The presentation will detail, through examples, CMA’s process, challenges, and solutions in implementing this first-of-its-kind immersive MR experience. Media will include video clips demonstrating the visitor experience within the exhibition at CMA, as well as first-person clips from the Augmented Reality tour itself.  The presentation will also explore how the process knowledge gained from this experience can be leveraged for future XR experiences on varying emerging technology platforms. The session will conclude with time for questions from audience members. 

Attendees will come away with a roadmap for creating more inclusive and widely engaging XR experiences within exhibitions and installations, including key areas of priority for early conception and lessons learned from existing ventures. Mixed reality is an exciting emerging platform, capable of dynamic storytelling; but often, its implementation is antithetical to the museum experience. Mixed reality installations are relegated to corners of museums, as solo experiences, accommodating few visitors, inaccessible to many, which can make the effort required to produce mixed-reality content feel not worthwhile, despite the advantages of the medium in its ability to produce immersive, memorable and educational experiences. In Fall 2021, the Cleveland Museum of Art successfully implemented Revealing Krishna, a scholarly exhibition where a mixed reality tour was situated in the center of the exhibition, between galleries of 1500 year old sculpture, incorporated seamlessly into the visitor’s journey. When implemented thoughtfully, mixed reality allows museums  to communicate information not easily digestible via the traditional wall label, to a greater audience. The mixed-reality experience communicated concepts such as a complex conservation puzzle, international provenance, and the effects of world events on an art object, through a concise yet engaging and playful minute tour, incorporating high-resolution 3D models  to allow visitors to examine sculptural fragments, and even step into a 7th century Cambodian cave temple.  The project team’s concept and design of the experience paves a new way for incorporating this technology into exhibitions, centering accessibility, and visitor experience, designing a mixed reality tour for all visitors, considering topics such as onboarding in the center  of a scholarly exhibition, physical and digital wayfinding, spatial sound, and incorporating closed captions into 3D augmented reality space. This session will explore the collaborative production process, including working on the experience remotely with collaborators across international borders, as well as how the team weighed accessibility considerations with user experience, visual design, and iterating on staff workflow and onboarding processes to produce a successful experience for the maximum number of visitors.   

The mixed reality experience allowed up to 36 simultaneous participants, with new groups of visitors beginning and exiting at a staggered pace every 2 minutes. Over 95% of exhibition visitors attended the mixed reality tour, the largest ever application of Microsoft HoloLens technology in a museum setting, for a grand total of nearly 20,000 visitors over just 3 months, at the height of a global pandemic, with the vast majority of visitors agreeing that the experience enhanced their understanding of the art objects in the exhibition.  

Attendees will learn about the cooperative design and development process and understand the many aspects that go in to incorporating an XR experience in an exhibition to make the experience successful, including.  

• exhibition planning for successful incorporation of XR 
• collaboration with outside experts in XR and accessibility 
• user accessibility considerations for mixed reality experiences 
• captioning in augmented reality space 
• physical exhibition design and visitor flow considerations 
• content and asset collection for XR 
• script and audio design for XR 
• Digital and physical wayfinding for XR 
• Visitor onboarding process and staffing considerations 
• Measuring visitor engagement with XR in museums