National Museum of the American Indian

Washington, D.C.

Upon a beautifully landscaped 4-acre plot of land situated just south of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., resides a striking architectural achievement called the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI).

Operating under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, this 250,000-square foot, five-story building - a block long without a straight line in it - houses nearly 6,000 authentic artifacts on display that include paintings, masks, weapons and jewelry. The museum's meticulously designed exhibits bring 10,000 years of native peoples' history to life by creating an interactive visitor experience using the latest sound and display electronics, a lightning-fast fiber-optic network and the integration/automation capabilities of the AMX NetLinx Control System.

As the American Indian believes in a harmonious existence with surrounding nature, the NMAI stands as a monument fully embracing today's technology to express the power of the "native voice" through the seamless, synchronous operation of audio/video devices, lighting and graphic elements and NetLinx control capabilities. Here, within the NMAI's numerous galleries and exhibits, visitors can witness firsthand a captivating blend of the American Indian's rich past with modern engineering advances.

"This evolved from the notion that media-savvy visitors to the museum will look to obtain information from many different sources that include graphics, video and sound," said Kathy Suter, Media Coordinator at the NMAI. "It was important to us that these different types of visual and audio formats were physically and intellectually integrated into the exhibits."

Identifying the Right Solution

Who better to see such an ambitious vision to complete fruition than museum multimedia expert Bob Haroutunian, the Principal of PPI Consulting, Inc. (Washington, DC)? Beating out bids presented to the NMAI by three competing system design and integration firms, Haroutunian was selected by Suter to consult and develop a blueprint for the successful implementation of the NMAI's range of exhibit elements. His winning bid included specification of the robust NetLinx system, which would be used to manage, monitor and automate the NMAI's plethora of audio/video electronics being connected over the building's fiber network. Haroutunian commissioned several different A/V contractors who handled the programming of the NetLinx system.

"I knew him as a systems designer before he became a consultant," Suter said. "It was his overall experience in A/V and control systems that proved to be the determining factor (in why we chose him). I could trust his input. He listened to what we wanted to accomplish and knew the right solutions to make it happen."

Having consulted personally on A/V designs and control system installations for other Smithsonian projects, Haroutunian came to the NMAI with an established familiarity and understanding of the museum's goals in terms of incorporating technology as a vehicle to deliver a multitude of sights and sounds while ultimately keeping the exhibits operating with minimal downtime, if at all. The result: a lasting impression on each visitor to the museum.

"It begins by looking back at the evolution (of museums) taking place," he said. "Ten years ago, you might see an A/V element of an exhibit, such as a TV monitor, with an out-of-order sign on it. Museums then were casual about that. Today, it has become imperative to attract visitors who are more inclined to visit working attractions. They expect peak performance. The Smithsonian museums, including the NMAI, are considered the best at what they do and are deeply committed to developing a memorable end user experience. They are committed to implementing the best technology with the highest levels of operation and reliability."

Expanding on What Works

When Haroutunian suggested NetLinx for handling the NMAI's device integration and automation, Suter and the museum's A/V team wanted proof - working evidence that the control system would indeed accomplish everything Haroutunian said it could.

"The NMAI team was very inquisitive as to what the NetLinx system would be able to do for them and their special requirements," Haroutunian said. "To convince them that this was the solution they needed, I had to show them what we had done in the past."

Visits to the National Museum of American History and the National Postal Museum, both Smithsonian museums in Washington, DC, allowed Suter and the NMAI A/V team an up-close-and-personal look at NetLinx systems operating within fully integrated and automated museum environments.

"I was pleased to be able to show them the great history I have enjoyed using AMX control in previous Smithsonian-managed projects," Haroutunian said.

Creating a Media Strategy

Meanwhile, the NMAI had already broken ground and was well under construction. With the introduction of NetLinx, the museum was about to embark on the creation and development of a multimedia strategy from the ground up, according to Haroutunian.

"You don't get many chances to get involved with a brand new museum in this way," he said. "The NMAI afforded us a thrilling opportunity."

This also led to change - an evolution of the exhibit blueprints, according to Suter.

"The NMAI's exhibit plans evolved over the course of time," she said. "Bob came aboard when the design drawings for the exhibits were well underway. We added new media strategy to those drawings and plans in order to clarify what integrated media we now wanted incorporated in each exhibit, how the audio and video displays were to function, and to make other necessary adjustments in order to refine the look and feel of each exhibit. Overall, it was a very cooperative initiative and the plans became better and better as we went along.

"Our media strategy helped us treat all systems in the building holistically and to accomplish a high-end control system," she added. "AMX became the brainpower behind what we wanted to do. A year ago, half of what you see operating now in the NMAI never even existed for us."

Telling Their Story From Day One

The NMAI officially opened its doors in September 2004, greeting more than 100,000 visitors during the first week with a state-of-the-art, technology-intensive museum. One that was fully networked using modern fiber-optic cabling and a main control room to track and maintain all electronic sources. One designed to "tell their story" using digital video displays, audio delivery and lighting scenes. A museum that employs NetLinx to integrate three permanent galleries on the third and fourth floors, and a main control room in the basement of the building.

Our Universes: Traditional Knowledge Shapes Our World.

Aptly named, the Our Universes gallery focuses on native cosmology - the worldviews and philosophies about the creation and order of the universe - and the spiritual relationship between mankind and nature.

On the ceiling, a vast 30-foot-wide "Starfield Canopy" with approximately 10,000 points of fiber-optic light portrays a clear, star-filled night sky. To complete the setting, a three-dimensional mountain landscape is portrayed on the walls.

A projection environment with two video stations plays animated videos that explore how celestial bodies shape the daily lives of native peoples from the perspective of nine different tribes. For example, one tells of a red fox that stole a bag of stars and sprinkled them throughout the universe to form the constellations. At the conclusion of each tale, the NetLinx system activates a techno-beam light fixture. This high-end spotlight scans across the canopy to illuminate a particular constellation related to each tribal story.

"This is truly a multimedia presentation," said Sue Lepp, Senior Vice President of Design and Production Inc. (D&P), the systems integrator and fabrication firm selected to install the Starfield Canopy. "In this case, the system is communicating with an unusual group of equipment. It appears complex but is quite simple since we made it into a turnkey solution. The system is programmed with a timeframe to accommodate the length of each video. It then knows when to cue the NetLinx controller to run the techno-beam across the canopy. The results make for a clean, reliable production."

Although the gallery's media requires minimal human interaction, D&P made sure to install a 10" touch panel from AMX on a remote equipment rack located in a nearby closet space. The NMAI staff has the ability to use this easily accessible user interface to handle a number of functions: to set the gallery's show in automatic mode or to take manual control, to check power and signals being sent to and from the main control room, and to override all systems in case of an emergency.

Our Peoples: Giving Voice to Our Histories

The Our Peoples gallery is dedicated to revealing how native people see their own history - the loss of thousands of tribal communities, of land, of languages and even gold. On display are pre-Columbian gold figurines as well as European swords, coins and crosses made from gold. The main story of Our Peoples focuses on the last 500 years of native history and shows how the arrival of newcomers in the Western Hemisphere set the stage for one of the most momentous events in human history. It is also about how native people intentionally and strategically kept their cultures alive.

"This is not a place for people to feel guilty or to vent anger," Suter said. "We're using the technology in a way that is helping to bridge the understanding of such a heavy, emotional topic."

The focus of technology here is the innovative and creative use of three vertically-positioned 37" plasma screen that come together - side-by-side-by-side - to deliver what Suter refers to as "a visually sophisticated account" of native history. A special video presentation entitled "Making History" features Native American actor and director Floyd Favel as the host, expressing American Indian history from the native point-of-view. To the visitor, Favel appears to be moving between the monitors, interacting with himself and other museum staff.

Three plasmas means three separate streams of media, and that's where NetLinx comes in to cue the right digital signal at the exact right time. Ultimately, the idea, according to Suter, is to deliver one message that works as a symbol for how American Indian history can be understood and retold from many different perspectives.

"This was the one place we could use real narration from a real actor on the screens," she said. "The timing and control of the distributed media is critical. Everything has to be synched together just right."

Located within the Our Peoples gallery is the Hurricane exhibit, which is constructed entirely as a multimedia presentation. There are no artifacts. Instead, 15 separate video monitors sit flush in two large curved walls that create an oval room that visitors step into. These components are cued and controlled through the NetLinx system. For every five monitors, a specific video program runs in a continuous loop. Each of the three total video productions details the impact that guns, church and governments had on the future of the American Indian population and culture.

"It's an intellectually and technically complex setup," Suter said. "The point is that native people have been living in a proverbial hurricane. Things come at them that they can't control and directly affect them."

Our Lives: Contemporary Life and Identities

The Our Lives gallery reveals how residents of eight native communities live in the 21st century. They include: the Campo Band of Kumeyaay Indians (California, USA), the urban Indian community of Chicago (Illinois, USA), Yakama Nation (Washington State, USA), Igloolik (Nunavut, Canada), Kahnawake (Quebec, Canada), Saint-Laurent Metis (Manitoba, Canada), Kalinago (Carib Territory, Dominica), and the Pamunkey Tribe (Virginia, USA). Through their stories, visitors learn about the deliberate and often difficult choices indigenous people make in order to survive economically, save their languages from extinction, preserve their cultural integrity and keep their traditional arts alive.

These messages are communicated in an area called the "Igloolik" exhibit, where multiple video monitors and numerous streams of video and audio allow visitors the opportunity to witness tribal interactions and hear native languages being spoken. All audio streams operate simultaneously with one specific stream programmed at a slightly louder level than the rest, according to Suter.

"The reason for that is to project for visitors exactly how one particular language at a time actually sounds and is used among native members," Suter said.

Main Control Room The main control room, located in the basement of the NMAI, acts as the network hub for the entire building, receiving and processing signals from integrated computers, projectors and other A/V sources, the incoming and outgoing phone lines, and the NetLinx system. Large enough to accommodate a handful of IT support staff members and several equipment racks, the control room houses multiple servers and a single touch screen to track and view the status of everything on the network. IT support staff can identify pieces of equipment to determine whether they are operating as desired, powered off or disconnected, or require any maintenance.

"The museum's integration of media is complex, high-end and sophisticated, yet it never gets in the way of the visitor's experience," Suter said. "It's seamless and practically takes care of itself."

Remembering How It Began

Congress authorized the NMAI's creation in 1989, nine years after the Smithsonian first initiated the idea of taking over the Museum of the American Indian that was located in the Bronx, N.Y. That particular museum was founded by George Gustan Heye to showcase the hundreds of thousands of objects he had purchased during his extensive travels among native peoples in North and South America.

The museum, the first national institution in the United States entirely dedicated to the history of the original inhabitants of North America, was built on the last patch of available space in the National Mall of Washington, DC Total cost of construction of the museum was $200 million, half of which came from private donors.

The sixteenth museum of the Smithsonian Institution, the NMAI works in collaboration with the native peoples of the Western Hemisphere to protect and foster their cultures by reaffirming traditions and beliefs, encouraging contemporary artistic expression, and empowering the Indian voice.