On the way to the total amusement park. What Science Museums could learn from Art Museums (and vice versa)

The central question behind this contribution is the future of communication with the visitors in science museums and art museums and the role of media in this relationship. This is about the extent to which these types of museums with their offered mix of fact-rich knowledge and exploration spectacle meet the changed demands of the increasingly participatory visitor groups. I critically investigate whether the offered forms of occupational therapy through guided tours, videos and audio guides in art museums and hands-on models, puzzles and games in the science museums are still up-to-date. Provocantly I question the traditional educational role model of art museums, with their unreflective blind belief in the power of the art elite and art history, and at the same time the science museum’s strategy of playful and entertaining 'learning by doing, no matter what'. Or, to put it another way, the fairy tale 'The Emperor's New Clothes' meets 'The Land of Milk and Honey', an utopian place full of gaming, puzzling and exploring (at least among the younger visitors).