Note: This post is part of my “Museums Project“, a collection of 200+ high-concept ideas for museums.
The idea is that one museum is next to another museum. In the first, there’s a bunch of interactive exhibits. What you don’t know is that there’s two-way mirrors throughout the room and on the other side of the mirror is the second museum.
You must go to the first museum before you can go to the second museum.
The second museum is setup like a “human zoo” or something like that. The exhibits in the first room are explained in a different way to the viewers of the second room. Just for example, there is a thing you spin with your hand like a tibetan prayer wheel. Maybe the instructions are written in red and the 2-way glass is tinted red so you can’t see the instructions as a zoo visitor. So to the person in the non-zoo, they are doing all these weird things (TBD: what result are they expecting and do they get it?) that are fun.
On the zoo side you just see people acting crazy.
On the zoo side, maybe there’s a lever that release pellets or does other things for the zoo-side. People watch the ball through a bunch of tubes.
Maybe the two rooms interact in some way. Like one side pushes a button and the other side responds. Maybe the “zoo” side is observing a strange religious ceremony.
I think having things in the zoo that require people to do things in synchronicity will have a cooler effect on the other side. Maybe even having people just stare at the wall right at people.
The idea is to create an important reminder that one set of occurances can have multiple narratives. Ideally, neither side is the butt of a joke (any more than the other side).