Creative Wonder Cabinets - New museum installations

The Creative Wonder Cabinets are a series of interactive installations for museums and heritage sites, inspired by the 17th century cabinets of curiosities. The Digital Cultural Heritage Centre of Expertise and Evoking Spaces are happy to introduce this series of interpretive and pedagogical tools that aims to stimulate curiosity about museum objects and environments through interactive discovery.

The cabinets invites museum visitors to interact with tangible objects and tools that are enriched with customised digital functionalities. The series will be available in several different designs that address different needs, themes and budgets. At moment we are developing the Educational Paintbrushes, Travelling Exhibition and the Linné Cabinet.

Creative Wonder Cabinets: Educational Paintbrushes
The first product from the Creative Wonder Cabinets series is called Educational Paintbrushes. Framed as an Easel or a Cabinet, the product presents a digital reproduction of an Old Masters painting on a touchscreen. Users can interact with the painting by using a set of brushes. Each brush has a unique function and will behave differently when it comes into contact with the screen.

 The first set of brushes being developed is the Old Masters Paintbrushes, which consists of 5 brushes, each one targeting one layer of the painting. Using different brushes, the user can "brush off" individual layers, exposing techniques the Old Masters used to build up the painting. The idea is to provide visitors with a fun and familiar tool that helps them interpret the motifs of painting, symbolic values and other facts or secrets associated with the motif, painting or artist. Other functions and brushes that will be included in Educational Paintbrushes are:

- Iconographic Brush – Helps users understand and interpret the painting
- Iconological Brush –Explains hidden symbolic values in the painting
- Restoration Brush – Show how the painting appears after a restoration
- Expert Brush - Reveals information about the painting's authenticity, etc.


The interpretive concept of the Creative Wonder Cabinet is designed by Halina Gottlieb at the Digital Cultural Heritage Centre of Expertise, Interactive Institute.

The image above show a digital reproduction of a copy made after an 17th century painting by Andries Both from Utrecht, The Netherlands. Old master painting was built up in several layers, e.g. drawing, imprimatura, shadow layers, dead layer, colours layers, varnish and signature

Creative Wonder Cabinets: Linné Cabinet
The Linné Cabinet will be a multisensory experience of Carl von Linnés life and work, framed as a Creative Wonder Cabinet. Sensor-equipped objects, scents and audiovisual media will convey stories of Carl von Linné and his work. The cabinet is being developed in collaboration with the Stockholm City Museum. More information will be available soon.

Creative Wonder Cabinets: Travelling Exhibition Cabinet
The Travelling Exhibition Cabinet is a new concept for museums to exhibit beyond their walls in order to reach new audiences. These spaces may be schools, conferences, galleries, shopping malls or fairs, and can be self-standing or as a part of an event. More information will be available soon.


The interpretive concept of the Creative Wonder Cabinet is designed by Halina Gottlieb at the Digital Cultural Heritage Centre of Expertise, Interactive Institute. © 2009 Evoking Spaces and Digital Cultural Heritage Centre of Expertise/Interactive Institute. The Creative Wonder Cabinet series is a product of Evoking Spaces.