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). 

The Hero Item

I was maybe 15? My Mum and sister had some sort of day trip planned so my Dad suggested we could have one of our own to the Royal Armouries in Leeds. A quick google to check opening times and we got into his Van and headed off.

At this point I knew only two things about the museum. Firstly, that it presumably had a lot of weapons and armour in it and secondly that it also contained the rather amazing Horned Helmet of Henry VIII. This was a highly decorative headpiece commissioned for Henry VIII of England by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I to celebrate an alliance in one of those mid-millennium wars that were largely just a good excuse for everyone to have a fight with whomever was aggrieving them at the current moment.

The important part here is that this helmet was at the time (and possibly still is) the symbol of the museum. It was on the front of every leaflet, poster, and web page. Proud columns sit outside the museum with a likeness on it, and they somehow even managed to get it put on the road signs.

Image of the Horned Helmet of Henry VIII including on the Road Sign (Image from Atlas Obscura)

Dutifully then in the museum itself there were lots of signs pointing to where it could be found. Posters proclaiming its beauty and a gift shop selling replicas or varying size, accuracy, and cost.

After wandering around much of the rest of the museum admiring objects made for viciously killing people, those for protecting you from the first category, or decorative versions of both we came to the gallery containing the helmet. There was the case, centre stage with plenty of room for full viewing and inside…

A card, apologising for the fact that the helmet was currently out for cleaning and minor restoration work.

This was emotionally devastating in a way I can’t quite describe. The helmet itself isn’t of any more particular interest than many of the other excellent pieces in the museum. But the fact that it had been built up as this must see object meant that its absence left such a sour taste in my mouth I can still recall it vividly nearly 15 years later.

I could also tell a similar story about the Barcelona Zoo and its albino white gorilla ‘Snowflake’ who was still touted on all the banners, was sold on tea towels and jigsaws in the street. It was only after passing through the ‘Snowflake’ exhibition then later finding the gorilla enclosure at the other end of the zoo where my Dad managed to spot the relatively tiny plaque at the back informing us that they had actually died several years earlier.


What is a Hero Item?
The term ‘hero item’ comes variously from marketing, shopping designers, and video games. I haven't managed to quite track down its origins to a satisfactory degree. In essence however it is the start of the show for any exhibition or museum. The idea is used extensively, if not necessarily under the same name.

In marketing/shopping it is the item everyone wants to come to you to buy. In video games it can be some kind of chase object. Something people will work towards (or perhaps be willing to pay for). The idea in both cases being the same, you are led to desire it, and once you get it there is a huge amount of satisfaction.

For museums this can work in two main ways, the first is fairly natural with famous objects. This could be famed paintings like The Girl with a Pearl Earring or artefacts of particular note such as the Terracotta Warriors. These are things that people already know about either through films and television or otherwise a general cultural osmosis. People will flock to see these things.

More usefully however it is possible to create your own hero items, not everyone having access to world famous artworks and relics. And this is typically done through a mixture of marketing and storytelling. We can take an example from the British Museum’s Late 2024/Early 2025 exhibition on Hew Locke’s Work

Screenshot from ‘Hew Locke, What have we Here?’ Main Page on the British Museum Website

Immediately then we can see our hero item. A marble bust of Queen Victoria surrounded by a striking and very non-British golden headdress that prominently features skulls. It’s attention grabbing, beautiful, intriguing, and perfect for the centrepiece of an exhibition.

Throw out a few posters featuring it prominently, put it on the front of the exhibit pamphlets and maybe get a banner or two up and you have yourself a hero item that people want to see.


Using Hero Items

This is all very well and good, and doing something like this is fairly standard practice even if the used name is different. But why am I talking about this and how can you take advantage of the idea?

Well first of all I think formalising and standardising concepts is generally a good idea because it helps people to be able to discuss and work on things. But more than that I think this is an idea that is used by the big players but is under utilised by small-mid sized museums.

Finding that one artefact (or small handful or artefacts) that can really grab people’s interest is crucial not only as a way to draw people into a museum but can also provide a useful focal point of a museum visit itself.

I believe that regardless of the museum or exhibition a hero item or two should be identifiable and then can be leveraged to push interest. It doesn’t necessarily have to be splashed centrefold across magazines or to come to symbolise the museum itself (though If you can manage it that helps) but being able to encapsulate a museums themes and ideas in a single item is a useful exercise and also offers something more tangible for the public to grasp onto when they’re thinking about your museum.

As a focal point they can of course be used to sell mugs, t-shirts, posters, and replicas but they can also fit in as part of the design. A big payoff that the rest of your museum is working towards. A key part of the story you are telling, be it a turning point or a symbol of the pinnacle. In short, considering a hero item is a way of identifying the fallback answer to the perennial question “what was the best thing you saw?”

Find that thing, make a song and dance about it, and you’ll help people build better expectations about your museum that you can easily meet and raise their enjoyment.

Just warn people if it’s going to be out for cleaning…

We Need to Talk About the Pokémon Fossil Museum

If you haven't heard about it then you’re missing out. First displayed in 2021 in the Mikasa City Museum and since having travelled around a bunch of other places in Japan. Fortunately for those of us who can’t justify taking a trip to Japan just for a really cool museum you can take a virtual tour around the exhibit here.

If you’ve somehow managed to never come across literally the world's biggest media franchise Pokémon is about the now over 1000 different creatures that are largely based on real world animals (think electric mouse, or turtle but with jet cannons on its back). A subset of these are based on dinosaurs and other now extinct forms of life.

In one of those genius moves that is really obvious once somebody has thought of it, the Mikasa City Museum teamed up with the Pokémon company to produce an exhibition that included models of both Pokémon and the real life creatures they are based on.

Poster for the original exhibition showing a variety of Pokémon [Left] and the real creatures they’re based on [Right] (Image from Pokemon Fossil Museum)

The appeal and use of this is immediately obvious. Draw in a broad range of children who are excited to see the Pokémon they love from the games whilst slipping in an education about real life dinosaurs drawing on their enthusiasm. And perhaps whilst they’re at it selling a ludicrous amount of merchandise.

To me this is a near perfect setup for something like this. Much of my work in science communication is focused on reaching audiences that wouldn’t typically engage with things like museums. And bringing them in with something they love like Pokémon is definitely a great way to do this.

A Theme Park Not A Museum

When the exhibition hit the various online news sites I saw a number of people scoffing at such an idea. That a serious museum would use a children’s cartoon, and such a highly commercial one at that, to talk about a scientific topic seemed to them ludicrous. One comment I saw stuck with me ‘this makes it more of a theme park than a museum’.

To this I have only one thing to say… Yes! Absolutely!

I love museums (that much should be obvious) and I love the old creaking cases with their obscure labels and their vestiges of late Victorian sensibilities. But I also recognise that it is quite an intimidating environment. And if we want to reach the broadest possible audience then we need to adapt the spaces and content.

Model Skeletons of a Tyrantrum [Left] and T-Rex [Right] (Image from Screenrant)

We’ve seen much of this happen with the development of things like Children’s Museums, Science discovery centres, and Pop-Up Museums but I think there’s a lot of elements we could continue to bring in to boost wider engagement whilst still being able to offer some of the same outcomes.

Now I'm not suggesting that every museum turn into something like a day out at the Blackpool Pleasure Beach but the fact that despite the fact it’s in Blackpool (I grew up near there, I know how bad it is) it sees over five million visitors each year is something we can learn from.

I’m a big fan of theming, dressing a space to give it some atmosphere. Or including something a bit more out there in order to bring people in. Museums have been using Flight simulators for decades, and VR experiences for the last few years for exactly this purpose.

Don’t be Afraid to Get Corporate

I’d like to say that I have a bigger point to this, but I don’t really. I just think that a Pokémon themed museum is really cool. I would want to go, I’m sure lots of children who wouldn’t normally want to go to a museum would want to go to this one. And I think it’s an idea that we could replicate elsewhere in other ways.

Model and Shell of a Nautilus [Left] and Model of Omastar [Right] (Image from Pokemon Museum Tour)

One barrier to this seems to be that it’s a bit crass and corporate. But to this I have two main responses. In an industry where exhibitions can regularly be sponsored by banks and other financial institutions with shady records, arms companies, and there remain a number of ‘Sackler’ galleries then involving a bit of popular culture and media license sponsorship is really of only minor consequence. Secondly, the videogame Fortnite has become one of the single biggest entertainment properties in the entire world (much to the consternation of every mildly confused parent and grandparent) thanks largely to its myriad cross collaborations with popular franchises.

Whilst I don’t think this should be every museum, or even the norm. I think there’s a lot of space for the National Emergency Services Museum to run a Paw Patrol exhibit, for there to be a Naruto themed Japanese History Exhibition, or even for some aquarium to run a Spongebob Squarepants gallery. (On which note I'm desperate to try and get to the Animal Crossing Sea Life Centre exhibit, but I'm not sure I'll manage it)

Museum Games

I have recently been playing (and enjoying) the new release of Two Point Museum. It’s the latest in the series of ‘Two Point’ Management simulator games that are the spiritual successors to the venerable Theme Hospital. It’s a great game, but it’s not really a game about museums, or even a game of a museum. 

This is something of a trend if you look at ‘Museum Games’ they are largely just other types of games with a museum themed wrapper. They are point and click, puzzle games, or even a card battler set in museums that use the display cases and exhibits as props. This isn’t per se a bad thing, but it is something that’s worth noting, and I think we can do more.

What a museum game can offer

Digital collections are now a normal part of almost any major museum. They offer constant access and enough space to offer basically whatever you want next to them.

As with most things, a proper examination of digital collections is more than a topic in its own right. But despite the near endless possibilities in my experience the general public isn’t so keen on them. For most a near endless catalogue of items just isn’t all that interesting.

The idea of using a ‘game’ then is that we can grab people's attention and meet them where they are. A place that they already want to be and have interest in, and there are a few different ways to go about this.

VR Museums

The most obvious solution is to simply make a museum that is wholly within a digital environment. There are plenty of people out there who have done this and you can access them today, either through your computer or even a VR headset. Things like Occupy White Walls, Infinite Art Museum, or The VR Museum of Fine Art. This is not a modern phenomenon however, I have distinct memories of having a virtual museum you could walk around some time in the early 2000’s and some quick googling shows a variety of computer programs even earlier than that.

A delightfully retro Virtual Gallery ‘Relocating the Remains’ (Image from Tate)

You will note rather quickly however that many of these digital spaces act mostly as art galleries or contain rather basic amounts of click boxes that act as labels. This I fear rather misses the point of having a virtual museum. In a real museum you are limited by space, having multiple visitors trying to interact with the exhibits, and of course being financially limited.

Whilst developing a virtual museum is by no means free its is much cheaper and it makes things like walking through a hall and turning into a room to be confronted with a 100 ft tall Buddha Statue on a snowy plain (as happens in The VR Museum of Fine Art) the same price as having a much smaller version sat on a plinth in the middle of another muted room.

One of the few virtual museums that I'm aware of that has a more proactive approach is the Museum of Other Realities. Whilst far from what I might expect to be possible it plays around with being able to jump into scenes, taking advantage of volumetric sounds and allowing you to directly interact with exhibits.

Screenshot of the Digital Art Museum Museum of Other Realities (Image from Museum of Other Realities)

The collection is once again largely artistic rather than trying to emulate an actual museum and teach about a subject but it goes some way into showing the kind of things that can be achieved with the technology.

Playable Digital Archives

Another obvious way to do it is creating a game out of digital elements, the kind of thing that wouldn’t work all that well in a real location. Things like Museum of Mechanics: Lockpicking which focuses on presenting an archive of the lockpicking mechanics from a host of different games. You can walk around the admittedly rather lo-fi museum floor and try out different mechanics seeing how they have evolved over time and across different genres.

Screenshots of the Museum and some of the lockpicking activities from other games (Image from Museum of Mechanics Lockpicking)

More common however is a kind of mini library of an older series which includes multiple games you can play through as well as a variety of other related materials such as development discussions, concept art, and even adverts.

Taking this to an extreme the PAC-MAN MUSEUM+ even makes this something of a game in itself where playing various iterations of PAC-MAN franchise gives you coins that you can use to deck out your own virtual museum.

Screenshot of A Player Made PAC-MAN Museum (Image from PAC-MAN MUSEUM+)

Assassin’s Creed Museums

The most groundbreaking and best example (in my opinion) of what can be done are the Assassin’s Creed Discovery Tours. Available either as standalone products or as part of the games they’re based on, you can explore 425 BC Greece, 40BC Egypt, and 873 Viking Britain (with 1580’s Japan presumably coming soon).

This presumably came from the idea that in building respectively Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Origins, and Valhalla the team put huge amounts of work into researching the worlds to make them as authentic as they could reasonably get. So they decided to show off all of that research as a kind of explorable museum.

A Player Getting a guided tour of the Theatre of Dionysus (Image from Assassin's Creed Odyssey)

The discovery tours allow you to freely explore the entire worlds of the games without any of the story, quests, or combat. Instead a mixture of audio tours, tool tips, and even acted scenes to describe a historical setting.

This is the kind of thing that living museums wish they could be. Huge reconstructions of different areas filled with hundreds of costumed people going about some facsimile of daily life. The ability to listen to a tour, wander off for something that grabs your attention and then come back with hardly a break in the stride is ideal.

I can heartily recommend that you give one of these a go as they really open your eyes to what could be possible. And by being couched in the language of games and linked to such a huge franchise they generate immediate interest.

Being part of a huge franchise is also the only way that this kind of thing could currently get realistically made. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla made over $1 billion which gives the wiggle room for the kind of value-added prestige product like the Discovery Tours to be made. The amount of development work that would be required to make something like this without the original game would be prohibitive. Still, I think it shows a real potential and I hope that more people can do something similar in the future.

How to Visit 10+ Museums a Day

When people ask me about my holidaying and I say that I can visit upwards of 10 museums/historical sites in a day (my record thus far is 16) they are often shocked and ask some mixture of how and why. So I thought that I would share the secrets here. 

Wear Sensible Shoes and Trousers

This is one that it took me far longer to learn than it really should have done. In a day I'm usually out of the hotel around 08:30 to get to the first place and depending on how things go I might not be back until gone 18:00.

This generally means that you're looking at something like 8-10 hours of near constant standing and or walking. Either going round galleries or wandering the city between them. So what you're going to want is decent quality and comfortable walking gear. This is in many ways a walking holiday and should be treated as such. 

Plan Your Route

This is probably one of the biggest things. You need to have an idea of where it is that you're going, as well as if and when things will be open. You want to be at the earliest thing to open and then have your route finishing with whatever closes latest (within reason). 

When planning a holiday I first make a spreadsheet of all of the different museums, points of interest, and attractions (you can find my Amsterdam one here). This lets me consider how much I want to see particular things and also get an idea for what things might be more restricted in their visiting. 

At the same time I make a map of all of these places (my Amsterdam one is here). This lets me then group nearby places together and see if there's anything that's really far away. 

Once I've got these I typically pick the key places that I definitely want to visit and then either pick out routes to or from them. I tend to group these in broad directions such as ‘south of hotel’

Map of Various Museums and Points of Interest in Berlin Grouped into Various (Own Image)

Linger Only on the Things that Interest You

It’s important to make sure that this is a fun experience. I do this for the love of seeing different museums and the way they tell stories (one particular example is the very different interpretation of the ‘Sale of New York’ as shown in both the Museum of the City of New York and the National Museum of the American Indian). This means that there should be no ‘set time’ that you should spend in a given place.

It's important that you don't feel like you're trying to ‘get your money's worth on the ticket price. If a big and expensive museum sparks no joy then it’s totally fine to just have a quick browse. But equally if one museum draws you in then there’s nothing wrong with spending hours in it. Visiting so many museums is not a challenge or a goal so it’s totally fine for plans to change depending on what you are or are not enjoying.

Have Lunch, But Don't Make a Meal of it

Many times I've looked at the time and realised that it’s long past midday and I haven't eaten. However, when I finally do stop and have something I suddenly realise how much I needed it.

That said, midday is a prime time for visiting places. When on holiday my family often luxuriates over long lunches spending maybe a couple of hours really soaking in the ambience. However, not wanting to miss out on crucial visiting time when it’s just me I tend to keep an eye out and find a nice looking place between museums and grab something quick and ideally hot.

Once again, I don’t set limits on this. If I feel the need to sit around for a while longer or get a bigger meal then that’s totally fine. But usually it’s a quick half an hour and then off again.

Public Transport can be a Trap

By and large when visiting these cities I don’t often take public transport unless the thing I want to visit is particularly far away. Even then I might take public transport to the furthest out point and then walk my way back visiting other things along the way.

This is for two main reasons. Firstly, I tend to find that public transport may not actually be that fast. Whilst Metros are usually pretty good, buses are often slow and you may be stood around at the bus stop for a while. This twinned with a carefully planned out route means that often it’s simply quicker to walk to the next place.

Secondly I think it also helps me get a much better idea of the city i’m visiting. I see far more than I would on a bus, I might see interesting places to take diversions into. Admittedly this has led me to wander through some more ‘interesting’ places where people who are not large 6’3” men may not feel comfortable being. But some of the more interesting places I find on a trip can often come from just walking about.

You Probably Shouldn't 

I feel I should finish this all off by saying that this almost certainly isn’t something that you should do. This is a highly specific way of holidaying that appeals exactly to me and works entirely off my own whims.

It is certainly not a relaxing way to spend a week though I do believe it is a good way to really get a feel for a place, its history, and its people. But maybe that’s just me.