BS: . . . You've worked in lots of different spaces within Techniquest and I wanted to know if you think that these are different types of spaces so do you think that the exhibition hall is a very different type of space from the science theatre and the planetarium and the lab.
DB: Yeah, they're all, I think they're all different because I think the exhibition tends to be, people go in and they can flit from here to there. There's no, theming in the way the science theatre's set up apart from the ones that need low light are shoved in the low light area. But it doesn't, there's no particular theme to it so the - the exhibits tend to be spread out all over the place so even the children there are coming in to do a trail card, which in some ways is a good thing because they have to start down here then go somewhere else then go somewhere else then go somewhere else then go somewhere else. Rather than having 6 exhibits altogether. So it gives them a chance to, even if they don't do anything else they walk round the whole building. But in that case you can go in and can flit from place to place, and you can try something out and, it's just a sort of general - edutainment I suppose way of doing it. So they can flit from thing to thing and there's no, although they have a trail card which is themed in a certain way a general visitor could come in and he could flit through the whole building. He can do it in half-an-hour or he can spend 3 days here you know, depending on what you want to get out of it.
But the other areas tend to be themed along a specific thing. So - the planetarium is obviously themed for 2 things. They do story times, for young children, and they also do the, actual planetarium, the actual star type shows. So that's a specialist area that fits in with one particular type of thing. All the shows in the planetarium tend to be, well not all of them, perhaps (not) Storytimes, all the general planetarium shows are related to some form of astronomy or something like that. Or myths related to the stars, or related to that particular thing so, that space fits very well for that particular thing. The Storytimes is sort of just general, they could be anything because I did an environmental storytime - so Storytime is a bit different you know.
The lab again um is a sort of general use space but again it tends to be themed along, especially for schools it's themed along a particular thing like this week they're making Orreries so they'll come in and they'll be workshops ( ). It tends to be very themed, and again the same as the Science Theatre, they all tend to be themed (along) one. Like one week we'll do forces another week we'll do something else. So they tend to be, to be themed along that particular way. Also it's a way of trying to get the information across is very different. Because, in the - Science Theatre, in the exhibition you can come in you can go around the whole day and you don't you might not talk to anybody at all. If you've got trouble a helper might come up, you may talk to a helper but basically you're just left completely on your own.
The - generally in the - in the lab - either you're actually doing an experiment or they're split into small groups. So you might be split into a group of 6 where you're working on a specific activity or a specific thing. So you're working in more in a small group environment there. And the Science Theatre, although there's quite a lot of interaction between getting people down to take part in it and questioning them and then that's more a place where the person at the front is actually giving the information across. In some ways you are actually trying to find out what they know and things cause you obviously need to - adjust the level you talk to the audience because you might find you've got two groups of the same age and one has much better understanding. So then you have to alter your language to fit in with what you're particularly doing. And with the planetarium that's a 50-50. You've got - a tape show which is just giving information across - which I think has got pros and cons because people could take it just like a TV programme it might just drift across the top of the head. Or but the second part then is actually a live presenter. And I was looking at a piece of research and they actually said that uh they did exactly the same talk with a live presenter and a videoed show and - I think there was a big difference in the amount of scientific information you could get back if you actually got a live presenter - saying exactly the same words as recorded. Because I think, with things like TV's and videos and computers and there's so much of that sort of stuff along, people tend to sit down it tends to, it may drift passed you more than if you got actually somebody to concentrate on and listen to. It's the same if you go - sit at home and watch a film on TV or go to the cinema, you're concentrating more at the cinema. So I think there's sort of all sorts of different levels but, you know, I think, the live presenter tends to get a better - you know - way of putting a, sort of stuff across.