Museums around the world have started to use podcasting in very creative ways. With few exceptions, Antenna Audio's productions for the National Museums in Berlin are unique in the German museum world.

Antenna is the world market leader in the production of audio and multimedia guides. Eva Wesemann, based in Berlin, is the artistic director of their branch in Germany. At the moment she's working on an international podcasting strategy for Antenna.

Together with the National Museums Berlin she has produced the first two podcasts of this kind in a German museum. Lena Maculan spoke to Eva Wesemann, author of the podcasts, about the strategy behind the programmes.

Rembrandt: Quest of a Genius at the National Museums in Berlin was Berlin's contribution to this year's worldwide celebrations of the painter's 400th birthday. After a successful introduction of podcasting at the National Museums earlier this year, the Rembrandt podcast was the second time this institution has commissioned Antenna Audio to produce a programme accompanying an exhibition.

Based on Rembrandt's biography by Christian Tümpel, the programme consisted of thirteen episodes. Each one was between four and eight minutes long and shed light on the artist's life and artistic development. The programme placed some of the artist's key works in a historical context, talked about Rembrandt's relationship to women, his way to fame and glory as well as his bankruptcy and death.

Lena Maculan: with the podcasts for the exhibitions Melancholy and Rembrandt you have produced the first two museum podcasts of this kind in Germany. What were you key aims and objectives with these productions?

Eva Wesemann: With our first podcast we fundamentally had three goals: First, we wanted to address those who are not regular museum visitors in order to encourage them to visit the show. Secondly, we aimed to provide additional content to the exhibition. [The exhibition addressed the term melancholy throughout the history of art,] the podcast addressed how melancholy is depicted in literature.

Finally, the objective of the podcast was to advertise the weekly public programmes, the "Salon Noir." With the Rembrandt podcast we placed an even stronger emphasis on providing content, which has not been dealt with in the exhibition.

Moreover, the podcast should also work completely independent from the exhibition. Therefore, we decided to narrate Rembrandt's life, enriched with lots of quotations from contemporaries and the artist himself.

LM: People often find the scholarly tone of traditional museum publications, such as catalogues difficult to understand. The manner of talking about art in your podcasts is taking a different approach. You use an engaging, lively and easy to understand language. Do you think that the medium of podcasting can be a motor to foster the production of easy understandable, intellectually accessible content for a broad public?

EW: Your observation is quite right. It also reflects our own experience. Over the last years museums have become more open-minded and have made efforts to better understand and respond to their visitors' needs. This however, doesn't mean that the use of new media is spurring simple and undemanding content.

On the contrary, the variety of media allows us to offer content for experts as well as for tourists, who's bus is already waiting in front of the museum to take them to the next tourist attraction.

Podcasts tend to have a DIY quality. They tend to be more like self-made radio programmes. In this respect, you can certainly view them as a motor for the production of easy to understand content for a non-expert audience. On the other hand, museums have a great interest in using this medium intelligently. They want to make sure that podcasting is used so as to further their mission as museums.

LM: It is relatively easy to produce podcasts. Many museums have the hardware - a computer, a microphone and a digital camera. Some of the software needed for the production of podcasts is freely available on the web. Hence, museums could easily produce their own programmes. Do you think that this new medium therefore challenges Antenna Audio's position as the market leader in the production of audio programmes for museums?

EW: No. We are very interested in the developments of podcasting. Several museums in the US and Europe have commissioned us to produce podcasts. Each has different aims and goals and also reflects different approaches to using this medium. If museums want to offer high quality programmes, they rely on professional support. Furthermore, we are planning our own podcast with our own content.

LM: What will the content of these be?

EW: In a first step we will offer podcasts to our clients, the museums, which will report on trends and developments in the area of technology. We will provide insider information of the museum scene and introduce remarkable places, people and audio guides.

LM: And in a second step...?

EW: ... we will address all those interested in the arts and culture. We will report on exhibitions and integrate interviews with artists, museum professionals as well as reactions from visitors. We are also thinking about doing biographical documentaries on artists and other historical figures, introductions to art history, programmes for children and young people, travelling programmes and city tours - the variety of themes and the didactic possibilities are almost unlimited!

LM: Your very first podcast (Melancholie) was a great success and made it quite high up in the iTunes rankings...

EW: Yes. Based on download figures, iTunes automatically generates these rankings, and updates them on a daily basis. All of the eleven episodes made it in the top 100 and according to our observation our best position was rank 35. At the end, the podcast was downloaded over 6,000 times. That's a great success for an intellectually demanding programme and the first podcast of this kind in Germany!