Case Study 3: Peter Samis on Mobile Multimedia

Peter Samis on Mobile Multimedia

“Peter Samis is to museums as James Brown is to soul,” was tweeted earlier this year from the American Association of Museums (AAM) conference in Philadelphia. There is no doubt that Peter’s spirit has inspired my work in museum interpretation ever since my first multimedia tour projects with Tate Modern, and his educational mission and ethics remain a touchstone as I often ask, ‘what would Peter do’ to tell this story, to communicate this message, to reach this audience better?

We connected via Skype last month and Peter recounted his experiences with mobile multimedia at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) from 2000/2001 to the present day. He also spoke candidly about the future of mobile, companies and business models in the industry, as well as the ‘open source’ project that’s being pursued collaboratively on the Museum Mobile wiki. In closing, he answers questions from Dave Patten of the Science Museum in London, MoMA Learning (Beth Harris, Director of Digital Learning), and educator at the St Louis Art Museum and Michael Mouw from the Minnesota Historical Society.

Be sure to check out SFMOMA’s multimedia programs, podcasts, and in particular, writings by student contributor, Radford Leon, from Herbert Hoover Middle School, celebrated by Peter in this interview.