Media Museum
The state-of-the-art Media Museum of Sound & Vision in Hilversum, The Netherlands, is the most interactive media museum in the world. A visit to this museum offers a unique, educational, and, above all, inspiring journey through the Dutch media landscape. In a highly interactive and personalized way, visitors can experience how media have become a part of their everyday lives and how this evolution occurred.
Agency
Tinker imagineers
Practice Area
Client
The Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision
Industry
The Challenge
Initially, the challenge was to create a highly interactive media museum without the overt use of screens, which seemed almost impossible given the nature of media and media literacy. The designers overcame this by seamlessly integrating screens into the overall design, ensuring that the scenography and exhibits complemented each other without the screens being obtrusive. Additionally, installing a 300-meter LED screen installation, the Media Reactor, to connect different zones posed a significant technical and design challenge, acting as a cohesive element throughout the exhibition. The result was stunningly positive.
Project Vision
The vision was to create a unique, immersive experience that was unprecedented. The goal was to offer visitors an educational and inspiring journey through the Dutch media landscape, making media culture and literacy accessible and engaging. By using personalized and interactive elements, the museum aimed to continuously adapt to the actions of its visitors, providing a distinctive and tailored experience for each individual.
Start your media journey by creating your own profile in the Tune in.
Mike Bink
The Media Reactor is a unique installation of no less than 300 metres of LED screens placed throughout the museum, connecting the different zones.
Mike Bink
Design + Execution
The user was at the center of the design process. The museum experience was crafted to be a unique journey for each visitor, starting with the creation of a personal media profile in the Media Museum app. Face recognition technology and interactive exhibits were integrated to provide a highly personalized experience. The design incorporated more than 50 interactives and hundreds of hours of audiovisual material, ensuring that visitors could explore, interact with, and reflect on media in various ways. The execution involved close collaboration with multiple disciplines over nearly five years to bring this innovative vision to life.
See-through between two zones, smoothly connected by the Media Reactor.
Jorrit Lousberg
We share more and more online. Play with your facial expressions, speculate on others’ profiles, and discover if you have biases.
Mike Bink
What do we share online? Father and son discovering one of the many interactive exhibits.
Mike Bink
Youngsters finding out how to tell stories in media. What techniques do media makers use to tell stories and make you ‘binge’? Which hero type suits you best?
Mike Bink
Part of the play zone, where you can take a quiz, build your own game, or, like these people, play a game with each other on the interactive game floor.
Mike Bink
Project Details
Very unique user experience. From facial recognition and syncing with your phone to help dictate the content a visitor sees this museum is pushing digital experiences in a new way that will shape the rest of the industry.
By seamlessly integrating spatial, graphical, and media design elements, the design team has skillfully brought to life a museum that encapsulates the very essence of media. While numerous projects incorporate digital media and screens, this one stands out for its thoughtful utilisation, serving the purpose impeccably. Visitors are immersed in an interactive media environment that responds dynamically to their actions.
The scale, content management and successful aesthetic integration of digital media at this scale is truly impressive. The companion Digital App and facial recognition technology creates unique opportunities for personalized experience through the exhibition, leveraging digital as an effective tool in supporting not only individual wayfinding, but also creating intimate storytelling within such a massive space and exhibition. This level of responsivity in content and experience is a great example of how integrated digital technology can change the experience of the built environment, while also speaking to the constantly evolving landscape of media that this museum is dedicated to.
Design Team
Tinker imagineers
Collaborators
Neutelings Riedijk architects (architecture)
XPEX (concept)
Tinker imagineers (spatial design, av design, design media reactor)
Bruns (set construction)
Kiss the Frog (interactives)
Redrum (av content)
Beamsystems (av hardware, showcontrol media reactor)
Ata Tech (av hardware)
Danny Weijermans (sound media reactor)
Ata Tech (hardware media reactor)
ACTLD (light design)
Elastique (museum app)
Photo Credits
Mike Bink (photography)
Jorrit Lousberg (photography)
Tinker imagineers / Joris Verleg (videography)
Open Date
February 2023