We Need to Talk About That Animal Crossing Exhibit

 If it wasn’t clear from the blog post I made about the Pokemon Fossil Museum and the one about Museum Games I’m a big fan of Video Games. So the idea of a video game/museum crossover makes me very excited. Thus when I heard about the Animal Crossing crossover event with the UK’s Sealife Centre I knew I was going to have to check it out.

Promotional Image for the Crossover Event (Sealife Centre Website)

Moving between five different Sealife centres across the UK over the course of seven months. I was lucky enough to happen to be in London working at the Royal Society Summer Exhibition when it was on so I was able to go and visit during a day off. Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t quite that. But it managed to simultaneously be a disappointment but also a potentially exciting future for museums.

In case you’re not aware, the Sealife centre is something of an institution. With 11 locations in the UK and 44 in total across the world it provides an absolutely solid aquarium experience with a good variety of fish, some nice theming, and a balanced and fair approach to the content including tackling important issues such as overfishing and climate change.

Zoos and aquariums get something of an easy ride from me but these attractions are solid and for anyone looking for a bit of something to do especially with kids then a Sealife centre is an easy recommendation. The Sealife centres are perhaps a bit too ‘attractionised’ selling photos, having something of a corporate feel, and are very expensive (You can easily be looking at £30+ for an adult ticket) but you could do much worse.

A global brand like Sealife then is a perfect partner for experimentation as whilst they already have a large and relatively reliable audience they’ll always be looking to do something new to draw people in. A high profile collaboration is just such a potential. The choice being Animal Crossing: New Horizons might at first blush seem a little bit off, given that the game was released about five years before the exhibition started. However, Nintendo franchises are somewhat evergreen and with the release being a phenomena (coming as it did as a cosy life simulator on a gentle island, being launched right at the start of the pandemic) it still holds plenty of appeal.

The reason that it was both a slight disappointment and also perhaps the future was that its presence was fairly light touch. Rather than being an exhibition all of its own the event was instead woven through the normal permanent collection. In its sum total the animal crossing portion was a series of themed information boards, a trail guide, stamp rally, a few ‘hidden’ plushies and a photo opportunity with one of the characters. Oh and of course plenty of themed merchandise in the gift shop.

An example of one of the information boards (own picture)

I had perhaps hoped for something more involved, though I don’t really know what. Something on the order of the Pokémon fossil museum maybe? But this was very much not that. However, this design makes it significantly more scalable and cost effective.

I don't want to try and estimate exactly how much money went into this, not least because I'm sure there were some crazy dealings over the rights, but with exception of the mascot suit I can imagine that you could replicate the animal crossing components for just a few thousand pounds. Which puts the idea in the reach of significantly smaller enterprises.

Me Trying to sneak a picture of Isabelle because I’m not paying £15 for one… (Own Picture)

The question then is what is the value of something like this, both to the venue and the public. The obvious answer for the centre is to draw in more paying guests. Whilst I don't have access to any numbers, what I can say is that there certainly seemed to be a significant number of young adults and teenagers (a target demographic for animal crossing) diligently filling in the trail and looking at the boards which would suggest success.

As an educator I would applaud anything that is able to draw in an audience. Again whilst I don't have demographic information based on my own experiences of normal museum attendees I would suggest that the makeup of the visitors was skewed by the promotion which would indicate it was a different audience that came in.

If, however, the trail with its true or false facts, boards of information and a smattering of branding across the place meant people actually left with more knowledge or science capital is a matter I wouldn’t even want to speculate on without data. But I would report that I found such things to be in line with industry standards and just bringing people in might be a success enough on its own.

The experience then was not ground breaking or even particularly significant. However, it could provide a simple and highly repeatable blueprint for other crossovers to be made. This is something that I would highly encourage and look forward to hopefully seeing in the future.

Professor Kettlestring and the Plague of Illusions

It was when I was wandering through the York Christmas markets that I saw an old eye test centre was being done up. "Coming soon, The Puzzling World of Professor Kettlestring" said some signs over the window.

This was very exciting to me, having long since exhausted all of the museums and attractions in the area is was exciting for something new to be opening up. I also love puzzles so it was an interesting prospect. But at the time I couldn’t find a website so what was it? A puzzle shop? An Escape Room? Some kind of immersive puzzle based Professor Layton type thing? Exciting stuff!

You cannot imagine my disappointment then a little while later when The Puzzling World of Professor Kettlestring opened up and turned out to be yet another ‘Illusion Museum’.

Professor Kettlestring the very clearly AI generated man (Image from Puzzling World York)

Illusion Museums

If you have been to any major European city in the last 5 or so years then you can't have failed to come across an ‘Illusion Museum’. 

Despite some searching I haven't managed to track down where and when the phenomenon started or if this is a franchise type thing or just lots of entrepreneurial types jumping on a band wagon. But by now they're everywhere and they're all much the same. 

The scale and budget varies but they all have the same kinds of things. Upside down rooms that make it look like you're on the ceiling if you take an upside down picture, rooms with squiffy lines that mean you can take photos that look bigger or smaller, and halls of mirrors with interesting lights to take more photos in. 

Typical Images from Illusion Museums Across the World (Image from Wikicommons)

Here it is the photos that are key. Don't get me wrong, I think that Instagramable moments are an important tool for any modern museum. But these space are not for learning. The earlier ones had some token exhibit about the people that discovered such and such an illusion but more recent ones don't even bother. 

These are places that are for having a laugh with friends and more importantly taking lots of cool pictures for social media. Twinned with this is a rise in similar ‘Art Exhibitions’ of the likes of Dark Matter and Melt Museum, Art is not my area and I'm not going to dismiss them as ‘not valid art’ but they are clearly designed around people taking pictures and videos to share online. 

This has led to its logical conclusion of places such as The Balloon Museum or Selfie Factory which are explicitly places to take photographs with almost no pretence at all. This is not to say that I don't think these places shouldn't exist. It's clearly something people want and I'm not about to ruin anyone's fun. 

My issue with it is rather that they wear a skin of ‘museum’ as an attempt to legitimise themselves where they are really simple attractions. Similar things can be seen with the rise of ‘Spy Museums’ which are little more than an activity playground with maybe a couple old artifacts as a shroud. 

The shame is that these attention grabbing activities and photographable moments can be used as a great doorway into some real storytelling. During my university days I worked with Peter Thompson (who discovered the Thatcher Effect) on an exhibition that drew people in with many of these same illusions but then used them to talk about the human brain and perception. 

A rather younger me involved in an illusion at the exhibition (Own Photo)

I perhaps shouldn't be so hard on Professor Kettlestring. It's not like it brands itself as a museum. Even in these museum pretenders we can learn something. Their slick marketing and social media virality is enough to support a purely commercial endeavour and they can often manage to create that all important sense of space (even if it's something of a sham version).