In 2014 The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology, in Oslo will celebrate its one hundred years’ anniversary. There is no coincidence that in the same year there will be a national celebration of 200 years of the Norwegian constitution. The museum will use this occasion to make an exhibition about technology and democracy – called “Ting”. The title reflects the double meaning of the word referring to ting as object and ting as a governing assembly and a court – a place where things are put up for discussion.
The aim of this participatory exhibition is to engage people in discussions and experiences that explore the complex relationship between technology and society (democracy). In the exhibition visitors will be invited to discuss a selection of objects from the museum's collections. These discussions will take place daily. Visitor input becomes the nucleus of the experience which will evolve over the duration of the exhibition. Our overarching goal is to engage people in a meaningful dialog concerning the importance of technology, both historically and today.
Physical space design, graphic design and object displays provide the social stage for this performance, and a range of interactive multimedia programs as well as live performers facilitate the interaction, explain and visualize the different stories of the objects. Media also enables communication with the public within the exhibition as well as online through the museum’s website.
The exhibition will be made by the museum in cooperation with Ralph Appelbaum Associates an exhibition design firm based in Berlin, New York and London. The multi-media concept is developed and produced by Tamschick Media + Space GmbH of Berlin. We will make a joint representation of the ongoing design process and development of the content. We will focus on the Ting concept, the meaning of the discussion and how we intend to use the multi-media technology as a tool to communicate, to catalyze a socially oriented dialog as well as to animate otherwise stationary museum objects.