 My background is I studied painting. I was about ready to graduate from art school when the web came along. And you looked at the web and you're like, it seems like it might be an end run around the gallery system. And it was 20 years too soon and painters still haven't figured it out. But I decided that I wanted to understand the web. I wanted to learn how it worked. So the museum has been closed for the last three years. We've done a full historic renovation of the mansion. This is Andrew Carnegie's old house. The collection ranges all the way from contemporary movie posters, mid-century modernist furniture, to all the forks, to an enormous collection of wallpapers, to textiles, contemporary and modern. And then we took advantage of the opportunity of the museum being closed and the building being built. And we took advantage of the opportunity of the museum being closed and the building being taken down to studs and posts to try and imagine what it means for a museum to be part of the internet and vice versa. So throughout the museum there's a whole layer of interactive experiences. And if you think about the Smithsonian at large, we have 130 million objects. We have all the things. So how do you get all those to people? Yeah, how do you start to demonstrate to people that, and particularly for the Smithsonian, because this is all your stuff. Like, genuinely, it's for you. And to try and use those interactive tables as a way to sort of bridge the rest of the collection. So we have an enormous wallpaper collection, which, one, again, people don't have an opportunity to see because there's finite space. And two, because many of them are small snippets. So the place you see that sort of in spades is the immersion room. The immersion room allows us to do is to project floor-to-ceiling wallpapers. But also it allows people to create their own wallpaper. And then, you know, with all of these things, with the things that you create and then the things that you collect on the tables or throughout the galleries, you'll be able to dock your pen and save your creations and the things you've collected to your account on the collections website. And it just vibrates right back to it. That's it. And you know you've got it. The pen is both a capacitive stylus, so it works on the tables, as like all styluses do. And in the back is an NFC antenna. And then there's a circuit board with a small microcontroller and storage. And all of the labels have a corresponding crosshair on them. And there's an NFC tag behind it with the object ID. And so you walk up and touch it, and it records the object ID. And that's it. I mean, in some ways we've built the world's most complicated physical bookmarking system. Lots of people have said to us during all this process of like, why don't you just write an app or use people's phones? And the answer is, well, it's true. People use their phones. To do this stuff. But I think it's only because that's what they've got at their disposal. Not because they actually like it. It's just the only thing. I think what we would like to be able to do, if nothing else, is to say to people that, yes, it's possible. Right? It's almost 2015, and it's kind of amazing what we can do. And we're not going anywhere. We're the Smithsonian.
 My background is I studied painting. I was about ready to graduate from art school when the web came along.
 And you looked at the web and you're like, it seems like it might be an end run around the gallery system.
 And it was 20 years too soon and painters still haven't figured it out.
 But I decided that I wanted to understand the web. I wanted to learn how it worked.
 So the museum has been closed for the last three years.
 We've done a full historic renovation of the mansion. This is Andrew Carnegie's old house.
 The collection ranges all the way from contemporary movie posters, mid-century modernist furniture,
 to all the forks, to an enormous collection of wallpapers, to textiles, contemporary and modern.
 And then we took advantage of the opportunity of the museum being closed and the building being built.
 And we took advantage of the opportunity of the museum being closed and the building being taken down to studs and posts
 to try and imagine what it means for a museum to be part of the internet and vice versa.
 So throughout the museum there's a whole layer of interactive experiences.
 And if you think about the Smithsonian at large, we have 130 million objects. We have all the things.
 So how do you get all those to people?
 Yeah, how do you start to demonstrate to people that, and particularly for the Smithsonian, because this is all your stuff.
 Like, genuinely, it's for you. And to try and use those interactive tables as a way to sort of bridge the rest of the collection.
 So we have an enormous wallpaper collection, which, one, again, people don't have an opportunity to see because there's finite space.
 And two, because many of them are small snippets. So the place you see that sort of in spades is the immersion room.
 The immersion room allows us to do is to project floor-to-ceiling wallpapers.
 But also it allows people to create their own wallpaper.
 And then, you know, with all of these things, with the things that you create and then the things that you collect on the tables or throughout the galleries,
 you'll be able to dock your pen and save your creations and the things you've collected to your account on the collections website.
 And it just vibrates right back to it.
 That's it.
 And you know you've got it.
 The pen is both a capacitive stylus, so it works on the tables, as like all styluses do.
 And in the back is an NFC antenna.
 And then there's a circuit board with a small microcontroller and storage.
 And all of the labels have a corresponding crosshair on them.
 And there's an NFC tag behind it with the object ID.
 And so you walk up and touch it, and it records the object ID.
 And that's it.
 I mean, in some ways we've built the world's most complicated physical bookmarking system.
 Lots of people have said to us during all this process of like, why don't you just write an app or use people's phones?
 And the answer is, well, it's true. People use their phones.
 To do this stuff.
 But I think it's only because that's what they've got at their disposal.
 Not because they actually like it.
 It's just the only thing.
 I think what we would like to be able to do, if nothing else, is to say to people that, yes, it's possible.
 Right? It's almost 2015, and it's kind of amazing what we can do.
 And we're not going anywhere. We're the Smithsonian.