Newseum’s “Ethics Table” Puts Visitors to the Test

• By Alexandra Sastre
• September 30, 2008

Washington, DC’s newest museum, the Newseum, brings visitors an array of compelling artifacts and activities centered around the news, presented through the newest technologies. Billed as “the world’s most interactive museum”, it employs a range of engaging activities, among them the interactive Ethics Table.

This innovative table is actually a unique version of a Dialog Table, which uses gesture-recognition as the basis of interaction. The Newseum’s Ethics Table uses virtual characters to prompt visitors to think critically about the ethics behind how information is collected and presented.

A Dialog Table can be an effective platform for presenting all kinds of compelling content. While the technology may be complex, the idea is simple – bring people together and get them talking, debating and playing around this digital-age roundtable.

Night Kitchen Interactive is currently partnering with the University of Michigan Museum of Art to produce a series of short films for a Dialog Table to be featured in the museum’s re-opening in early 2009. Our blog post The UMMA Dialogtable: Rich-media Storytelling previews the project a bit.

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