INSIDE THE HENRY FORD
HENRY FORD MUSEUM OF AMERICAN INNOVATION
TAKE A DIGITAL DIVE
Intersection of Innovation is an experience that uses multimedia and AI elements to unlock the secrets, stories and similarities of artifacts, innovators and more WHILE THE SILVER-AND-BLUE 1939 Douglas DC-3 is a focal point of the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation experience, it’s what’s going on underneath this airplane suspended above the museum floor that deserves visitors’ equal attention. That’s where you’ll find the Intersection of Innovation, a multimedia space that allows you to explore the connections among the past, present and future. Approach the DC-3 and look to your left or right, and you can’t miss the Intersection of Innovation’s large-format projection digital connection walls, which immerse you in the story of what The Henry Ford collects and why. “These walls help guests understand our collections on a macro level, giving them the general big ideas around how things are connected and what they can see in the museum,” said Matt Elliott, head of creative and digital experience at The Henry Ford. “Through these walls, you learn why you see Lamy’s Diner, an exploded Model T and a DC-3 airplane in the same space.” Next up are the larger-than-life habits and actions walls, which share the stories of several iconic innovators, from Rosa Parks to Frederick Douglass, among others. Then you can move along to the past forward wall at the rear, which lets you
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explore how items from previous decades and centuries connect to the present. Anchoring everything together is the 12-foot-long artificial intelligence-enhanced touchscreen connections table at the back of the space, which welcomes you and up to nine other guests to simultaneously explore infinite connections between artifacts in The Henry Ford Archive of American Innovation (see sidebar at right). “The table looks at the connectedness of our collections and what goes on in a curator’s brain as they collect,” said Elliott. “You can see things through the lens of a curator at a more micro level with a fun element of AI.” Elliott adds that the table’s software has the ability to make its own connections between objects in The Henry Ford Archive of American Innovation, building a whole new digital world of similarities between the thousands of artifacts stored and those being added. “Everything in the Intersection of Innovation is CMS-driven and can be refreshed quickly,” said Elliott, referring to content management system software. “It’s a living, breathing digital ecosystem that is constantly growing, changing and telling new stories.” — JENNIFER LAFORCE
DID YOU KNOW? / The Intersection of Innovation marks the first public use of The Henry Ford’s unique Model i learning framework on the museum floor. Learn more about Model i and other learning resources from The Henry Ford at thf.org/education.
COLLECTIONS CONNECTIONS Intersection of Innovation’s connections table reveals links between nearly 32,000 (and growing) digitized artifacts from our collections. If you’ve ever wondered why the same museum that displays the Quadricycle also contains the Rosa Parks Bus, an Eames lounge chair and a packet of Kool-Aid, this table is for you. The table reveals connections in two ways. First, artificial intelligence (AI) analyzes artifact images and creates threads between them according to their color and shape — no human intervention required. The advantage of AI is that computers can process information more quickly than any human brain. Second, you’ll find unexpected connections between artifacts created by our curators. For example, we use the concept of weaving to connect an oriole’s nest, a machine used to strand transatlantic cable and a childhood artwork by Edsel Ford in which he wove a bear out of brown yarn. These more subtle and subjective connections could only be created by human brains. In the end, both humans and computers bring something to this table (literally). AI can help our visitors and staff see our collections in new ways — but humans also provide a unique sensibility that computers cannot, at least not today. — ELLICE ENGDAHL, MANAGER, DIGITAL COLLECTIONS AND CONTENT
