This interactive and free museum allows you to explore Wikipedia in an innovative way.
The Museum of All Things uses scale to offer a new perspective on the abundant information we have at our disposal.
Exploring the halls of the Museum of All Things is to delve into the vast universe of human knowledge. This interactive museum, developed by Maya Claire and available for free download on itch.io, turns the essence of Wikipedia into a digital experience where players can explore at their own pace. While it is not a "game" in the traditional sense, the Museum of All Things offers an innovative form of interaction that illustrates the immense amount of accessible information.
Upon starting the tour in the Museum, I find myself in a foyer with an information desk next to a map detailing the organization of the space. From the main corridor, wings unfold that address different categories such as people, history, culture, and geography, among others. Just like in a traditional museum, the best way to explore is to choose a section at random. I opted for the culture wing and ventured down a long white hallway that branches into smaller ones. A sign announcing flood myths caught my attention, so I decided to enter and discovered a wide exhibition with framed images and large text banners explaining the historical, cultural, and religious aspects of the topic.
All of this information comes directly from Wikipedia, and the images are sourced from Wikimedia Commons. Simply put, each room in the museum presents a Wikipedia page transformed into a physical space. Each section of the room is also marked with links to related topics, facilitating a journey of discovery similar to that experienced on Wikipedia itself. For example, after visiting the exhibition on flood myths, I veer down the corridor of Zeus and find myself trapped in a maze of information. This experience of "losing oneself" in content is something many have experienced with Wikipedia.
The Museum of All Things slows down this immersion in information, offering a vast environment that follows an almost dreamlike structure of endless corridors and exhibits. While on Wikipedia one can jump from Danny DeVito to Henry VIII in a matter of seconds, this same journey can take much longer in MoAT, where the layout of the space invites more thoughtful exploration. It's as if I understood what the protagonist of Susanna Clarke's Piranesi felt.
The museum requires players to absorb the information more attentively rather than being swept away by the torrent of data found on Wikipedia. However, there are ways to streamline the search. A search function in the foyer allows quick access to any desired exhibit, and an option in the pause menu directs visitors to the corresponding page on Wikipedia to delve deeper into a topic.
The appeal of presenting so much information in a physical space is what makes MoAT so charming. Often, museums turn into endurance tests, and personally, I can't spend more than three hours in one without feeling overwhelmed. Despite living in New York for many years, I have been unable to explore every corner of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. However, unlike the latter, which has a limit on the amount of information it contains, MoAT is nearly impossible to quantify. By recreating the vast repository of knowledge found on Wikipedia as a physical museum, we are reminded of the immense amount of information available to us.
Ultimately, this representation as a museum also emphasizes that Wikipedia is not an entity that appeared out of nowhere; it is a construct actively built and maintained by people. Information is a valuable tool, and as some attempt to censor projects like Wikipedia, MoAT acts as a reminder of the importance of not taking such resources for granted.