Monadnock Media, Inc.

24/07/2024

Claudia, Steve, and Alan spent a stimulating and fun day at Conner Prairie last week! They met with our design partners from Luci Creative (Sarah Anderson, Kiah Shapiro, and Shera Street) and the Conner Prairie team (Ryan Spencer, Jesse Kramer, Allison Cosbey, Norman Burns, Mark Firestone) and presented our 100% Concept Design. The Conner Prairie team was thrilled to see how our collective vision has taken shape!

They also took a hard hat tour of the museum construction site where our introductory multimedia experience will be installed next year. The walk-through immersive experience will take visitors on a journey through time to discover the power of the place that is now Conner Prairie.

18/07/2024

For the children’s gallery of the Chicago History Museum, we wanted kids to experience Chicago’s history through the senses.

We designed a matching game called “History is Noisy,” where children jump on noise-making dots on the floor to find all the sounds associated with a historic image. As they find all 5 correct sounds, the image is colorized and brought to life through video.

We originally installed this exhibit at the Chicago History Museum back in 2006, and assisted with reinstalling it as part of museum renovations in 2022. The program is still beloved by museum visitors to this day!

16/07/2024

The Monadnock team of Claudia, Steve, and Alan first visited Conner Prairie in the summer of 2022. During that visit, the Conner Prairie team shared their ambitious plans for a renovated and expanded welcome experience. In this photo, Director of Exhibits Jesse Kramer, points out the upcoming changes. Exactly two years later, we revisited the scene, which is now a construction site! It’s really happening!

08/07/2024

It’s always interesting to get a peek into how the sausage gets made. Today we’re sharing a snapshot of the screen design process for a digital interactive we produced for the Levine Museum of the New South. The program looks at the unequal treatment of some of Charlotte’s neighborhoods due to race, and is part of the exhibit, “Charlotte: Moving Forward, Looking Back.”

Music: Intro
Musician: Jeff Kaale

Send a message to learn more

28/06/2024

What would media experiences be without cameras and the photographers behind them? We depend on still images every day in our work. They document, inform, reveal, inspire and sometimes move us beyond measure. Our thanks to all of the photographers past and present who have enabled us to do what we do. Happy National Camera Day! 📷 🎉

24/06/2024

On June 21, 1964, young civil rights activists James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman were murdered by Ku Klux Klan members in Neshoba County, Mississippi at the start of Freedom Summer. The initial disappearance of the two white Northerners and one Black Mississippian drew national attention and triggered a search involving the FBI, Mississippi National Guard, and naval personnel. It led to the discovery of the remains of eight other men, all Black.

Forty-four days after the murder, the bodies of the three missing activists were finally found buried in an earthen dam on a local farm. Mississippi refused to prosecute the murder. Seven men were found guilty of civil rights violations at a federal trial in 1967; none served more than six years. Mississippi eventually reopened the case, and in 2005 Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen was convicted and sentenced to 60 years in prison, dying there in 2018.

Monadnock produced the Chaney, Goodman, Schwerner immersive theater program for the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, using intentionally skewed and distorted projection. The program won a Gold MUSE Award from the American Alliance of Museums.

19/06/2024

Monadnock wishes everyone an inspiring and uplifting Juneteenth. We also pay our respects to one of our nation’s great journalists, educators, and civil rights leaders, Ida B. Wells, whose words continue to resonate today.

13/06/2024

Associate Producer Judy Stern marks her 23year anniversary at Monadnock this week! She came in as a stellar researcher and content developer in 2001. Over time, she became more involved in developing and creating media experiences in her role as Associate Producer.

Judy’s intelligence, incredible attention to detail, creativity, and passion for the work have been a crucial part of what has made us Monadnock. Most of all, Judy is a joy for all of us to work with!

Join us in congratulating Judy!🎉

10/06/2024

It’s Pride Month! 🌈 Today’s Activists, our digital interactive produced for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Civil Rights Memorial Center (CRMC), features contemporary activists fighting for LGBTQ+ rights and other issues of social justice. It highlights the ways people across the country have fought for causes they care about, with the goal of inspiring CRMC visitors to get involved with issues important to them today.

06/06/2024

For , we’re featuring Great Gulf Challenge, a multi-player interactive game we produced for GulfQuest in Mobile, Alabama. Set in the future, it poses a challenge to visitors: how do you bring the Gulf of Mexico’s environmental, economic, and energy needs into balance?

Projection mapping and animation are used to present issues such as overfishing, development, wetlands degradation, and energy use. Visitors grapple with these issues and others as they collaborate to save the Gulf from collapse.

04/06/2024

Senior Producer Tracy Litwin marks her 25th anniversary at Monadnock this week! 🌟Tracy arrived here in 1999 with over ten years’ freelance production experience on documentaries, feature films and other work. Over the past 25 years, Tracy has guided a multitude of Monadnock projects from conceptual design through installation and produced countless media experiences of all kinds. Her intelligence, insight, artistic vision, and crack production skills have been a big part of what has made us Monadnock.

Congratulations and a heartfelt thank you, Tracy!! 🎉

30/05/2024

For , we’re highlighting a fun past project aimed at kids. The Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum opened in June 2017, right down the highway from us in his hometown of Springfield, MA. The museum asked us to create the multi-level, interactive rhyming game, Green Eggs and Ham WordPlay, to engage young visitors of different ages and help promote the joy of reading.

Kids join animated Seussian characters like Fox, Sam-I-am, and Pop to pair images with sounds and words drawn from the vocabulary of the beloved Seuss book. The game helps children develop skills in rhyming, an essential tool for reading success.

27/05/2024

Tvshka, the Choctaw word for warrior, implies honor, bravery, duty, and service. For the Choctaw Cultural Center, Monadnock produced a program that explores the transcendent meaning of warrior spirit to Choctaw people. In a solemn space reminiscent of a war memorial, video projections play on stone textured walls around cast figures of Choctaw warriors, past and present.

24/05/2024

At Monadnock, we make sure to always use the best hardware we can and optimize our programs to run at high resolutions and speeds. To accomplish this we are constantly searching for new hardware in smaller form factors. Here we are testing that the AMD 7000 series mobile processors are up to the task.

17/05/2024

Looking forward to the TREX Traveling Exhibitions Forum tomorrow, Saturday May 18, 6-10 PM at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum! Presentations start at 7:00, and ours will be in the second half of the program.

Monadnock and James Pepper Henry, Director Emeritus of the First Americans Museum, will be presenting “Native America 250,” a new concept for a semiquincentennial traveling exhibition that would place Indigenous people at the center of the story of the American Revolution, democracy, and the founding of the United States.

Scan the QR code to learn more. Hope to see many of you there!
QR code link: https://nativeamerica250.monadnock.org

15/05/2024

Join us on Saturday, May 18 from 6-10 PM at the TREX Traveling Exhibitions Forum at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum. Monadnock and James Pepper Henry, Director Emeritus of the First Americans Museum, will be presenting “Native America 250,” a new concept for a semiquincentennial traveling exhibition that would place Indigenous people at the center of the story of the American Revolution, democracy, and the founding of the United States.

Presentations start at 7 PM. See you there!

13/05/2024

Senior Producer Claudia Levin recently spoke on a panel after the screening of her first PBS documentary film, Rebuilding the Temple: Cambodians in America. The Amherst, MA event was designed to spark conversation about Cambodian history, culture, and identity leading up to the opening of a new museum exhibit about the history of the local Khmer community. Claudia was joined on the panel by her Florentine Films co-producer Larry Hott, Cambodian community member Sokhen Mao, and the exhibit project director, Mick O’Connor.

10/05/2024

Executive Director Alan Hoff, Creative Director & Founder Steve Bressler, and Senior Producer Claudia Levin will be at the American Alliance of Museums annual conference next week in Baltimore. We look forward every year to this chance to see old friends and make new ones. Find us and say hello!

02/05/2024

Experimenting with technology is critical to our prototyping process. Most recently, we tested an ePaper display. ePaper looks like paper and doesn't require any power, so it is ideal for trying to blend into a themed environment.

Here we learned that the ePaper screen looks great as a paper substitute, but it can't recreate the vibrant colors we are looking for in this potential future project. Stay tuned for more glimpses into prototyping at Monadnock.

26/04/2024

On , a reminder of the symbolic power these small memorials can hold. The Emmett Till Memorial Commission first erected a sign in 2008 at Graball Landing in Mississippi to memorialize the site where the 14-year-old’s mutilated body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River following a racial terror lynching. The markers at the site have been repeatedly stolen and vandalized. One marker, riddled with bullet holes, is now displayed at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History as a symbol of racist violence past and present. In 2019, a bullet-proof marker was erected at the site. In 2023, President Biden designated the new Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument, encompassing three sites connected to Emmett Till’s life and death, including Graball Landing.

Learn more about Emmett Till and the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument: https://www.nps.gov/till/index.htm

Learn more about the Graball Landing historic markers:
https://tillapp.emmett-till.org/items/show/6
https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/nmah_1986561

Visit the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, MS to watch Monadnock’s mini-theater program about Emmett Till, narrated by Oprah Winfrey:
https://mcrm.mdah.ms.gov/

25/04/2024

While ED Alan Hoff was attending the MANY 2024 conference in Albany last week, he had the pleasure of spending time with Mary Liz Stewart, Co-founder and Executive Director of the Underground Railroad Education Center, and Paul Stewart, Co-founder and Co-administrator of the Underground Railroad Education Center.

The Underground Railroad Education Center purpose is “To promote and encourage knowledge and understanding of the Underground Railroad Movement and its genesis and legacy in the Capital Region and New York State, and as a significant element of the history of the United States.”

Mary-Liz and Paul have been working on this project since 2003. Alan visited their center at the Stephen and Harriet Myers Residence, which reflects Underground Railroad history from the perspective of Stephen Myers as a man enslaved in NYS and from the perspective of Black abolitionists. Stephen and Harriet Myers were the central Underground Railroad activists in the Capital Region in the mid-1850’s.

https://undergroundrailroadhistory.org/

22/04/2024

Congratulations to Monadnock’s Ryan Nestor and Jacob Bashista on their new positions! In recognition of his tech expertise, creativity, and longtime leadership on Monadnock’s software development team, Ryan has been promoted to Director of Technology. Jacob, who came to Monadnock with tremendous skill in software engineering, will now lead our development of interactive experiences as Development Manager.
Please join us in congratulating Ryan and Jacob!

18/04/2024

For , we’re going to turn back time, to the fun, steampunk-themed interactive we produced in 2011 for Iowa’s Sioux City Public Museum, called—Turn Back Time!

A big hit with visitors, it invites them to explore the development of Sioux City and its neighborhoods from its first settler to the 21st century. Visitors can travel through time along downtown streets, highways, and streetcar and rail lines on a map to see the city expand and to explore along the way.

Sioux City Museum & Historical Association

10/04/2024

Monadnock transformed Fort Point National Historic Site’s West Bastion with projection mapping and lighting effects to tell the stories of five characters who might have lived and worked at the fort during the Civil War. A soldier, a hospital matron, an assistant engineer, and two others reveal the realities of life there during that time.

Construction of the fort by the U.S. Army Engineers began in 1853 at the height of the Gold Rush, part of a defense system of fortifications planned to protect San Francisco Bay from foreign attack. After significant delays, the first guns were mounted in 1861. Located under today’s Golden Gate Bridge, the fort then was a cold, damp, and isolated place, and its soldiers saw no action during the war.

05/04/2024

Nilou Maleki visited the Planet Word Museum during her travels to DC and got to check out some amazing interactives with two colleagues, Experiential/Urbanist Nick Kapica and the owner of Studio Matthews, Kristine Matthews. There were a couple of exhibits that Nilou found especially inspiring.

The globe language-learning installation was accessible and had a smooth user experience. Visitors initially engage with a character on screen to repeat sentences in a specific language—if you do a good job, you’re rewarded with fun special effects on the globe.

Another exhibit that Nilou was intrigued by was the large-scale projection-mapped typography wall with voice interactivity—another successful approach, especially for kids. Next time you go to DC, make sure you check these out!

https://planetwordmuseum.org/

03/04/2024

Monadnock was in Fishers, Indiana on Friday for an initial concept design charette. With our design partner, Luci Creative, we’re producing a new introductory experience for Conner Prairie, a Smithsonian-affiliated living history museum. Executive Director Alan Hoff, Creative Director Steve Bressler, and Producer Erin Finicane along with Luci Creative’s project director Sarah Anderson and Executive Creative Director Kevin Snow had an invigorating session with the Conner Prairie team, led by Conner Prairie’s President and CEO Norman Burns.

We can’t wait to get started on next steps!

30/03/2024

Senior Producer Claudia Levin’s childhood friend, documentary filmmaker, Daresha Kyi, inspired us to look into Mama Bears when we were looking for organizations to profile for our SPLC Southern Poverty Law Center Civil Rights Memorial Center Today’s Activists interactive. Daresha produced the film “Mama Bears” mamabearsdoc.com/ and is currently finishing a documentary on LaTosha Brown and Cliff Albright of Black Voters Matter, https://blackvotersmatterfund.org, , also profiled in Today’s Activists.

It was a joy for Claudia to share the experience of the Civil Rights Memorial Center with both Daresha and their friend, Human Rights attorney , Keta Cowan.

27/03/2024

Monadnock’s Graphic Designer Nilou Maleki was invited to join the jury panel for the recent 2024 SEGD Global Design Awards. The Society for Experiential Graphic Design is the only global organization in its field, and sets the standards for excellence for the future of experiential graphic design.

For these awards, SEGD convened a multidisciplinary panel of esteemed jurors, who evaluated projects based on their effectiveness in connecting people to place and in creating unique and memorable user experiences while solving design challenges.

Nilou was honored to have this opportunity to join industry leaders in recognizing exceptional design work. Congratulations, Nilou, for this well-deserved recognition!

Read More: https://segd.org/awards/the-segd-global-design-awards/

25/03/2024

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) - humanitarian, activist, diplomat, author, and speaker - used her platform as the wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt to advocate for human and civil rights, becoming the most politically active and influential First Lady in U.S. history.

Traveling the country during her husband’s presidency, she reported to him about working and living conditions and the impact of New Deal relief programs. She lobbied for the inclusion of women and advocated for economic and racial justice. Roosevelt traveled widely as a speaker and was a prolific writer. Her popular syndicated news column, “My Day,” ran from 1936 until her death, and she authored 28 books over her lifetime.

Continuing her activism after FDR’s death, Eleanor Roosevelt served as chair of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and played a major role in the 1948 adoption of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“In political life, I have never felt that anything really mattered but the satisfaction of knowing that you stood for the things in which you believed, and had done the best you could.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt, 1944

22/03/2024

Monadnock had a great time at the 2024 Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums (MAAM) Building Museums conference - always one of our favorites! We loved connecting with friends old and new, learning about the fantastic feats behind a fresh crop of world-class museum projects, and getting out to several great Philadelphia institutions.

Alan Hoff and Steve Bressler were able to visit the National Constitution Center, Steve and Claudia Levin got to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Alan went to the Penn Museum. After the conference ended, Claudia took a tour of the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site, an experience she found haunting.