Chapter Three: Methods

3.1 The Form of the Workshop

To address some of the issues around interaction with the digital object that arose in these early projects I decided to run a workshop in November 2020 creating a manifesto, asking users to co-write terms and conditions addressing how they might want to engage with the online collection archive. Users were asked to explore what kind of potential online communities might be built around a collection archive. In the workshops users generated documents to define informal rules to their networks and that could be published as user guidelines, community rules, collaboration protocols or a form of collective agreement.

A central question to this aspect of the practice is how to create a space within the workshop that encourages open and engaged participation, even when the audience is approaching the material with diverse experience and knowledge from both a technical and historical perspective. All users were offered to participate anonymously or with a username of their choosing. In considering the forms of workshops and engagement in the digital archive collection, I wanted to create explicit opportunities for interpersonal dialogue (Simon, 2010) while constructing a small community of users that can respond and discuss the questions within a safe environment.

Working with arts writer and independent curator Kelly Rappleye we developed the online workshop called “User Manifesto!” [see Ref 6] to encourage users to co-create an outline of how the Borough Road digital archive might be used, edited and redistributed by its users. During the workshop we employed a combination of a co- writing pad, a hotglue website (users can collaboratively create a website with images and texts in real time on their web-browser) and Slack (a communication platform) where we posed questions and references. We considered how the online archive’s digital objects are open to be saved, edited, and redistributed to allow for new understandings and interpretations, embracing the networked and fragmented production of meaning in virtual space. Within the workshop, participants developed a collective ‘Terms and Conditions of Use’ for the online archive, co-imagining what accountability, respect, and care could mean in a digital environment. Using a more dialogic approach we asked users to respond to questions in a co-writing pad, guiding the conversation but letting the responses build and coalesce around topics steered by the users’ interaction and interests.

The kinds of questions that participants responded to in the workshop included: Who are users? Should there be different rules for a website that lots of people use compared to one that fewer people use? What are your/our needs/urgencies? What do I/we demand from the digital archive? What behaviours suit an internet archive? What behaviour do I/we encourage? One failure of this form of workshop was there were too many platforms for users to work across. Keeping the conversation and community focused on one or two resources helped dialogues to build rather than dissipate the large multiple tabs of references and questions.

Some of the themes that emerged from the User Manifesto workshop was that participants were looking for traces of other users’ interactions that the online collection could make visible. They wanted to see the desire lines through the online collection. For example, users grouped generated the most curator reports for the JPEG of the back of the paintings, in the fortune teller role users interacted the most with the image of the Oscar Lewis’ animation and the audios was around GIFs of paintings and a drawing from the collection. Another theme from the workshop was that users wanted the space to feel tended to or cared for. They thought that an online community felt watched over when abusive messages or spam were removed and blocked and the rules of participating and how user input would be used be made explicit. Extending the discussion and questions that these experimental projects and workshops generated became part of the framework for the designed BRCA platform. The dialogue that developed across the workshop suggested a different type of online curation of the digital collection and archive, one that allowed users to build up their own archive of interactions in an online environment that felt cared for.

3.2 Expanded possibilities, but how to engage the user in more than token ways

Conventions of how the visitor acts in the art museum are enacted through education and mimicry; the rules of how visitors engage with the displayed material are well established. How might we act in the online museum? Users are given prompts and, in the workshops, a vocabulary to suggest ways of interacting with the digital collection and each other in the designed environment. Tools like comment boxes and audio recordings were identified as ways in which the presence of other users in the online art environment might be made more present and open up the online archive to new forms of interaction.

As the curator of the designed intervention into the archive I have made design choices that shape how users can interact with the digital material in the given framework. A possible problem is that the suggested model might not grant the user authentic decision-making power. In creating the narrow roles on the platform, I could be replicating the power structure prevalent in art institutions, where curators shape the visitors’ journey through an exhibition, in guiding the experience without making the users active agents (Lynch, 2016). The parameters of the platform predetermine how and where users can interact with the digital collection. This designed platform focuses the user's attention at the site of interpretation; the images themselves are downloadable but cannot be edited through the platform. Through written and audio interfaces the online users can interact with the digital archive. This choice of emphasis precludes other potential types of interaction such as editing and remixing the images, selecting, and displaying the digital objects in different configurations or adding their own images to the collection. The research practise uses an aspect of online curation and suggests a particular way in which the user can enact aspects of a curatorial role in a designed environment.

Inviting audiences to participate at the site of interpretation might yield issues if the platform does not offer what is felt as an authentic contribution or what type of participation is expected is unclear. Providing an illusion of participation with too strong of an outcome in mind or too much control of knowledge production and its dissemination might feel as if the designed framework is manipulating a group consensus to produce an expected outcome (Lynch, 2016) Design decisions such as the amount of scaffolding built into the platform or the limitation in variability in response might be vital to both attract and maintain participation (Causer, T., J. Tonra, & V. Wallace, 2012) while being conscious of how much that framework is shaping the outcomes. The complexity of the initial questions asked of users, the level of requisite specialised knowledge they feel they need to respond alongside imprecise direction, or a lack of feedback when the task is completed are all potential stumbling blocks in the design (Ridge, 2013) The framing of the questions and prompts shape the type of responses that users can generate.

In considering the user’s role in the online museum environment, this research practise prompts a critical examination of how visitors engage with digital collections. By providing users with prompts and vocabulary for interaction, the designed platform aims to foster new forms of engagement within the designed digital environment. As the curator of this intervention into the archive, I acknowledge the design choices that shape user interaction and the potential implications of these decisions. The narrow roles and predetermined parameters of the platform may replicate power structures prevalent in traditional art institutions, limiting user agency and authentic decision-making.

The emphasis on interpretation within the platform raises questions about the authenticity and clarity of user participation. The need for the museum to provide a grand narrative has dissipated in the online environment but the designed museum environment could remain relevant to users creating a filter of trust and the definition of authenticity (Parry, 2007). Design decisions regarding the level of scaffolding, variability in response, and clarity of direction play a crucial role in attracting and maintaining user engagement. Striking a balance between guiding user interaction and allowing for genuine contribution is essential to avoiding the perception of manipulation or preconceived outcomes.

The success of the designed platform and workshops hinges on the careful framing of questions and prompts to facilitate diverse user responses. By remaining cognisant of the potential limitations and challenges inherent in the design process, the designed platform strives to create an online environment where users can actively participate in shaping the interpretation and exploration of digital collections.

The platform serves as the curatorial framework, delineating the trajectory of the digitised objects and defining the parameters for user engagement. Within this curated environment, the actions of users are scrutinised against the backdrop of traditional gallery settings, with an emphasis on exploring the constraints and potentials of the digital interface. My aspiration is to afford users a legitimate authorial role within the curatorial narrative, bridging the gap between visitor and curator authority. Unlike the ephemeral nature of the visitor experience in physical galleries, the digital platform allows for the preservation and comparison of user interactions, thereby validating the significance of visitor engagement and potentially shifting perceptions of value within the curatorial discourse.

3.3 Unique opportunity presented by Borough Road collection

The name of the collection, The Sarah Rose Collection – A David Bomberg Legacy, centres David Bomberg as the central figure and highlights his influence on a group of followers. Bomberg was described as a Messianic figure to some of his pupils, as they followed him from different art institutions, recruiting new members. TheBorough Group was formed by the collective effort of some of David Bomberg’s most devoted students to emulate and further his artistic philosophy (Cork, 1987) Bomberg promoted the method of a studio made up of ardent followers that could carry on his legacy (MacDougall and Dickson, 2017) using his platform as a teacher to try and shape the perception of his work for further generations. This research practise is an opportunity to rethink the digital material in the shared drive, shifting the focus away from a narrative that promotes modernist ideas of the artist as a singular genius to a web of related projects, materials and conversations that bear equal weight and merit attention. The singular artistic genius could be substituted with that of a self-educated user navigating the given framework. The curator/teacher provides a platform to explore, to experiment and to improvise, suggesting unconventional methods to work and engage (Meta Bauer, 2010) The curation of the online archive can work as a site to reimagine the discourse surrounding the collection and finds new linkages and overlapping spheres that do not centre the idea on a singular artist.

A trace of Bomberg’s teaching philosophy remains in the research practise. His diffused authorship through his creation of a studio system in his classes encouraged his students to amplify his ideas and replicate his style. Like Bomberg’s method of creating an environment where his students took on his ideas and artistic style, the class being cipher for a way of assuring his ideas about art continue, the research practise uses circulation and curatorial practises to spread and increase interaction with and through the digital archive. The intention in this research practise is somewhat at odds with the mission of many art institutions’ online efforts whose goal is to encourage users to visit their offline collection. The mission of the online projects is to refer to themselves as opposed to a marketing tool for the offline collection. The research practise begins and ends with the digital collection archive.

This research practise offers a unique opportunity to reframe the discourse surrounding the digital material in the shared drive. This approach emphasises the interconnectedness of human and non-human actors within a network, highlighting how each element contributes to the creation and dissemination of knowledge (Latour, 2007). Museums have always aimed to engage the public, foster community, and facilitate learning through tangible objects. The digital sphere now serves as an additional mode to achieve these goals, integrating technology into the traditional practices of knowledge dissemination and engagement within and beyond museum spaces. The flow of information and cultural production is increasingly decentralised and distributed across global networks (Castells, 1999) The research practise underscores the shift from individual genius to collective creativity and the pivotal role of digital technologies in shaping who and how the collection is interacted with.

Bomberg’s teaching philosophy resonates throughout this endeavour. Just as his students amplified his ideas and style, this research practise seeks to disseminate and encourage interaction with the digital archive through innovative museum education practices. While the mission of many art institutions’ online initiatives often revolves around driving traffic to their physical collections, this research practise prioritises the digital archive itself as the focal point of exploration and engagement. By embracing the digital realm as a space for reimagining artistic discourse and fostering new connections, this research practise engages with some of the enduring modernist narratives present in David Bomberg’s teachings within the context of the nature of curatorial practice.

3.4 Curating the Digital Collection Archive

The question of what platforms, forms, conventions, designs, and interfaces becomes the substance of a new form of curation. Curating becomes the engagement with software as much as with subjects, histories, and interests. The interface cannot be separated out of the practice and can be a tool for a more playful approach puncturing the idea of the original objects of collection as sacred. Engagement with the object through a platform opens up the potentiality of the object to perform (Henning, 2020) This is not to say that this form of engagement only exists within the online museum context: a museum can be a playground, designed to support scholarship and preservation as it is for temporarily placing the visitor in a fiction (Pepi, 2014). It is that material qualities and distribution of the digital objects offer new ways for users to engage with the collections. A curatorial strategy that engages with these qualities of the digital and the networks it participates in has the potential to present the digital objects in a way that could upend the myths and grand narratives surrounding a collection.

Returning to the concept of the curator as host, this method suggests that the way to engage with the user is by showing hospitality and creating playful and compelling spaces of engagement (Bosma, 2006) The curator as host creates opportunities for play in contrast to the institutional grand narrative. Online engagement with the digital could increase the possibilities for ways in which the user can engage, replacing the loss of aura in works of the artwork as a singular original with the proliferating images’ scope for play (Benjamin, 1936). The liveliness of objects comes through in their assimilation into play, through a curatorial method of presentation that gives them the opportunity to perform (Kalshoven, 2015). The online curator as host creates the stage for the liveness of the objects to be enacted through interactions.

By using the curator as facilitator approach to engaging with the online collection, rather than suggesting a connective story that ties all the digital objects to one narrative, users can oscillate between fantasy and reality, allowing for an exploration between fictioning and concrete situations that trace how users’ thoughts progress towards an understanding of the digital objects and their new contexts (Samuelsson and Carlsson, 2008). The designed platform suggests a new form of ritual around the encounter of the digitised museum object, one that does not prescribe a history but suggests methods to generate a new narrative. In creating the different roles for users to engage with the online collection the designed platform generates a third space. In this designed space the digital collection archive is overlaid with a visible layer of annotation both linked and leading away from the digital objects. In employing a curator as facilitator methodology in the interpretation and recombination of the online collection archive the user could generate imagined futures for the digital objects as well as create new current meaning and context based on observed qualities of the digital images and the framework in which they are presented.

The exploration of platforms, forms, conventions, designs, and interfaces emerges as the crux of a new curatorial practice: one that transcends only engaging with subjects, histories, and interests to encompass interactions with software itself. The interface becomes inseparable from the curatorial practice, serving as a tool for fostering engagement and puncturing the notion of original collection objects as sacred artefacts. Digital spaces play an active role in shaping and forming the spaces and relationships they represent, rather than acting as passive representations (Geismar, Heidy, 2012).Through digital platforms, objects gain the potential to perform, inviting users into playful engagements that challenge myths and grand narratives surrounding collections.

The changes in the technical form of the collection archive objects and the context in which they exist result in a change in what can be curated and by whom. Using a practice as research methodology to test possible online curatorial frameworks can demonstrate possible links between the conceptual framework and praxis. The resonance between the various kinds of evidence, including the documentation of the curatorial experiments and conceptual background, serve as a method to make the tacit explicit and provide new insights (Nelson, 2013). Unlike previous online curation projects that reflect users’ interaction with the digital collection, the format of a gamed intervention suggests new ways for the users to interact with the networked digital objects.

Embracing the curator as host, a new form of the role emerges as a method for cultivating user engagement, creating hospitable and social spaces that encourage exploration and interaction. Online platforms offer expanded opportunities for playful engagement, replacing the aura of singular original artworks with the proliferating scope for engaged interactions. By presenting objects within contexts that suggest new ways to interpret and organise the online collection, online curators as hosts enable the liveness of objects to be enacted through interactive experiences.

The essence of a new curation paradigm lies in grappling with the intricacies of platforms, forms, conventions, designs, and interfaces. This approach blurs the lines between traditional curation and engagement with digital realms, emphasising the integral role of software in shaping narratives. Rejecting the sanctity of original objects, the curator as facilitator emerges as a pivotal strategy, challenging established norms and fostering interactions. This departure from the curator as interpreter of the objects allows an expanded role for both the user and platform to organise and make sense of the material. Sustaining interest and interaction hinges on the interactivity of objects and the adoption of hybrid curatorial strategies, blending traditional and digital modes to captivate audiences and foster engagement.

3.5 Opportunity to use theoretical concepts of relationality and presence

Alongside the site of interpretation, this research practise delves into the arrangement of digital images and text within an online environment. The designed platform serves as a lens through which to examine the intricate interplay between users, algorithms, images, and text. Just as traditional curators seek out and establish connections between artworks, the platform aims to facilitate novel forms of interaction among users, digital artworks, and the platform itself. Through written and vocal prompts, the goal is to unveil new relationships and connections among seemingly disparate elements, fostering a deeper engagement with the digital archive.

A misconception about digital interactions is that we equate visibility with relationships. We might assume that if something is visible or accessible online, it automatically means that it has a relationship or connection with the user. This assumption overlooks a crucial aspect: the underlying code that underlies the digital network. The code, often only understood by programmers, operates behind the scenes, shaping the visible network (Geismar, Heidy, 2012).The invisibility of the binary code itself suggests that the true nature of digital relationships and interactions is more complex than what is readily visible or accessible on the surface for most users.

The complexity underlying digital interactions suggests a paradigm shift in curatorial practice. This shift emphasises a more tactical and speculative approach, prioritising relationality over just the presentation of artworks. The concept of ‘not-just-art- curating’ introduces a paradigm shift in curatorial practice, foregrounding a more tactical and speculative approach focused on relationality rather than solely on the artwork itself (Tyżlik-Carver, 2017). It extends beyond conventional boundaries to encompass a broader spectrum of practices performed by a diverse public. By intervening in established curatorial norms, the research practise opens up possibilities for users to actively participate in the creation and interpretation of digital collections, thereby democratising the curation process and challenging traditional notions of authority within cultural institutions.

3.6 From project to research, gathering data on user interaction

Alongside the speculative curatorial practices, the research practise utilises a form of crowdsourcing to cultivate interpretations and interactions around a curated set of digital objects. While the term ‘crowdsourcing’ lacks a consistent definition and has been applied broadly to diverse web-based activities, its role in this research practise diverges from the conventional aim of enhancing metadata for collections. Instead, the prompts provided aim to foster an environment of perpetual openness and incompleteness, encouraging users to engage in close examination and pose novel questions about the digital artefacts. This approach serves as a strategy to stimulate users’ imagination and facilitate the envisioning of alternative forms and interpretations for online images.

The research practise uses a form of crowdsourcing to build up interpretations and interactions around a set of digital objects. The term ‘crowdsourcing’ is itself ill- defined and has been applied inconsistently to a wide variety of web-based activity that engages with the public (Estellés-Arolas and González L. Guevara, 2012) The mechanism of crowdsourcing in this research practise is not to provide better or more extensive metadata for the collection. The prompts around the interpretation of the work are to promote a constant state of openness and unfinishedness about what the digital objects might mean and where they might travel. The intention is to outline a strategy for users to look more closely and to create a new set of questions that could be used in the future to make sense of online images and imagine what other forms they might take.

The data collection for this research mainly depended on participant observation, in which the researcher is the main source for data collection. There are limitations to effectiveness of participant observation (Yin, 2014) but this method, alongside data gathered from the platforms, proved to be a useful means of observing the growing networks of interactions between participants, platform, and digital objects. Data for this research practise has been gathered from reflection on previous projects, the overall use and interaction with the digital objects in the designed platform, co-written texts, and audio responses during the workshops with and through the platform, alongside written diaries based on my observation of users’ interaction and questions that arose during workshops. A limitation to this type of study is the complexity of assessing what users might be learning as a subject of research. The variety of data collection and observation methods can only describe a limited picture, and the time constraints of the research practise does not measure what users might bring forward from their interaction with the designed platform. The use of the designed platform as a form of a case study may not be neutrally generalisable to other forms of digitised collections and archives but could serve as support for further theoretical inquiry.

The goal of the research practise was to seek new narratives surrounding digital material by employing experimental approaches to curation. In part this was inspired by Bomberg's teaching philosophy, which emphasised collaboration and the propagation of ideas through a studio system, the research practise aims to democratise engagement with the digital archive. Unlike conventional online initiatives that prioritise driving traffic to physical collections, this research practise places the digital archive itself at the forefront, utilizing the curator as host to facilitate interactions and exploration. Through a combination of participant observation and data gathered from the platform, the research practise offers insights into the emerging terrain of curatorial practice, demonstrating the potential for user participation and interpretation within online collections. By embracing a methodological framework that encourages openness and experimentation, the research practise challenges traditional notions of authority and expertise, paving the way for new forms of engagement with digital cultural heritage.