So, as John said, the question at hand is: how do you wow the un-wow-able without alienating the familiar? It's a tough question, and here at Cogapp it's our job to try and answer just that question. We understand better than most the phrase "appropriate technology" - when to hide technology, and when to show it; how technology can be used to enhance an exhibition without overwhelming it. Ever since we developed the first museum interactive almost twenty years ago (in the form of the National Gallery's Microgallery) we've been creating new technology and developing new ways of implementing it; advanced hardware and software deployed behind an intuitive user experience is what we do. We're constantly trying to find new and exciting ways to do it. From creating award-winning vivid and instinctive installations for the Great North Museum, to bringing Prudential's corporate archive and stories to life with expansive sheets of Holopro glass, pushing the envelope is never off our radar.

Museums, by their very nature, are often thought of as being places where people go to discover, reflect on and learn more about things of the past. Even museums that are focussed on modern times or even the future tend to impart knowledge of the way things are through the use of artifacts. So onlookers tend not to think of them as places of technological innovation. But in their bid to attract ever-greater audiences to their exhibitions, museums are constantly striving to create ever-greater installations for said exhibitions to instigate the 'wow' factor that will get visitors talking about (and, equally as importantly, recommending) what they've seen. Given that one of the central remits of a museum is to educate and inform the masses, bringing in the audiences is vital to their mission statement. And so it is that in their drive to create more revolutionary exhibits, museums often become incubation units for rapid changes in technology. The irony of this is that visitors having an enjoyable, easy and relaxing experience is so integral to museums that the technology needs to be implemented in a smooth and efficient way. So much so in fact that it mostly goes unnoticed. It's such a fluid experience that the technological innovation happening under a visitor's very nose is more often than not completely under-appreciated.

“And the award for the best Offline: Kiosk, Installation or On-Site Application goes to” …you could cut the tension with a knife… “Cogapp and their interactives for the Great North Museum!” Cue cries of joy, surges of adrenalin, and all round jubilation.

On Thursday 19 November we were proud to take home a British Interactive Media Association Award from the ceremony at Camden’s KOKO. Having started way back in the digital olden days of 1984, the BIMAs are one of the oldest and most renowned awards of their kind - so it goes without saying that our shiny new trophy is standing with pride amidst its brethren in the office. Its also by far the most dangerous trophy we’ve received - made of stainless steel and slightly reminiscent of a Klingon bat'leth.

Working on the project as AV producer, our main challenge was to strike the right balance between the variety and scale of the operation and the limitations of our budget, never forgetting that the audience’s experience is really what counts the most. Here’s the story behind just a handful of the 10 AV presentations we created...

Right Whale

For the glass-bottomed boat exhibit, the museum asked us to create the effect of looking over a parapet onto a plate of glass with temperate sea creatures swimming beneath it. So we needed to provide moving images of a whole host of creatures, from whales to whitebait as viewed from above. Of course, the problem for us was that most of the time, anybody who videos fish will do so in the water face to face, not looking down at their dorsal fins!

The first solution was to computer generate them, and we were ready to do that, but it just wasn’t possible within our budget. Instead, as well as trawling the best film and video archives in the world I took my own camera to several Sea Life Centres on the South Coast and dangled it into the water to capture footage of desirable species from above. Luckily for us, the larger creatures we found in the libraries - whales, dolphins and turtles etc - often swim on their side, so there’s plenty of footage of them swimming by with their backs to the camera. When the display is seen from above, this gives you just the right effect.

Some more background on the interactives we've recently installed at the Great North Museum...

Medieval Case Study

This looks at how archaeologists can find out about how people used to live from the objects they left behind - and imagines what objects from today will survive for the next 1,000 years. Aimed at a younger audience, this interactive is bright and breezy - but crucially is gauged towards a fairly short visit time and gets lots of information across in a punchy and engaging style.

The Orientation Map

This is one of the 'big ticket' items in the museum; a pair of interactive map tables that allow users to explore Northumbria and its key sites of interest.

We've just installed 15 interactives and 10 AV presentations at the brand new Great North Museum in Newcastle. The museum launched on Saturday and - as a combination of four existing museums - is an incredible mix of Prehistory,  Roman Britain, Ancient Egypt, nature and the environment. We're proud to have our work in this fantastic museum.This project adds another string to the Cogapp Violin* as it is made up of many separate deliverables, as opposed to one deliverable with many parts (like MoMA.Guide,  ParaData and countless other goodies). Here's a quick look at some of the interactives; we'll look at the AV bits in another blog.

Diversity of Life

When visitors first enter the museum they are greeted by the massive Diversity of Life wall. Two stories high and running the entire length of the opening gallery, the wall is home to hundreds of animal specimens, grouped into Tropical, Temperate, Desert and Polar regions.It would be impossible to provide useful signage in this environment - and that's where digital comes in. We've built eight interactives which give users access to a digital recreation of the wall and lets them find out more about each animal. It's a simple idea but the beauty of it is in the execution; there is almost no interface and the interactive does only a few things - but very very well.

Sadly this post has nothing to do with Dennis Norden holding a clipboard and saying, 'if you're one of those people...'

No. This one is all about the organised (and not so organised) chaos that happens in the last few weeks before a museum opens its doors. We've been lucky enough to be involved in the new Great North Museum, which opened on Saturday - and even luckier to go behind the scenes in the last few weeks of installation.

(That's a dinosaur in the Great North Museum. Nothing to do with us, but great!)

There's a scene in the movie Shakespeare in Love when the theatre manager, beset by financial woes, unreliable writers and the Master of the Revels threatening to shut him down, simply shrugs his shoulders and says, 'It'll all work out alright in the end. I don't know how, but it always does.' Launching a new museum or gallery is very like getting ready to launch a stage show - everything seems crazy until the last moment, when it suddenly all falls into place.