Chapter Seven: Conclusion

7.1 Summary of the Case Studies’ Findings

This research underscores the impact of digitisation on museum practices and user interactions, urging a re-examination of traditional curatorial roles and institutional approaches. By recognising the ontological shift inherent in digitised artefacts and the unfolding dynamics of online museum spaces, this study advocates for a more nuanced understanding of digital materiality and the relational nature of digital objects. Embracing Walter Benjamin’s insights on reproduction and Jussi Parikka’s emphasis on cultural aspects of digital artefacts, the project navigates the complex interplay between technology, culture, and museum engagement.

The developing relationship between the Internet and museums necessitates a cultural perspective that extends beyond technical functionalities, highlighting the importance of user interpretation and engagement in shaping digital museum experiences. As curators navigate the challenges of digital subjectivity and representation, the notion of trace becomes a crucial lens through which to understand the temporality and relationality of digital artefacts. By addressing these complexities and institutional challenges, this research aims to enrich our understanding of digital museum engagement and foster integration of digitised collections into expanded networks.

7.2 From Online Collection Archive to Speculative Framework

The platform is a proposal of a set of questions. The online museum could be reimaged as a platform of participatory cultural forms and practices, that offers users a series of questions to enable engagement with all digital objects and not just a boundaried collection of objects. The digital objects serve as points of departure for users to enact memories, storytelling, and performance (Dallas, 2004). (Dallas, 2004)The preservation or sorting of data is but a means of pulling apart, making space for forms of generosity and collective intelligence that could be brought together online.

Lawrence Alloway’s concept of the art world as a network informs our understanding of the dispersion and interpretation of artworks within digital environments by highlighting the interconnectedness and fluidity of digital spaces. The digital archive functions as an instance of an ‘open’ work, wherein digital entities exhibit an accessible nature, permitting users to perpetually modify and reconfigure them. This quality is irrespective of the medium, encompassing both offline and online domains, thereby rendering each artwork susceptible to a diverse spectrum of interpretations. Each interpretive act imbues the work with a rejuvenated vitality, influenced by the idiosyncratic tastes, perspectives, and personal expressions of the observer (Eco, 1989).Each interpretive act imbues the work with vitality, influenced by the idiosyncratic tastes, perspectives, and personal expressions of the observer.

Digital documentation by curators and users challenges traditional notions of originality and authenticity in art objects by allowing multiple interpretations and modifications, which in turn question the fixed nature of an artwork. This is imperative to underscore that the digital archive collection epitomises one instantiation of the broader paradigm of ‘open’ work. The orchestrated design and animating workshops offer a structured approach through which users may actively engage with the digital archive collection, thereby delineating a substantive pathway for user interaction within this contextual framework.

In this new environment community and convening are prioritised above the preservation and grand narrative that museums generate. This user-centred approach creates a practice-based challenge on accounting for continuous change and enrichment rather than on preserving fixity (Rinehart and Ippolito, 2014). The first game, “Naming with Care”, retrospectively became a model for how the project developed into a set of questions, a choose your own adventure between user and digital object. Each version was an expanded version of a choose your own adventure, allowing the user increasingly more potential pathways to engage with the digital objects and collecting words, sentences and associated experiences to produce a unique and sustained fictioning.

Walter Benjamin’s notion of aura, in the context of digital reproduction, suggests that digital artefacts possess a changed aura through their reproducibility and accessibility. This notion shifts the ontological nature of digital artefacts, making them more interactive and interpretive. The intention of these projects was to cultivate a sense of curiosity and an ethos of experimenting, letting go of assumptions about who can participate and what belongs in the site of interpretation of the online collection. The forms of embodied looking and speculative fiction questions encouraged users to consider their perspectives as human beings living in a particular place and time, having grown up with a particular set of social and cultural ideas about what matters and what does not. The presentation of the digital objects in this format values listening and cultivating an openness, one that allows reciprocity. In this suggested model of co-inquiry, there is a more porous boundary between the offline and online user and offline and online object. The digital is material, in terms of its infrastructure, in terms of the hardware that enables it, and the bodies both behind the interfaces that we use and in front of them.

Lev Manovich’s insights contribute to understanding the autonomy and circulation of digital objects within emergent digital ecologies by framing them as part of a user- driven environment (Manovich, 2001). This digital curation could foster generosity through continual engagement and reinterpretation. The interactive workshops and structured games serve as conduits for user interaction, offering a multifaceted pathway for exploration and experimentation. This user-centric approach emphasises community and collaboration, challenging traditional museum narratives. Inclusivity in this context refers not only to providing access to existing content but also to involving users early in the curatorial process, allowing them to add to the growing archive of material. This shift redefines the narrative and agency of the museum, promoting a participatory model that reflects a wider array of perspectives and experiences.

A museum or art institution is defined by its current activities. The suggested forms of engaging with the online digital object offers a potential new form convening for the online life of A David Bomberg Legacy – The Sarah Rose Collection. The digitisation of the collection and archive reprioritises the value of the collection and questions why objects should sit in just one collection. The digitisation of the collection shifts the focus from digital objects to practices. Virtual displays of the digital objects mark a shift from cultural heritage as a thing to view to the interaction between collecting institutions, objects, and their publics (Dallas, 2004). Across this project I have explored the changing relationship between object, audience, and platform.

The platform embodies a paradigm shift in the conception of online museums, presenting them as unfolding platforms for participatory cultural engagement rather than repositories of static collections. By framing digital objects as catalysts for memory, storytelling, and performance, the platform encourages users to actively shape their own experiences and interpretations. Digital curation could foster generosity and collective intelligence through continual engagement and reinterpretation. The interactive workshops and structured games serve as conduits for user interaction, offering a multifaceted pathway for exploration and experimentation. This user-centric approach prioritises community and collaboration, challenging traditional museum narratives and fostering a more inclusive and fluid understanding of cultural heritage. Through embodied looking and speculative questioning, users are invited to re-examine their own perspectives and engage in reciprocal dialogue with digital objects, blurring the boundaries between offline and online realms. Ultimately, the digitisation of the collection heralds a new era of co- inquiry, where the focus shifts from digital objects to redefining the role of museums, and fostering a more dynamic relationship between object, audience, and platform.

7.3 Concluding Remarks and Further Areas for Research

The analogue museum is still looking for ways to extend the digitised museum collection through the network. This project engages with how we perceive museums, moving away from physical buildings and collections towards a practice where the museum becomes a part of a larger network. In this view, museums function as active participants within a broader network of knowledge exchange. This idea creates challenges for both audiences, who traditionally see museums as places to visit, and museum institutions themselves, as it challenges established cultural hierarchies by emphasising the parity between expert and everyday knowledge (Baggesen, 2019) and offers new terms of reference of how the museum can engage with their digital collections. Rethinking the mediation of artworks from a single interpretation that follows an institutional set of guidelines to a conceptual method from which new interpretations can be made by users provides new ways of understanding the meaning and value of the digital collection.

The discourse surrounding museum collections grapples with temporality, modernity, and their intersection with digital shifts. The proposition that “the file is the object” challenges linear curatorial timelines, disrupting modernist approaches and reflecting the impact of the Internet. As museums navigate this digital shift, they confront broader implications, transcending traditional modes of interpretation and curation. My tenure as curator of A David Bomberg Legacy – The Sarah Rose Collection has entailed exploration, experimentation, and reflection on the emerging field of digital curation. This project critically analyses value systems and operational methodologies, laying the groundwork for innovative models that bridge traditional and digital engagement.

Recognising the materiality of digitised collections as cultural entities extends their curatorial scope. The digitised collection assumes the role of an extended archive extending what is open for curation. By adopting new curatorial methodologies across digital platforms, institutions can enhance their engagement with audiences and create new opportunities for user interpretation. Embracing this approach facilitates a nuanced understanding of the interplay between material artefacts, cultural contexts, and users and museums enriching our understanding of digital heritage.

The goal of the project was to establish novel modes of interaction whereby the museum actively participates as a collaborator in the process of knowledge creation, rather than solely serving as interpreters for an audience positioned outside a self- contained curatorial framework (Vagabond Reviews, 2014, p.9). By fostering user- driven interpretations and embracing collaborative knowledge creation, museums could aim to transcend their traditional role as interpreters, becoming partners in the ongoing exploration and understanding of digital collections. Rethinking the mediation of artworks from a single interpretation that follows an institutional set of guidelines, to a conceptual method from which new interpretations can be made by users, can provide new ways to understand the meaning and value of the digital collection.

In this project, a wide range of curator modalities emerged, shifting from a traditional model of single interpretation guided by institutional directives to a conceptual approach that invites users to generate new meanings and values from the digital collection. By reconceptualising curatorial practice as a collaborative endeavour in knowledge creation, museums transition from passive interpreters to active participants in the ongoing exploration of digital collections. Emphasising modes of inquiry over static outcomes, this approach fosters an iterative process, free from the constraints of predetermined endpoints. Thus, by critically examining the dissemination of digital artefacts within and beyond traditional museum structures, this project underscores the need to reconcile existing value systems with the emerging networks of digital engagement, paving the way for innovative models that promote inclusivity and accessibility in knowledge sharing.

This project centred around modes of enquiry rather than a final product, such as an exhibition or text. In this project, curating is conceptualised not as the creation of exhibitions, spectacles, or thematic arrangements of diverse or converging works, but rather as a focus on the process itself – the ‘processual’ aspect. This approach allows for a non-linear way of working with digital archives and collections, where the emphasis is on the flow of activity rather than reaching predetermined endpoints. There is no pressure to achieve a comprehensive unveiling of final meaning, value, or purpose (O'Neill and Wilson, 2010, p.19). This project redefines curatorial practice as an iterative process, prioritising modes of inquiry over static outcomes. By emphasising the ‘processual’ aspect of curation, it embraces a non- linear approach to working with digital archives and collections, free from the constraints of predetermined endpoints. Rather than seeking a comprehensive unveiling of final meaning or value, this methodology fosters a continual flow of activity, allowing for exploration and discovery without the pressure of reaching definitive conclusions.

When I created the BRCA platform, I envisioned users experiencing time differently compared to visiting a museum. They wouldn’t have to go to a physical location during set hours, and the artworks wouldn’t be dated or displayed in chronological order like in a traditional exhibition. In digital aesthetics, interacting with technology not only creates time but also involves encountering different ways time can be experienced. When users engage with a database, they’re experiencing a unique kind of time. The database stores past sections and presents them to users whenever they access it, allowing them to move through these sections in different ways, not just chronologically. The user and their interaction on the platform should be considered as an ongoing process, events not just shaped by existing actualities but also influenced by the virtual realm of potentialities and tendencies (Deleuze, 2014, p.38). Click here to enter text.This operates on different time scales, creating various rhythms. I argue that when considering the user’s interaction with the digital archive, we can’t just see the final product as a static thing. Instead, we need to focus on the processes behind it. Users aren’t just individuals; they’re part of a larger interconnected system, experiencing multiple layers of time at once.

Traditional forms of representation persist, albeit functioning within a significantly altered framework of information gathering, storage, circulation, and consumer habits. Aesthetic modernism, which emphasises the artwork as an independent, self- contained entity to be admired for its formal qualities, is inadequate in defining the contemporary era, as time is no longer perceived in a linear manner (Dewdney, 2017). In navigating the complexities of contemporary representation, it becomes apparent that traditional paradigms and aesthetic frameworks, such as aesthetic modernism, are challenged by the fluidity and interconnectedness, prompting a rethinking of how we perceive and engage with artistic and cultural artefacts.

The notion of ‘userness’ recognises that users are constantly changing through their interactions. Each action they take adds to this ongoing process. Users, machines, and software all interact in real-time, shaping how we experience time digitally. This interaction changes how we perceive time, introducing non-linear paths that diverge from traditional ways of thinking about time (Barker, 2012, pp.32-57). The merging of human and digital time creates a complex present moment with multiple layers of time happening simultaneously. Users navigate through these different temporal layers, experiencing events in a multi-dimensional way. This thickened time reflects the complex relationship between humans and technology, resulting in a diversity of temporal experiences.

In designing the BRCA platform, my intent was to redefine the temporal experience for users, liberating them from the constraints of physical space and linear chronology inherent in traditional museum visits. In the realm of digital aesthetics, our interactions with technology forge new temporal dimensions, transcending conventional notions of time. Users' engagement with the platform unfolds as an ongoing process, shaped not only by existing actualities but also by the realm of potentialities and tendencies. As users navigate the digital archive, it becomes evident that they are not static individuals but integral components of an interconnected system. The fusion of human and digital time yields different temporal experiences, characterised by non-linearity and multiplicity. This thickened time, influenced by the interactions between users, machines, and software, underscores the intricate relationship between humanity and technology in shaping our perception of time. Ultimately, the BRCA platform serves as a testament to the change in temporal experiences, inviting users to traverse diverse temporal layers and engage with cultural artefacts in a multi-dimensional terrain.

In this project, a paradigm shift unfolds, transitioning from a traditional model of single interpretation guided by institutional directives to a conceptual approach that empowers users to generate new meanings and values from the digital collection. By reconceptualising curatorial practice as a collaborative endeavour in knowledge creation, museums move from passive interpreters to active participants in the ongoing exploration of digital collections. Emphasising modes of inquiry over static outcomes, this approach fosters an iterative process, free from the constraints of predetermined endpoints.

The addition of digital content fundamentally transforms the traditional museum collection description. This dynamic relationship between analogue objects, their digital objects, and the archive itself is key. The creation of digital files disrupts the clear distinction between the collection and the archive, blending the two into a more fluid entity. This shift does not necessarily result in immediate tangible outcomes but can set a new tone within the organisation, challenging traditional authority, and reshaping institutional practices. In critically examining the dissemination of digital artefacts within and beyond traditional museum structures, this project underscores the need to reconcile existing value systems with the expanding potentialities of digital engagement, paving the way for innovative models that acknowledge the collaborative and relational nature of digital subjectivity. By doing so, it creates new pathways for user interaction and knowledge sharing, redefining the role of museums.