Staging Controversies in Exhibition Spaces

Some attempts to stage controversies in museum settings were made at the Gallery of Research in Vienna in 2005. Criticizing the insufficiency of the traditional interactive methods in museums to keep pace with rapid scientific developments, these attempts showcase a new way for science museums to face the challenges of presenting science in the making.

Installation art bestows a stronger potential for communicating controversial vantage points by providing a new "architecture of interaction" - a hybrid space that is suitable to accommodate, mix and even amplify the interaction potentials, making possible a different museum experience to be generated in immediacy and spontaneity, in agreements and disagreements.

See also Yaneva, Albena et al (2008) "Staging scientific controversies: a gallery test on science museums' interactivity", in Public Understanding of Science, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 79-90 Article