introduction

Democratising the archeological experience

Three prestigious German museums in the field of archeology are working together to open up the field of archaeology by developing new digital formats and new working methods that centre new and existing visitors. This initiative is funded by the Kultustiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation). NEEEU joined as a digital and strategic partner to co-design the digital transformation strategy and lead the creation and implementation of new digital games and products.

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The Challenge

How might we playfully increase visitor competencies in archaeology, increase curiosity and play in the subject, and embed digitisation within the museum experience?

The solution

This project - spanning three years - will use games and digital applications to increase the number of digital and physical visitors to the museums. Concurrent cultural transformation, facilitated by NEEEU, will ensure each museum has both the necessary tools and the confidence to secure the long-term application of digital technologies within their unique spaces.

Using co-creation to transform the museum space into a participatory laboratory

We worked with the museums to ensure that the entire process included visitors and non-visitors. We co-created a corporate project identity, outreach strategy and associated communications materials which, when promoted on the museums’ social media channels, led to over 100 applications to join the project. This represents a real proof of concept for the idea that co-creation models can help organisations reach a specific target audience in their language.

Co-creating a new working process at scale

Through a series of 10 workshops with museums, we set out to answer the question, how can we anchor a culture of digitality in each organisation? NEEEU’s role was that of facilitator and conceptual advisor. We entered into communication with the museum staff, visitors and non-visitors, experimenting, discovering and developing together.

Jo's memory game

At this stage of the project, we have co-created a native game application called “Jo’s Memory” (working title) which is a single player, hidden-object puzzle adventure game where the player has to solve puzzles based on contemporary archaeological challenges. The game allows visitors to playfully - in the sense of a serious game - take on the role of archaeologists and explore archaeological (object) history.