Drew Walton

Online Exhibit Review: Fantastic Worlds

If there is any bias in this review then I must admit that the likely source of it comes from

sentimentality. The physical exhibition of Fantastic Worlds at the Smithsonian National Museum

of American History was located right next to the archives center where I interned at exactly one

year ago for several months. I still distinctively remember glancing at this exhibit in my

peripheral vision each and every time I entered my workspaces main entrance. In comparison to

the rest of the museums offerings, Fantastic Worlds was a humble little exhibit, with a display of

mostly books and novels with additional photos and panels detailing the 19th century world and

the greater context that gave rise to the earliest forms of science fiction; its a wordy,

unassuming, and secluded exhibit that seemingly only catered to the childless adults attending

the museum.

This is the perspective with which I chanced upon Fantastic Worlds online exhibit, and

indeed why I begin this review with saying that the online exhibit succeeds where the physical

exhibit falters. Fantastic Worlds would best be classified as a rich media catalogue exhibit, as

defined by Jennifer Mundy and Jane Burton, as it does not attempt replicate the physical space of

the exhibit inside the museum. That said, because of the subject matter, it parcels out its zoom-

able images of three-dimensional objects sporadically over the online exhibits seven sections (or

chapters as they have thematically dubbed them). Scanned documents, pages, and drawn images

array each chapter of this exhibit, interspersed and contextualized by engaging text. With this,

Fantastic Worlds disregards its inherent weaknesses in the physical world by transcending them

in the digital world. With the exception of a wide black border that hones the viewers attention
towards the center of the screen, one is never looking at just text at any one time. Even the white

background is snaked through by an appropriate yet unobtrusive 19th century dcor.

Each section of the online exhibit follows a similar template. Opening text establishes the

topic or theme of each section which usually gives background or leads into the books in focus.

Aforementioned images are displayed throughout and they do a wonderful job of setting the tone

of each section. When a book is embedded into the page, it is usually a title page and it often

accompanied by a related image. Galleries appear at least once per section and are large and

inviting with two scrolling buttons embedded into the page itself along with the expected ability

to enlarge the gallery by left-clicking on each image. Visual fidelity to a section is also added

through occasional block quotes that are spaced horizontally across the page which also preform

the function of helping to pace a viewer of the online exhibit. Additionally, curator notes are

added in the form of vertical blocks along the right side of the page. These notes mainly function

as an aside for the curator of the exhibit to elaborate or connect the main body of text to another

talking point and they also pace out the experience of going through the online exhibit. Other

components of Fantastic Worlds online exhibit are interactive images that dominate a portioned

area within the section. These consist of dots aligned along specific areas on the image and a

pop-up with additional information comes up when directly scrolled over. Finally, there is one

instance of an embedded YouTube video in Chapter 3: Infinite Worlds where Georges Mlis

Voyage Dans La Lune is used to show the inspiration from Jules Vernes From the Earth to the

Moon.

As a whole these individual components, expected if not mundane, combine to form a

sum greater than its parts. Its presentation is streamlined and the whole exhibit is very easy to

read and digest from a computer monitor. If there is one objective flaw with this online exhibit it
is surely the micro images that are consistently apart of each section. They are unable to be

opened by a simple left click of the mouse and must be manually enlarged by right clicking and

viewing the image independently. Even doing this is not enough, as they are small enough fully

scaled for their text to still be mostly illegible. It is a terribly annoying fault that should have

been noticed before this online exhibit was published. This one major criticism of the online

exhibit however isnt enough undo my opening statement. Fantastic Worlds is an excellent case

study of how to adapt a verbose and content rich exhibit for an audience beyond its physically

disadvantageous location.

References:

http://library.si.edu/exhibition/fantastic-worlds

Mundy, Jennifer, and Jane Burton. Online Exhibitions. In Museums and the Web
2013. Portland, OR. 2013.