yesterday i visited dai nippon printing’s exhibit in gotanda (tokyo) called louvre museum lab – a series of interactive installations built around titian’s madonna of the rabbit. the interfaces are big and beautiful, so even though most of the curatorial content in available on-line, experiencing the museum lab in person is completely necessary. one interface tracks your eye gaze across the painting before and after having passed through the didactic interaction. in another, visitors can walk inside the painting on a touch-sensitive floor in a projected cave. yet another allows you to magnify and peer inside the painting by pointing your hand in thin air. finally, in the most physical installation a bound book prompts overhead projections that toy with the printed image. the audio soundtrack is delivered by a skull-transmitting headphone triggered by antennas in the floor. your visit is registered on RFID and you can see it all again by visiting your personalized version of the tour on-line.
the most striking aspect of such an experience is how much richness and experience a single painting can reveal, when enough information is provided in stimulating ways. i would rather spend one hour in a one-painting museum than blur through the hundreds that sit in the non-interactive lab.