Powerhouse Museum in Australia Selects Arcitecta Mediaflux

Arcitecta, Inc. announced that Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia, has selected its product Mediaflux as its new digital asset management solution (DAMS).

The Arcitecta solution is tailored to the museum’s extensive, varied, and valuable collections, marking a significant re-calibration of operations and initiating a paradigm shift in the museum’s curatorial processes and user experiences at the museum. With a foothold in higher education, government, M&E, and life sciences, Arcitecta brings its advanced data management technology to the museum/gallery/cultural asset market.

As part of a landmark $1.3 billion, NSW government supported infrastructure renewal and revitalization program across the expanded research and public facilities at Powerhouse Castle Hill; the renewal of the iconic Powerhouse Ultimo; and the ongoing operation of Sydney Observatory, Powerhouse is re-imagining how it preserves and shares its collection of more than half a million objects of national and international significance.

Considered one of the finest and most diverse collections in Australia, Powerhouse is also undertaking an expansive digitization project that will provide new levels of access to the Powerhouse Collection. To meet the demands of this growth, it required a scalable, secure and customizable data management solution that aligned with its vision of digital object accessibility and research innovation.

Positioned at the intersection of arts, design, science and technology, the museum plays a critical role in engaging communities with contemporary ideas and issues. As part of its landmark multi-billion dollars NSW government supported renovation and expansion initiative, it is re-imagining how it preserves and shares its diverse collection of over half a million objects, including decorative arts, industrial design and social history.

The common model of storage is no longer suitable for the growth of Powerhouse’s digital assets, which has evolved along with its physical infrastructure. To meet the demands of its growth, the museum required a scalable, secure, and customizable data management solution that aligned with its vision of digital object accessibility and research innovation.

“The implications of our deployment of Mediaflux with Powerhouse are incredibly exciting and transformative for both the museum and the museum curation ecosystem,” said Jason Lohrey, Arcitecta founder and CEO. “The DAMS platform will unlock the potential of previously inaccessible connections across space and time. Imagine being able to search for – and rapidly find – all the artifacts, images, sound files and more for a particular location or slice of time without knowing anything else about it at the onset. This innovation marks the future of museum collections.“

Mediaflux provides powerful capabilities that enable more agile data use for more streamlined, efficient, and faster workflows so that museum curators can spend more time focusing on novel and creative endeavors to improve stakeholder experiences rather than trawling through cumbersome siloed data.

The customizable GUI optimizes object search and discovery, improving research innovation and outcomes. Using Mediaflux Applications for Web (MAW), the custom GUI can be designed and deployed.

Capability: 

• Assemble completely new interfaces in days, rather than months or years 
• Leverage existing components, or simply build their own in Javascript 
• Create generic or role specific applications, ensuring users are only seeing the information they need 
• Define applications in a single document allowing for easy modification 
• Expedite tasks by reducing complexity 

Integrating a platform with the capacity to manage any form of data at any scale optimizes costs and data flow between people and systems while ensuring resilience and access control. Mediaflux enables internal and external stakeholders and project management applications to interact with digital assets of interest without compromising the collection. Additionally, it provides data curation, protection, and long-term preservation, which are invaluable to the museum enterprise.

Founded at the junction of science, technology, and the arts 25 years ago, Arcitecta is well-positioned to tackle the digital asset management challenges posed by the vast and varied Powerhouse data. Beyond Mediaflux’s capabilities, Arcitecta brings an entire ecosystem of creative passions, research awareness, and technical skills to the implementation. Placing empathy at the core of every collaborative relationship, it enters, the conversation starts with 2 fundamental questions: “What data do you have?” and “What do you want to do with it?” As a result, each project is imbued with deep understanding from the outset, ensuring the most effective solution deployment.