Enhancing Trips to Museums via Interactive Photos

Visitors like to engage on their own (often humorous) terms. Photo: The Poke via Imgur.

A recent silly post on The Poke (tagline: "time well wasted") offers an unexpectedly valuable glimpse into the heads of museum visitors. Among other things, it shows that visitors may have the most fun in a museum by using the exhibits to their own humorous ends. It's not exactly "making fun" of the objects, but using them to generate a laugh—something that the hard-working staff responsible for the exhibits might see as disrespectful, but which I would like to suggest is instead a useful jumping-off point for reconceiving how to make engaging displays. For example, a few themes reappear several times in the Poke article: people like imitating statues and paintings to comedic effect, whether by pointing out a resemblance to themselves or by creating a new context for the object (e.g., a music video by Beyonce!). It's also entertaining to add a funny attribute to the object: a hand puppet on a statue's hand, a cell phone positioned as if a portrait is taking a selfie, a modern caption to an old painting.
It seems to me that all of these interactions with objects could be turned from "pranks" (as they are presented by the very format of the Poke article) into sanctioned museum activities that leverage these visitors' energy and creativity, particularly when it comes to picture-taking. For instance:

• Objects Taking Selfies: Go through the museum with a friend and find the object that would make the funniest pretend-selfie. Use your friend's camera to take a photo of your object taking a selfie with your camera.
• Funny Caption Contest
• Mix and Match: Find an object in the museum that either matches or contrasts with what you're wearing. Take a picture that best shows off the pairing.
• Family Portrait: Do you have a lookalike in the museum collections? Find an object you identify with and take a family portrait.
• Reaction Shot: Artistic subjects interact with the viewer, and the viewer is not just a passive recipient: find an object that expects a reaction from you, and take a photo of yourself responding in your own unique way.

There could be prizes for the winners in each category and a way to display all the entries in the museum foyer, as well as on social media. This would be a great way to generate interest and publicity! It would also be a bold statement in favor of photos as interaction, which many visitors crave but which so far has flustered many museums (although not all).