspectives. Because of the “digital turn” (are we allowed to say that?) this is no longer necessary.

“Verteidigung des Schaukastens” - In defense of the vitrine.

Delius: Spoke about an exhibition with a physical, antique, clockwork and an animated digital version. This complementariness worked to use the strenths and compensate for the weaknesses of each version of the device. It is about deepening the experience or the insight. The offer needs to be open. In an analysis of a museum guide, there were three groups, clearly segregated by age:

• up to 16: the device was a distraction
• 16-60: media wise and able to use it
• 60 + :Texts allowed them to fall back and get deeper information

Huth: Film in the dark with full tone. BUT the extra information from an introduction to a film, a story about what happened, why it was made, anecdoted from the filming process, etc, make it more “valuable” (wertvoll). A film is not just a “work” but more.

It is all about the Zusatzinfo. But is it about comprehension, experience or authenticity? Catalysation effects.

The Audio guide in a museum leads to an effect of separation (Vereinzelung). There is no discussion possible. The experience is totally individual but also totally standardised.

Canan Husik: talked about the exhibition about game narratives, the authenticity of original hardware. There is a dialogue in order to pick up the visitor. An “emergent” narrative, The authentic hardware work as an Errinerungsausloser (memory activator) - but this is something that only works for those with a memory!!

Schwann: The moving image is the worst of all possible.

Comics are more comprehensible than moving images.

Delius: The App should not stand in the way.

The experience should not stand in the way.

The experience should not finish when you leave the exhibition.

Schwann: the video held people longer. There was a discussion about the way that an ongoing text or image (video or audio) captures the attention of the visitor, not allowing them to be distracted. While a still image or written text, that can be nonlinearly experienced and under visitor control, allows more distractions and discussion. Time based media distract from the real object.

Note: there was repeated talk about the distinction between E and U, meaning Ernst and Unterhaltung, often used to describe the differences between forms of music.

Schwann: The difference between Einfach (simple) and Platt (simplistic?).

One must respect all possible visitor tastes.

Delius: “Partizipation anregen ist die Königsdisziplin.” Generating participation is the highest 'sphere of sporting competition.'

Museum als Möglichkeitsform (Museum as a possibility)

Talk about the inputs to the visitors having barbs, so that they remain partially stuck in.

Note: in order to avoid being pretentious, but also to be pretentious, one can say: “Spätestens seit X wissen wir, dass Y” (At the latest since X, we know that Y) so that the rest of the panel is not tempted to find earlier and earlier thinkers who said Y, but you still get to drop an important name.

Schwann: Hands on ≠ Minds On based upon an example exhibition in teh German Museum in Munich. A series of experiment procedures could be started by pushing a button. But people would leave before they had really started. Interaction, but no further depth.

Accidents and randomness must be allowed in an exhibition.

Huth: Example of an exhibition in a building that was architecturally so strong, that the exhibition did not matter any more,

Hastik: Idea from Ars 2013, a leant camera, that invited the visitor to make their own documented path through the exhibition

Danger of Augmented Reality: once we have created images (or worse, had them created for us), it is hard to emancipate ourselves from them.

Barriers: There are multiple levels of barriers to experiencing a work. Language, culture, technology. With the disappearance of barriers, works lose their meaning. BUT barriers may not be created to keep the non-elites outside.

Question: Can an exhibition App ever get close to a Dandyesque performing curator or a discussion with an equally ignorant but interested friend as one moves through an exhibition,

Comment: Authenticity might be important, but there was no significant difference in interest between replicas and actual historical objects, but there was a significant lowering of interest from real objects to mediated objects, a moving or still image.