Museum Critique - Adam Courtney

The tour around the Maritime Museum was eye opening, as there was much more this time around when I was looking for specific items to research. It made me appreciate a great deal the range and depth of the collection in there, as I was able to look at specific types of harpoon- the explosive types may be worth researching further, I had no idea they existed, and it could be possible to incorporate them into our project.

I initially was surprised at how little there was on whaling in the museum at a first glance - I initially went upstairs on my first visit, and saw no whaling until I went downstairs, but as soon as I wanted to get information on anything, it was right there where I looked. I actually have to say that in terms of research, it was much more valuable than any online search would have been, as we got to see the artifacts and their scale (whales are big, the baby skeleton proved that to me!), and just getting the information presented so directly without any distractions was brilliant for our needs with the project.

I also found it eye-opening how much maritime history Hull has outside of whaling, and that in itself was interesting because it gave a sense of how much of the city's history we could draw from, and how important it would be to give the project a unique sense of place, and to take advantage of it only being relevant to one museum (in that we could really hone into specifics and get a real sense of place into it).

It might be the case that I needed specific research goals to get the most from the museum, but at the same time, the content is actually very rich and detailed. I'll definitely be popping there to gather more details and research for the project as and when we need it.

Museum Critique - Daniel Higgins

The museum tour gave us a large degree of background knowledge on the whaling trade that will directly influence how we design our game. We learnt about the specific type of whale that was hunted, what kind of equipment was used and about hunting seasons. All this will directly affect our approach to the project, so we can be as historically accurate as possible.

Firstly was the bowhead, or right, whale. There was a skeleton of a young whale in the museum which helped give us a sense of scale to animal that we will be trying to imitate as the character in our game. In addition to this we learnt that the whales were hunted specifically with harpoons, and there were some examples nearby that we can now try to emulate within our project to remain as historically accurate as possible.

It also gave us a chance to look at the room we would be putting our exhibit up in, and pointed out some very obvious issues we may have with audio, since we'd be so close to the other exhibit. This heavily restricted our idea for audio, since it would be difficult to use speakers without arranging a middle ground between the two exhibits that fits both nicely.

Museum Critique - Nathan Giles

It was rather helpful seeing the extensive collection of items relative to whaling, specifically in relation to Hull and its history in the subject. The large collection of boats and whaling tools was interesting and I personally found it rather enjoyable, it gave us plenty of inspiration of how to develop our installation further and implement some of what we saw in the museum.

In particular seeing the large number of scale model boats at the exhibit only helped fuel the thought our installation would fit in extremely well due to its inclusion of them in our game. It was also helpful to see the skeletons of the whales that will be featured in our installation as it gave a sense of scale and presence.

Overall seeing the room in which our installation will be in was beneficial, as it gives us plenty of scope for how our installation will work and how it will be executed in the given space.

5 Minute Pitch to the Maritime Museum and Feedback