Berkeley MDes 2025 Spring
Designing Emerging Technologies
Deconstructing Museum
#Problem Space #System of Relationships #Network of Interactions

Deconstructing Museum

M
Recording personal and collective stories
U
Small choices accumulate into history
S
History only has meaning when told and interpreted
E
Interactivity makes history participatory rather than passive
U
Helping individuals realize their historical impact
M
Making History Turning individual actions into exhibits

Inspiration

A museum exists because of people.
Without individuals, history has no meaning, interpretation, or transmission.

Concept Map

Causal Loop Diagrams

Stakeholder Analysis

Key Takeaways

  • Reframing the Concept of Museums
  • Micro-Events as History-Making
  • Physical Interaction as a Medium of Storytelling
  • Digital Museums as Evolving Containers
  • Hybrid Interaction: Bridging Physical & Digital

Target Audiences

  • People who don’t care about history (They don’t see their actions as historically significant)
  • Cultural enthusiasts (Interested in history but looking for more participatory experiences)Urban pedestrians (Unconscious participants in history)

Pain Points

  • History is often seen as "something from the past" → People rarely think about themselves as history-makers.
  • The historical value of individual actions is overlooked → How can everyday actions be recorded and recognized?
  • Museums are static → But history is dynamic. How can we make it interactive and real-time?

How Might We

  • HMW make individuals realize they are actively shaping history?
  • HMW turn unconscious behaviors into meaningful historical records?
  • HMW make museums dynamic, evolving, and interactive?

Final Reflection: A New Model for Museums

This project proposes a new model for museums, where:
  • History is co-created by participants rather than dictated by institutions.
  • Micro-histories matter, and personal actions are embedded in historical narratives.
  • The museum is not a building but an evolving, interactive space where visitors leave a mark—both physically and digitally.
By making history participatory and visually expressive, Museuming challenges traditional museum structures, encouraging people to see themselves as agents of historical change, no matter how small their actions seem. This project is not just an art installation but an exploration of how museums can evolve to reflect contemporary, interactive experiences.

Ideation

Users step on pressure-sensitive tiles embedded in a public space. Each step triggers a short, AI-generated historical event based on past participants’ actions. Over time, the floor evolves as more people participate, revealing new collective "memories."
As people walk past a sensor-based screen, it captures their movement as shadow silhouettes. These shadows remain temporarily, overlapping with previous visitors, creating a layered time-lapse effect. The installation visualizes collective human presence in a space over time.
Users drop a physical object (stone, coin, or digital tag) into a smart fountain. The fountain responds with a visual and sound pattern unique to that object. The water remembers past drops, creating a growing pattern of collective contributions.
We design a hopscotch grid drawn with chalk on the street, where passersby unconsciously engage in play. Each jump represents a choice, analogous to micro-historical events driven by human activities.
This device provides questions that has two options. After collecting participants' answers, this system would generate an image based on selections of each steps.
A public wall that records and plays back whispered messages from past visitors. Participants speak a word or phrase, and their voice becomes part of the evolving "sound museum."

Experiment

How it works?