Reconfiguring the Museum
The Politics of Digital Display
An engaging behind-the-scenes study on the role digital media play in museum and urban transformation – and their politics.
Digital media technologies have provided an occasion not only for novel ways to display and exhibit collections, but also for new politics to arise as museums and urban settings change. While some believe these changes are driven by humans, others see digital media technologies at the heart of these changes.
Reconfiguring the Museum offers a third explanation that considers both the social and technical together and thereby captures the experimental nature of introducing novel digital media technologies to museums, and the uncertainty, messiness, contingency, and complexity involved. In this sociotechnical case study of a novel augmented reality app – first designed to exhibit collections from the Museum of London across the sprawling capital city, and later remade for the McCord Museum to display collections throughout Montreal – Ana-Maria Herman reveals how the app introduced unexpected new relations between the museums, their collections, advertising agencies, sponsors, technology companies, corporations, urban spaces, and end users. She shows how museum practices related to curating, designing, building, visiting, and modifying exhibitions were transformed, and how, in such unsettled arrangements, what we think of as old cultural politics can unexpectedly re-emerge, while new digital politics – related to big data, surveillance, and automated processes – may not necessarily materialize.
A detailed account of emerging actors and practices involved in making digital exhibitions, Reconfiguring the Museum offers practical considerations for museum, culture, and heritage practitioners charged with creating digital displays and accounting for their success or failure.
“For practitioners, the book considers the impact of technologies, politics, and user experiences and presents the implications for future research, methodologies, and practices. The study is primarily intended for museum curators, academics, and students in museum and media studies but will also interest professionals and students in the archival field and creative industries. Recommended.” Choice
“Herman convincingly illuminates in great detail all sorts of juxtapositions, interests, surprises, and uncertainties in museum organization related to digitization. A compelling case study and an enjoyable read.” Martin Hand, Queen's University and author of Making Digital Cultures: Access, Interactivity, and Authenticity