Loic Tallon

I am a museum designer and researcher, specialised in mobile interpretation and in-gallery interactivity. With an MA in Art History from the Courtauld Institute, my first project took me to archives in Europe and the USA, tracing the history of audio guides, the forefathers of all the mobile interpretation tools that now follow. This led to me co-editing the book "Digital Technologies and the Museum Experience: Handheld Guides and Other Media" (Alta Mira Press, 2008), a collection of research-led essays on the design of mobile interpretation tools for museums. Alongside this research, as a consultant with Cultural Innovations, I worked on projects with museums such as the V&A, Ashmoleon, and Shakespeare’s Globe (England), Khalsa Heritage Centre (India), Massar Discovery Centre (Syria) and ArtScience Centre (Singapore). And most recently, in the 11 months from May 2008, it was back to my research, visiting over 250 museums in cities across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australasia and America, evaluating international trends and practices in museum design - focusing in particular on mobile technology. I will be using this blog to share this research and hopefully spark debate about the future nature and role of mobile interpretation tools in the museum. I look forward to hearing from you! loic.tallon [at] gmail.com

• Posts: 3

I never take audio guides. I can’t stand them!

“I never take audio guides.  I can’t stand them!” I love that phrase.  I think it encapsulates everything museums have got wrong with mobile interpretation.  I’ve now heard it so often that I’ve resigned myself to producing a polite smile each time I hear it; I’m rarely able to summon the strength to follow it [...]

About that 1952 Sedelijk Museum audio guide, and a certain Willem Sandburg

Over the last couple of weeks  – thanks in part to me also posting the news footage on the MCN listserv – I’ve received a number of questions about the 1952 Stedelijk Museum audio guide: how the technology worked, who developed it, why it was installed, and what the Dutch commentator says (see end for [...]

My first post, and, because it’s Friday, some 1952 news footage of the first museum handheld. [Take 2]

Thanks for the introduction Nik, but where do I start? My inclination is to dive in and share my confoundedness about the abundance of auto-triggered audio tours in Israel.  Or to recall my nostalgia at discovering Japan to be not just the hi-tech whiz country of my imagination, but apparently the graveyard for much of [...]