Rockheim
Trondheim, Norway
Rockheim is Norway's National Museum of Popular Music. Since the museum's opening in 2010, there has been a steady stream of visitors eager to learn about this music and its history. Gagarin designed two interactive installations for the Millenium Room which is part of the overall exhibition.
The Millennium Room is the last exhibition area in the Time Tunnel, a series of spaces dedicated to music from consecutive periods in Norway.
The project strives to give the visitor a way of exploring the richness of contemporary Norwegian pop music using iconical interaction metaphors for the period of 2000-2020. The experience is twofold: one immersive experience that can be entertained by a large group of people, and another a more intimate experience.
In the 21st-century music, technology took a gigantic leap. It went from 15 songs on a CD to 1000 songs in your pocket with the first iPod, to eventually ending up at access to over 30.000.000.000 songs on Spotify alone. The larger immersive experience took this as an inspiration and lets the visitor browse over 300 (and counting!) Norwegian artists since the millennium. By spinning an interface resembling the interaction of the first iPods, the visitor can pick an artist they like and from there go on a journey by picking related artists that share connections with the artist you picked. A large projection area wraps around the group and features a music video and background information and images of the artist.
Since we opened Millenniumsrommet in December, we've received great feedback from our visitors who enjoy spending time in the exhibition exploring the countless hours of music using seamless interaction.” Mathias Østrem Conservator Rockheim – Norway's National Museum of Popular Music.
Simultaneously in the period since 2000, the way we listened to music changed from one cd of an artist, to ‘Lazy Sunday playlists’ and ‘Artist Radios’. The gap between the artist and the listener decreased because anyone could share their music online. These changes also created a renewed interest in the old record player as a response to artists disappearing in this overload of music. The intimate stations in this section let the visitor explore different narratives in music since the millennium using the metaphor of spinning records on a record player. The visitor can dig through specific topics such as the influence of the internet on music production, TV Shows offering 15 minutes of fame, and the development of the music studio: from a big studio to your bedroom.
The setting of the area is peaceful but transforms as soon as you start listening to the music, just the way music can transform your experience of your environment today.
Rockheim is Norway's National Museum of Popular Music. Since the museums's opening in 2010 there has been a steady stream of visitors eager to learn about this music and its history. Rockheim is located at the harbour in Trondheim. Photo: Magne Gisvold/Rockheim
Images from the opening: Rockheim
