Reconfiguring the Museum: The Politics of Digital Display 9780228015260

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Reconfigu Ring t he M u se u M

Reconfiguring the Museum The Politics of Digital Display AnA- M AR i A h e R M A n

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2023

ISBN 978-0-2280-1425-6 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-2280-1526-0 (ePDF) ISBN 978-0-2280-1527-7 (ePUB) Legal deposit first quarter 2023 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Funding was also received from Swansea University.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: Reconfiguring the museum : the politics of digital display / Ana-Maria Herman. Names: Herman, Ana-Maria, author. Description: Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20220411697 | Canadiana (ebook) 20220411808 | ISBN 9780228014256 (cloth) | ISBN 9780228015260 (ePDF ) | ISBN 9780228015277 (ePUB ) Subjects: LCSH : McCord Museum. | LCSH : Museum exhibits— Technological innovations—Québec (Province)—Montréal. | LCSH: Museums—Technological innovations—Québec (Province)—Montréal. | LCSH : Digital media—Political aspects—Québec (Province)—Montréal. | LCSH : Application software—Québec (Province)—Montréal. Classification: LCC AM 7 .H 47 2023 | DDC 069.0285—dc23

Set in 10/14 Radiata with Gotham Book design & typesetting by Garet Markvoort, zijn digital

For Alex

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Figures ix Preface xiii Acknowledgments xvii Introduction 3 1 Remaking the Museum App

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2 Reclassifying and Rescripting Museum Things 3 Reordering Spaces and Rewriting City Sites 4 The Politics of “Digital” Display

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5 Remediation as Experimental Process Conclusion

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AP Pe N DIC eS A The Montreal – Points of View Exhibit

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B Diary Notes on Using the MUM App

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C Questionnaires

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D Smartphone, OS , and Mobile Device Statistics (Tables) E Google Dashboard Statistics on the MUM App Notes 225 References 235 Index 249

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f igu R e s

I.1 A participant using the MUM App outside the McCord Museum. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman from a video recording made on 14 December 2012. 4 I.2 The 2-D view, with description. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 1 November 2012. 25 I.3 The 3-D view. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 26 October 2012. 25 1.1 The Streetmuseum App. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 15 February 2013. 33 1.2 The MUM App. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 13 October 2012. 33 1.3 The Streetmuseum App’s pinned card. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 15 February 2013. 34 1.4 The MUM App’s pinned card. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 15 February 2013. 34 1.5 Selecting images. Photograph courtesy of the McCord Museum. 40 1.6 “The river from Jacques Cartier Square.” Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 29 October 2012. 41 1.7 “Ms Grant à la balustrade.” Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 16 November 2012. 43 2.1 Disrupting the study. Photograph taken by Participant 5 of Participant 6 while using the author’s iPhone on 7 December 2012. 71 2.2 Taking a photograph of the dinosaur in the Redpath Museum. Screenshot of video recording taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 14 December 2012. 73

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3.1 The Urban Forest installation. Photograph taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 19 September 2012. 99 3.2 The Honouring Memory exhibit. Photograph taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 19 June 2013. 99 4.1 “Group for Mrs. Johnson.” Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 1 November 2012. 110 4.2 “Roman Catholic nuns.” Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 1 November 2012. 110 4.3 “Old Men’s Refectory, Grey Nunnery.” Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 1 November 2012. 110 4.4 “Interior, St Margaret’s Home.” Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 1 November 2012. 111 4.5 “Graduates at Roddick Gates.” Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 1 November 2012. 111 4.6 “Opening of the Student Union Building.” Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 29 October 2012. 112 4.7 “Grand Seminary class.” Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 1 November 2012. 113 4.8 “Royal Military College cadets.” Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 1 November 2012. 113 4.9 “BAAS Group, Wesleyan Theological College.” Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 1 November 2012. 113 4.10 “Football game at McGill University.” Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 1 November 2012. 114 4.11 “Redpath Museum.” Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 1 November 2012. 114 4.12 “Science students.” Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 1 November 2012. 115 4.13 “Class of 1914, Faculty of Medicine.” Screenshot taken by AnaMaria Herman on 1 November 2012. 115 4.14 “Students from the Faculty of Medicine.” Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 1 November 2012. 116 4.15 “Royal Victoria College.” Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 1 November 2012. 117 4.16 “Prince of Wales Terrace.” Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 1 November 2012. 117

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5.1 Viewing collections alongside a noisy machine. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman from a video recording made on 15 December 2012. 145 5.2 The MUM App’s decal footprint. Photograph taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 18 July 2012. 155 B.1 Zones visited. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman. Graphics added to indicate zones visited. 186 B.2 Looking at the map view outside the McCord Museum. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 24 October 2012. 186 B.3 Looking at the “Student Union Building” superimposition. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 24 October 2012. 187 B.4 Looking south on McGill College Avenue. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 24 October 2012. 188 B.5 Looking at the “Macdonald Chemistry Building” superimposition. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 24 October 2012. 188 B.6 Looking west on St Catherine Street. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 26 October 2012. 189 B.7 Looking at the “Capitol Theatre” superimposition. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 26 October 2012. 190 B.8 Looking at the map view on the way to Bonsecours Market. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 29 October 2012. 191 B.9 Looking at the “Bonsecours Market” superimposition. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 29 October 2012. 191 B.10 Closed shutter issue. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 29 October 2012. 192 B.11 No exit button issue. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 29 October 2012. 193 B.12 Looking at the map view near William Notman’s residence. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 15 November 2012. 194

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B.13 Looking at the “Résidence de William Notman” superimposition. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 15 November 2012. 195 B.14 Looking at the “Cadets du Collège militaire royal” superimposition. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 16 November 2012. 196 B.15 Superimposition error. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 16 November 2012. 196 B.16 The last set of stairs up to Mount Royal. Photograph taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 16 November 2012. 197 B.17 Looking across Mount Royal. Screenshot taken by Ana-Maria Herman on 16 November 2012. 198

P RefAc e

This book is as much about the way in which digital media technologies play a part in transforming museums as it is about the role of these technologies in our lives – how everyday things, practices, and spaces transform and their role in such changes. I use a case study of an augmented reality exhibit via a mobile app display, called the MTL Urban Museum App (or MUM App), as a tool for exploring the role that digital media play in how “reconfigurations” occur – that is, how “things” were reclassified and rescripted, and how “spaces” were reordered and rewritten, in relation to designing, visiting, and managing this exhibit. Such transformations are important to understand not only in regard to how recent social, cultural, and technological changes are accomplished, but also in relation to their politics. As Andrew Barry imparted in his book Political Machines: Governing a Technological Society, politics does not arise just in relation to the activities of governments, political parties, or institutions. Rather, and as the present book will show, politics emerges, is negotiated, and becomes entangled in “new” relations between actors – in this case, museums, users, corporations, collections, technologies, and so on – whereby even “old” cultural politics, such as gender and class representation issues, can at times unintentionally re-emerge in unexpected places and ways. While the main concern in this book is digital media technologies, I take a different approach to studying their implications than is often taken in “new media” studies. The research framework I employ is considerably rooted in science, technology, and society (STS ) studies, and particularly actor-network theory (ANT ). One exception is that I also engage with concepts from Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin’s thesis Remediation: Understanding New Media. Bolter and Grusin’s aim is, as the title of their book suggests, to “understand new media” by using ANT to theorize “new media” as remediations – that is, as “refashioned actor-networks” that can include “old” and “new” media. I build

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on Bolter and Grusin’s early theorization of remediations by examining these processes further through the lens of an empirical study that affords an opportunity to inspect their politics. From an ANT analytical standpoint, politics can only be a result of the negotiations between assemblages of actors (human and non-human) that mediate outcomes. Therefore, this book does not intend to point blame at one actor or assign a singular cause for any emerging politics. Rather, here, politics is considered a “relational effect” and a consequence of the negotiations of entangled actors – though, as Susan Leigh Star has conveyed in her article “Power, Technology and the Phenomenology of Conventions: On Being Allergic to Onions,” and as this case study will show, some actors have more power than others. This book has been written with a relatively wide audience in mind. This includes academics and students from diverse disciplines – including STS , sociology, media studies, museums studies, design studies, and so on – as well as professionals working in and with museums and archives as well as heritage, educational, and creative industries. I anticipate that not all audiences who take interest in this book may be acquainted with the specialized theories, concepts, and terms it discusses. To assist such readers, I explain theories, offer definitions, and discuss the main concepts of the book at length. The case study, of a “museum” and a mobile “app” used to display collections, also helps illustrate any complex points made. Overall, I unequivocally believe that it will be worth their while for wider audiences to grasp the theories presented, observations made, and debates raised on how digital media technologies emerge and transform, as well as the social, cultural, and political roles they play in society. As an empirical study was undertaken for this book, the question of identifying the names of individuals, institutions, and commercial organizations raises certain problems and carries much responsibility. I believe that I could not conceal the city, collections, museum, creative agency, technology companies, commercial organizations, and roles of actors involved, and still provide an analysis that rigorously unpacked and explained the situated, relational, and entangled politics in this case study. Having said this, I avoid identifying individuals by name. This is done to provide some level of anonymity for the participants involved in the study. It is also important to note that the actors

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described in this study – be they human or non-human – were all part of an experimental process where the social, cultural, and political implications of decisions were not easily foreseeable, as remediations are not only hidden from view but also have uncertain, unpredictable, and unexpected results. This study reveals the negotiations made by actors, and unpacks their relational social, cultural, and political effects such that, as Barry calls it, a “space of politics” may be opened for future reflection, debate, and intervention.

Ac KnoWLe Dg M e n ts

It is true that you see further by “standing on the shoulders of giants,” and this book is certainly a testament to that famous adage. Each chapter builds on theory and concepts that were developed by contemporary philosophers, sociologists, and theorists, and those that came before them. In its final form, the book is the result of a long process of study, examination, and reflection, as well as discussion, review, and revision, and I would like to acknowledge all those who contributed along the way. The book began as a thesis while I was a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and I am grateful for the comments and pointers I received on individual chapters from my supervisors, David Oswell and Noortje Marres. I also appreciated the positive feedback received from my viva examiners, Annamaria Carusi and Kat Jungnickel, as it encouraged me to rewrite my thesis into a book manuscript and seek publication. I want to thank my editor, Khadija Coxon, at McGill-Queen’s University Press for taking on the manuscript in its early version and for seeing it through the many stages of the academic publication process. The manuscript went through a rigorous peer-review process, from which it only benefited, and for that I must also thank the anonymous reviewers. Their helpful comments gave me an opportunity to reassess theory and rethink findings, resulting in a book with advanced insights and a more mature analysis than the original thesis. Many thanks to Barbara Tessman who closely read and copyedited this manuscript. Any errors that remain are my own. I want to also thank Massey College at University of Toronto for giving me a “virtual place” and a year to complete the revisions to my book (during the COVID-19 pandemic). Some aspects of my thesis were published previously in Museum and Society (a University of Leicester journal) and

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the International Journal of Heritage Studies (a Taylor and Francis publication), and I appreciate receiving permission to include those elements here. The case study discussed in this book was examined during a oneyear research residency at the McCord Museum, from 2012 to 2013, and I want to thank the director, Suzanne Sauvage, for allowing me “behind the scenes” at the museum. I want to also express my thanks to the head of Information Technology and the museum’s employees, who shared their time, resources, and experiences with me, especially the project manager of Web and Multimedia and the helpful Marketing and Communications team (all of whom took part in this study and are therefore unnamed to provide some anonymity). I would also like to thank the digital producer at the London-based agency (formerly known as) Brothers and Sisters and the developer involved in coding the MTL Urban Museum App (the main focus of this case study) and its predecessor, the Museum of London: StreetmuseumTM App, from Cambridge-based Thumbspark, who were both generous in answering questions about remaking the app (also unnamed to preserve anonymity). Many thanks as well to the participants who took part in this study. While I may have seen further by standing on the shoulders of giants, it was with the assistance of many behind-the-scenes actors that this book could be accomplished. I want to thank my parents, who have been pillars of understanding, encouragement, and support – Eugenia and Adam Gordon, your constant care is beyond compare. And, of course, I am grateful for my husband, Alexander Herman, and his unwavering belief in me. Thanks to all the non-humans too: the inspirational books, my mobile devices, and the curiously novel apps, among others. Though I started my thesis by bringing together disparate threads, it all came together in this book like a thickly woven fabric; but for me to keep standing, seeing, and weaving it took, above all, love.

Reconfigu Ring t he M u se u M

intR oD uct i o n

It was a typically cold December day in Montreal, Canada, and I was warming up inside the entrance hall of the McCord Museum. I was sitting on a bench provided for museum visitors, waiting for a participant who agreed to be part of my research study. I was already several months into a year-long research residency at the museum, for the purpose of researching the increasing use of digital media technologies and its implications for people, organizations, and society. Over the course of those months, I had begun to explore the diverse digital media that the museum employed to display its collections, considering the ways in which these technologies participate in transforming exhibition making, visiting practices, and the management of displays. I much deliberated which particular digital media to pick as a case study – for example, there was the museum’s website, accounts on social media (such as Flickr and Vimeo), tablet displays in exhibition spaces, and a couple of “apps” (applications) downloadable to personal mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablets), to name a few. Importantly, my aim was to explore how the museum – its practices, knowledge, and spaces – was transforming in relation to both humans and technologies – thereby avoiding “social constructivist” and “technological determinist” arguments that peg either humans or technologies as the cause for changes. The focus of my study settled on an innovative display: a novel app named the MTL Urban Museum App (the MUM App), which presented a selection of digitized historical photographs from the museum’s extensive Notman Photographic Archives. On that December day, I was meeting a mature research participant that had agreed to allow me to observe and film him while he used the MUM App. When he walked in the museum, he unbuttoned his heavy winter coat, and took off his thick toque and ski gloves. I briefed him on the particulars of the research study – such as the main features of the app, where he could

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view collections, and how I would use the data collected in the study – and had him sign a research consent form. After this, we both put our outer winter clothes back on and turned to go outside of the museum together. This is because the museum’s app, once downloaded to an Apple mobile device (like the iPhone), was used to display digitized historical photographic images in “augmented reality” – that is, the app superimposed the historical photographic images onto sites across Montreal’s city centre via the camera of the mobile device. By displaying collections across sites in the city, the app assisted in redistributing museum visitors, viewing practices, digitized collections, mobile devices, and so on, outside the Figure I.1 A participant using museum – in other words, the “exhibit” of the MUM App outside the the collections and the “museum visit” were McCord Museum. done across the city.1 The day was overcast, and the temperature had fallen below zero, and so, before stepping outside the museum, both the participant and I braced for the cold. Once outside the entrance, we took our respective positions – me as “researcher” about to observe and film him with my iPad tablet, and him as a “participant” in my study. But while he was a “participant” in this study, it could be said that he was a “museum visitor” too – viewing the museum’s collections, except doing so outside its walls by employing the MUM App. I handed him my iPhone to use, but, before he could begin to manipulate it, he again removed and put away his gloves. Despite the cold, he needed to take his gloves off to tap and swipe the touch screen of the device (see figure I.1). When he tapped the “3D View” button, a main feature of the app, the smartphone presented him with a camera view onto which historical photographic images were overlaid. The participant was standing just outside the museum; in this location, the MUM App offered three images, including one of the museum building when it previously housed McGill University’s student union. He moved the

Introduction

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device up and down and left and right, attempting to superimpose the photographic images directly onto the sites shown in the camera’s view, though the alignment was never perfect. As the participant stood there, raising the mobile device in the air and waving it around, some passers-by walked behind him, seemingly uninterested, while others, especially if in camera view, made an obvious effort to avoid the line of the device’s camera. They ducked out of the way or waited for him to finish. It soon became apparent that the passers-by might be thinking that he was taking photographs or filming. This would lead some pedestrians to further assume that he – and I, for that matter, since I was similarly holding my iPad in the air while filming the participant – was not only possibly taking photographs and filming but that we both were perhaps “tourists” (rather than “museum visitor” or “participant” and “researcher”). In fact, about twenty minutes later, a passer-by would ask us both if we wanted to have our picture taken together. Having surely sized us up as “tourists,” she seemed surprised and disappointed when the participant declined her offer. To quell her disappointment, the participant tried to translate what he was doing, calling it a “tour museum-type thing.” About ten minutes later, when I asked the participant if he would use the MUM App again, he said, “Definitely, with tours, new people coming in the area.” In the end, viewing collections with the MUM App became more of a “tour” than a “museum-type thing” for this participant. While these occurrences may seem like situations of, at times, mistaken identity or simply confusion, there were more complex things going on that are important to unpack. The events that took place during this and other days of this research study were, for me, deeply significant. Such events encapsulate many of the underlying questions, issues, and debates in this book. Questions like, what role do digital media technologies play in the production of, or change in, knowledge? And what role do they have in how practices, such as “curation” or the “museum visit,” may be transforming? Trying to answer such questions leads to debates about how to approach examining and understanding processes of transformation as well as theoretical issues related to agency. We might be tempted to ask, do we alone have control over our knowledge and our actions? Or do digital media technologies change how and what

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we know and do? These two opposing approaches are known as social constructivism (which focuses on humans as agents of change) and technological determinism (which focus mainly on technologies as agents of change). In this book, rather than taking one or the other approach to understanding the role of digital media in society, I consider both the social and the technical together. This is because humans and non-humans each provide only half the story of how change actually happens. So, in order to draw a full picture of how transformations related to digital media occur, I take a “socio-technical approach” in the study of change – that is, considering both the social and technical together – by tracing the combined actions of humans and nonhumans as “actor-networks” (Latour 2005a). I argue that, by taking a socio-technical approach, we can best understand the implications of introducing digital media and employing them in practice. The aim of this book is thus twofold: to examine the changes related to the introduction of the McCord Museum’s MUM App – a case study of how transformation happens – and to analyze the social, cultural, and political implications of these changes – that is, the productive or generative aspects of negotiations between actors and their situated consequences. My goal is to write this book in a way that makes it accessible not only to students and academics across diverse disciplines and areas of study (such as sociology, museum studies, and media studies) but also to professionals (such as those in museums and in heritage and arts professions) as well as the wider public interested in thinking about the role of digital media technologies in societal changes. For this reason, I explain what is meant by specialized terms – such as a socio-technical approach and actor-networks – in relation to processes of transformation.

A Socio-technical Approach to Transformation In this book, I take a socio-technical approach drawn from science, technology, and society (STS ) studies to understand the role that digital media technologies, along with other heterogeneous actors, play in changing how exhibitions are made, visited, and managed and in transforming things like practices, knowledge, and spaces. A sociotechnical approach avoids social constructivist approaches as well as

Introduction

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technological determinism, since both the social and technical are considered together. To take a socio-technical approach is to employ the actor-network theory (ANT ) principle of generalized symmetry, which suggests that humans and non-humans must be analyzed on the same terms (Callon 1986a; Latour and Woolgar 1986; Law and Bijker 1992). Actor therefore refers to both humans and non-humans, whereby agency is a “relational effect” resulting from the negotiations between heterogeneous actors. Thus, this approach entails tracing the roles of both human and non-human actors in transformational processes.2 Actors, such as the research “participant,” the app, and the smartphone device in this case study, may therefore be considered as part of actornetworks. Actor-networks are networks of heterogeneous actors, or what have also been construed as assemblages3 of actants4 and hybrids.5 Such terms can be challenging to grasp, and also to work with, since they do not perfectly represent the underlying concepts. As Latour (1994) notes, the term actor has been scrutinized as not reflecting the hybridity of entities or the idea that actors always act in a network – the reason for the hyphen in actor-network theory. And the term actor, as much as the alternative notion agent, is awkward to use in the case of non-humans. For this reason, Latour (1994) has suggested the use of actant to describe any entity that acts. In this book, both terms are used, as I draw from literature that uses one or the other. The complexity of how networks of actors or actants emerge, are mobilized, assemble, and act – and how “technical objects participate in building heterogeneous networks that bring together actants of all types and sizes, whether human or nonhuman” (Akrich 1992, 206) – underpins the core arguments being made. This book both illustrates and demonstrates that only by taking a socio-technical approach can we avoid both social constructivist and technological determinist explanations, and therefore that this is perhaps the most insightful approach that we can use to ascertain social, cultural, political, and economic implications related to the increasing use of digital media technologies. As these arguments undergird the theoretical framework and methodological approach taken in this case study and book, I want to expand on them with some further detail. The first main argument I have made is that we must take a socio-technical approach to examine and understand processes of transformation – this refers

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not only to how practices, knowledge, and spaces change but also to how innovative digital media technologies emerge and how they may stabilize in practice and meaning. Two notions will further organize my thinking about these processes: first, digital media technologies emerge through “remediations,” and second, they are involved in processes of “reconfiguration.” Drawing on ANT , Bolter and Grusin (2000) first coined the term remediation to express the process for how “new media” emerge through a “refashioning of an actor-network” that involves both “old” and “new” media. In this approach, media cannot be generalized as “new” or “old,” and so, I avoid the new/old dichotomy by referring to these “new media” as digital media technologies, or digital media for short. And I treat the emergence of an innovative digital media technology as well as subsequent iterations of that innovation as remediations, because each iteration still involves the refashioning of actor-networks into novel socio-technical rearrangements. When innovative digital media emerge, we look to make sense of them, asking, what are they? What is their purpose? How do they work? How are they to be used and in what practices? This is where the notion of reconfiguration becomes helpful. This concept is not separate from the concept of remediation. Both concepts understand technologies as “actor-networks.” But, whereas remediation points to how digital media technologies emerge – as refashioned actornetworks that are never “new” or “old” – reconfiguration points to the processes through which technologies are given meaning and are stabilized in particular socio-technical and socio-material arrangements. As Lucy Suchman explains in Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Planned and Situated Actions, “technologies . . . are forms of materialized figuration; that is, they bring together assemblages of stuff and meaning into more and less stable arrangements” (2007, 227; emphasis in original). Here, reconfiguration is used to suggest that things are not fixed; technologies, for example, can be reassessed, rescripted, repurposed, and/ or renamed. Therefore, as this study will show, reconfiguration also points to how things are in flux on an ongoing basis. So, while innovations may be configured initially in a particular way – for example, in early design stages and through engineering processes – they can later be reconfigured in situated practice, much like the fluid Zimbabwe

Introduction

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bush pump described by de Laet and Mol (2000). Reconfigurations can also be political, particularly when we consider technologies as “materialized figuration.” For example, Suchman points to how the “effects of figuration are political in the sense that the specific discourses, images, and normativities that inform practices of figuration can work either to reinscribe existing social orderings or to challenge them” (2007, 227–8). This is exemplified in the way “specifically located individuals conceive technologies made in their own image, while figuring the latter as universal” (228). In this sense, reconfiguration also becomes a toolkit for intervention, as a way to reconsider human-machine relations and potentially change their politics. Innovations best allow us to trace the hidden negotiations of heterogeneous actors and reveal their productive and generative aspects (Latour 2005a). For this reason, this study examines the case of a novel “digital” display that was used to exhibit digitized historical photographic images in augmented reality. According to the initial press release by the McCord Museum in 2011, the MUM App was the first of its kind to be deployed by a museum in Canada,6 though it was not the first in the world: its predecessor was the Museum of London: StreetmuseumTM App released a year earlier. But in Montreal, the MUM App was an innovation – that is, it assisted in bringing together diverse actors in novel arrangements. Digital media innovations, like this app, may also be said to be part of processes of experimentation, even when they are remade. So, while in the past, only first iterations of exhibitions have been considered “experimental” (Basu and Macdonald 2007), in chapter 5 I explain how it is that repeat exhibits are also experiments, pointing to how they bring together “experimental assemblages” with uncertain, unpredictable, and unexpected results (see also Herman 2019). A second argument I make is that, to understand the particular social, cultural, and political implications of the transformations analyzed, we need to uncover the negotiations made between the heterogeneous actors and trace the entanglements resulting from those negotiations. Thus, the implications of employing digital media technologies can be understood as “relational effects” – as consequences of the negotiations within a network of heterogeneous actors – which I

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will hereafter refer to simply as “effects.” The implications of the increasing use of digital media technologies have previously been explored more widely in media studies and cultural studies. These have brought forth many other notions – such as “cyborg” theory (Haraway 1990),7 “mediatization” (Couldry 2008; Couldry and Hepp 2013),8 technical mediation as a “vital process” (Kember and Zylinska 2012),9 and a “culture of connectivity” (van Dijck 2011, 2012a, 2012b, 2013)10 – that have served to either encapsulate our relationship to, or uncover the politics of, emerging technologies, or both. While such works may have exposed broader issues, concerns, and politics related to the general employment of diverse technologies – from information and communication technologies to digital media and social media platforms – the present study is focused on examining the implications of one specific app innovation, the MUM App. It is by conducting an empirical study, like the present one, that we may best analyze the “effects” of the negotiations made between heterogeneous actors and assess their situated politics. This point can be illustrated through an example (which I will describe in more detail in chapters 1 and 4) of one participant’s acrimonious reactions to historical photographic images that she viewed through the MUM App’s display. While she was viewing the MUM App’s exhibit around McGill University’s campus, the app presented her with several images from the early twentieth century that showed class pictures of science graduates that were made up only of men. “There’s not a single woman in it, and there’s no comment about it – it’s pretty pathetic,” she commented. But the “old” gender politics that resurfaced in this case may be considered an “effect” of the way in which the MUM App was remediated and reconfigured, and the negotiations between heterogeneous actors that remade the app: the design of the predecessor Streetmuseum App; the appointment of an intern, rather than a curator, to select and describe the images; the selection of historical photographic images that were already in digital format; a sponsorship by McGill University; and character limitations in the design of the app’s pages due to the size of the device – to name just a few. The incident also involved negotiations between the participant and her views, experiences, interpretations, and opinions on the social,

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cultural, and political histories of McGill University. But to use any one technological or human actor as a reason for the arising politics – for example, to say that it was the display’s fault, since the screen of the device is too small to describe the photographic images thoroughly – would be only half the story and would ignore the human actors involved. At the same time, to say that the MUM App’s politics is just a result of humans – how the photographs were selected by the intern or how the content was read and interpreted by the participant – would again be only half the story. The app’s politics is a result of the negotiations made by (and between) humans and non-humans – and this book’s socio-technical approach reveals how politics happens in practice. It is important to note here that generalizations cannot be made across digital media or technological changes, or their social, cultural, and political implications. A digital media technology deployed in one museum with particular “effects” does not necessarily mean another museum will have the same results. Each deployment, like each use of an app, can, and more often does, have different “effects” – even in terms of its deemed “success.” For example, while the Museum of London’s Streetmuseum App was downloaded 65,000 times in the first four weeks after its release, the MUM App only had 2,475 “unique visitors” in its first year (see appendix E, figure E.4). This is another example of why repeat exhibits must be considered as “experimental” – or as bringing together “experimental assemblages” that have uncertain, unpredictable, and unexpected outcomes. In line with this point, I want to state what this book is not about. In this book I do not seek to generalize the politics of all emerging digital media technologies or to generalize about how they may participate in transforming all practices, knowledge, or spaces. Further, I do not seek to generalize about how all museums are changing or to predict how all (or any) museums will transform in the future. Rather, my aim is to examine the specific case of the MUM App and apply a symmetrical approach to understanding how it emerged through processes of remediation and participated, along with other actors, in reconfiguring a museum’s practices and knowledge, as well as city sites. It is only by examining the situated negotiations of human and non-human actors

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that we are placed in the optimal position to reflect on their social, cultural, political, and economic implications.

Backstage at the Museum As Henning observed about a decade ago, museums have experienced an immense growth in the use of novel digital media technologies – for example, “in the form of hand-held information devices, information kiosks, installation art, display supports and archiving systems” (2011, 302). In response to the ubiquity of digital media technologies, research on museums and their use of these technologies has continued to grow – for example, in explorations of “new media use in museums” (Henning 2006, 2007, 2011), “digital heritage” (Parry 2007, 2010), museum “app experiments” (Smørdal, Stuedahl, and Idunn 2014), and “digital design practices” for museum exhibitions (Mason 2015, 2016). But, as Olesen (2016) has pointed out, while museum research and literature has recently become increasingly concerned with “the digital,” there need to be more “behind the scenes” investigations. One early “behind the scenes” study that employed backstage approaches to examining exhibitionary practices is Sharon Macdonald’s Behind the Scenes at the Science Museum (2002). In that book, Macdonald investigated the backstage production of an exhibition called Food for Thought – Sainsbury Wing at the London Science Museum, and how visitors viewed, interacted with, and understood its various displays. For Macdonald, to go “behind the scenes” meant to also employ ANT to consider more than just human involvement in exhibitionary processes and practices. She therefore followed a broader set of actors and a complex set of negotiations that were entangled over space and time – and, as a result, observed the politics of exhibition making in a way that extended well beyond the museum’s walls. As an example, she found that the “Sainsbury-sponsored” Food for Thought exhibit shows that commercially interested players (Sainsbury’s is one of the largest retail grocery store chains in the United Kingdom) do not only “sponsor” exhibitions but also have a say in what goes in them, thus unveiling how exhibition-making practices are intertwined with politics inside and outside the museum.

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The present book takes inspiration from Macdonald’s “behind the scenes” study of a mainly “physical” exhibit for a backstage analysis of the MUM App, a mainly “digital” exhibit. I use the distinction between “physical” and “digital” exhibits as a heuristic device, to point to how different actors were brought together, and how specific negotiations, mobilizations, and delegations were made possible, in relation to designing, making, using, and managing the MUM App.11 And, while museum exhibitions each have their own situated “politics of display” (as Macdonald’s volume on science and technology exhibitions demonstrates, 1998c), my analysis of the McCord’s MUM App will explore how “digital” displays can become entangled with politics in both “old” and “new” ways. To trace the politics that arose in relation to the MUM App, I seek to answer questions like the following: How did the MUM App emerge? What actors were involved in its remediation, and who had a say in its design, development, and management? What power did each actor have? What reconfigurations occurred in relation to the MUM App, and which actors played a role in negotiating such transformations? What were the social, cultural, economic, and political implications of the app’s release on particular platforms and its employment in practice? To answer these questions requires an understanding of a complex set of concepts and analytical frameworks. So, the next two sections return to the two key concepts employed throughout the book – remediation and reconfiguration – to provide additional background on the theory and the methodological approach used in the analysis.

Remediation: Understanding How Digital Media Technologies Emerge A key concept that is important to understanding how innovative digital media emerge is Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin’s notion of remediation. In Remediation: Understanding New Media (2000), Bolter and Grusin draw on ANT to position an alternative way of thinking about “new media” than was previously theorized in new media studies. Rather than consider media for their physical attributes – as just software and hardware – they reframe media as “actor-networks” and

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as “hybrids.” For Bolter and Grusin, considering media as such means that “new media” are never “new” but rather remediations of “older” media into “newer” ones (or vice versa). Put another way, “new media” transform or, perhaps more precisely, emerge as a result of a refashioning of a network of heterogeneous actors. As I have mentioned above, this approach has implications for how social, cultural, and political change may be theorized, particularly since it allows us a way of thinking about change that avoids asymmetrical views that suggest that either humans or technologies alone are the root cause of change. While Bolter and Grusin’s work draws on ANT to reconsider how to understand “new media” in relation to their remediation thesis, their thesis still reflects the longstanding influence of Marshall McLuhan on “new media studies” and pays particular attention to his famous dictum that “the ‘content’ of any medium is always another medium” (quoted in Bolter and Grusin 2000, 45). McLuhan’s influence on Bolter and Grusin’s work is not surprising: Lister et al. (2009) point out that debates related to technological determinism and social constructivism continue to thrive across “new media” studies, with arguments that trace back to early media studies by McLuhan and Raymond Williams.12 As Lister et al. explain, McLuhan and Williams were interested in “new media” forms, despite the fact that their work was conducted before present-day “new media” emerged. Where McLuhan examined the “cultural effects” of emerging media forms, “Williams sought to show that there is nothing in a particular technology which guarantees the cultural or social outcomes it will have” (Lister et al. 2009, 77). While disagreements on readings of both McLuhan’s and Williams’s works have also provided reason for debate, what is of particular significance here is that, in “new media” studies, it is these two critics’ “views and arguments about the issue, filtered through very different routes, that now echo in the debate between those who see new media as revolutionary or as ‘business as usual,’” with McLuhan being linked to the former claim and Williams to the latter (Lister et al. 2009, 77). But, for Bolter and Grusin, McLuhan was thinking of a “complex kind of borrowing in which one medium is itself incorporated or represented in another medium” (2000, 45). Therefore, they suggest

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that how “one medium is incorporated into another” is best explored through concepts of actor-networks and hybrids. As they explain, “media technologies constitute networks or hybrids that can be expressed in physical, social, aesthetic and economic terms. Introducing a new media technology does not mean simply inventing new hardware and software, but rather fashioning (or refashioning) such a network” (19). As an example, they point to the World Wide Web: The World Wide Web is not merely a software protocol and text and data files. It is also the sum of the uses to which this protocol is now being put: for marketing and advertising, scholarship, personal expression, and so on. These uses are as much a part of the technology as the software itself. For this reason, we can say that media technologies are agents in our culture without falling into the trap of technological determinism. New digital media are not external agents that come to disrupt an unsuspecting culture. They emerge from within cultural contexts, and they refashion other media, which are embedded in the same or similar contexts. (19) While McLuhan’s (and Williams’s) arguments continue to make their way into debates about digital media technologies, the remediation thesis, and particularly ANT , has offered an alternative way to move beyond partial and asymmetrical approaches to their study by taking a socio-technical approach. Given that remediation is a refashioning of an actor-network, we may understand the MUM App as emerging as an actor-network but also as embedded within actornetwork(s). While Bolter and Grusin use remediation as a way to explain the refashioning of a “new media,” I also consider iterations of novel digital media as “remediations” because, as this case study shows, iterations also involve the refashioning of an actor-network that includes both “new” and “old” media, and because they also bring together assemblages of actors into novel rearrangements. So, in this book, I more often use the term remaking to refer to the remediation of the Streetmuseum App into the MUM App (and where language and syntax prove limiting, I use made).

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Bolter and Grusin’s approach to understanding “new media” as hybrids and actor-networks has been echoed in more recent interdisciplinary thinking about digital media technologies. For example, Gillespie, Boczkowski, and Foot’s Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society (2014b) brings together a collection of writing that looks to collate insights from new media studies, media and communication studies, the sociology of technology, and STS . In sociology, Deborah Lupton’s Digital Sociology (2015) also suggests that the ANT “perspective has proven to be an insightful approach in scholarship in digital society” (23), particularly since the concept of “assemblage” is a useful way of “understanding the individual’s relationship to and use of digital technologies that emphasizes that each actor, whether human or non-human, shapes the other in a mutually constitutive relationship” (24).13 Lupton further explains that these assemblages denote not only an intermingling of humans and non-humans, but also inseparability between its aggregates. As she explains, exponents of ANT “contend that humans are always imbricated within networks comprised of human and non-human actors and cannot be isolated from these networks” (23). This point reiterates Bolter and Grusin’s suggestion that “events of our mediated culture are constituted by combinations of subject, media and objects, which do not exist in their segregated forms” (2000, 58). This inseparability of media’s network means that “there is nothing prior to or outside the act of mediation” (58). That said, I use the term negotiation rather than mediation, to avoid the tendency to understand mediation or mediators as neutral (Latour 1993b and 1994): here, negotiators, whether human or non-human, have agency and, thus, they have power (Star 1991).

Reconfiguration: Process and Method Assemblage Reconfiguration acts not only as a concept for understanding the processes through which technologies materialize with particular meanings and stabilize over time in practice, but also as a method for examining these processes. In her essay “Configuration” (2012), Suchman explains how configuration acts as “a device for studying technologies with particular attention to the imaginaries and materialities that they join together” as well as “a conceptual frame for recovering

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the heterogeneous relations that technologies fold together” (48; emphasis in original). At the centre of configuration is the act of figuring. As Suchman explains, “to figure is to assign shape, designate what is to be made noticeable and consequential, to be taken as identifying” (49). Therefore, “figuration is an action that holds the material and semiotic together in ways that become naturalized over time, and in turn requires ‘unpacking’ to recover its constituent elements” (49). So, configuration as method requires us to “reanimate the figure at the heart of a given configuration, in order to recover the practices through which it comes into being and sustains its effects” (49). For Suchman, using configuration as a device to examine how technologies materialize and stabilize in practice acts as one form of Law’s (2004) “method assemblage.” It involves paying attention to what is present and also what is hidden. Methods, Law argues, are enactments that make relations between what is present (including knowledges, representations, subjects and objects) and what is absent or part of the latter’s “hinterland” (both manifestly, for example in the form of things articulated as “context” for what is present, and othered, in the form of an open-ended horizon of the unremarkable and/or repressed). In this sense, the method assemblage of configuration could be understood as a device for articulating the relation between the “insides” of a socio-technical system and its constitutive “outsides,” including all of those things that disappear in the system’s figuration as an object. (Suchman 2012, 55; emphasis in original) Configuration as method also brings attention to how even the most innovative technologies are not a result of their “human makers” but are rather “discovered” in practice. Socio-technical artefacts are imagined as made, not discovered. Rather than being enacted as antecedent to and independent of the practices of their making, they are figured within design and engineering discourses precisely not as already existing and independently agential, but as emerging from and dependent upon the actions of their (human) makers. In this sense, configuration

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as a critical device calls for a kind of alternate respecification to discovery; a recognition of the historical anteriority of even the most innovative objects, and the material agencies that shape practices of design. (55; emphasis in original) In addition, configuration involves revealing the assumptions made in design, such as the ways in which technologies may be “inscribed,” as Akrich (1992) notes (see also Latour 1992), and the competencies assumed when a technology is conceived and designed, or “the ‘geographies of responsibilities’ implied” by a design (quoted in Suchman 2012, 56). Further, configuration as method means acknowledging the indeterminacy of technologies and considering agency in the constant (re)(con)figurations that occur. For Suchman, this “means recognizing the contingency and incompleteness of artefacts as irremediable . . . both in terms of a system’s description (presupposing as it does “hinterlands” that it does not, and could not, fully specify) and of its implementation (presupposing always further practices of design-in-use)” (2012, 56). The indeterminacy of technologies also implies their continual possible transformations, or potential reconfigurations, and the indeterminant agency involved in such processes. As Suchman points out, “crucial here is the recognition that agencies of subjects and objects are figured together” (52). In this context, Karen Barad’s thinking becomes central in the relation between human and non-human agency in reconfigurations. For Barad, agency “is not an attribute but the ongoing reconfigurings of the world” (quoted in Suchman 2012, 57). Therefore, reconfiguration offers us a way to examine not only how practices and meanings may be brought together in stable arrangements, but also how agency is redistributed and redelegated across novel networks on an ongoing basis. Reconfiguration provides a concept and method that I use in this book to understand and analyze how the MUM App was carved out as both a “promotional tool” and an “exhibit” in particular situations. Similarly, I use it to consider how museum things, like the “museum visitor” and the “museum visit,” were reclassified in relation to the novel practice. Recall that, as described at the beginning of this chapter, passers-by mistook the participant and me as “tourists,” and that, later, the participant considered what he was doing less a “museum

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visit” and more of a “tour.” The concept of reconfiguration helps to consider how city sites can be reconfigured as well. As the study will show, spaces can be reordered with the introduction of novel digital media technologies, and city sites rewritten in the process of using them. Further, reconfiguration provides a method for tracing how novel digital media technologies, like the MUM App, can participate in redistributing agency (by, for example, assisting the mobilization of people, technologies, museum collections, and practices outside the museum’s walls), whereby tasks, roles, and responsibilities are redelegated across novel networks of humans and non-humans. To organize my analysis, I examine reconfiguration through four processes: how museum things were reclassified and rescripted and how city sites were reordered and rewritten. Lastly, we can examine reconfigurations to discern their political “effects.” For example, as was hinted above, the MUM App’s portrayal of historical photographic images from the early twentieth century – showing an all-male class of science students – can reinscribe genderbased orders when such images are superimposed on present-day city sites with only short explanations, in “effect” rewriting the site with particular political histories, while leaving others out. This resonates with Suchman’s observation that the “effects of figuration are political in the sense that the specific discourses, images, and normativities that inform practices of figuration can work either to reinscribe existing social orderings or to challenge them” (2007, 227–8), though how and when politics happens in practice is not easily predictable or certain, as the case of the MUM App will show. In order to examine the politics arising from how things were reconfigured in this case, I trace the heterogeneous actors involved in the app’s design, development, use, and management and analyze the negotiations made. The book also pays attention to those occasions where politics does not arise; for example, not all participants found the historical photographic images political.

The Increase in Digital Media Technologies in Museum Practice While I have stated that the “effects” of the negotiations observed in the study cannot be generalized across technologies, institutions, audiences, cities, and so on, one generalization that may be made is

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that a variety of digital media, including apps, were increasingly being employed by and developed for museums. The increasing use of digital media was noted not only by researchers before and around the time of this study (e.g., Parry 2007, 2010; Henning 2006, 2007, 2011) but also in museum and heritage industry reports, such as the Horizon reports developed by the New Media Consortium (NMC ).14 The 2010 Horizon Report noted a particular rise in apps beginning in 2008, linking their popularity to the increasing use of “always connected Internet devices” and to recent mobile-related technology developments, such as integrated cameras, GPS technology, increases in storage capacity, touch screens, and diverse sensors that provide, for example, location- and direction-awareness (Johnson, Witchey, et al. 2010). The 2011 report not only offered information on trends in app technologies, but also provided advice for museums: that augmented reality would be increasingly adopted in the next two to three years by museums, particularly through apps, which could serve as supplements to physical exhibits or as discrete ways to display digital collections. This report presented apps as a natural fit, since “museum educators arguably have always been in the business of augmenting reality, creating bridges between objects, ideas and visitors” and since “augmented reality technologies are now allowing this to happen more fluidly and easily than ever” (Johnson, Adams, and Witchey 2011, 7). Museums could also take “advantage of recent developments in location awareness and GPS ,” which would allow them “to design mobile experiences tailored to the physical location of their visitors” (7). But, while nifty developments in mobile devices and related technologies are certainly one aspect of how innovations in museum app technologies have been made possible, they are certainly not the only reason for their spread: recall that this book aims to avoid technological determinism as an explanation for change. In particular, there was, at least since the 1990s, an interest at the McCord Museum in creating “more entertaining and engaging exhibits with emerging technologies” (Young 2000), which was reflected in the McCord Museum’s mission to be “contemporary and interactive” and to create “immersive experiences.”15 Another factor that contributed to the McCord’s decision to develop the MUM App was that the museum had already had experience with apps: in 2010, it had released the McCord

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Museum App, which provided its audiences with information about the museum’s exhibits and the ability to interact with digital collections. Furthermore, museums were increasingly using apps not only for “exhibitionary displays” but also as “promotional devices” – to attract attention to permanent collections or promote new museum exhibitions. And as the analysis in chapter 1 will show, the predecessor to the MUM App, the Museum of London’s Streetmuseum App, was created as part of an advertising campaign for the reopening of that museum’s permanent exhibition Galleries of Modern London in 2010.16 And the MUM App, in turn, was similarly developed and released in time for the McCord Museum’s reopening of its permanent exhibition Montreal – Points of View in 2011. The decision-making processes that took place in relation to remaking an innovative app, as well as designing, developing, and managing the MUM App, involved not only key employees at the McCord Museum but also a set of (sometimes unexpected) actors, from the Horizon reports, which advocated app and augmented reality technologies, to reports of the success of the Streetmuseum App in London, and to diverse funders that supported the MUM App’s development. By tracing such heterogeneous actors and their negotiations, this study will point at times to competing interests and the arising politics in museum “digital” practices.

The Case Study As mentioned in the anecdote at the beginning of this chapter, I had a one-year research residency at the McCord Museum from 2012 to 2013. This residency gave me an opportunity to analyze the MUM App from diverse perspectives that I could not have otherwise been able to access. Not only did I examine how it emerged (through interviews with key museum employees and a subsequent document analysis of materials they shared with me) and how it was used in practice (through a study with eleven participants – seven individuals and two couples), but also how the statistics gathered about the app’s usage were used (if at all) by museum employees in its management (through interviews and document analysis of shared materials). I was provided with an access pass and an office at the museum, which meant that I

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could visit permanent exhibitions freely throughout the year, examining other types of displays and interviewing other employees, such as curators, marketing officers, and accountants, about practices at the museum. I was also invited to some meetings, such as those held by the Marketing and Communications Department, in which I had an opportunity to understand more about the marketing practices at the museum. Employees from the Marketing and Communications Department helped me advertise the research study through posts on the museum’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, and provided me complimentary entrance tickets to the museum and prints from the Notman Photographic Archives, which I could give as a small compensation package for participants who agreed to take part in the study. I was notified about conferences and talks taking place in Montreal, such as those by AVICOM (the International Committee for Audiovisual and New Image and Sound Technologies – one of the International Council of Museums’ committees) and HistoryPin (a social media site that aimed to have museums post historical photographic collections), which helped me understand more about the diverse organizations with which employees at the museum engaged. The following sub-sections provide some background on the city of Montreal, the McCord Museum, and the main features of the MUM App. This information is important not only as background on the city, collections, and technologies being examined, but also because these actors played an important part in the negotiations described in the following chapters. While very brief, this discussion is intended to provide a basis for considering the diverse actors involved in how the MUM App was made and subsequently how it participated, along with other actors, in transforming aspects of this museum and various city sites.

The City of Montreal and the McCord Museum The history of Montreal (and Canada) has been the central focus of the McCord Museum’s permanent exhibits and is represented in the diverse material collections held at the museum. The city of Montreal was also the backdrop for the MUM App’s augmented reality display. Montreal is one of the oldest cities in Canada. The island was first inhabited by First Nations peoples, such as the Haudenosaunee (referred

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to as the Iroquois in the museum displays), whose village Hochelaga was one of the first encountered by Jacques Cartier and his crew in the mid-sixteenth century, who would claim the land for France. The island would be settled by French Europeans in the seventeenth century and be under French rule until the British took control in the mid-eighteenth century. These events left a mark on Montreal: while, legally, French is now the language of business, both French and English (Canada’s two official languages) are spoken in the city. Quebec laws related to language played an important role in how exhibitions and displays were designed and labelled at the McCord. The McCord Museum was founded by David Ross McCord, a Montrealer of Scottish descent, who bequeathed to McGill University a significant collection of material artefacts that represented aspects of the history of Montreal and Canada. The museum was inaugurated by McGill and opened to the public in 1921 as the McCord National Museum. Over time, the museum was housed in several locations, including the residences of prominent figures in Montreal (such as the former residences of financier Jesse Joseph and A.A. Hodgson). The lack of permanent space meant that the collections were closed to the public at times. The last time the museum was closed was in 1968: it reopened in 1971 in the former McGill Student Union Building (designed by the Montreal-based architect Percy E. Nobbs). The Nobbs building, located on Sherbrooke Street (a main artery of the downtown area in Montreal) across from the McGill campus, remains the site of the McCord Museum, as it is known today. In 1986, the museum entered a contractual agreement to manage McGill’s Canadian History Collections and no longer receives operational funding from the university. The museum is governed by an independent board of trustees, on which the university is represented by two appointed members. At the time of this study, the McCord Museum considered itself a “public research and teaching museum,” preserving over 1,440,000 artefacts, images, and manuscripts as “irreplaceable reflections of the social history and material culture of Montreal, Quebec and Canada.”17 Of the museum’s diverse material collections, which included ethnological and archaeological collections, costumes and textiles, textual archives, paintings, prints and drawings, and decorative arts, the most pertinent to this study is the Notman Photographic Archives.

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The archive was the second largest of its kind after Library and Archives Canada, in Ottawa. It was made up of over a million artefacts, with the majority being historical photographs taken from about the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. Of the 1.3 million artefacts in the archive, only about 80,000 historical photographic images had been digitized. And, of these 80,000 digitized images, only 141 were initially displayed in the MUM App’s augmented reality exhibit.

The MUM App The McCord Museum’s MUM App was an innovative app – being, as it was, the first of its kind for a museum in Canada – and it was also award winning. The MUM App won the Gold award in the Multimédi’Art Interactive category at the International Audiovisual Festival on Museums and Heritage held at the 2012 AVICOM Committee conference.18 Released on Apple’s App Store in 2011, the app showcased a selection of the museum’s digitized historical photographic images from the Notman Photographic Archives. The app could be downloaded only through the App Store, as it was configured for use on only Apple mobile devices – the iPhone, the iPad, and the iPod Touch.19 The MUM App, which could be used in both English and French, had three main user features. The first was a map view or “pinned card” that indicated where collections could be viewed around the city of Montreal. From the pinned card, users could choose to view historical photographic images in two-dimensional (2-D ) or three-dimension (3-D ) view. In 2-D , digitized images could be displayed with or without descriptions (see figure I.2) and were available “anywhere.” In 3-D , the digitized images were displayed in augmented reality (see figure I.3) and available only in specific locations across the city, as indicated on the pinned card. Significantly, the app gathered an unprecedented amount of data, which were displayed in statistical form through Google Analytics dashboards. The app is no longer available today on the App Store, as it was discontinued around 2017. Similarly, the Montreal – Points of View “permanent exhibit,” which the app promoted, was uninstalled around the same year.

Figure I.2 The 2-D view, with description.

Figure I.3 The 3-D view.

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Organization of This Book Following this introduction, chapter 1, “Remaking the Museum App,” examines how the innovative MUM App emerged through a process of remediation. The analysis shows how the process of remaking the app entailed a renegotiation of the curatorial and exhibitionary practices at the museum – more specifically, tasks were redistributed and redelegated across an unexpected network of actors. In turn, these transformations engendered new power relations that saw foreign actors external to the museum become “gatekeepers” (Latour and Woolgar 1986) in the curatorial, development, and maintenance practices of this “Canadian” app display. Chapter 2, “Reclassifying and Rescripting Museum Things,” explores how things are reconfigured in practice. The analysis begins by examining the actors involved in how the MUM App worked in practice, including the vast infrastructures in which it was embedded; it thereby illustrates the precariousness of this novel way of viewing the museum’s collections in augmented reality. I then turn to the observational accounts of the participants’ experiences using the app. The analysis points not only to the sometimes-awkward reclassifications made but also to how museum things can live “multiple” lives across different socio-technical practices and socio-material arrangements. I also consider how the MUM App was rescripted according to participants’ own, sometimes “wild,” strategies and debate whether “domestication” is possible. Chapter 3, “Reordering Spaces and Rewriting City Sites,” continues to examine how participants employed the MUM App. Here, I explore how city sites are reordered and rewritten as places where museum collections can be viewed through two practices done with the app – navigating the exhibit using the map displayed on the “pinned card” and viewing collections using the 3-D augmented reality view. In considering the app’s navigational aspects, as well as the mobilizations of bodies, viewing practices, digitized collections, and technologies that the app (and its network) enables across the city, the analysis also assesses the claim that digital media technologies are increasingly “directing” urban spaces.

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Chapter 4, “The Politics of ‘Digital’ Display,” explores the politics of the MUM App’s remediation and the subsequent reconfigurations made. I begin by examining the entanglements with external commercial organizations and technology platforms in negotiating the remaking and management of this app display. I then assess the new roles of these organizations as gatekeepers to museum app displays and outline the implications this development had on what collections were displayed and histories told. I critique the increasing use of “digital” displays in museum practices as a way to make collections more accessible, pointing to how, for example, the fact that apps are compatible with only some devices can inhibit accessibility. The use of an app to display digitized collections, in this case, demonstrates that increased accessibility via digital media is an over-generalization, if not a myth. I also explore two larger issues – that there is increasing “surveillance” as a result of the use of digital media technologies and that software allows for the “automated management” of society – and explain how this case study exposes any generalizing assertions as technologically deterministic arguments, and also myths of “control.” Chapter 5, “Remediation as Experimental Process,” proposes that innovative digital media technologies are “experimental” even when repeated. By comparing the cases of the Museum of London’s Streetmuseum App and the McCord Museum’s MUM App, I argue that theorists and (museum) professionals alike must move beyond understanding the deployment of digital media innovations as “successes” or “failures.” Rather, processes of remediation (and reconfiguration) are always experimental, since they are negotiated by networks of heterogeneous actors with uncertain, unexpected, and unpredictable results – especially since such negotiations occur in “dis-ordered” and “non-coherent” spaces (Law, Afdal, et al. 2013). The conclusion brings together the findings in this case study to discuss how the museum, as much as digital media technologies, is in a perpetual process of complex transformation, which involves both remediation and reconfiguration. I suggest additional considerations for future academic research while also providing professionals with some points of consideration in relation to the findings from this case study.

c h AP te R 1

Remaking the Museum App

In this chapter, I examine how the McCord Museum’s MUM App was made, based on its predecessor, the Museum of London’s Streetmuseum App. I reconstruct this process by drawing on interviews and documentary analysis, which allow me to point to the heterogeneous actors and negotiations involved in this remediation. As mentioned in the introduction, by taking a socio-technical approach, my aim is to avoid technological determinist or social constructivist approaches, as these lead to asymmetrical perspectives on how digital media technologies emerge. Instead, I consider both human and non-human actors, which allows me to provide a fuller picture of how heterogeneous actors negotiated the app’s design, curation, and development. These negotiations all required decisions to be made on things such as which historical photographic images to select and how to describe them; how to lay out the app’s exhibit; where to place images in augmented reality across Montreal; and what operating system and devices the app would be used on. By tracing the myriad actors involved, the analysis points to how both human actors (including museum staff, and a digital producer and app developers based in England) and a host of non-human actors (including industry reports, budgets, the predecessor app, imagined audiences, a specialized camera, the Notman Photographic Archives, mobile devices, multiple platforms, standards, and architecture) negotiated such decisions. By tracing the negotiations among these, and other, actors, the case begins to illustrate the nature of subsequent entanglements. I describe how the negotiations that took place limited not only what collections would be initially displayed, but also what collections

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could be added later on. Moreover, I explore how, by classifying the MUM App exhibit as a “digital” project, the museum’s curatorial and exhibitionary practices were displaced across a novel network, and, thereby, aspects of their work practices were redelegated to other actors both inside and outside the museum. By redelegating practices, decision-making power was similarly displaced, whereby unexpected “gatekeepers” (Latour and Woolgar 1986) were established in relation to the MUM App’s design, development, and maintenance practices. Thus, this chapter charts not only how the MUM App was made but also the museum’s changing digital politics of display (Herman 2018).

Reconstructing How the MUM App Was Made To reconstruct how the MUM App was made, I interviewed the McCord Museum’s head of Information Technology (IT ), as well as the project manager of Web and Multimedia, on several occasions. The head of IT was responsible for the information technology–related decisions at the museum, and the project manager was responsible for implementing projects related to, for example, the museum’s website or media installations in exhibits and, importantly for this study, the production of the MUM App. I also interviewed the digital producer at the London-based creative agency, called (at the time) Brothers and Sisters, and an app developer at Thumbspark Ltd, a softwaredevelopment company based in Cambridge, England. The latter companies were two British-based players that had key roles not only in making the MUM App but also in designing and developing that app’s predecessor, the Museum of London’s Streetmuseum App. In addition to the interviews I conducted, I performed documentary analysis on media reports, as well as any industry reports, white papers, and internal documents shared by interviewees. For example, I examined the NMC’s Horizon reports, mentioned in the introduction, which were brought to my attention in an interview with the head of IT at the McCord. These industry reports were examined not just because they described the technology trends at the time, but also because they acted as negotiators in the making of the MUM App by playing a role in the museum’s decision-making processes. Overall, in this analysis,

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it can be said that I “follow the actors” (to use the Latourian dictum), tracing their negotiations and entanglements in the process of making the MUM App.

Industry Reports as Negotiators in Making the MUM App In one of the first interviews I conducted with the head of IT , he asked me if I had read a number of industry reports on trends related to the use of digital media technologies in the culture, heritage, and museum industry. Given their perceived importance to his role, I asked him to share them with me. The reports he subsequently provided included editions of what was known as the Horizon report, as well as a white paper on one of the first augmented reality apps made for the city of Philadelphia Department of Records. The 2010 Horizon Report (Johnson, Witchey, et al. 2010) was of particular interest to this analysis, since it made a case for why all museums must consider developing apps. Given the head of IT at the museum read them, they acted as negotiators in decision-making processes about what was, could, and should get made. The 2010 Horizon Report suggested a rise in the use of apps by the culture, heritage, and museum industry. It indicated that, as early as 2008, cultural institutions across Europe and North America began to develop app technologies as an alternative way to communicate diverse information to audiences – from providing information about museum exhibitions to displaying portions of digitized collections. The report also highlighted a rise in the number of apps being developed by museums and other cultural institutions as owing to the proliferation of mobile technologies, namely smartphones, and their increasing use as a way to connect to the internet. Only a year later, the 2011 report noted that apps had become “pervasive in everyday life” in the developed world (Johnson, Adams, and Witchey 2011). It predicted that the adoption of apps would provide museums with the “advantage of recent developments in location awareness and GPS ,” enabling museums “to design mobile experiences tailored to the physical location of their visitors” (7). Moreover, other innovative technologies, such as augmented reality, could be simultaneously integrated into app technologies. If the 2010 Horizon Report had not created a sense of urgency related to making apps, the 2011

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report would reassert the case for museums to consider apps as part of their educational tools and exhibitionary practice. The latter report further made the case for developing augmented reality apps, giving as its example the Streetmuseum App, which the Museum of London had debuted as a compendium to the permanent exhibit Galleries of Modern London. But these industry reports were not the only actors negotiating decisions with McCord employees. The Streetmuseum App had been released through Apple’s App Store in May 2010. Soon after, other media outlets, including a cultural blog, reported that the app had been downloaded 65,000 times in just the first four weeks of its release, shattering the Museum of London’s goal of 5,000 downloads.1 The media, and later the museum itself,2 would deem the Streetmuseum App a “success.” In turn, the story would capture the attention of the museum community, and particularly that of the McCord Museum. The McCord could draw parallels between itself and the Museum of London. Both are city museums depicting local history, with a large portion of digitized historical photographic images in their collections. Furthermore, like the Museum of London, which had just revamped its permanent exhibit Galleries of Modern London, the McCord was overhauling its own permanent exhibit, which it planned to reopen in 2011 as Montreal – Points of View. It was evident from the media reports that the Streetmuseum App was considered a successful “digital media display,” but it was also a compelling public relations “promotional tool.” As the digital producer at Brothers and Sisters would explain, the Streetmuseum App was used to promote the reopening of Galleries of Modern London. Given the “success” of the London app, the McCord Museum considered that it too could benefit from using such an app to promote the opening of Montreal – Points of View. Interested in making an innovative display that would be considered “a Canadian museum first” (which it would be),3 the McCord Museum contacted Brothers and Sisters in late 2010 to develop an augmented reality app like the Streetmuseum App. Thus, the Horizon reports, combined with other online media reports, acted as negotiators in the decision to remake the Streetmuseum App as the MUM App. But the mobilization of information through such reports cannot be considered as neutral. The declarations made in the 2010 Horizon Report – that there was a proliferation

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of mobile devices, like smartphones, that could be “always connected” to the Internet and that museums must thus consider apps to exhibit collections and communicate diverse information to audiences using such devices – played a part in the negotiation of the decisions about what “digital” displays could, should, and would get made at the McCord Museum. Reports of the “success” of the Museum of London’s Streetmuseum App further nudged the direction of negotiations in regard to how the MUM App would be made and what companies would become involved in the process.

Calling Foreign Negotiators in the MUM App’s Design When the McCord Museum contracted Brothers and Sisters, and that company, in turn, subcontracted developers at Thumbspark to code the MUM App, two unlikely British-based companies came to be negotiators in the development and eventual maintenance of a Canadian museum display. And, as a result, many decisions related to the MUM App’s design already would have been made when the Streetmuseum App was developed. This was, of course, partially a consequence of engaging Brothers and Sisters, as well as Thumbspark, both of which had initially been involved in making the Streetmuseum App. But humans were not the only actors deciding the MUM App’s design or developing its code. Non-human actants, such as the design of the mobile phone, the code of the Streetmuseum App, budgets, as well as copyright and language laws, also played a part. As will be explained below, the interplay between human and non-human actors allowed for only limited customizations to the MUM App. The Streetmuseum App could be made into the MUM App because Brothers and Sisters (rather than the Museum of London) held the copyright for the Streetmuseum App. Therefore, copyright laws acted as negotiators (or, in some cases, non-negotiators), allowing aspects of the MUM App’s design and development and barring others. Despite the copyright issues, it could be argued that the McCord Museum could still have redesigned the app to be something significantly different from its predecessor. However, budgets also played a significant role in the negotiations of customizations for the MUM App. As a medium-sized Canadian museum, the McCord had a moderate

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Figure 1.1 The Streetmuseum App. Figure 1.2 The MUM App.

budget for its “multimedia” projects. For the McCord, limited funds meant keeping the Streetmuseum App’s design, and therefore code, for the MUM App – in other words, significant modifications became non-negotiable. The two apps had more in common than not. The MUM App shared the same aesthetics (such as graphics, fonts, and buttons) and user flow as the Streetmuseum App. Aside from the different branding required for each museum and the language options needed for the MUM App on the landing pages (see figures 1.1 and 1.2), the experience of using the two apps was practically identical. The map views displayed in the format of pinned cards were little differentiated, except for the branded headers (compare figures 1.3 and 1.4). Both apps showcased historical images and displayed these images across cityscapes. By selecting

Figure 1.3 The Streetmuseum App’s pinned card.

Figure 1.4 The MUM App’s pinned card.

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“pins” on the pinned cards, the user could view two-dimensional historical images. If users tapped on the two-dimensional images, the titles and descriptions of the images would be similarly displayed in both cases. The pinned cards could also be used to navigate around the city in order to find the locations where the augmented reality exhibit was rendered. When the user arrived at a location indicated on the map and selected the matching 3D View button from the bottom right-hand corner of the pinned cards, the historical images would be displayed in augmented reality – that is, the images would be superimposed on cityscapes through the device’s camera view. In the end, the customizations that were made were mainly those that were necessary to differentiate the two museum institutions, their sponsors, and their collections. And, perhaps most important to the McCord Museum, the MUM App included both French and English language options: thus, provincial language laws were also negotiators – or, in “effect,” non-negotiators – that ensured French and English language requirements were met.4 While the McCord was limited in how it could customize the MUM App, the Museum of London was able to do more, conceivably because it had a larger budget, given its higher earnings.5 So, for example, the Museum of London would eventually update the Streetmuseum App with a sleeker look. Further, the app would feature special temporary exhibitions, including another augmented reality display made as a compendium for (and promotion of ) the Cheapside Hoard exhibition in 2013. The Museum of London was able to release yet another augmented reality app called the Streetmuseum™ Londinium App. This new app was even more dynamic than the original Streetmuseum App, incorporating a wider range of features. As the description on the App Store proclaimed: The new app directs users to locations from Roman London where you can “excavate” finds, using your fingers to dig and gradually reveal ancient artefacts where they were originally found. iPhone users can remove dirt by blowing into their microphone. Key Roman London sites, such as the amphitheatre and Temple of Mithras, have been brought to life through augmented reality video (iPhone only) – produced

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by HISTORY ™ – showing scenes of Roman London, overlaid onto the view today. A soundscape to the Roman capital is also included, so you can listen to the hustle and bustle of the forum or the clamour of the Boudican rebellion. In addition, a map of Roman London, compiled and produced by Museum of London Archaeology, has been superimposed on a modern map of London. Use the slider to see how the city has changed over the last 2,000 years.6 In their promotion of app use by museums, what the Horizon reports had perhaps failed to take into account was that innovations in app features, such as those integrated into the Londinium App, were often cost-prohibitive for most mid-sized museums. Indeed, lack of funds was one of the reasons that the McCord Museum would look to commercial sponsorships – including McGill University and possibly Telus and Historia (the latter were unconfirmed in interviews, but sponsorship can perhaps be assumed, given that their corporate logos are on the landing page – see figure 1.2).7 Further, the McCord would later negotiate yet another commercial sponsorship with a local real estate company, Ivanhoé Cambridge, which allowed it to add another nine images to the MUM App’s display. Sponsorships are not new in exhibitionary practices. But as Macdonald (2002) has shown, having grocery giant Sainsbury’s sponsor the Food for Thought – Sainsbury Wing exhibition at the Science Museum in London meant not only that branded logos would be included in the displays but also that the commercial company would have a say in what went in the exhibition. As I will explain below, this case was no exception: “digital” exhibitionary practices are undeniably intertwined with sponsorship politics.

Mobile Devices, Operating Systems, and Platforms The choice of mobile device(s), operating system(s), and platform(s) on which to develop and sell the MUM App was one of the first technical (and financial) decisions to be made, and perhaps one of the most important in terms of audience reach and accessibility. The Streetmuseum App was developed for two operating systems – iOS

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and Android – making it accessible to a large variety of devices and, therefore, a large population of potential users. But the MUM App was configured for only one operating system – iOS – which meant that the app could work only on Apple devices, such as the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, and therefore reach only a subset of potential users.8 As the MUM App was made to work only on specific mobile devices, a single operating system, and particular platforms, these actors, in turn, became negotiators in how the app would be designed, developed, used, and managed. But to say that any of these actors negotiated these processes and practices is also to include a plethora of other heterogeneous actors – from Apple designers and engineers to software languages, standards, aesthetic guidelines, technical frameworks, and so on. For example, to work on Apple’s operating system iOS and its mobile devices, apps were written in specific languages (such as Swift and Objective-C ), used standard frameworks (such as the Map Kit Framework),9 and were “bundled” using Apple’s development and compiling software.10 And the aesthetics for apps (including graphics and fonts) had to reflect those that had been defined by Apple’s designers. But behind these negotiators are still myriad actors that remain hidden in the background. It may therefore be said that Apple’s platforms, as much as their devices and operating systems, are “black boxes” (Latour 1987) – networks of hidden negotiating actors. These negotiators, in turn, became actors involved at particular stages of the MUM App’s life – from its initial design to its development, sale, maintenance, and even its eventual demise. For example, before the MUM App could be “sold”11 (even as a free app) on the App Store, the overall concept of the app – along with its aesthetic qualities, content, features, and functionality – had to be formally approved by Apple, like the Streetmuseum App before it. This meant that Apple’s networks of platforms, technologies, products, policies, standards, and employees, to name a few, all acted as negotiators in the approval processes for the Streetmuseum App and the MUM App (across both space and time, given that some negotiators – like standards and policies – would have been established in advance). Thus, Apple itself could be considered as a gatekeeper, as, without Apple’s approval, an app would simply not be released in the App Store marketplace. The developers at Thumbspark would also act as

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gatekeepers, since they were the “registered sellers” on the App Store – only they could release the MUM App on the store.12 And since they were contracted by Brothers and Sisters, who was contracted by the McCord Museum, any modifications to the MUM App had to involve both of these British companies, positioning Brothers and Sisters as gatekeepers too. The involvement of these two players rendered modifications to the app cost-prohibitive for the mid-size Canadian museum, not only because of the actual costs to modify the app, but also given the unfavorable exchange rate of the Canadian dollar to the British pound sterling. (And so, even exchange rates became negotiators in the museum’s exhibitionary practices!) As will be described in chapter 4, these limitations engendered a state of “non-negotiation,” not only with respect to the app’s design but also its later modification. It is not surprising then, that the McCord would later engage another commercial sponsor in order to add more content to the app.

Negotiators in Curatorial Practices, Part 1: Selecting Historical Photographic Images By now, it should be evident that both human and non-human actors were engaged in making the MUM App, many of whom had been involved in making the Streetmuseum App. But there were yet more, sometimes unexpected, actors that negotiated the decisions about the MUM App’s display and its exhibitionary content. After engaging Brothers and Sisters, one of the next tasks for the McCord Museum was to determine which employees would work on the project. In this case, since the display was to be developed as an app, it was considered a “multimedia project” as opposed to an “exhibition.” As a result, the project was assigned to the project manager of Web and Multimedia, rather than a “curator.” Also involved were a project manager for the Montreal – Points of View exhibit, and, since the augmented reality app would showcase historical images from the Notman Photographic Archives, a senior cataloguer specializing in that archive. At the time, the project manager of Web and Multimedia was working on multiple projects and tasks, as were the other two employees, which left them with limited time to dedicate to the app project. Still, there was a keen interest at the museum to complete the project within a

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relatively short period of time (i.e., before the opening of Montreal – Points of View). Consequently, it was decided that an intern could be tasked with selecting and preparing content for the app, releasing the project managers and senior cataloguer from heavier involvement in curating content for display. While the activities of the intern would be overseen and approved by the more senior museum employees, no actual curator was substantially involved in making this display. Thus, making a “digital” display like the MUM App (rather than a “physical” one like the Montreal – Points of View permanent exhibit) led to curatorial practices being redistributed to non-curatorial employees at the museum. But to say that curating the MUM display became the task of an intern, the project managers, and the senior cataloguer would be only part of the story, because the selection of the photographic images and the development of the content for the app involved a much broader range of unexpected non-human actors. For example, the intern selected historical photographic images from a range of the collection that had already been digitized. About 80,000 images were digitized from a collection of about 1.3 million artifacts. Therefore, the type of display and, in this example, the digitized format of images in the collection acted as a negotiator in the selection of images. Upon selecting digitized photographic images that could potentially be displayed, the images were printed and laid out across a large paper map in order to make decisions about what best worked for the layout of the MUM App’s augmented reality exhibit (see figure 1.5). The map was used to ensure that the images selected were appropriately spread out across Montreal. It is interesting to note how many aspects related to making this “digital” display were in fact material. Curating the content for this “digital” display was similar to practices used in curating “physical” exhibits, like the Montreal – Points of View permanent exhibition (see appendix A for a detailed description of that exhibition’s design and layout). In the case of the MUM App, museum staff used not only printed “digital” artifacts and paper maps that delineated zones, but also “sticky notes” to tag locations across the map, notebooks in which to outline plans, and pens to write out those plans. All this happened in rooms where things could be laid out on tables – rather than “online.” Likewise, for

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Figure 1.5 Selecting images.

the Montreal – Points of View exhibit, floor plans were used to demarcate “zones” across the floor space of the exhibition room, and it was not uncommon to use sticky notes, notebooks, and pens to jot down those plans. These processes provide us with a particularly vivid example of how “digital” practices are not only accomplished through socio-technical processes but also deeply embedded in “socio-material” arrangements (Suchman 2007; see also Gillespie, Boczkowski, and Foot 2014a). While curating the content of the MUM App, those responsible considered that the central zones of the city would offer the greatest points of interest for possible “museum visitors.” The six zones identified – Sherbrooke Street West, Sherbrooke Street East, St Catherine Street, the McGill University campus, Mount Royal, and Old Mont-

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real – had the greatest number of historic sites in the city; hence, they were most often depicted in the historical photographic images held in the Notman Photographic Archives. With the map being used to delineate zones for the exhibit, geographic inscriptions became negotiators in the app’s display. Decisions on what images to select were also based on what images imagined audiences might like to see and where they would like to see them. Thus, these imagined audiences acted as negotiators as well.13 Further, themes also played a part in negotiating decisions about what images and locations would be of interest and bring the most aesthetic pleasure to imagined audiences. For example, it was decided that a theme of “natural disasters” would be interesting. And, given that photographs of natural disasters had been abundant in and around the area of Old Montreal, many photographic images that depicted floods, fires, and extraordinarily icy conditions were chosen for the MUM App (see, e.g., figure 1.6). But geographic inscriptions, imagined audiences, and themes were not the only non-human actors to negotiate decisions about the MUM App’s display content and their layout in the city: funds (and funders) would play a significant role here too. In particular, funding from McGill

Figure 1.6 “The river from Jacques Cartier Square.”

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University (made available for its 190th anniversary celebration) participated in the negotiations and decisions around how many images would be displayed around the university’s campus and ensured that historical images of the university, like ones of the Redpath Museum and old class photographs, would feature prominently in the exhibit. Thus, the app was a promotional tool for much more than just the McCord Museum and its permanent exhibition: it promoted, among others, McGill University, Telus, Historia, and, eventually, real estate owned by Ivanhoé Cambridge too! The images that would be selected for display were also negotiated along with the diverse technologies used – such as augmented reality. For example, in order for the app’s augmented reality technologies to work, vast networks of actors were needed to perform at just the right time and in just the right place. Such networks included Global Positioning Systems (GPS ) and therefore satellite technologies, vast computer networks, and cell tower receivers. These had to work with cellular service (provided by telecommunications companies) or Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity or a wireless local area network), and the mobile device, its sensors,14 operating system, and so on. And, in order for superimpositions to align on camera views, pattern-recognition technology detected and compared architectural details between entities identified in the images and those that matched in the architecture viewed through the camera. So, to cue the alignment, digitized images had to have similar characteristics to the particular architectural sites onto which they were overlaid. The architectural detail could be a whole or part of a structure or building, such as the balustrade that helps align the perfect superimposition of the image “Ms Grant à la balustrade” (figure 1.7). Because a match was required between entities in the images and the actual architecture of sites, some photographs could not be selected for display. As the project manager of Web and Multimedia explained, since some buildings and other structures in Montreal had been demolished over time, it made it more difficult to superimpose historical photographic images of those sites, thus excluding them from display. Therefore, technologies as well as the (changing) architecture of the sites in the city acted as negotiators of this display.

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Figure 1.7 “Ms Grant à la balustrade.”

At the same time, envisaged human bodies, along with their mobile devices and spatial positioning, were additional negotiators in the augmented reality display. Historical photographic images could best be viewed in augmented reality by bodies and mobile devices that were positioned to be in the same location, and to have the same angle and perspective, as the historical photographer who had taken the original photograph. Thus, envisaged human bodies – of the original photographer and the possible “visitor” to the site – acted as negotiators in the selection of images. As a result, photographs taken mainly at “street level” would be selected. So, body and spatial positioning were part of the negotiation of what images would be considered, selected, and displayed. Further, the “digital” space of the device acted as a negotiator too. While the limited size of exhibition spaces and display cases may restrict what artefacts are shown inside the rooms of the museum, one might assume that the possibilities for all “digital” displays are limitless. Not so. Since the digitized historical photographic images were packaged directly into the app, instead of being dynamically retrieved from an external repository, there was a limit in

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regard to the number of images that could be stored and displayed. This number was negotiated with the size thresholds for downloadable apps and the memory available on the mobile device. In the end, only 141 historical digital images were initially selected from the museum’s archives. Of the 141 selected, 124 were exterior views (which could be superimposed in three-dimensional view or displayed as two-dimensional images), while 17 were interior views (displayable only as two-dimensional images). Actual bodies worked in concert with a specialized camera in order to record geolocational and geospatial coordinates. The geolocational data (which included longitude and latitude information) were used to place pins across the pinned card (figure 1.4), and, when combined with the geospatial data (cardinal direction), these data provided the coordinates to help position the historical photographic images in three-dimensional view. To help gather these data, the museum used a Sony DSC -HX 5V camera, which came outfitted with a GPS receiver and compass.15 But, while a specialized camera collected coordinates, the practice of collecting geographic inscriptions still relied on bodies. Museum employees, including the intern, walked to each location and held the specialized camera up and positioned their bodies just so, in order for the required information to be captured. The same types of information had been collected for the Streetmuseum App, as the digital producer at Brothers and Sisters explained to me. But since there was a significantly wider area to cover in the city of London, and as the Streetmuseum App displayed more images, “ten runners” used London’s “Boris bikes” (the colloquial name for the city’s cycle-hire system) to get around the sprawling city. In the end, the analysis of actors involved in making the MUM App demonstrates that humans alone did not make the design and curatorial decisions. Rather, the evidence presented shows that non-human negotiators also had a substantial say in what could and would be displayed.

Negotiators in Curatorial Practices, Part 2: Creating Labels and Descriptions Along with selecting historical photographic images from the digitized portion of the Notman Photographic Archives, another task as-

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signed to the museum’s intern was to procure information about each selected image. This would then be used to compose titles and descriptive texts to be shown in the two- and three-dimensional views. For example, for two-dimensional displays of the images, the intern collected information about the date on which the original photograph was taken, the historical photographer’s name (if available, as some photographs were not attributed), the archival code, and any additional descriptive information that could be found, such as the location it was taken in, who or what was the subject, and what event the photograph was depicting. For three-dimensional augmented reality displays, only a short title would be displayed beneath the accompanying historical photographic image. Therefore, the availability of information for the intern certainly played a part in how images would be labelled and described. But other actors also negotiated the way in which titles and descriptions would be composed. The MUM App’s software inherited aspects of the Streetmuseum App’s design (and code). This was the case for the limits on the amount of text that could be displayed – that is, the character length of the titles and descriptions for the app’s two-dimensional and threedimensional views. These character limits had been established in relation to the size of the iPhone’s display, customized to the smallest of the viewing devices. By limiting the amount of text that could be displayed, type could be overlaid on top of the image without the need to scroll up or down. In the end, the maximum character length allocated for the title display was 60 characters, though, as the project manager of Web and Multimedia admitted, shorter 45–50 character titles were aesthetically ideal. Given these limitations, the titles were, at times, cursory and simplistic, such as “Roman Catholic nuns” or “Science students.” Even the more detailed descriptions about photographic images were short, as the code allowed for a maximum of 240 characters. While most of the descriptive information was garnered from the archive, other commentary was created based on the mobile device’s particular features, activities that could be entertaining, and, again, imagined audiences. For example, some descriptions reflected commentary on how the mobile device could be used, such as “Why not join the group and take a souvenir photo?” or “Even today, the lookout

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is still one of Montrealers’ favourite places to be photographed. Come and have your picture taken with the Group!” Of course, the intern would work with the three more senior employees at the McCord Museum to approve the titles and descriptions before they were sent to Brothers and Sisters and Thumbspark. So the intern, the project managers, and the senior cataloguer, as well as the Streetmuseum App’s design and code, the character limits, the information available in the archive, the size of the iPhone’s screen and its camera features, and the need to avoid scrolling, all acted as negotiators in creating labels and descriptive texts for the MUM App. Ultimately, this meant that only some limited histories could and would be told, while others were not – and, therefore, the outcomes of such negotiations make up part of this display’s “digital” politics, as I explore in chapter 4.

MUM’s Test Build App Once the photographic images were selected, their geolocational and geospatial information collected, and their accompanying texts created, all this information would be sent to Brothers and Sisters, which, in turn, would forward the items to Thumbspark in order for the app to be coded. Using the information provided, Thumbspark could develop a “test build app” for the McCord Museum to perform trial runs. The initial test build app was sent to the McCord Museum in March 2011, and another later in the year, in June. These tests participated in negotiating what objects on display worked and which did not, and therefore what collections would be displayed or not. It used a scoring system: a “Good” score for images that positioned well on screen, and a “Poor” score for those that did not. The test build app was further outfitted with a smart feedback system that sent automatic emails with results from these tests directly back to the developers. In May, the McCord Museum provided Brothers and Sisters with additional information and, by the end of June 2011, Thumbspark had developed a more robust second version of the test build app for the museum’s employees to test. This version of the app was sent to the museum along with a representative from Brothers and Sisters. While the test build app could have been sent electronically to the museum, the representative was sent along in order not only to assist with the trial

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runs but, as the project manager of Web and Multimedia remarked in an interview, to lower the expectations of the museum upon seeing it function. As the McCord would soon learn from the representative, GPS technologies were still not yet precise enough to determine exact locations, causing images to be inaccurately displayed in augmented reality. But such errors could also be a result of signalling interference caused by tall buildings in central locations or bad weather. The representative was thus sent to allay major concerns and potential uneasiness regarding the forthcoming release of the app to the public. It is interesting to note again that a “physical” escort brought the “digital” test build app to the museum. Again, as with the “physical” and tactile aspects of the “digital” curatorial processes and practices, we see how activities related to digital media technologies are couched in socio-material practices. Subsequent modifications made by the museum (for example, to the text displayed) were sent to Brothers and Sisters electronically in July, which were followed by a final set of changes in August. Thumbspark would thereafter incorporate changes into the deployable version of the MUM App, which would be released for “sale” as a free download on the App Store platform in September 2011. It had taken about ten months to make the MUM App from the point of initial contact with Brothers and Sisters to its final release. As mentioned above, to “release” the app meant to have it approved not only by Brothers and Sisters and the McCord Museum, but also by Apple, since all apps must be formally approved before they are posted for sale on the App Store. In this case, the “seller,” which was a developer, submitted the MUM App to the App Store – the reason for which it was attributed to “Thumbspark Limited.” Admittedly, while in conversation with the head of IT , we often referred to the developer of the app as if “he” was a “sole developer” – and with the name “Thumbspark”! It might have been a linguistic short cut, but it is also an example of how, even inadvertently, the cultural belief that a “sole male author” is the “genius” or “geek” tech guy behind a “digital innovation” is reinforced. This happens frequently, particularly with news headlines projecting the myth – much like the subheading of the Atlantic’s article “The Genius of Steve Jobs”: “the man who ousted him from Apple reflects on the CeO ’s creative brilliance” (Hudson 2010). In the

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case of the MUM App, not only was Thumbspark a company, rather than a single developer, but this study has shown that myriad human and non-human actors negotiated not only the app’s design and curation, but also the code, standards, and frameworks it reincorporated.

Conclusion As we have seen in this reconstruction of the making of the MUM App, the exhibit’s design, curation, development, and release on the App Store were negotiated by myriad heterogeneous actors. The concept for this augmented reality app came to the McCord Museum through industry and media reports that were not neutral mediators. The Horizon reports were prepared by a consortium of technology companies, the NMC , which had an interest in distributing information related to such apps. Tellingly, the MUM App would be entangled with the very mobile devices and platforms that were sold and managed by companies that formed the NMC , including Apple, a point I will discuss further in chapter 4. In addition, media reports on the “success” of the Streetmuseum App would nudge the McCord toward making an augmented reality app – and to hire the British-based companies Brothers and Sisters and Thumbspark to remake the Streetmuseum App into the MUM App. This decision established Brothers and Sisters and Thumbspark, in addition to Apple, as gatekeepers to the app’s design, curation, and development as well as its release and modification. As a consequence, the MUM App would inherit not only the Streetmuseum App’s design but also the aesthetics and standards of Appleapproved apps. Given limited funds, the McCord could not make significant modifications to the initial design created for the Streetmuseum App or afford major modifications to the digital exhibit after the release of the app, despite several initial sponsorships, including that of McGill University. Indeed, the MUM App would continue to entangle the museum with commercial organizations. Power was thus displaced across a network in a way that allowed foreign companies and sponsors a say in – and, in some cases, the last word on – what got done. While media reports and commercial organizations acted as negotiators in making the MUM App, the museum’s own mission and goals were also negotiators. The decision to advance more multi-

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media projects reflected the shift in the museum’s mission from a focus on “education” and “research” in the twentieth century to one that sought to produce more contemporary, interactive, and immersive experiences in the twenty-first century. The case of the development of the MUM App also brings attention to the benefits and challenges of tracing processes of remediation. Importantly, this “symmetrical” analysis, which has examined both human and non-human actors, has revealed the complex entanglements that can be made in remaking “digital” displays. These unveilings could have been discerned only by following heterogeneous actors, without which the labyrinthine negotiations and entanglements would not have been easily ascertained. But it is challenging, if not impossible, to trace all of the actors involved, and I have here traced only a portion of the actors that negotiated this remediation. This analysis shows that tracing negotiators can be political work, raising many questions: Which actors are featured prominently? Which are left out? What kind of critical picture does the analysis paint? These questions are not easily answered in a situation with so many actors and so many “black boxes.” While this reconstruction of how the MUM App was made has demonstrated that novel digital media technologies emerge through a refashioning of an actor-network, or a “remediation,” it has also highlighted how such processes occur, not only when “new media” emerge but also when innovations are repeated. This chapter has illustrated the overall complexity of how these processes play out in often invisible ways. It has made visible the entanglements between the McCord Museum and other organizations, and their competing social, cultural, economic, and political interests, as well as the consequences of such entanglements for the MUM App’s design, curation, and development. In addition, it has considered how curatorial roles and practices were redistributed and decision-making power redelegated across human actors and non-human actors in a way that was hidden from view. Further, this analysis has shown that the remaking of this “digital” display involved both socio-technical and socio-material processes and practices. This was evidenced, for example, in the process of selecting and arranging the display of “digital” images, which was done in a tactile and material way by printing out images and laying them out

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on a paper map placed on a table. It was also demonstrated in the process of collecting geolocational and geospatial information, for which museum staff utilized their bodies to obtain the correct positioning of the camera device employed to capture this information. Therefore, while digital media technologies appear to exist in a “dematerialized” form, they are actually couched in both socio-technical and socio-material arrangements. The MUM App and the Streetmuseum App before it were developed for different museums with distinct collections and for different cities with particular architectural elements that would serve as the backdrop for the respective digital exhibits. Thus, although it involved actors that made the earlier app, the process of making the MUM App also brought together “new” actors in novel rearrangements. Given that these actors were brought into negotiation with each other, the MUM App can be characterized as a “technical object,” as described by Akrich: “technical objects participate in building heterogeneous networks that bring together actants of all types and sizes, whether human or nonhuman” (1992, 206). Important here is not only the role that technical objects play in these networks to “build, maintain, and stabilize a structure of links between diverse actants” (206) but also how uncertain the outcomes of their negotiations may be. While the making of the MUM App was never described by any interviewees as an “experiment” (it was considered a repeat display), the app brought together heterogeneous actors in experimental ways, in “experimental assemblages” and with uncertain, unexpected, and unpredictable outcomes (Herman 2019) – a point I will discuss further in chapter 5. This experiment, however, did not end with the remaking of the app: it continued with the release of the app on the App Store and with its employment in practice. To explore this further, the next two chapters examine the MUM App’s role, among other actors, in how (museum) things were subsequently rescripted and reclassified and how (city) spaces were reordered and sites rewritten.

ch APte R 2

Reclassifying and Rescripting Museum Things In the previous chapter, I reconstructed how the MUM App was made; here, I examine how the app worked, how it was understood, and how it was used in practice. The analysis commences at the point where the app was released on the App Store, with a discussion of how it could be downloaded in preparation for use. I also explain the two main “programs of action” (Akrich and Latour 1992) inscribed during the design of the app: the “navigational platform,” which used a pinned card to indicate the locations across the city where the augmented reality “exhibit” could be viewed, and the “display platform,” which showed historical photographic images in two- or three-dimensional view. In this analysis, I again pay close attention to the actors involved – that is, the bodies, code, mobile devices, institutions, vast infrastructures, and so on, that negotiated how the MUM App worked in practice. Next, I discuss my own experience of using the app. As the analysis of my experience proceeds, the list of (sometimes unexpected) actors extends to a boundless network that includes the weather and the sun – each either enabling or disrupting, and occasionally preventing, the novel augmented reality display from occurring. By charting this extensive network of actors, the analysis unveils the precariousness of the app, its network, and the emerging practice of viewing collections in augmented reality across the city. Following the discussion on how the MUM App works (or, in some cases, not!), I examine how the app was understood and used by participants in practice. The process of configuring the MUM App did not end with the design, curation, or development phases of this innovation. Rather, such processes continued in practice, in several ways. First, as museum things – like the MUM App “exhibit,” the “museum

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visitor,” and the “museum visit” – were redistributed across the city of Montreal, their classifications were renegotiated through the novel rearrangements that participants found themselves in. Step by step, this chapter explores how the “museum visit” became a “tour,” and the “museum visitors” became “tourists,” in particular situations. Similarly, while the app was a “promotional tool” in relation to the work of the creative agency and museum employees, and an “exhibit” in the museum’s press releases to the public, the app, in practice, became other more uncertain hybrids, including “a tour museum-type thing . . . 3-D type thing.” While such reclassifications were situated outcomes, they were also provisional and tentative, and, given the novelty of the practice, how they would settle in the future remained uncertain. But while considering how such classifications of museum things changed in this novel practice, the study also points to how things can exist as “multiple” (Mol 2002) within reassembled networks of actors across different practices, times, and settings. The analysis then turns to how participants used the MUM App to engage in its two main programs of action – that is, navigation around the city and the display of collections. As the case unfolds, it explores how programs of action changed in practice, as participants (along with other actors) rescripted the app, a term I use to refer to employing a program of action (or script) that differs from the one inscribed when initially designed – and that could also be considered an “antiprogram” (Akrich and Latour 1992) or “practices of design-in-use” (Suchman 2012). Finally, by taking stock of the findings in this case study, I also debate the proposal that digital media technologies may be “domesticated.”

How the MUM App Worked: Revealing the Network and Infrastructures The MUM App worked within networks of heterogeneous actors. In this chapter, I draw on documentary analysis, interviews with museum employees, and my own experiences when downloading and using the app, to reveal how this process played out in practice. I describe the devices, platforms, institutions, and infrastructures in which the app was embedded after its release on the App Store and its subsequent download to the iPhone mobile device. I also explain

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its two main programs of action – navigation around the city and the display of collections – as a way to draw out how actors negotiated the workings of these features. To further help unveil the actors involved, I discuss diaries that describe my own use of the app while navigating the city and viewing collections in augmented reality (see appendix B). These accounts are important because they not only point to more heterogeneous actors that participated in the workings of the MUM App, but also present observations that would have been otherwise challenging to collect. For example, in appendix B, I provide screenshots I took while using the app, which I could not have collected during the participant study. Through these analyses, I look to reveal the complex actor-networks that this innovative app brought together in practice, including the immense infrastructures in which it was embedded and that assisted in making it work. But while I have looked to describe the app’s extensive networks of actors, the analysis should not be treated as exhaustive. Given that the app’s network extended beyond the boundaries of even time and space, this analysis cannot point to all of the actors involved. Rather, the aim here is to show the complexity of the app’s network – its extension and vastness – and, given the sheer number of heterogeneous actors, the precariousness of the practice of viewing the museum’s collections in augmented reality with the MUM App.

Downloading the MUM App: Platforms, Infrastructures, and Manipulating Bodies The release of the MUM App on the App Store platform meant that the app would be placed within an extensive retail network, albeit as a “free” app (though not actually “free,” since an Apple mobile device and a data plan were needed). Behind the App Store retail platform lay an extensive network of actors at Apple, including employees, technologies, office buildings, policies, and so on, as well as a wider network of institutions that supported, negotiated, and regulated such online retail exchanges – including banks, regulatory organizations, and laws, as well as their infrastructures. Further, when the app was downloaded from the App Store to an Apple device – such as the iPhone or the iPad – it was re-embedded in Apple’s device networks as well as

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additional infrastructures that enabled the devices to work. To download the MUM App, the mobile device first needed to be “powered up.” In Montreal, this meant hooking up the device to an electrical power source, which would have been provided by Hydro-Québec, a vast networked infrastructure that itself included hydro facilities, company employees, office buildings, electrical cables and wires, computer systems, outlets, safety standards, and so on. The user’s device had to either have access to a Wi-Fi network or be subscribed to a cellular data plan (provided by a telecommunications company). In Montreal, huge telecommunication companies such as Rogers and Bell provide such services through similarly extensive networks of actors that included extensive infrastructures. Thus, it may be said that, for the MUM App to be downloaded, vast networks of actors that extended across such broad infrastructures had to be engaged and involved – negotiating and working on at least an intermittent basis. While it is perhaps a futile exercise to try to account for all the actors that make up vast infrastructures, it is important to point to them even in a partial way. This is because infrastructures are often taken for granted, and the actors involved and the work they do remain “invisible” (Star 1991; Star and Ruhleder 1994) – at least until their moments of breakdown (Star 1999). Further, the full extent of the makeup of infrastructures is invisible when they are understood as just “the collective equipment necessary to human activities, such as buildings, roads, bridges, rail tracks, channels, ports, and communications networks” (Bowker et al. 2009, 97). As Bowker et al. explain, the perspective on infrastructures needs to be widened: In our analysis we extend conventional understandings of infrastructure as “tubes and wires” to the technologies and organizations which enable knowledge work: supercolliders, orbiting telescopes, supercomputer centers, polar research stations, national laboratories, and other research instruments of “big” science. In addition our image would be incomplete without the variety of scientific organizations, such as funding agencies, professional societies, libraries and databases, scientific publishing houses, review systems, and so on, that are inherent to the functioning of science. As Leigh Star has noted, infrastructure is

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relational: the daily work of one person is the infrastructure of another (Star and Ruhleder 1996). Finally, we further open the conceptual umbrella of infrastructure to include the individuals – designers and developers, users and mediators, managers and administrators – in existing and emergent roles associated with information infrastructure. (98) Today, infrastructures may also be considered as, or as related to, “information infrastructures,” which “refers loosely to digital facilities and services usually associated with the internet: computational services, help desks, and data repositories to name a few” (97–8). And so, as a broad category, infrastructures may be understood as “pervasive enabling resources in network form” (98, italics in the original), and “understanding the nature of infrastructural work involves unfolding the political, ethical, and social choices that have been made throughout its development” (99). As the following analysis will show, accounting for the vastness of networked infrastructures allows us to unveil their precarity. To download the MUM App, the infrastructures that made it possible for my device to work – such as the hydro company that allowed the battery to be charged and the telecommunications company (Rogers) that provided the data plan – were all brought into action. So was my body, which was needed to manipulate the device. Before I downloaded the app onto my iPhone, I used my thumb to rouse the device by pressing the home button. Then, with the tip of my index finger, I tapped my passcode into the device. When the device presented me with the home page, the App Store icon was prominently placed on my screen – still in the same place where Apple had installed it. I tapped it and entered the name of the MUM App in the search box. As I was presented with a list, I swiped to scroll and find the MUM App, and then tapped twice to select and download it. And so, in the process of downloading the app, my body was put to work right away. The device’s screen, code, and operating system came into play, responding to each of my swipes and taps. In the background, the App Store communicated with its software and servers to present me with options, and this was done over the cellular connection provided by my telecommunications company. Once the MUM App was

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downloaded on my device, I tapped the corresponding icon on the iPhone screen to open it.

How the MUM App Was Inscribed: A Navigation Platform and a Display Platform Upon opening the MUM App, I had to select a preferred language by tapping the screen. In response, the device informed the app of the request to show the next screen, which would be the map or “pinned card.” This was an aspect of its “navigational platform” (November, Camacho-Hübner, and Latour 2010), which could also be considered as a “centre of calculation” (Latour 1987). When the MUM App was created, it was inscribed with a navigational program of action or script in mind, one that allows the person with the app to use the pinned card to navigate the city and find where collections could be viewed in augmented reality. For November, Camacho-Hübner, and Latour (2010), “digital maps” (much like the MUM App’s pinned card) have changed the mapping experience: While in precomputer times (“BC ,” as geeks say) a map was a certain amount of folded paper you could look at from above or pinned down on some wall, today the experience we have of engaging with mapping is to log into some databank, which gathers information in real time through some interface (usually a computer). Printing has become optional. The paper map, which was so central to the mapping experience, is now just one of the many outputs that the digital banks may provide, something we can switch on or off for convenience – just as we do with our printer – but that no longer defines the whole enterprise. (583) While a “digital map” still offers some similarities with the “paper map,” the former presents dynamic information that was not possible before: digital maps draw information from diverse databanks and present information that can be dynamically recalculated at every moment, in real time. Such navigational platforms are characterized by the presence of databanks, an interface (for data retrieval, handling, or calculation), a dashboard for users, and many outputs that may

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be customized for diverse users. So, for November, Camacho-Hübner, and Latour, looking at a “digital map” means “logging into a navigational platform” (2010, 584). At the same time, it can also be said that “the older BC mapping was already providing its users with all the benefits of a navigational platform” (584; emphasis in original). But, while paper maps can be considered navigational platforms too, since they were always “a rather complex and variegated interface of calculation for navigational purposes” (November, Camacho-Hübner, and Latour 2010, 584), “digital” maps have accelerated the moves of the navigational platform in such a way that they “have made more salient the presence of [the] long chain of production that existed already in the past” (584). In other words, if you could easily forget the masses of institutions, skills, conventions, and instruments that went into the making of beautifully printed atlases it is much more difficult to do so now that we are constantly reminded of the number of satellites presiding over our GPS , of the sudden disappearance of network coverage, of the variations in data quality, of the irruption of censorship, of the inputs of final users in sending data back and so on. As usual, far from increasing the feeling of dematerialization, digital techniques have rematerialized the whole chain of production. (584; emphasis in original) It is thus rather impossible to ignore today the “long and costly chain of production that requires people, skills, energy, software, and institutions and on which the constantly changing quality of data always depends” (584). In other words, “digital maps” expose the work involved to produce them. However, whether “digital maps” will produce anything at all, and what information will be presented, can also be more uncertain, compared to paper maps, as I will explain later in this chapter. As November, Camacho-Hübner, and Latour (2010) explain, the “mapping impulse” has always had six essential features: acquisition of data, data management, recalculation of data, printout, signposts, and navigational usage. It is worthwhile to understand how the MUM App’s pinned card reflects this list, as it makes visible the MUM App’s

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“long and costly chain of production” – that is, the extensive network of heterogeneous actors needed to make navigation with the pinned card possible. The first characteristic of navigational platforms is that they acquire data. In the MUM App, the pinned card did this by drawing data that were not only written into the app’s code (such as the geolocational and geospatial coordinates for where collections were displayed) but also geolocational data collected and transmitted through the device from the interconnected institutions and vast infrastructures that it communicated with and through, such as GPS (with its networked satellites in space) and telecommunication service providers (with radio towers), among others. The second characteristic is the management of data. In reference to the MUM App, this included the management of data stored in the app’s code in the device or data stored and communicated by other actors, like GPS . Data were also sent to Google Analytics, to be stored, calculated, and presented as statical information on standard dashboards that could be then used by museum employees to manage the app, as will be discussed in chapter 4. Thus, another platform and company, Google, with its own infrastructure (of buildings, servers, computers, code, employees, and so on), was also brought into action. The many sensors of the device were also at work here, determining the location, direction, and motion of the device.1 But data were also produced as the device was carried around and manipulated by a body – let us not ignore that humans are needed to make technologies work. The third characteristic is the recalculation of data. Here, for example, data about the device’s location (its geolocational and geospatial positioning) are calculated in order to display a pin on the pinned card based on the location of the device. The fourth characteristic is the printout. Though a printout is not made directly available through the mobile device, screenshots were possible (see, e.g., the screenshot of the pinned card in figure 1.4). The fifth characteristic is signposts, which, on the MUM App’s “digital map,” included a blue dot (indicating the location of the device), red pins (showing the location where historical photographic images were displayed in augmented reality), and street names, which corresponded to the “physical” street signs around the city. The final characteristic of navigational platforms is its actual “usage,” and, of

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course, the MUM App was inscribed for use as a way to navigate the augmented reality displays across the city. The MUM App was also inscribed as a “display platform.” As part of this platform, if a pin were tapped on the pinned card, a twodimensional image of a historical photograph would be displayed on screen. The photograph could be viewed with or without a description (see figure I.2 for a photograph with its description). If, by contrast, the 3D View button were tapped, extraordinary chains of production would be activated. The app would request geolocational and geospatial information from the mobile device, and, in turn, the device would engage its wider network to display and position superimpositions of images through its camera. The device could communicate through local Wi-Fi networks, though it was more likely engaged with cellular service (given it was used across the city). The mobile device, including all of its sensors, was also at work here, determining the location and direction of the device along with GPS . Camera technologies, like pattern recognition, would also come into play in order to place and align images in augmented reality. As the body continued to move throughout the city, all these actors were continuously engaging with each other – communicating, negotiating, responding, calculating, producing, and presenting. Thus, the user’s body (which touched the screen and moved the device to different locations), the app (including its application code and images), the device (with its operating system and sensors), and incredibly vast networked infrastructures that extended well beyond the museum and the city were all needed to negotiate and co-orchestrate the display of collections in augmented reality. But, as I explain in the next section, there were some unexpected actors involved in making this “exhibit” work.

How the MUM App Worked in Practice: My Firsthand Accounts of Visiting the “Exhibit” Using the MUM App myself provided perspectives that I could not have had while observing participants in the study. So here I discuss my own firsthand experiences with the MUM App with reference to the diarized accounts that are detailed in appendix B. Each account

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took place in one of the six zones in Montreal where a selection of historical photographic images had been geolocationally and geospatially placed for augmented reality display (see figure B.1 for the locations of zones). I used the app in both of the available languages – English and French – and captured screenshots to document outcomes. Together, the written accounts and the screenshots illustrate the experience of engaging with the app to view the collection. What was striking to me, yet again, was the complexity of the vast network(s) of actors that this seemingly “simple” app assembled. These accounts allowed me to illustrate more about the contributions of various actors to how the app worked in practice, while also illustrating any anomalies that would have been difficult to capture during the participant study. Given the previous discussion, it might be expected that mobile devices, the app’s code, cellular service providers, GPS , satellites, human bodies, and so on, negotiated how the MUM App worked in practice, but the personal accounts analyzed here bring to light how viewing the MUM App’s augmented reality “exhibit” required a host of other often taken-for-granted actors, such as buildings in the city, the weather, the season, the time of day, and even the presence or position of the sun – each enabling the “museum visit” or disrupting it or prohibiting it from happening. The first unexpected actors I noticed were the tall buildings in the city. Standing outside the McCord Museum and looking at the map view on “Day 1,” the map showed my location – as a blue dot – as being inside the Museum (see figure B.2). And when I tapped the 3D View button below the pinned card, several of the historical photographic images available for display overlapped and intersected with each other, making for a poor superimposition experience (see figure B.3). As the representative from Brothers and Sisters had mentioned to the McCord Museum, this effect was partially a result of poor GPS signals in the urban centre. But GPS and its immense network of actors and infrastructures were not the only ones to blame for inaccurately negotiating the display: architecture was at fault here too. There were too many tall buildings around, which interfered with the signals. In other words, the tall buildings in the urban centre were negotiating how the app worked too. The season of the year and the weather also played a part. Even in October, Montreal’s cold weather was making it

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uncomfortable to manipulate the mobile device. As my hands became increasingly cold, I often returned sooner than expected to the warm rooms of the McCord Museum, after seeing only a portion of the images displayed in augmented reality. So, outdoor temperatures also became an enabler or disabler of the “visit” to the MUM App’s augmented reality displays. The sun also became an unexpected actor. On Day 4, I found myself walking late in the day to see a historical photographic image of William Notman’s residence in augmented reality (this was of particular interest because the Notman Photographic Archives had been named after him). But, because it was so late in the day, and relatively dark outside, the superimposition did not work as well as it should have (see figure B.13). Light was needed to make the pattern recognition technology work. Therefore, the sun was a negotiating actor in this practice too. Visiting the MUM App’s augmented reality displays took much physical effort at times. It was no easy stroll around the serpentine exhibition spaces of the museum – rather, it involved trekking around the big city centre in heavy winter-ready clothing, taking on the cold weather, and exerting much effort to see faraway displays. Take for example Day 6, when I journeyed up the many sets of stairs to Mount Royal (see a picture of the last set of stairs in figure B.16). But I was perhaps most surprised to discover that, in order for this “museum visit” to happen, I had to do much more work than just tapping on the screen of my iPhone. I had to resolve all the technical issues myself – for example, I had to assess why the digital camera shutters on the iPhone did not open after tapping the 3D View button (see figure B.10), why the exit button disappeared while in augmented reality view (see figure B.11), and why some augmented reality superimpositions did not work (figure B.15). Further, I had to secure my own equipment and myself – to make sure I safely crossed the street and that I was not mugged as I flashed my (at the time) expensive Apple iPhone around. I had to also make sure that the lighting was right and the equipment was charged. This displacement of work roles, tasks, and responsibilities was the result of the redistribution of bodies, practices, collections, and technologies outside the museum. Those tasks that are usually taken care of by museum employees were, in this case, redistributed across the

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MUM App’s novel assemblages of heterogeneous actors, including vast infrastructures. As a result, I had much more work to do to ensure that the app and the “museum visit” happened. I had to learn skills, perform tasks, and take on responsibilities that were previously performed by the museum’s curators, technicians, and security officers. For example, in addition to resolving technical issues and ensuring my safety (and that of the device), I had to ensure that collections were seen in the best order possible – what curators usually consider when laying out displays across a “physical” exhibition space. An interior exhibition space would also have ensured appropriate lighting and comfortable temperatures, but, outdoors, both the sun and the weather played key roles in how the app worked. This displacement of roles, tasks, and responsibilities across unexpected actors again demonstrates the precarious nature of the novel practice: at any point one (or more) actor(s) could make the app fail – in part (for example, when the camera shutter did not open or the exit button disappeared) or in its entirety (when the pattern recognition technology did not work at night and the “museum visit” could not happen). This complex displacement was not planned. Rather, it was a subtle yet extraordinary consequence that was evident only post-release, in practice, and in situ. Some of these displacements became even more pronounced in the participant accounts, discussed next. Reconfigurations: How Museum Things Transform The MUM App’s augmented reality display involved “museum visitors” doing the “museum visit” practice outside the museum. But was the person viewing the MUM App’s display still a “museum visitor”? And was this practice still a “museum visit”? This section explores how museum things were reclassified and the MUM App rescripted in practice. As bodies, practices, collections, and technologies were redistributed across the city of Montreal, existing classifications, such as the “museum visitor” and the “museum visit,” were destabilized in the novel socio-technical and socio-material rearrangements that participants found themselves in. And so, much like how a “Volkswagen bus” became a work of “installation art” called Mückenbus when moved into an art exhibition hall at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de

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Paris – as Alebena Yaneva’s (2003) study showed us – museum things got reclassified and became other things in the process of their “doing” across the city. Further, while the initial design inscribed the MUM App with two programs of action – navigation around the city with the pinned card and the display of collections in two-dimensional view and three-dimensional augmented reality view – anti-programs were created as participants rescripted the MUM App according to their own strategies and whims. The present analysis draws from observations made while filming eleven participants – seven individuals and two couples – using the app and from their responses to a short questionnaire. For practical reasons, I limited all participants to viewing collections in only one area of the “exhibit.” First, it was reasonable to ask participants to engage in the study for only about one hour – a forty-minute walk to and back from Zone 1 and about twenty minutes to respond to the questionnaire. So, all “museum visits” with the MUM App would commence at the McCord Museum, move along Sherbrooke Street to the McGill University campus – with its park-like fields and historic buildings – and then wind around and back to Sherbrooke Street before returning to the museum. I explained to all participants in advance how to use the iPhone device and the MUM App, by providing an overview of the app’s main features, including the pinned card, which was to be used for finding images on display, and the 3D View button, which would allow for participants to view images in augmented reality. It could be said that I revealed to participants how the app was inscribed. So, in this respect, it did not come as a surprise later on that eight of the eleven participants found the app “easy to use.”2 Most participants also responded that they had visited the McCord Museum before,3 and, given that they all lived locally, participants were at the very least “somewhat familiar” with the city.4

Reclassifying Museum Things: Calling All Spokespersons! Despite the explanations I provided to all participants about how to use the MUM App, and in spite of the fact that all participants were locals, and at least “somewhat familiar” with both the McCord Museum and the city of Montreal, the “museum visit” with the MUM App made

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participants feel uneasy. Some participants felt they had “never done anything like this” before. They found the experience “strange” and surmised that passers-by would find it “weird” also. Soon after starting to use the MUM App to view collections in augmented reality, two participants made the following observations: Participant 2: I’ve never done anything like this, so it’s strange. Participant 4: If someone were doing this around me, I’d probably feel a bit weird. Participants also worried that others would not understand what they were doing. They thought passers-by would think they were filming or taking photographs of them: Participant 1: I feel like people think I am filming them. Participant 2: I don’t want people to think I am filming them. Participant 4: I think everyone is thinking I’m taking a photo of them. Noticeably, passers-by indeed did not know what participants were doing – that there was a “museum visit” to an “exhibit” going on. Instead, passers-by began to wait for participants to finish “taking photographs” or ducked out of the way of the “camera’s film shot.” This only made participants more nervous, and they repeated how uncomfortable they felt: Participant 1: People really think I’m filming. Participant 4: I kind of get nervous that people think I am taking a photo of them or something. Participants eventually had to address passers-by: Participant 2: I’m not filming you. Participant 7: No. I’m not filming you, that’s okay. Participant 9: Non. C’est correct, je ne suis pas en train de filmer. (No. That’s fine, I’m not filming.) Participant 10: No, no, no . . . go ahead.

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These situations were perhaps the first pieces of evidence of the destabilization of museum things, as “museum visitors,” the “museum visit,” and the “exhibit” were mobilized beyond the museum’s doors. While I was on McGill University’s campus with Participant 9, a passer-by even asked the participant and me whether we wanted our picture taken together. I was about to decline this offer, but Participant 9 jumped in and responded before I could. Feeling compelled to explain or “translate” (Callon 1999) to the passer-by what he was doing, he said, “No. Actually I’m doing a tour museum-type thing . . . 3-D type thing.” In this moment, Participant 9 established himself as a “spokesperson” (Callon 1999, 81), offering his own translation of “museum visit” – though, given his inexactness, it was a provisional classification. But there was another occasion when Participant 9 seemed more certain. In this exchange, I asked Participant 9 if he would use the MUM App again. He responded, “Definitely, with tours, new people coming to the area.” This was similar to how Participant 4 responded to the same question: “I figure it would be cool to do like a tour of Montreal, kind of following this. A walking tour.” So, by mobilizing bodies, practices, collections, and technologies across the city, the “exhibit” became “a tour museum-type thing . . . 3-D type thing,” the “museum visit” a “tour,” and the “museum visitor” a “tourist,” even though all participants were locals. This reconfiguration was negotiated through interactions between the participants and passers-by. But such reconfigurations were not a result of humans alone. For example, the iPhone mobile device was not only necessary for this “museum visit” (or “tour”) to happen, but it also cued the passers-by (and the “participants”) as to what this novel performance might be understood as. This was a tricky thing, as the iPhone can act as many things, depending on the practice. In the past, the iPhone has acted (at the very least) as a “phone” (when it is held to the ear or spoken into) but also a “camera” (when it is held up and the screen is tapped); a “texting device” (when tapping its screen, often with thumbs); a “music listening device” (usually when earphones are also in use, and the head or body is bopping to a rhythm); a “gaming device” (commonly when held horizontally, with areas of the screen intently or intensely pressed); a “navigational device” for finding directions (when held while walking and looking up and down at the device), and

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a “computing device” for accessing the internet or using various applications (when tapping on the screen or using the integrated keyboard, but generally while sitting or standing in one place). But in this case, using the camera of the device, coupled with long periods standing in one place, suggested that the performance was an activity closer to a “tour” thing than a “museum” thing – and, thus, the participants became “tourists” rather than “museum visitors” (no matter whether the app user was local or not). But such reconfigurations were sporadic, provisional, tentative, and situated – and this is understandable, given the novelty of this practice, which had yet to stabilize. Yet these reconfigurations still reveal, as Annemarie Mol explains, that “ontology is not given in the order of things, but that, instead, ontologies are brought into being, sustained, or allowed to wither away in common, day-to-day, sociomaterial practices” (2002, 6). Put another way, “reality doesn’t precede practices but is a part of them” (6). So for the reconfigurations activated here to persist, the reclassification of participants and the novel practice could only stabilize by being “enacted, enacted again, and enacted yet again” (Law 2008, 635; see also Mol 2002), or risk withering away. This case also shows us how some realities gain prominence over others. As John Law explains, realities “may be played off against one another” because, importantly, “some will be preferable to others” (2008, 637). To understand how and why this might happen, consider how the MUM App was reclassified in relation to particular socio-technical and socio-material rearrangements. Recall that the digital producer at the creative agency, Brothers and Sisters, revealed to me that the app was a public relations “promotional tool” for the opening of the permanent exhibit Montreal – Points of View (like the Streetmuseum App before it had been a “promotional tool” for the Museum of London’s reopening of the Galleries of Modern London permanent exhibit). But when the MUM App was released on the App Store, it became just an “app.” And when it was described by the McCord Museum in its public relations releases, it became an “exhibit,” a novel way to view the museum’s historical photographic collections. This last classification was a much-preferred “reality” for the museum when speaking to its audiences. In each of these scenarios, there was a different “spokesperson” for each preferred reality –

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the digital producer, the App Store, and the museum. But in the novel practice of viewing the collections in the city, such ontologies were disassembled and reassembled: here the “promotional tool”/“app”/“exhibit” became also “a tour museum-type thing . . . 3-D type thing” – or “tour,” for short. At the same time, “participants” in this study could be variously considered “museum visitors” or “tourists” as much as “participants” in the study and “users” of the MUM App.

Rescripting the MUM App “Museum Visit”: How It Happened in Practice As described above, when the MUM App was created, it was inscribed with two main programs of action or scripts. After “museum visitors” opened the app and selected a language, they would be presented with the pinned card. From that point, they could use the app either as a “navigational platform” by consulting the map view to move around the city and find augmented reality displays or as a “display platform” to see historical photographic images in two-dimensional view (by tapping a red pin) or in three-dimensional augmented reality view (by tapping the 3D View button). But, while it may have been assumed in the design that “museum visitors” would view displays around the city in programmatic fashion, the participants in this study demonstrated that “visits” occurred in a much less uniform way. For instance, participants would develop their own “strategies” because, despite having heard my explanation about how to use the app, they were still unsure about how to do the “museum visit” with the app, as revealed by the first question a participant asked once she tapped her way to the pinned card: Participant 1: So, while I am walking with the App, am I supposed to look just at the dot [implying the pins on the pinned card]? Or should I . . . it would show I guess 3-D images as I am walking? Having already explained the MUM App’s main features and its two inscribed programs of action, I asked her to decide on her own how to proceed:

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Researcher: It’s up to you, how do you think you should use it? Participant 1: I think if I look just at the dots, I miss all the outside. I miss the point. After walking a little further, and viewing some more images, she began to vocalize her strategies, describing how she was going to use the app to “visit” the rest of the “exhibit”: Participant 1: So I guess my strategy will be that I’m going to use this mode – pin mode [pointing to the pinned card on the app] – to get to the pin points and then, once I get close, I’ll put the 3-D view pictures. In this case, she chose to follow the inscribed programs of action. But this was not the case for all participants. Other participants would tap different parts of the screen to see if there were additional features. For example, Participants 2 and 7 found that, if they tapped the image while in augmented reality, the two-dimensional images would then be displayed with a detailed description (something I did not describe to them in advance), while others never looked at the twodimensional view of images at all. There was also a difference between how single participants and couples viewed the collections with the app. Couples, such as Participants 5 and 6, and Participants 10 and 11, had to share the device. So, they peeked over each other’s shoulders as their partner held and manipulated the mobile device or they took turns using the device while the other waited and entertained themselves with other activities (for example, by checking their own mobile devices for messages). While some participants switched back and forth from the navigational platform to the display platform (like Participant 1), others developed their own anti-programs. Such was the case with Participant 3, who, having seen the pinned card for the first time, immediately tapped on the 3D View button and never looked at the pinned card again. Instead, he walked around in the augmented reality view, waiting for images to magically appear while he pointed the device this way or that way. In other words, he used the “display platform” as a “navigational platform.” But, while programs of action may be

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contested by users who help create anti-programs, such conflicts are not decided by users alone. In the present case, rescripting of the app was a negotiation between the user, the explanation I provided them, the experience of using the pinned card, the display features offered by the app, the user’s familiarity with the city, their knowledge of and familiarity with the iPhone device, and so on. In the end, no participants used the MUM App or viewed the collections in the exact same way – and this despite having received the same instructions before they used the app. Importantly, while not all participants performed this “museum visit” (or “tour”) in the same way, this variability is not unique to using an app to display and view collections. In her study on the Food for Thought exhibit at the London Science Museum, Macdonald (2002) found that visitors often viewed the exhibit in their own way – some slowly reading the information panels while others sped through the exhibit. This was also evident when I observed how museum visitors visited Montreal – Points of View at the McCord (see appendix A for a detailed description of this exhibit). Though the exhibit was presented in a “U” shape, with zones lined up in chronological order, museum visitors often came in through the exit at the opposite end of the hall and saw it backwards.5 Some would see the exhibit display case by display case, reading label by label, while others would stroll around waiting for an artifact to grab their attention and paying little attention to descriptive labels. I found similar differences in the use of the app: some participants examined the photographic images just briefly, while others took more time; some paid more attention to the aesthetic qualities of images, while others read about their historical significance (where such information was available). But it is not only the participants who varied in the ways in which they “visited” collections with the MUM App: a wider set of heterogeneous actors played a part in how the app and the “museum visit” practice would be rescripted (though temporarily, intermittently, and contingently). Because the MUM App worked in concert with myriad actors – including mobile devices, cellular service providers, GPS , city architecture, and bodies – all of these had to work just so to allow the precarious “museum visit” to happen. And there were still more actors that could interrupt and redirect the “museum visit.” The backdrop of the city,

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for example, was a distractor, with its shops, cafés, restaurants, and other venues (as became clear to me on Day 5 of my diarized accounts: see appendix B). In addition, many non-app-related distractions arose on the iPhone devices used by the participants (and myself ): devices rang or buzzed, drawing attention away from the app, its displays, and the research study. This was perhaps the most frequent (and most forgivable) disruption, given that the “exhibit” (and the “study”) involved the same mobile devices and those devices were (re)(con)figured for and in so many practices. As discussed earlier, the weather too could either encourage or discourage the direction of the “museum visit”: the study took place between November and December, when it was often too cold to manipulate the device. Given that the MUM App was a remake of the Museum of London’s Streetmuseum App, which was to be used in London’s milder temperatures, it was likely inscribed for year-round activity. But Montreal’s colder climate naturally created its own antiprogram, rescripting the “museum visit” with the app as an activity suited only for warmer months (which perhaps explains the lower usage rates during some winter months, like February, see appendix E, figure E.5). Participants 10 and 11 seemed relieved, and warmed, when I invited them for a hot chocolate after their gruelling, and shortest, “visit” in freezing cold December weather. The shorter days at this time of year were an issue as well, as the augmented reality displays had to be seen during daytime, when the pattern recognition technologies that superimpose images could work. Thus, the need for sunlight rescripted this “museum visit” as an activity suited for daylight (rather than a twenty-four-hour augmented reality “exhibit”). But the sun could also be a disruptor – if the sun was shining too brightly, the camera and the app would malfunction, as Participant 3 experienced on a particularly sunny day, when the app displayed just a blank black screen. That occasion turned the “museum visit” into something else – a “technical assessment.” Participant 3 moved from being a “museum visitor” to possibly being a “tourist” to momentarily becoming a “technician.” He needed to figure out what had failed between the app, the sun, and the device (much as I did on Day 3 of my diarized accounts). Thus, the rescripting of the app and the “museum visit” was a process that happened not only through anti-programs

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Figure 2.1 Disrupting the study.

defined by participants but also the constant negotiations and disruptions between participants and the various assemblages of actors and situations they found themselves in. Such entanglements between humans and non-humans were perhaps best exemplified in what Participant 11 wrote about his experience using the MUM App: “the cold weather (fingers) and bright sun (screen) resulted in some limitations to my enjoyment of the experience.” Participant whims also veered them off the “museum visit.” While it may be said that participants needed to exert some control over their behaviour in order for the performance of visiting collections with the MUM App to happen, some participants decided to indulge their whims and go off-piste. A couple participating together (Participants 5 and 6) were so overtaken by their own capriciousness that they spontaneously ran in an unexpected direction and well outside the suggested area of the study. Their surprising behaviour came out of nowhere and required me to (rather awkwardly) race after them, not knowing where they were going or what they were up to (while still trying to film them with my iPad). They found it amusing to disrupt the “museum visit” (and the “study” for that matter) and defiantly took photographs of themselves using my iPhone (figure 2.1). But, perhaps unbeknownst to them, this sort of disobedient behaviour is not something new – it also happens when museum visitors visit “physical” displays. As Sharon Macdonald (2002) has pointed out, museum visitors

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are “active” rather than “passive”: she found that visitors often acted in destructive ways at the Food for Thought exhibition and, on occasion, damaged the displays in unanticipated ways.6 On another occasion, Participant 9 landed his “museum visit,” and the study, in a completely different museum! He was viewing collections on the McGill campus, when he came face to face not only with a digitized historical image of the Redpath Museum7 but also the actual Redpath Museum building behind the camera’s superimposed image. He immediately recalled visiting this museum as a child, when his mother took him to see a popular dinosaur skeleton. Being face to face with the physical building led him to ask if he could go in to see if the dinosaur was still on display: “Now I probably can’t sneak in to look at the dinosaur, can I?” What was I to do – stand between this man and the dinosaur bones he remembered from his childhood? I told him to go ahead. Researcher: You can. Yeah, go for it. Participant 9: I can! I didn’t know if that was . . . [I think it can be inferred that he wanted to say, “okay for this study”] . . . so is this the actual entrance? Researcher: Yeah, let’s see if it’s open. Usually it is and it’s . . . [it was open] ah, you can just walk right in. How long has it been since you’ve been here? Participant 9: Let’s say I was ten years old. So we’re talking fifty years. ... Participant 9: I remember a huge dinosaur. We proceeded into the Redpath Museum and were standing in the hallway. Participant 9: This was the . . . Oh, look at that doorway . . . can I, can I take my camera out to take pictures? Researcher: Yeah, of course. Why not at this point? Interestingly, the “camera” he took out was his personal iPhone, and it was recast here based on how he was about

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to use it – to take pictures. He continued to the upper floor of the museum and walked around the corner to look for the dinosaur that he remembered from when he was a child. Participant 9: Here it is. Researcher: There it is. Participant 9: This is what I remember. Fifty years ago and it hasn’t changed. He then proceeded to take a picture of the dinosaur with his “camera” (figure 2.2) before becoming emotional and tearing up, noting “I’m a big sentimental type of guy.” How interesting that this “museum visit” to an “exhibit” made by the McCord MusFigure 2.2 Taking a eum landed the “visit,” the “museum visiphotograph of the dinosaur in tor,” and the McCord Museum’s app display the Redpath Museum. in an entirely different museum! This is obviously not an outcome that would have been possible while performing a “museum visit” inside the “physical” exhibition rooms of the McCord. This unanticipated movement from one museum into another was accomplished through the mobilization of a network of (at times, unexpected) actors into novel socio-technical and sociomaterial rearrangements.

Contesting the Domestication of Technologies: The Disobedience of Humans and Non-Humans The findings in this case present problems for claims that digital media technologies may be “domesticated.” Early domestication studies suggested that technologies move from novel and, thus, “wild” undomesticated technologies to “tame” and taken-for-granted aspects of everyday life.8 In their introduction to the edited volume Domestication of Media and Technology, Berker et al. explain that “domestication” theory has “represented a shift away from models which assumed the

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adoption of new innovations to be rational, linear, monocausal and technologically determined” (2006, 1). Instead, the theory has provided “a theoretical framework and research approach, which considered the complexity of everyday life and technology’s place within its dynamics, rituals, rules, routines and patterns” (1). But domestication theories have also had their share of critiques. One reason the concept of domestication remains problematic is that early domestication research took place inside the home (hence the concept’s name) and, though it was later extended beyond the home, the theory maintains a strong distinction between the “inside” (for example, of a home) and the “outside” (the larger world). As Silverstone admits, “the household is still there as a starting point and as the ground base for an understanding of the social dynamics of media change” (2006, 242). Furthermore, though domestication theory has steered away from understanding the adoption of new technologies to be linear – a type of technological determinism – the suggestion that technologies can in fact be “domesticated” still implies a level of determinism, or of predictability and control. As such, domestication theory seems antithetical to the findings of this study, where observations demonstrate the many unexpected failures that can occur, the different ways in which “participants” used the MUM App to see the “exhibit,” and the unruly way in which “participants” acted. Further, the app worked only in concert with an extensive network of actors – including vast infrastructures and unexpected actors like the seasonal weather and the sun – which made the entire performance of this “tour museum-type thing . . . 3-D type thing” rather precarious. At any point, an actor could fail, disrupt, or prevent this thing (or the “study,” for that matter) from happening. At the same time, as Sørensen (2006) notes, one strand of domestication theory has looked to incorporate an actor-network theory (ANT ) approach to the study of technology adoption. As he explains, there have been two particular approaches to the study of domestication, one that developed in “media studies” and the other that drew from “technology studies.” Those theorists drawing on technology studies have looked to ANT to theorize domestication. For Sørensen, ANT has allowed domestication theory to move beyond the household and extend into the “construction of a wider everyday life”:

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From this endeavor came above all some new concepts that helped analysis of technological artefacts as embodiments of designers’ ideas about the ways users were supposed to apply their designs. Design was seen to “define actors with specific tastes, competences, motives, aspirations, political prejudices and the rest,” based on the assumption “that morality, technology, science, and economy will evolve in particular ways.” (45) This strand of domestication draws on the ANT notion of “inscription,” which sees “designers inscribe their visions of the world in the technical content of the new object” (Sørensen 2006, 45; see also Akrich 1992), and where users often contest these scripts through anti-programs. Since the outcomes of such anti-programs cannot be predicted, Sørensen correctly suggests that research studies must necessarily involve empirical research. To Sørensen, this approach to domestication theory focuses on three generic sets of features: the construction of practices (for example, in routines or as part of an institution) related to an artefact; the construction of meaning of the artefact; and the cognitive processes related to learning the practice and meaning of an artefact. In this sense, “domestication becomes a multi-sited process that transcends the household space, and in which the sites interact,” where, for example, the uptake of media technologies in sites like the household “involve the extensive production of a wide variety of institutions and standards at a national level” (47). Thus, ANT extends domestication theory in two ways: First, the “taming” of an artefact may be understood as a process where a script or a programme is translated or re-scripted through the way users read, interpret and act. Second, domestication may be seen as the process through which an artefact becomes associated with practices, meanings, people and other artefacts in the construction of intersecting large and small networks . . . Only rarely do we domesticate things in isolation. Using a slightly different vocabulary, the domestication of artefacts may be understood as the complex movement of objects into and within existing socio-technical arrangements. (Sørensen 2006, 47)

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Sørensen sees artefacts as mutable and as changing through movement. He draws on de Laet and Mol’s (2000) study of a device known as the Zimbabwe bush pump, noting that this example, “a kind of water pump, may be particularly open to reconfiguration, due to the lack of sharp and solid boundaries, the potential for collective and shifting ‘authorship’ with regard to the technology, and the absence of precise criteria for what may be considered successful functioning” (Sørensen 2006, 48). While clearly constructive links have been made between ANT and domestication theory, the question that remains is, why not use ANT rather than domestication theory as a theoretical framework? In the present study, the MUM App worked “as it was supposed to” (i.e., as it was inscribed or according to its programs of action) only intermittently and temporarily, and always contingently. As ANT posits, technological stabilization is always precarious and contingent (Latour 1993a). And this case has shown that, as this innovative app emerged, it was embedded in complex assemblages of actors, including vast infrastructures, which made the outcomes of its engagement more unpredictable, unreliable, and uncontrollable. The MUM App’s network of actors was extensive: how could all those infrastructures, the weather, the sun, and so on, be controlled, let alone domesticated? And the participants demonstrated that their strategies and whims often disobeyed the programs of action inscribed in the MUM App. In the end, “obedience” could only be a provisional state that served to obfuscate only momentarily how this “digital” display worked in practice and in experimental assemblages.

Conclusion In this chapter, I examined how the MUM App worked, how it was understood, and how it was employed in practice. The analysis included the negotiations between the heterogeneous actors involved in making the app work in practice and revealed the vast infrastructures that participated in how the app worked. The chapter unveiled the precariousness of performing a “museum visit” with the app, as any actor could fail and thus disrupt the “visit” or prevent it from happening at all. In addition to describing my own experience of using the app to view the “exhibit,” I revealed the experience of

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“museum visitor” and the work they had to do in order to make the MUM App and their own “museum visit” happen. As bodies, practices, collections, and technologies were redistributed and mobilized outside the museum, so too were museum roles, tasks, and responsibilities redelegated across the MUM App’s extensive network. This meant that participants in the study (and, as my diarized accounts show, I myself ) had much more to do than would have been the case with a traditional museum visit: at times, participants had to perform the work of museum curators, technicians, and security officers to ensure collections were displayed and viewed in an appropriate light, fix any arising technical issues, and safeguard themselves and their equipment. And non-humans were also delegated jobs – like the sun, which had to provide neither too much nor too little light. This chapter also examined how participants understood the MUM App and how museum things were reclassified in novel socio-technical and socio-material rearrangements. I traced the destabilization of the “museum visit” and the “museum visitor.” While the “museum visit” was more of a “tour” when performed with the MUM App and the iPhone device in the city, the same practice of viewing collections still existed as a “museum visit” at the McCord Museum. And while “museum visitors” became “tourists” in some instances (as well as “participants” in relation to this study and “users” in relation to the app), they continued to be “museum visitors” when at the museum. Thus, things can exist as “multiple” across different assemblages, practices, times, and spaces. The MUM App could also be said to have been living multiple lives – it was, at times, a public relations “promotional tool” (in relation to the work of the creative agency), an “app” (when released on the App Store), and an “exhibit” (when the museum announced its release to the public). As ontologies are never given, the way in which such things are “enacted, enacted and enacted yet again” (Law 2008) remains uncertain and indeterminate. And, as chapter 3 will show, this is also the case for spaces, which could be reordered, and sites, which could be rewritten in multiple ways. The app may have been inscribed with two programs of action – as a navigational platform when using the pinned card, and as a display platform when viewing images – but it was rescripted by some participants in this study when they used it in unexpected ways.

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Some participants flipped back and forth from the pinned card to the three-dimensional augmented reality view and mapped their routes along the way as expected, while others decided to remain in threedimensional view and wait to be delighted by what might appear along their path. In the end, such observations present a counter-case to domestication studies. This case showed that “obedience” can be only a temporary state of affairs and, at times, is the exception rather than the rule. Using the MUM App in practice opened up the opportunity for a long series of issues and malfunctions. But it was not only non-humans that were disobedient: participants refused to obey as well. Disruptions to the “museum visit” (or “tour” or “study”) became more common the more participants used the app. The precarity of using this “digital” display, and the sometimes-wily behaviour that was demonstrated in practice, indicates that the MUM App would not be “domesticated,” nor would the “visitor” (or “user” or “participant”) be programmably and consistently obedient.

ch AP te R 3

Reordering Spaces and Rewriting City Sites The present chapter returns to the participant study, and I again examine the use of the MUM App as a navigation platform and a display platform. Here, though, I turn my focus to how city spaces were reordered and sites rewritten in relation to viewing the app’s augmented reality displays. In this analysis, spaces are not considered as “containers,” and sites are not considered as merely “out there” (Latour 2005b; Yaneva and Mommersteeg 2020).1 Rather, in the process of reordering spaces, assemblies of actors are brought together into negotiation such that they produce “exhibition” sites. In other words, through the work of “space-ing,” sites gain their “situatedness” (Latour 2005a), as places to view collections. While the reordering of spaces and rewriting of sites may be only momentary, the analysis continues to reveal the otherwise-hidden work of extensive networks of actors, across space and time, to produce even such fleeting generative processes. Further, the case provides an example for how augmented reality technologies can bring together actors that increase the possibilities for how sites may be reconfigured. Put another way, sites become (increasingly) “heterotopic” (Hetherington 1995), making places seem messier and more confusing than in the past. In this case, locations across Montreal’s city centre go from being produced as “university campus” or “park” or “street,” to being generated (along with the app and networks of actors) as “exhibition” sites. By tracing the assemblies of actors involved in mobilizing actors across the city, along with the MUM App’s navigational platform and display platform, the analysis also assesses and debates the claim that “software technologies”2 are increasingly directing urban spaces (Thrift and French 2002). Yet, as will become apparent, the MUM App,

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its software, and its extensive network of heterogeneous actors (including vast infrastructures and participants themselves) negotiated the reordering of spaces and the rewriting of sites: its software could not alone have orchestrated the augmented reality displays or ensured they would be viewed by participants. So, while it can be said that software technologies increasingly co-produce “code/spaces” (Kitchin and Dodge 2011), they do not direct all the actors involved, or how spaces will be generated again and again (if at all), especially when considering the contingent and precarious way in which sites were produced or (to use Kitchin and Dodge’s term) “transduced.”

Reordering and Rewriting the City: Navigating and Viewing the “Exhibit” Historically, diverse institutions have been involved in reordering spaces to display various collections in exhibition-like spaces. In Europe, the practices of collecting things, and ordering and exhibiting them, transformed over time in relation to social, cultural, economic, and political changes (Hetherington 1999; see also Hooper-Greenhill 1992; Bennett 1995 and 2006).3 This transformation has been exemplified, for example, by the “princely hoards” in the early middle ages, the “cabinets of curiosity” in the Renaissance, the “art and science societies” formed in the classical age, and the “modern museum” after the French Revolution (Hooper-Greenhill 1992). Some have suggested that, of these, the modern museum institution has concerned itself most with “the arrangement and ordering of material heterogeneity” in an attempt “to achieve some form of homogeneous order” (Hetherington 1999, 51). As Hetherington explains, the museum subjected heterogeneity and uncertainty to institutional controlling and ordering processes – and these practices are still evident in the curatorial practices found in contemporary museums.4 Such controlling and ordering practices were perhaps evident in the McCord Museum’s permanent exhibit Montreal – Points of View. It displayed an extraordinary collection of archeological, ethnological, modern, and contemporary artefacts, which were perfectly arranged in glass display cases, themed in relation to specific city locations and historical events, and organized in ten zones that lined up in a neat

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chronologically organized “U” shape (see appendix A for a description of the exhibition’s layout). Another ordering procedure, described in chapter 1, involved a paper map, which was used to select, organize, and place themed images across six high-interest zones of the city when “curating” the MUM App “exhibit”. Yet, while the McCord Museum’s employees may have engaged in “controlling and ordering processes” related to the selection and placement of particular artefacts in their diverse “exhibits” (and “promotional tools”), it did not mean that the actors later assembled, including “visitors,” were controllable or orderly. Further, the app’s displays in augmented reality presented execution challenges, given the extensive network of actors involved. In this section, I return to the participant study to examine the role played by the app, and its extensive network of actors, in the process of viewing its displays of historical photographic images. This approach allows me to inspect how city spaces were reordered and sites rewritten as places to view the museum’s collections and to determine whether software is increasingly directing urban spaces.

Reordering Spaces along with the MUM App When participants engaged with the MUM App as a “navigational platform,” for example (by using the pinned card to find where historical photographic images were displayed across the city), they, along with the app and its vast networks of actors, participated in the reordering of spaces.5 This vast network of actors negotiated and (at times) cooperated, assisting the redistribution of bodies (those of the “participants”), practices (viewing the “exhibit”), collections (the historical photographic images), devices (the iPhone), software technologies (such as the code of the MUM App), and so on, across the city. This process of redistribution may be considered a “mobilization” (Latour 1986). In this case, when actors – the aforementioned bodies, practices, collections, and technologies – were mobilized, sites were reordered giving way to novel practices, like viewing the museum’s collections in augmented reality, albeit contingently and precariously. The reordering of space was contingent on participants acquiring or having access to an Apple mobile device (such as an iPhone) and a data plan – which I provided in most cases. It was also contingent on

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the device being powered up, and thus on the user (often me) remembering to charge the battery of the device (as I learned when I tried the app myself and my device ran out of battery life on Day 3). Furthermore, the reordering of space was contingent on receiving information from GPS and on locational calculations made: these needed a good level of accuracy if a participant was to navigate across the city by “aligning several successive signposts along a trajectory” (November, Camacho-Hübner, and Latour 2010) or even wander around in three-dimensional view, waiting for images to magically appear in augmented reality (like Participant 3 did). Participants did not view all the collections that were on display in Zone 1. To view all the images shown in one zone, let alone all zones, would have taken much more time, but also much dedication – a concerted effort and determination, given the distance between displays – much more than, say, seeing the permanent exhibit at the museum. Participants also had to avoid distractions such as other device features (including incoming calls, emails, and texts, which were difficult to ignore) and other activities (for example, visiting other museums, as Participant 9 did). The reordering of the city was precarious because, as was explained in chapter 2, it took many actors to make the app work and accomplish the “visit” or “tour” of its displays. As described earlier, technical glitches – be they caused by the sun, architecture, or GPS – were common and had to be assessed by the participants. The entire experience could also be hampered, even stopped, if actors did not cooperate – for example, if the weather was too cold or if the sun had set. But, even if all these glitches and pitfalls were avoided, and the app worked as it should, this mobilization still relied most on the human. This case study shows that, while the app, when used as a navigational platform (and even a display platform), participated in reordering spaces, it did so only when the participant used it as (closely as possible to how) it was inscribed – which, on occasion, participants did not. Only when participants employed the app were a host of other actors yoked into action, with the mobilizing of bodies, practices, collections, and technologies. And it was then, through their negotiations and cooperation, that spaces were reordered and sites rewritten as places to view collections.

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Rewriting Sites along with the MUM App To examine how the MUM App, along with its vast network of actors, enabled the rewriting of city sites, I consider again the app’s display platform. In particular, I look at how participants used the app’s display features to view collections in augmented reality. As has been described earlier, when users selected the 3D View button, located on the lower right-hand corner of the pinned card, the app displayed historical photographic images in augmented reality – as superimpositions onto camera views of city sites (as shown, for example, in figure I.3). Through such a performance, sites of the city of Montreal were momentarily rewritten into places for viewing collections. Or, to use the terminology of Kitchin and Dodge (2011), they were “transduced” as “code/space.” According to Kitchin and Dodge, Software . . . alternatively modulates how space comes into being through a process of transduction (the constant making anew of a domain in reiterative and transformative practices). Space from this perspective is an event or a doing – a set of unfolding practices that lack a secure ontology – rather than a container or a plane or a predetermined social production that is ontologically fixed. (16) Therefore “code/space occurs when software and the spatiality of everyday life become mutually constituted, that is, produced through one another” (16). Sites that are co-written by software can be understood as both a “code/space” and as a “coded assemblage.” A “coded assemblage” occurs “where several different coded infrastructures converge, working together – in nested systems or in parallel, some using coded processes and others not – and become integral to one another over time in producing particular environments” (7). In the present case, particular sites on McGill University’s campus that participants “visited” while engaging with the MUM App’s display platform could be “transduced” as a “code/space” – they were rewritten, however momentarily, as places to view the McCord Museum’s collections. A space becomes a place when it is, as Latour expresses

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it, “spacific” – that is, when it becomes a “situated site . . . a connexion of interactions dispersed in time, space, and action and reassembled, kept up, instituted in an event-producing topos” (2005b, 180). Latour gives the example of the traveller who sees a castle: “The castle co-exists, holds its ground, occupies space, creates a landscape, becomes a cheflieu, whatever the expression, not because it is a spot ‘in’ space, but because it is itself the event connecting interactions on a large spread of space-time-actants. Here history was locally made and traditions continuously kept it in place. Thus, there is a place” (180–1). In the case of the MUM App, locations on McGill University’s campus were “transduced,” “generated,” “spacified,” “situated,” “produced” – however we may choose to call it – not only because of the immediate work of participants, the app, telecommunications companies, GPS , satellites in space, the sun, and so on, but also the work that had been done over days, weeks, months, years, decades, and centuries. They are Latour’s event connecting interactions of “space-time-actants.” As Latour further explains, We never encounter time and space, but a multiplicity of interactions with actants having their own timing, spacing, goals, means and ends. Nothing in the mind, nothing, but a lot of the know-how of those who, by clever technical action, can weave together types of actants that were incommensurable a minute before . . . Long before we talk of space and time, it is these sorts of connections, short-circuits, translations, associations, and mediations that we encounter daily. (181) In the context of the MUM App, such interactions from different times, places, and actants are revealed by the very experience of viewing historical photographic images in augmented reality. The app helps bring into view the connections between “space-time-actants” and their “various interactions over ages” (Latour 2005b, 180–1). Digitized versions of historical photographs of McGill University taken by long-gone photographers with now-obsolete cameras around the beginning of the twentieth century are superimposed across campus sites through a twenty-first-century iPhone “designed in California,” but “made in China,” and purchased, perhaps, in an Apple shop in

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Montreal. So many actants, so many techniques, so many shifts, so many delegations, and so many times and spaces, all come together in the moment when this “code/space” is produced. Here, we no longer have the problem of “static buildings” (Latour and Yaneva 2008), as the experience unveils aspects of how universities, museums, buildings, streets, parks, and even photographs have changed and transformed. By looking at the app’s augmented reality view, participants examined historical photographic images that revealed how things used to be; what buildings, streets, and parks were in that place; what they were used for, who used them, and when they were used; and, when compared to the site in front of them, how things transformed. So, when the MUM App was used as an augmented reality display platform, it could be said, that city sites were rewritten as places to view collections: as Kitchin and Dodge (2011) suggest, such places were “code/ spaces” – or, as Latour puts it, situated sites were spacified by assemblages that involved “space-time-actants” and their “various interactions over ages.” While spaces were reordered as “code/spaces” and rewritten as places where the museum’s collections could be viewed, they still existed as multiple things: they were also campuses, busy shopping streets, parks, and so on. Here, it is useful to turn to Kevin Hetherington’s examination on the multiple uses of the famous Stonehenge site, in the United Kingdom. Stonehenge, the “museum without walls,” has had many “utopics” – in other words, it is “heterotopic” (1995, 153). Heterotopic spaces are “uncertain, ambivalent and ultimately not representable in any unified way” (153). Stonehenge itself has been constituted as an important archaeological site, a Druidic temple, an ancient astronomical instrument, a tourist attraction, a symbol of ancient Britain, a New Age site of worship, part of England’s cultural heritage, a place for UFO sighting, and the site of festivals – thus making it a contested site. As Hetherington notes, “that contestation is focused principally on the issue of modes of social ordering. More specifically, conflict has been focused on how modes of ordering are represented within this particular site, notably expressed through attempts to show what the site means and what it should be used for” (157). For Hetherington, the many actors that reconstitute Stonehenge – the managers of the site, archaeologists, travellers, pagans, landowners, and

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so on – are “all, in effect, ‘visitors’ to this museum without walls and whether they choose to be or not, their practices become a part of the social context that makes this site meaningful” (157). Similarly, various assemblages of actors constitute the campus, streets, or parks as such or, in the case of the MUM App’s display, as a “code/space” for viewing collections. But, unlike Stonehenge, where the site is always produced one way or another as long as any “visitor” described above shows up, using the MUM App did not always co-produce space. In those cases when the MUM App did not work (or, for that matter, if any actor in its network or infrastructures failed to do their job) the “code/space” was not produced – the experience was a non-event (Latour 2005b) – and the campus, the street, the park remained uncontested, as they could not be rewritten as places to view collections.

Code Does Not Determine Space For Kitchin and Dodge, a “code/space” is “any space that is dependent on software-driven technologies to function as intended” (2011, 17; my emphasis). They illustrate this by using the analogy of the “automated supermarket” that depends on an automated purchasing system. If the automated purchasing system stops working, the supermarket can no longer act as a “code/space”; instead, it becomes “a temporary warehouse until such time as the code becomes (re)activated” (17). In the present case, too, the display of the museum’s collections in “augmented reality” did not happen if the app did not work or when any actor in its network or infrastructures failed. But, a dependency or reliance on software to co-constitute a “code/space” does not mean that software determines space. When participants in this case used the MUM App to view collections in augmented reality, this action did not entail a deterministic relationship between software and the generated “code/space.” As Kitchin and Dodge explain, the “relationship between software and space is neither determinist (that is, code determines in absolute, nonnegotiable means the production of space and the sociospatial interactions that occur within them) nor universal (that such determinations occur in all such spaces and at all times in a simple cause-and-effect manner). Rather, how code/space emerges through practice is contingent, relational, and context dependent”

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(18). By way of illustration, we saw that the “museum visit” became a “tour” for some participants. For other participants, it became an occasion to develop anti-programs, whether unintentionally (when Participant 3 used the “display platform” as a “navigational platform”) or intentionally (when Participants 5 and 6 ran off with the device and used it to take pictures of themselves). For me, the “museum visit” was a “study,” an opportunity to do research. Further, since unexpected actors (from the architecture to the weather to the sun) and numerous infrastructures (from electricity grids to cellular service providers to GPS -related satellites orbiting the Earth) were also negotiating the production of the “exhibit,” the “code/spaces” produced would vary. Differences could occur for any one of many reasons – for example, poor GPS signals near tall buildings meant images would overlap on the camera view (see figure B.3), making the viewing of the museum’s collections in augmented reality an inconsistent event. As explained in chapter 2, such problems or other technical malfunctions meant that the “museum visit” or “tour” (or “study,” for that matter) could be thrown into another reconfiguration, a “technical assessment.” So, not only was there not a deterministic relationship between software and the “code/space” produced, but there was not one way that “code/spaces” were consistently or predictably experienced by participants. As Kitchin and Dodge explain, “code/space unfolds in multifarious and imperfect ways, embodied through the performance and often unpredictable interactions of the people within the space (between people and between people and code). Code/space is thus inconsistently transduced; it is never manufactured and experienced in the same way” (2011, 18). But the experience of using the MUM App was that much more inconsistent, unpredictable, and uncertain because rewriting sites as “code/spaces” not only involved software technologies and the rearrangement of heterogeneous actors into novel “coded assemblages,” but because it also entailed a redelegation of roles, tasks, and responsibilities. To further illustrate the implications of such displacements, it helps to first return to the example of a “physical” museum exhibit – like the McCord Museum’s permanent exhibit Montreal – Points of View. In the “physical” exhibit, collections were ordered and exhibited in mainly fixed glass display cases. There were also some digital media – for

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example, tablets or LCD screens – that presented explanations about the exhibit or showed historical video footage. But all these items – artefacts, glass display cases, and even digital media – were carefully laid out and ready for use. Curators had chosen not only where to display particular artefacts but also in what order. Technicians installed particular lighting fixtures to illuminate the artefacts on display. And if there were a technical issue – for example, if a device needed to be fixed or replaced – a technician could be called in to address it. And to keep the artefacts, displays, “visitors,” and so on safe, security guards patrolled the exhibition spaces regularly. Thus, we can say that the actors involved in curating, lighting, maintaining, and securing “physical” exhibits each had particular roles and tasks delegated to them. When a museum visitor entered the exhibition space, the “visitor” did not need to rearrange the location or order in which objects could be viewed – as the curator had already considered and arranged them just so – though they could see them in the order they preferred. Nor did visitors need to establish optimal lighting to see the displays, as the lighting technician had completed this task. Nor did they need to fix any devices or secure them from damage. In contrast, the MUM App displaced aspects of these tasks and responsibilities across its network of actors that included vast infrastructures. These tasks and responsibilities were redelegated to both humans and non-humans indiscriminately. In order to generate a “code/space” to view collections in augmented reality with the MUM App, tasks usually done behind the scenes in “physical” museum exhibits by human actors, were redelegated to other human actors, specifically the “museum visitor.” For example, participants had to act as curators when they had to find the best position in which to view images, especially when superimposing them on city sites. As Participant 1 stated while looking at a historical photographic image in augmented reality, “Now I have the James McGill monument, and I’m probably not in the right place to see the picture, because the monument is here [indicating with left hand] and I am looking this way [pointing ahead].” Participants had to act as technicians to address less than optimal displays on their devices. As Participant 3 remarked on his visit, “I think the sun is affecting the program, in the shadow it works quicker.” As “curators” and “technicians,” participants often stood in one spot or another, moving the mobile device up and down,

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or panning from left to right, in an effort to adjust the images viewed through the camera, to capture the best lighting, and to diagnose technical issues. Finally, participants took on the role of “security officer,” to ensure the safety of the key equipment – the mobile device – as well as their own bodies (especially when crossing busy roads). Tasked with so many responsibilities, participants eventually became frustrated. As Participant 11 noted in the questionnaire, “I felt like I was fighting with the device at times.” This is because participants had to know (or learn) how to use the app and the iPhone. As Participant 11 went on to explain in his feedback, “We’re not only learning the app, we’re also learning the phone!” Viewing collections in just the right place was further challenged by the inaccuracy of the GPS signals as a result of the tall buildings in the urban centre. This reveals that aspects of human curatorial, technical, and security tasks – such as the placement of artefacts in three-dimensional view – were also displaced and redelegated to non-humans: to the MUM App, the iPhone device, and the vast infrastructures within which they were embedded. Humans were also delegated the roles that non-human actors perform in “physical” museum exhibitions. For example, participants were required to hold the device up, an action mimicking the supporting legs and arms of a display case. Participant 4 seemed surprised that she would need to hold up the device to see the collections. When she first began to use the app, she asked me, “I don’t have to have the camera up, do I? For it to show things?” Yes, I thought, indeed you do! In order for the MUM App to display the photographic images in augmented reality, and for the participants to see them, the participants had to do the display-related work of holding up the device. And while many display cases in “physical” exhibits have information panels that can be read immediately, the MUM App exhibit required the participants to constantly interact with the display, tapping on the pins or the three-dimensional superimpositions to read about the photographic images on display. This experience required participants to do much more work than they would have in a “physical” exhibit. As Participant 11 wrote about interacting with the app in the questionnaire, “the process began to feel somewhat exhausting rather than relaxing.” Tasked with doing so many things that would have been done by both humans and non-humans at the physical museum, some participants were at a loss as to how to perform the visit and felt as if they were

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doing something they had never done before. With more to do, participants wanted more practice: as Participant 11 confessed, he could have used “more practice with touchscreens and iPhones generally.” Non-humans would also take on tasks and responsibilities that were previously delegated to other non-humans. Since the display of collections happened outdoors, the viewing of collections depended on natural light: here lighting was displaced and redelegated to the nearest star, our sun, as well as the rotation of the Earth. Further, the task of encasing collections, usually performed by a display case, was here redelegated to the mobile device, its sensors, and the vast infrastructures it relied on to work. This redelegation resulted at times in inconsistent experiences. The app and/or the sensors on the iPhone could malfunction – and they did (like when the digital shutter failed to open on the camera, or when the exit button no longer appeared, or when the participants reported “blank screens” and “green squares”). And, if any one actor in the app’s network failed to work just so, the entire experience was impoverished – for example, pins incorrectly represented the location of the device, or they “fluttered,” moving about the pinned card. Further, images displayed in augmented reality intersected with each other. With so many actors involved in making the “code/space” happen, this transduction of space resulted in fleeting and precarious acts and feats. Clearly, the MUM App allowed for roles, tasks, and responsibilities to be redistributed and redelegated alternatively from humans to humans and non-humans, or from non-humans to non-humans and humans. With so many human and non-human actors doing novel work, the “code/spaces” produced were not determined by code alone or constructed by humans alone – rather, they were (to use Kitchin and Dodge’s term) “transduced” through the negotiations of myriad actors, including those of vast infrastructures.

Is (the MUM App’s) Code Directing Space or Not? Having examined how spaces were reordered and sites rewritten, it is now possible to examine if software is increasingly directing space. In an article entitled “The Automatic Production of Space,” Thrift and French argue that, since software technologies have become ubiqui-

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tous in urban centres of Euro-American societies, they are therefore intervening in “nearly all aspects of everyday life” while sinking “into its taken-for-granted background” (2002, 309). These processes have gone almost unrecorded for four reasons: First, software takes up little in the way of visible physical space. It generally occupies micro-spaces. Second, software is deferred. It expresses the co-presence of different times, the time of its production and its subsequent dictation of future moments. So the practical politics of the decisions about production are built into the software and rarely recur at a later date. Third, software is therefore a space that is constantly in-between, a mass-produced series of instructions that lie in the interstices of everyday life, pocket dictators that are constantly expressing themselves. Fourth, we are schooled in ignoring software, just as we are schooled in ignoring standards and classifications (Bowker and Star 1999). Software very rapidly takes on the status of background and therefore is rarely considered anew. (Thrift and French 2002, 311) As Thrift and French point out, “software is more like a kind of traffic between beings, wherein one sees, so to speak, the effects of the relationship” (311; emphasis in original): Wherever we go, then, in modern urbanized spaces, we are directed by software: driving in the car, stopping at the red light, crossing the road, getting into an elevator, using the washing machine or the dishwasher or the microwave, making a phone call, writing a letter, playing a CD or a computer game, the list goes on and on. Given that we have established the prevalence of mechanical writing in the spaces of everyday life, we now need to begin to establish exactly how that effectivity comes about. (323) For Thrift and French, “software clearly stands for a new set of effectivities” that we must attempt to make visible, account for, and understand – not least because software is political: “most importantly, software challenges us to understand new forms of technological

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politics and new practices of political invention, legibility and intervention that we are only just beginning to comprehend as political at all: politics of standards, classifications, metrics, and readings” (331). Given software’s increasingly ubiquitous yet surreptitious nature and therefore hidden politics, we may ask, how can it best be examined? Kitchin and Dodge suggest that, to understand the implications of software, we must look precisely at its relationship with space. Building on Thrift and French, Kitchin and Dodge also argue that, in the decades around the beginning of the twenty-first century, software increasingly began to infiltrate objects, processes, and spaces, having a profound influence on everyday life. As they point out, while software has executable properties that do not provide it sentience or consciousness, they do allow it to “exhibit some of the characteristics of being alive” (2011, 5). They draw on Thrift and French to point to how software (in the form of ubiquitous computing) is “somewhere between the artificial and a new kind of natural, the dead and a new kind of living” (5). For Kitchin and Dodge, these properties mean that “code can make things do work in the world in an autonomous fashion – that is, it can receive capta and process information, evaluate situations, make decisions, and, most significant, act without human oversight or authorization” (5, my emphasis), something that they call “secondary agency” (5). The authors use the term capta to refer to how databases store more than just data. As they explain, software technologies “codify the world into rules, routines, algorithms, and captabases (a collection of capta stored as fields, typically within a tabular form, that can easily be accessed, managed, updated, queried, and analyzed; traditionally named a database, it has been renamed to recognize that it actually holds capta not data) and then uses these to do work in the world” (5). They see software as embedded in everyday life at four levels of activity: producing coded objects;6 coded infrastructures;7 coded processes;8 and coded assemblages.9 Following Thrift (2004c), they posit that, as software is invisibly embedded into everyday life, it becomes part of a “technological unconscious” that often goes unnoticed until something performs incorrectly or fails (Kitchin and Dodge 2011, 5). Considered in this way, Kitchin and Dodge suggest that code is not only “infiltrating” and therefore “co-constituting space” but also increasingly mediating life. “Taken together, coded objects,

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infrastructures, processes, and assemblages mediate, supplement, augment, monitor, regulate, facilitate, and ultimately produce collective life” (9). Thus, Kitchin and Dodge place emphasis on the importance of considering space when attempting to understand how ubiquitous computing contributes to the “social-material production of everyday life” (2011, 13). As they explain, Space is not simply a container in which things happen; rather, spaces are subtly evolving layers of context and practices that fold together people and things and actively shape social relations. Software and the work it does are the products of people and things in time and space, and it has consequences for people and things in time and space. Software is thus bound up in, and contributes to, complex discursive and material practices, relating to both living and non living which work across geographic scales and times to produce complex spatialities. From this perspective, society, space, and time are co-constitutive – processes that are at once social, spatial, and temporal in nature and produce diverse spatialities. (13) And so, “software matters because it alters the conditions through which society, space, and thus spatiality, are produced” (13). While Kitchin and Dodge do not see software as determining spaces, they agree with Thrift and French (2002) that software is increasingly involved in the “automated productions of space,” and therefore enabling the “automated management of society” (which I address in chapter 4, when I explore software’s politics). But if software is allowing for the automated production of space and automated management of society, is it not increasingly “directing” spaces – and humans? While the case of the MUM App shows how code is increasingly involved in the reordering of space and the rewriting of sites, it also shows its limits in directing space – and humans. The viewing of collections in augmented reality was the result of the work of both human and non-human actors – such as the participants, the MUM App’s code, the iPhone device, GPS and other infrastructures, and a host of unexpected actors, such as the sun and weather – which needed to negotiate and

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cooperate to make the “code/space” work. Any non-negotiation or non-cooperation could hinder or obstruct the “transduction” of spaces. Further, the experiences of navigating the exhibit across the city and displaying collections in augmented reality with the MUM App left participants with much to do. As was explained above, the app, in practice, displaced onto both humans and non-humans roles that would otherwise have been delegated to museum staff and structures. As a result of this displacement, participants often looked for more information on the app and how to use it, or, failing that, looked to me to give them direction on how to use the app (or, inversely, asked me for direction before looking for more information on the app). As described in chapter 2, as soon as Participant 1 started using the MUM App, she asked me, “so while I am walking with the App, am I supposed to look just at the dots? Or should I . . . it would show I guess 3-D images as I am walking?” This participant wanted more direction in terms of when to use the navigational platform versus the display platform. The app also demanded that the user be constantly interacting with it. Instead of the app making the display work for the user, users felt it was their job to make the app work: Participant 2: I find it’s hard. I am trying to line things up, and just looking too much at the camera, and not looking at the buildings around, which – there’s a distance – you don’t experience what’s here [indicating to the surrounding buildings], you experience it all through this [indicating to the iPhone]. Further, this participant felt that he had no choice about taking on the job of making the app work: “Well, I guess I’m stuck with this, and really interacting with the phone more than what’s out here.” Participants often suggested the experience needed to be more guided. Participant 1 noted that the app was missing a “suggested path” (like the direction services provided by Google Maps), while Participant 2 proposed the experience was missing a “tour guide,” and he complained about not having direction about how to move his body with the app: “I think that I enjoy interacting on the 3-D more, but would still want a guide around to tell me how to twist, to tell me what to do with it. When you do it on your own, you just end up a little more jumbled.”

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So, while the MUM App assisted in co-ordering and co-writing spaces by acting as a navigational platform at (un)certain times and as a display platform at others, this study shows that it did not provide enough direction – and evidently not enough for participants. This finding is not unlike arguments made by Lucy Suchman (2007) in the case study of the “smart photocopier” at Xerox, in which educated users, including “scientists,” find themselves needing more direction on how to use a photocopier to make a rather simple set of photocopies with an “intelligent” photocopying machine. Like in the Xerox case, so too we see in the present case finely capable users (such as “law graduates,” a “social worker,” and “university students”) asking for more direction in order to view collections with a rather simple app (which participants generally considered “easy to use”) on a “smartphone” mobile device – and this despite having been given a description of the app’s main programs of action and features in advance. For Suchman, the confusion experienced by users of the intelligent photocopier could be explained by the novelty of the assemblage they found themselves in. In this case, too, we may say that the participants and the passers-by, as well as the MUM App, the mobile device, GPS , and a host of actors were all brought together in novel assemblages, one of the reasons for participants voicing their confusion. The novelty of the assemblages resulted from the redistribution of actors – including bodies, practices, collections, and technologies – outside the museum as well as the displacement, and therefore redelegation, of tasks, roles, and responsibilities across a heterogeneous network of actors, including those of vast infrastructures. Within these novel assemblages and socio-material arrangements, both humans and non-humans had to perform tasks that required gaining skills they did not all have. And this process, in turn, made the performance of viewing collections in augmented reality less intelligible in some ways, as each of the actors involved were responsible for learning and executing “newly” delegated roles and tasks in order for everything to work. Participants wanted more direction – not only about how to use the app and the device, and how to see the exhibit, but also if, how, and when to hold the display, and how to move and “twist” their bodies around it. So, rather than understanding software as necessarily “directing” space and/or humans – this study suggests that it is more productive to consider the work required of heterogeneous actors in the

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reordering and rewriting of space. Here, it is less about software acting autonomously and more about how agency is displaced and redistributed across experimental assemblages. Agency here is a “distributed accomplishment” (Suchman 2007), the work of myriad actors, both human and non-human, including infrastructures, working together with uncertain outcomes. And, as Latour explains, technical mediation “designates a very specific type of delegation, of movement, of shifting, that crosses over with entities that have different timing, different properties, different ontologies, and that are made to share the same destiny, thus creating a new actant” (1994, 44). But the delegation of laborious museum tasks across the novel assemblage was obfuscated. On the one hand, software is taken for granted and invisible, particularly as agency is deferred – in other words, it mediates future moments. On the other hand, human work can also be rendered invisible when investigating software technologies. While Thrift and French point to software’s “local intelligence,” Barry reminds us that “the intelligence attributed to machines hinges on the cultural invisibility of the human skills which accompany them” (2001, 9). This current case shows that, while software technologies may hold “intelligent” text, the outcomes can be confusion, uncertainty, and unpredictability. And the experience of viewing collections with the MUM App made not only participants feel “jumbled” and “confused,” but passers-by too! Suchman (2007) argues that human labours are often rendered invisible, especially when technologies and machines are involved. In her studies of artificial intelligence (AI ), she therefore looks to shift the frame of reference away from autonomous individuals or technologies “to arrangements that produce effective forms of agency within ramifying networks of social and material relations” (242). And, she aims to demystify the “smart” machine by analyzing the conceptions and interactions that suggest artificial intelligence. My approach has been to slow down discourses of the “smart” machine to attend closely to the practices through which purportedly intelligent and interactive artifacts are realized, including just what conceptions of intelligence and interaction are in play. The result of this is an enduring skepticism regarding the

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rhetorics of machine intelligence and an interest in demystifying the specific technologies and practices about which these discourses make their claims. (242–3) One of Suchman’s studies examines an “intelligent machine” in the form of a robot named Cog that consists of a head and torso built with a perceptual system (computer vision) and basic motor skills (moveable arms and hands). While Cog is portrayed as having AI , Suchman points to the aspects not immediately visible in its media portrayals, those that give it its “intelligent effect.” Sitting on a heavy cabinet that holds up Cog’s torso, the machine is connected to cables running to a “ceiling-high bank of processors that provide the computational power required to bring Cog to life” (2007, 246). Having access to this “backstage” view provides “an opportunity to see . . . the extended network of human labors and affiliated technologies that afford Cog its agency, rendered invisible in its typical media staging as . . . [a] singular creation and as an autonomous entity” (246). For Suchman, empirical studies have shown that “contrary to the foundations of the Enlightenment” and “its preoccupations with the individual actor living in a world separate from things,” “human agency is always inextricably tied to the specific sociomaterial arrangements of which we are part” (2005, n.p.). Suchman thus suggests examining the “relational character of our capacities for action; the constructed nature of subjects and objects, resemblances and differences; and the corporeal grounds of knowing and action” (n.p.). The present case has shown that agency, as Suchman states, is a “distributed accomplishment” – a relational effect and a result of negotiations between heterogeneous actors. “Code/ spaces” may be “transduced” with (not by) software, but such processes hinge, as Barry (2001) and Suchman (2007) explain, on the intelligence of the humans behind them. We must account for “non-users” too (Wyatt 1999; see also 2003). Non-use could be a result of “museum visitors” deciding not to see the MUM App’s exhibit at all, or of those who try the app once and never again. But there are also those who never got to try it because apps discriminate against devices (as I will explain in chapter 4). Non-use could also be a result of an actor failing to work or cooperate – such

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as when a mobile device’s battery life ran out. Or when the sun set, and it became too dark for augmented reality to work. Or when it was too cold to be outside tapping a touchscreen on a device. In these situations, no “visitors” (or “tourists”) would be “visiting” (or “touring”) the MUM App’s city “exhibit” – nor would they, the app’s code, its network, and infrastructures be consumed in the co-production of “code/spaces.”

What Is Different about Code/Space? In analyzing processes involved in reordering spaces and rewriting sites, we may ask, what is the difference between the production of a “physical” space and a “code/space”? Again, we might examine this question in the context of the McCord Museum. The MUM App is not the only way in which the McCord has repurposed urban spaces. During the warmer months of the year, the museum transformed the streets of Montreal into places where people could enjoy museum-organized performances and view its photographic exhibitions. For example, in 2012, Victoria Street was turned into an “urban forest,” outfitted with wire trees and igloo-like structures (decorated with lavender and pink ribbons), purple turf, and pink picnic tables (figure 3.1). Cars were blocked from their usual access to this side street; instead, the street offered spaces for people to sit, relax, and enjoy performances organized by the museum. When used in this way, the space was reordered and rewritten as a place for engaging with the museum’s programs, or otherwise repurposed as passers-by saw fit. In addition, the museum installed fixed panel displays on McGill College Avenue, a main downtown artery. In 2012, the site showcased an exhibit called Living Landscapes, featuring photographs by Alexander Henderson. In 2013, another exhibit in this space, Honouring Memory, recalled residential schools, which had been attended by thousands of Indigenous children in Canada (figure 3.2). Similar to the MUM App display, the fixed panel exhibits showcased historical photographic images from the McCord Museum’s Notman Photographic Archives. This reordering of space assisted in rewriting the sidewalks of McGill College Avenue from a sidewalk or place to stroll to an exhibition space, at least for those viewing the collections on display.

Figure 3.1 The Urban Forest installation.

Figure 3.2 The Honouring Memory exhibit.

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By visiting these outdoor spaces outfitted with things like picnic tables and photographic displays, “museum visitors,” as well as “museum employees,” “tourists,” and “locals,” engaged in practices usually done within the museum, such as viewing collections and dining at the museum restaurant. These temporary fixtures helped redistribute bodies, practices, collections, and technologies to specific locations of the city, much like was done with the MUM App, its users, network, and infrastructures. And as a result, temporary assemblages of heterogeneous actors in these outdoor spots similarly entailed a reordering and rewriting, a co-production, of these spaces. Some “visitors” would engage with the intended script – for example, passers-by would stop and view the displays on McGill College Avenue. Other “visitors” to these sites could also rescript them for their own purposes – for example, I observed children using the wire igloos that were part of the Urban Forest as a “playground.” This sort of subversive behaviour was also observed with the MUM App, as in the case of the couple who ran off in an unexpected direction and used my device to take photographs of themselves. So, both physical spaces and “code/spaces” may be reordered and thereby rewritten and rescripted in sometimes unanticipated and unpredictable ways. Perhaps one difference is that, in “visiting” the Urban Forest and the Living Landscapes exhibit, there was not as much confusion as to what “visitors” were doing – even when they were being rather “deviant,” like the children climbing the wire igloos, whereas the “code/space” produced when the MUM App was used stirred much more confusion for participants and passers-by. In these “physical” spaces, roles, tasks, and responsibilities were not redelegated to the same extent across the novel set of actors – that is, “visitors” to these sites did not need to curate, repair, or secure them. And second, while the MUM App assisted in rewriting sites as places to view collections, the experience was always momentary and fleeting or, as Participant 4 remarked, “ephemeral.” In contrast, the “physical” sites, though arranged and installed for only a few months at a time, would offer seven-days-a-week, twenty-four-hours-a day availability, which the MUM App never could. In the last count, the “code/spaces” generated when using the app were not only fleeting, but also precarious – whether the “exhibit” could be co-produced at any given

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moment was always uncertain, unpredictable, and contingent, reliant on a long list of actors as far reaching as the sun.

Conclusion This chapter examined how participants, the MUM App, and the iPhone device, among other heterogeneous actors, participated in reordering spaces and rewriting sites in the city, or what Kitchin and Dodge (2011) express as a “transduction” through “code/spaces.” As participants navigated the augmented reality exhibit, spaces were reordered, and bodies, practices, collections, and technologies were mobilized around the city. Sites – such as campuses, streets, and parks – were rewritten as places to view the museum’s collections when the app was used as a “display platform.” While city spaces were “transduced” into “code/ spaces” for viewing the museum’s collections, the performances were uncertain, given the myriad heterogeneous actors involved, including a network of complex infrastructures. Still, when the performances were accomplished, places that were already “heterotopic” became contested in one more way – as a place to view museum collections. However, any failure in the network resulted in “non-events,” where such code/spaces could not be co-generated. The different experiences of the participants while using the app, and their dependence on myriad actors that could fail, demonstrated Kitchin and Dodge’s assertion that “code does not determine space” (2011). And, for that matter, humans do not construct places alone: this case shows that code/spaces rely on non-human actors as well, and that sites could be co-produced in different ways – as an “exhibit” in one moment, and a “technical assessment” in another. In considering processes of reordering spaces and rewriting sites, and the diverse actors involved, this chapter weighed Thrift and French’s (2002) claim that digital media technologies are increasingly “directing” urban space. Where Thrift and French, as well as Kitchin and Dodge, have pointed to software’s “intelligence” and increasing “autonomy,” the case of the museum app has pointed back to Barry (2001), who reminds us that such intelligence hinges on the invisibility of human skills, and Suchman (2007), who points to how machines

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inherit their intelligence when human work is rendered invisible. In the present case, when bodies, practices, collections, and technologies were redistributed outside the museum, tasks, roles, and responsibilities were also displaced and redelegated across the novel set of actors and infrastructures needed to make the app and the experience work. Work was redelegated not just from human to human actors but also human to non-human, non-human to human, and non-human to non-human. So, while the app’s code does play a role in how spaces are reordered and rewritten, it takes a host of actors to actually make it, as well as the display of collections in augmented reality, work in practice. Thus, this case exemplifies Suchman’s incisive argument that agency must be considered a “distributed accomplishment.” Altogether, the processes of remediation and reconfiguration that were exemplified in the making of the MUM App, the rescripting and reclassifying of museum things, and the reordering and rewriting of city spaces, which have been described over the last three chapters, did not happen in the absence of accompanying “politics.” And so, in the next chapter, I attend to the politics of this “digital” display.

c hAP te R 4

The Politics of “Digital” Display

In the previous three chapters, I traced how the MUM App was made and subsequently how museum things were reclassified and rescripted, and city spaces reordered and sites rewritten. In this chapter, I explore the politics of this “digital” display by, first, returning to the app’s design and use in practice and, second, analyzing its management by museum employees. I consider its politics with a lowercase “p” rather than Politics with a capital “p.” As Andrew Barry explains, politics does not need to equate to just political parties, national government, and their conduct (what he classifies as Politics with a capital “p”): social and cultural life are also open for political scrutiny. Therefore, the political can be considered as that “which opens up the space of politics” or “as an index of space of contestation and dissensus” (2001, 7). Barry illustrates this point through the examples of national identity, private life, and the body: There can be a politics of national identity in so far as identity is not fixed, but potentially contestable, multi-dimensional and irreducible. There can be a politics of private life given the ways in which the boundaries of the private and public have been reconfigured and contested. There can be a politics of the body given the complex ways in which the body and its acts are made up. (7) With the rise of digital media technologies, the political has also meant scrutinizing the ways in which these technologies play a part in our lives – for example, by investigating the implications of automated processes (Thrift and French 2002) and the increasing collection,

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storage, analysis, and use of “big data” (Boyd and Crawford 2011) by public institutions, commercial organizations, and government agencies alike. Such “digital” politics can play out through issues such as privacy, automated controls, and surveillance. Opening aspects of our social, cultural, and “digital” lives to political scrutiny also means examining the ways in which politics plays out across both public and private life, and particularly in our engagements with diverse digital media technologies and institutions. Importantly to this study, that includes museums and the technologies they use. As Macdonald explains in the introduction to The Politics of Display: Museums, Science, Culture, museums are thoroughly part of society, culture and politics. As such, they are sites in which we can see wider social, cultural and political battles played out. They are not, however, simply sites, battlegrounds, terrains, zones or spaces. Museum displays are also agencies for defining scientific knowledge for the public, and for harnessing science and technology to tell culturally authoritative stories about race, nation, progress and modernity. (1998a, 19) For Macdonald, studies of interactive displays using multimedia technologies show that “exhibitionary developments are not just new ways of ‘packaging’ older projects, but also reconfigurations of ‘the public,’ of ‘culture’ and of knowledge/power,” though there is “no single ‘meaning’ or ‘politics’ encoded in such reconfigurations” (18). In the present chapter, I examine how politics arose (or not) in relation to the design, content decisions, use, and management of the MUM App display. I first return to how the app was made to analyze the actors that negotiated decisions related to its design, curation, and development. I examine how the museum’s display politics became entangled with interested commercial players and what the implications were for the museum and its “visitors.” I then return to the participant study to examine participants’ comments about the collections displayed through the app. Doing so allows me to closely inspect the historical photographic images selected by the museum, the descriptions made, and the histories they told. Lastly, I analyze

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the accessibility of the MUM App’s exhibit for audiences. Together, these perspectives will show how knowledge and power were woven into the design, content, and use of this “digital” display. While the first section of this chapter examines the politics of the MUM App’s content and its employment in practice, the second section explores whether software allowed for the “automated management of society” and increased “surveillance.” Here, I draw on interviews with management at the museum about what data were collected about the MUM App’s usage, what statistical information was presented on Google Analytics dashboards, and how this information was used at the museum. I assess the claim that museums are increasingly involved in “surveillance” of museum visitors, particularly as they have access to “big data” by way of novel digital media technologies and platforms.

Competing Interests, the Lock-in Effect, “Old” Politics, and Discriminating Devices In this section, I examine four ways in which the making of the MUM App reconfigured relations between humans and non-humans, as well as their politics. First, I return to how the app was remade and examine the industry reports that negotiated early design decisions to remake the Streetmuseum App into the MUM App. I discuss how the negotiations and decisions related to remaking this type of display can, in turn, have a long-term “lock-in effect” of extensive infrastructures. Second, I examine the implications of the high costs of developing, modifying, and maintaining the app through the British creative agency Brothers and Sisters and the development company Thumbspark. Third, I return to how participants viewed collections in practice, in order to analyze participant comments on the app’s exhibit. This brings to light how “old” gender and cultural politics can be reinscribed on present-day sites through the superimposition of historical photographic images that are little explained. Lastly, I investigate the implications of designing an augmented reality app museum exhibit, like the MUM App, that would be used only on Apple’s mobile devices and that would entail viewing collections across the city centre’s neighbourhoods and terrain.

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Competing Interests in Decision-Making Processes and the Lock-in Effect To examine how the McCord Museum’s practices were entangled with commercial companies, I need to return to the industry reports that acted as negotiators in the decisions to make an augmented reality app. On the one hand, it could be said that the Horizon reports, which I received from the museum’s head of IT , were part of an important service provided for all museums, since the reports presented a tremendous amount of information about digital media trends in the museum sector. Such reports would have required time, resources, and expenses to write, collate, and distribute – and these resources were scarce at the McCord Museum. But, on the other hand, it is important to ask, who can invest the time, resources, and money needed to make expensive reports “free” for the sector? And why would they do so? The Horizon reports were developed by the New Media Consortium (NMC ).1 The NMC was initially founded in 1993 through a joint venture that included Apple, Adobe, Macromedia, and Sony, “who realized that the ultimate success of their multimedia-capable products depended upon their widespread acceptance by the higher education community in a way that had never been achieved before.”2 This is one case where the NMC ’s goal was realized. The Horizon reports not only negotiated the McCord’s decision to make more apps, but also served to entangle the museum with some of the very products that such commercial organizations sold. Thus, the Horizon reports were not just “informative” but also “promotional” – they promoted the use of particular technologies, like apps, to increase the use of particular platforms, such as the App Store, and the purchase of devices, like Apple’s iPhones and iPads. Further, they served to entangle the museum’s “visitors” – in unprecedented social, cultural, and economic ways – with the platforms and devices that commercial companies sold, as “visitors” needed to have or acquire their own Apple mobile device to download the MUM App from the App Store before they could see the McCord Museum’s augmented reality exhibit. While the increase in use of apps, devices, and platforms by the museum and its “visitors” meant increased sales for commercial companies like Apple, it also had a longer-term “effect” of increasingly

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stabilizing infrastructures – not only the platforms used to sell apps, like the App Store, but also other infrastructures supporting mobile devices, like that of GPS , telecommunication service providers, and so on. Concerns around how corporate interests increasingly shape “digital” infrastructures have also been flagged by Kitchin (2014), who has brought attention to the increasing corporatization of “smart city governance.” As he explains, “smart city” solutions have been “pushed” by vendors creating “a technological lock-in that beholden[s] cities to particular technological platforms and vendors over a long period of time” (10). This present case shows how museum exhibition design decisions can also have far-reaching infrastructural implications. Ultimately, a “small” app solution promoted by a “free” commercial industry report can have “big” infrastructural standardization, economic, and even environmental repercussions – because it contributes to the “lock-in effect” or what has also been referred to as “irreversibility” (Akrich, Callon, and Latour 2002a; Callon 1991).3 The lock-in effect, or irreversibility, involves the stabilization of a standard that has implications for a wider infrastructure. The stabilization of a standard could be intentional or unintentional, right or wrong, but it is almost always hard to change, given that modifications become increasingly cost prohibitive. One example is Paul David’s study of the persistent use of the “QWeRTY keyboard,” the most common keyboard layout. The QWeRTY keyboard has persisted, over the more efficient DVORAK design, though it was a “standardization on the wrong system” (1985, 336). Another example is John Urry’s study of the “steel and petroleum car,” which reached “lock-in” given its related “systems of provision and categories of things are ‘materialized’ in a stable form” (2004, 26, quoting Slater 2001). As Urry explains, examples of lock-in show that institutions matter a great deal in how systems develop, since social institutions “can have the effect of producing a long-term irreversibility” that is both predictable and difficult to reverse, like in the case of the “steel and petroleum car” as a mode of transportation (2004, 32). The lock-in effect of a “standard” or even a “wrong system” – be it small or big – can have serious consequences. On the surface, the standardization of the use of “apps” as exhibit displays may seem less problematic than, say, the standardization of petrol-based cars, given the environmental pollution that

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cars contribute. But it becomes more serious when we consider the ways in which remaking apps helps to stabilize the wider industry and particularly the continuous production, purchase, use, and upgrades of mobile, tablet, and desktop devices. Even with recycling programs such as the Apple GiveBack program (also known as Apple Trade In), such devices will continue to contribute to “digital pollution” – an example being the “digital dump” of desktop computers and other devices in Africa.4

Exhibitionary Entanglements with (More) Commercial Organizations As mentioned in chapter 1, the MUM App was created and developed by two British-based companies – Brothers and Sisters and Thumbspark – which had developed the original Streetmuseum App, on which the MUM App was based. Consequently, both of these organizations were entangled in the museum’s decision-making processes concerning the design and development of its augmented reality exhibit and also became gatekeepers to any future modifications of the app. As discussed earlier, because of a lack of funding, any significant changes to the design of the Streetmuseum App were not possible when remaking it into the MUM App, and the later app inherited similar features from its predecessor. In addition, in an interview with the project manager of Web and Multimedia, it became evident that it was rather expensive for the McCord to later make any additional changes to the app or to its exhibit. This was because any modifications to the app had to be done through Brothers and Sisters, and, in turn, Thumbspark, and the costs of changes were high, particularly given the unfavourable foreign exchange rates between the Canadian dollar and British pound sterling at the time. So, any non-critical changes to the app, such as changing or adding more historical photographic images, were cost prohibitive (without more funds). Not being able to change the photographic images in the augmented reality exhibit certainly made it more challenging to keep “visitors” interested in the MUM App display. As the museum employees knew, rotating artefacts in displays was one way to keep visitors interested in exhibits. For the museum, the constraints in relation to modifying the app’s augmented reality exhibit were much more pronounced

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than, say, those related to modifying its “physical” exhibits, such as the permanent exhibit Montreal – Points of View. This is because the museum already had the in-house skills, resources, and funds needed to rotate artefacts in those displays – and it regularly did so. As regards the app, the issue was not that Brothers and Sisters (and Thumbspark) were too expensive per se: the Museum of London was able to repeatedly hire them – not only to modify its Streetmuseum App with crisper graphics and a new look, but also to add new content that promoted its other exhibits, such as the Cheapside Hoard exhibition. But in the case of the McCord Museum and the MUM App, such options were rendered “non-negotiable,” showing how budget constraints and exchanges rates can be powerful negotiators in such commercial dealings. It had been hard enough to get funding for the initial development of the app – the museum looked to sponsors, including McGill University, which funded the development of the app using a portion of its 190th anniversary budget (a reason for the prominent featuring of historical photographic images of McGill University’s campus and buildings in the exhibit). It was perhaps unsurprising then that the museum would look for more sponsorships, including from commercial companies. In particular, the museum partnered with a local real estate company, Ivanhoé Cambridge, in 2014, to add outdoor images of “four new landmark buildings of indisputable heritage value in the city of Montreal” (Place Ville Marie, 1000 de la Gauchetière, the Centre de commerce mondial, and Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth) as well as five indoor images (in Place Montréal Trust, Complexe les Ailes, Place Ville Marie, Centre CDP Capital, and 1000 de la Gauchetière) to the display.5 This sponsorship meant that yet another commercial player would negotiate what artefacts would be on display and become entangled in the decisions of what histories would be told through the MUM App display.

“Old” Politics Reinscribed on Current City Sites In chapter 1, I discussed how actors negotiated the curation of the MUM App, detailing the decision to select historical photographic images and to describe the images for the exhibit. Here, I examine the content of the images on display, their reception with participants in

Figure 4.1 “Group for Mrs. Johnson.” Figure 4.2 “Roman Catholic nuns.” Figure 4.3 “Old Men’s Refectory, Grey Nunnery.”

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Figure 4.4 “Interior, St Margaret’s Home.” Figure 4.5 “Graduates at Roddick Gates.”

the study, and the politics that arose. In her analysis of museum exhibitions, Macdonald suggests that “we need to look analytically at the contents of exhibitions in relation to their production, contexts and reception” (1998a, 2) if we are to understand the potentials, difficulties, and consequences of putting science or culture – or, in this case, a city’s history – on display. Chapter 1 examined how both humans and non-humans – including museum employees, a creative agency, software developers, and the predecessor Streetmuseum App, Apple standards, funding – negotiated the MUM App’s design and content. It showed that non-humans played as significant a part as humans, not only in how many historical photographic images would be selected for display but also in terms of whether contents of the app

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exhibit were explained or not and in the decisions about how much text would be included. In turn, these display design decisions would mean that only some historical photographic images would be placed into exhibitionary view, while others would be left out, and therefore only some aspects of histories would be explained, with others left unexplained. Consequently, the outcomes of the negotiations of the app’s design would play a part in the reception of the augmented reality exhibits, particularly in how “old” gender, cultural, and institutional politics arose when participants viewed the app’s exhibit. While the historical photographic images were meant to provide “visitors” with “interesting” views into the history of Montreal from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century (the timeframe when the photographs were taken), images reflected the gendered roles of the time. For example, women featured on the steps of homes holding their children (figure 4.1), as members of religious orders (figure 4.2), as dutiful caretakers of the elderly (figures 4.3 and 4.4), in an arts class at a female college, and trailing behind schools of graduating men in ceremonial gowns (figure 4.5). On the other hand, men are not only in the ceremonial gowns, but they are inaugurating institutional buildings (figure 4.6), shown as religious leaders (figure 4.7), wearing the uniforms of powerful military institutions (figure 4.8), present at international scientific conferences, such as the British Association for the Advancement of Sciences (figure 4.9), and

Figure 4.6 “Opening of the Student Union Building.”

Figure 4.7 “Grand Seminary class.” Figure 4.8 “Royal Military College cadets.” Figure 4.9 “BAAS Group, Wesleyan Theological College.”

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Figure 4.10 “Football game at McGill University.” Figure 4.11 “Redpath Museum.”

taking part in sports (figure 4.10). Moreover, the names of prominent men adorn the majority of buildings and institutions shown (figures 4.10 and 4.11). Only men are present among the science students of 1899 (figure 4.12) and the Faculty of Medicine in 1914 (figure 4.13). As Participant 7 commented in annoyance at seeing the photograph of science students, “there’s not a single woman in it, and there’s no comment about it – it’s pretty pathetic.” A sole woman does appear in the class picture of the Faculty of Medicine in 1920 (figure 4.14), though her posture is slouched as she gazes to the ground. I can only speculate that she may be the wife of the man she stands next to and the mother of the child in front of him. While Participant 7 found the

Figure 4.12 “Science students.”

Figure 4.13 “Class of 1914, Faculty of Medicine.”

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Figure 4.14 “Students from the Faculty of Medicine.”

images political in terms of how gender relations were represented, other participants said nothing at all about it. But this is not unusual. As Macdonald found in her study of the Food for Thought exhibition at the Science Museum in London, museum visitors tend to “constructively appropriate the exhibition into their own cultural lists, and discuss it in relation to their own lives and interests” (2002, 239). But, as I will explain next, while most participants said nothing about its gender politics, others pointed to, commented on, and/or critiqued other social and cultural politics that the display raised. Religious, educational, and commercial institutions featured prominently in the historical photographic images selected for the app, yet these lacked contextual descriptions to explain how they emerged, why they persisted, and, in some cases, why they no longer existed. For example, the dominance of the anglophone society was left unexplained, yet is a sore point in the history in this predominantly French-speaking city. The British imprint can still be seen in the institutions erected and the nomenclature used. The presence of the British monarchy is written into the name of the Royal Victoria College, named in honour of Queen Victoria (figure 4.15), which has maintained its name as one of McGill’s student residence buildings.

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Figure 4.15 “Royal Victoria College.” Figure 4.16 “Prince of Wales Terrace.”

The Prince of Wales Terrace, which commemorates the Prince of Wales’s visit in 1860 (figure 4.16) and was torn down in 1971, is now brought back into present-day view through its superimposition on the existing site. The largely anglophone names on the buildings and institutions – McCord, McGill, Redpath, Drummond, and Molson, to name only a few – further articulate the dominance of the British, particularly British men of business. What made these men prominent is not explained in the MUM App, which led Participant 5 to ask, “Who are these people that have all this money to throw around and put their names on things?” This is in keeping with Donna Haraway’s study of the African Hall diorama at the Natural History Museum,

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as she found that gender and cultural domination were “frozen into the hardware and logics of technology” (Haraway 1984–85, 52). Likewise, in the present case, we find that “old” politics was frozen in and by technologies long before the MUM App “exhibit” – first, by the camera technologies that were used in the original taking of the historical photographs; second, by their collection in print; third, by their translation into digital images; and fourth, in selecting the digitized images for the MUM App to be superimposed on present-day sites. As Participant 5 implied, while selected photographs documented the legacy of some captains of industry, the accompanying descriptions failed to explain that the slightly unsavoury liquor and tobacco industries contributed significantly to the wealth of some of these men, as well as the subsequent economic strength of the public institutions erected. If detail was lacking from descriptions in these cases, there were also neither descriptions nor photographs of some other aspects of the history of the city. For instance, some neighbourhoods outside the fringes of the wealthier central city, where working classes often lived in impoverished conditions, were completely left out of the exhibit, an absence commented on by some participants. Participant 4, for example, noted that she had hoped to see more fringe neighbourhoods represented in the exhibit: “I really wanted there to be more photos in other parts of the city, like Point St Charles or St Laurent, I guess, or like the Plateau.” Still, what was displayed through the MUM App’s exhibit did leave an impression on participants: when I asked them if they knew more about the sites after seeing the display (Question 23(a) of the MUM App Questionnaire – see appendix C), all eleven participants responded with a resounding “yes.” Interestingly, however, when I asked them if they knew more about the sites or more about the historical photographs on display (Question 24), only seven of the eleven participants responded that they knew more about the sites than they did about the photographs. While this case demonstrates how museum exhibits can assist the orchestration of “conceptions of truth” (Macdonald 1998a) in the representations of what the public ought to know about particular histories of city sites, how such conceptions arise, and what they arise about, needs closer inspection. Given that four participants stated that they knew more about the photographs than the sites themselves,

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“conceptions of truth” pertained in some cases to the collection itself, and in others to the city. But while particular “conceptions of truth” arose in relation to the MUM App’s displays for one or more participants, to blame the museum or its staff for the app’s politics would be as wrong as to dismiss individual participant readings. Any “conceptions of truth” that did arise were not arranged solely by the intern who selected and prepared the content or the museum employees who approved it, nor were they conceived solely in the minds of participants or orchestrated solely by digital media technologies or the availability of digitized collections. Any of these asymmetrical views would be limited in understanding at best. Rather, such orchestrations were an “effect” of myriad negotiations of a multitude of actors that took place over space and time. The actors included (at the very least) the city, and its institutions, parks, and streets, over hundreds of years; the established gender and cultural practices of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the (often contrived) poses of the historical photographic images taken in that period; the remaking of the app display, with its inherited design and use of vast infrastructures networked beyond Earth; and the redistribution of bodies, practices, collections, and technologies; and the histories explained (or not). While some histories were left out of or silenced in the MUM App’s display, we might also add that so were “visitor” responses, as user comment boxes were not a feature on this app (or the Streetmuseum App before it). This omission was unlike other online platforms, such as HistoryPin and Flickr, through which the McCord Museum had displayed the same historical photographic images, but which provided users with comment boxes to express their views about what they were seeing. But enabling such a program of action on the MUM App would not have guaranteed that all users would leave a comment. They seldom did on the other online platforms, and, when they did leave a comment, it was not usually a political critique – unless you count the rather sexist comment of one user on Flickr who wrote, about figure 1.7, “Miss Grant, isn’t that rather a lot of visible leg for 1929?” But before generalizing about the MUM App’s politics (and the Streetmuseum App’s politics before it) as “silencing visitors without a comment box,” I wanted to give participants a say on this too. I asked participants (through the questionnaire) if they would have liked to

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have been able to interact more through the app by, for example, leaving comments or adding pictures (Question 41[a]). Six of the eleven participants responded with a flat-out “no.” Of those who did say that they would have liked more interaction, Participant 5 wrote that he would have liked to see “commenting, adding pictures, adding own history (through text or voice).” Another participant agreed that the app should enable comments. As she wrote, “Would like to leave comments and see others! Comments especially because this App lacks a critical reflection.” Not all participants wanted to add comments themselves: some preferred just to read what others had to say, as another participant admitted: “While I do not know what I would have actively done, it may have been interesting to read the comments of others (e.g. ‘my mother lived in the Prince of Wales Terrace’),” where they added to the historical context. In the end, it would be incorrect to generalize about the MUM App’s politics. This case showed that not all “visitors” found “old” gender and cultural politics in the images displayed, and, if more participants did find the images political, they certainly did not vocalize it. And not all participants wanted to express a critique or interact more with other users through the app. Still, given that collections can carry, and help orchestrate, “conceptions of truth,” the contexts and descriptions of, as well as public responses to, collections may need to be brought to light and into negotiation during decision-making processes for “digital” displays too. Further, opportunities to comment or to read others’ comments on exhibits were important to some participants. While comment boxes were used sparsely on sites like Flickr, they still had the potential to open up dialogues between interested “visitors” and to provide feedback to the museum.

Discriminating Apps and Devices It is not just humans that discriminate against humans: non-humans do it also. Various technologies have been shown to discriminate against humans in practice. For example, Latour (1992) has pointed to how hydraulic door-closers discriminate against “the very elderly and the very little,” as well as “those that have lower-paying jobs, such as delivery persons or movers.” And Susan Leigh Star (1991) has shown

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how even restaurants, such as McDonald’s, can discriminate against customers in their standardization of food preparation (in her case, based on an allergy to onions). Non-humans can also discriminate against other non-humans. When apps are made, they are configured to particular platform(s), and the MUM App was configured specifically for Apple’s iOS operating system and the mobile devices that it runs on (such as iPhones and iPads). Therefore, the app was incompatible with, or discriminated against, any other operating systems and devices – for example, it did not work on the Android operating system and so it could not be downloaded on, say, a Samsung device. Since the app worked only on Apple’s operating systems and mobile devices, it indirectly discriminated against particular users as well. So, while the app was “free for everyone,” only Apple device owners got to see the app’s exhibit. To an avid iPhone user, and from reading news media reports, it may seem that the iPhone is a most popular choice of smartphone, but a closer look at the statistics shows a different picture. Despite the news media reports that suggested immense sales figures related to Apple products – for example, by the end of 2012, Forbes reported that the “300 millionth iPhone was sold,” and in 2014 it was announced that Apple “sold its 500 millionth iPhone” (Rugowsky 2014) – industry research showed Apple as having a smaller portion of market share relative to that of Samsung. For example, Gartner, a technology research and consulting company, reported Apple’s worldwide smartphone share as 15.4 percent in 2014, a slight decline from 15.5 percent the year before; by contrast, Samsung led smartphone sales, with 24.7 percent of the market in 2014 (see appendix D, table D.1).6 But perhaps more striking is that, when the MUM App was being decided on, in 2010, Apple only had 2.9 percent of the world market share: both Nokia and Samsung outsold Apple that year, with 28.9 percent and 17.6 percent, respectively, of world market share (see table D.2). The same Gartner report showed that, in 2010, 22.7 percent of the market was using a smartphone with an Android operating system, compared to 15.7 percent with iOS (table D.4); by 2014, Android’s market share had increased enormously, to 80.7 percent, while the iOS market share decreased to 15.4 percent (table D.3). In Canada, CBC News reported that a survey conducted by Ipsos Reid between January 2011 and August

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2012 showed that “the number of Canadian smartphone users who owned Android-based devices grew from 26 per cent to 36 per cent” and that the “number of smartphone users who opted for Apple’s iPhones, meanwhile, crept up from 23 per cent to 29 per cent.”7 So the statistics show that the decision to make the MUM App for iOS actually limited its accessibility for the majority of people with smartphones – that is, those who did not have an iPhone or other Apple mobile device. Moreover, there were also those who did not own smartphone devices at all: the Communications Monitoring Report (2016) by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission showed that only 37 percent of Canadians owned a smartphone in 2011 (table D.5), and the proportion of smartphone users was even lower among francophones (26 percent compared to anglophones at 41 percent) (table D.6). One reason for the slow uptake was that data plans were expensive in Canada: the cost of a wireless plan that included 1 GB data usage was averaging $100 a month in 2011 (table D.7). Thus, the app discriminated not only against users who did not have a particular Apple mobile device, but also against those who could not afford a plan (or a device), and, oddly (since the MUM App “exhibit” was located in Montreal), against francophone populations. Yet another way in which the device discriminated was against “the very elderly and the very little,” who were less mobile and for whom the acts of walking, standing, and/or hiking about the city were not possible, at least not without some help. Hiking up the many stairs to Mount Royal was a particularly demanding feat, and, even if one drove there, manoeuvring around the park grounds could still present challenges. By contrast, a “physical” exhibition space in a museum often accommodates for the accessibility needs of wider audiences. The McCord Museum provides elevators, for those unable to climb flights of stairs, and ensures that spaces are clear for easy mobility. The museum also organizes educational programs for young children and outreach programs that engage the elderly in activities.8 Such considerations, which aim to include wider audiences, did not come up in relation to the app, nor did it deter the McCord Museum (or the Museum of London before it) from making this type of exhibit. This decision could be at least partly explained by the fact that the MUM App was considered a “promotional tool” for the museum’s

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permanent exhibit, and so access to the “exhibit” would not necessarily have been given full consideration. But there is also an implicit assumption that digital media technologies increase “mobility.” Their very description – mobile devices – has mobile inscribed in it. But such assumptions are, in fact, myths. When compared to the museum’s “physical” exhibit space like that for Montreal – Points of View, where accessibility considerations are made for differently abled bodies, the MUM App’s augmented reality display, which required users to view collections around the city and on their own terms, time, funds, and devices – afforded fewer considerations for those devices and bodies left out of the fold. While such instances of discrimination, and the barring of possible “visitors” from seeing the MUM App “exhibit,” provide a glimpse of how mobile devices can be political, mobile devices participate in other political acts, including “configuring the user.”9 As we saw in chapter 2, using the mobile device to engage with the app could negotiate how a user’s classification was reconfigured in practice, – as when “museum visitors” become “tourists,” for example. On another occasion in the study, a participant brought to my attention that iPhones were not used by “professionals.” At the time, Participant 1 was an articling student working at a medium-sized law firm. She initially asked me if the MUM App cost anything to download. I responded that it was “free.” Participant 1: It’s only for iPhones though, doesn’t work for professionals. Researcher: Do professionals tend to use other . . . ? Participant 1: Well, lawyers, it’s mostly Blackberries; it’s not really a choice. Being an iPhone owner myself (and using it as a researcher), I momentarily questioned whether she thought I was “professional.” In any case, this simultaneous configuration of the user, and assignment of a particular bias, as “professional” or not was not fixed, as the next statement by the same participant suggested: “Although it looks like firms are really moving towards the iPhone” (emphasis added). For this participant, the iPhone was not “professional” until firms used them – and that put in question whether I, as an owner of an iPhone,

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was professional or not. So, we see here an instance where devices mediate not only the participation of users in particular experiences, but also the classification of users in relation to the devices they use.10 This happens on an ongoing basis – it is not fixed and so “it can be otherwise.” Changes in how (and whether) users are configured (and discriminated against) in relation to particular digital media or other technologies can happen: for example, as institutional preferences change (as Participant 1 indicated), so do our classifications of users as professional or not. But also, by understanding how it is that users are configured, classified, and at times discriminated against, it is possible to raise awareness as to how such classification and, ultimately, identity politics can arise and therefore how to avoid the discriminatory consequences of digital media.

The Automated Management of Society: User Tracking and Surveillance In this section, I consider the politics of the “automated management of society” (Kitchin and Dodge 2011), whereby increasing “control” is exercised through the use of various technologies (especially software) that collect and process and then make decisions and act based on “big data.” The release of the MUM App gave the McCord Museum access to an unprecedented amount of information in relation to the display – particularly as user data could be automatically gathered, organized, calculated, stored, and displayed through Google Analytics dashboards (see appendix E). The amount of information collected and presented was extraordinary when compared to what the museum was able to manually collect and semi-automatically calculate for its “physical” exhibits. For some, this level of data collection has raised concerns about the potential for pervasive “surveillance” of users and increased social “control.” The following sections use the case of the MUM App to test such claims, particularly the tendency to generalize that all digital media technologies and the institutions that employ them (including museums) allow for increased “surveillance” and “control” of society. Considering the “digital” alone engenders asymmetrical and determinist

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conceptions of how practices are accomplished, with humans and their work categorically left out. Therefore, in keeping with the symmetrical approach taken in this study, I first uncover how humans are also behind and involved in “automating” processes. Second, while the app enabled an unprecedented amount of data to be automatically gathered, organized, calculated, stored, and displayed through Google Analytics dashboards, I discuss how such statistical information can yet be, in practice, vague and lacking key descriptive elements, challenging the ability of institutions to meaningfully understand and act on the information presented.

Automated Management? Automated Statistics for Management Decisions Kitchin and Dodge argue that we have been living in a “culture of control” for some time. As they explain, “every society is organized and managed through a system of governance based upon a particular mode of governmentality – the interlocking rationale, apparatus, institutions, roles, and procedures of governance” (2011, 81). According to Kitchen and Dodge, this system of governance has its roots in the Enlightenment era, which saw a change in social order from a feudal to a modern system and that also entailed a shift in the general systems of governance in most Western societies. The new systems of governance required new apparatuses of surveillance and policing to capture, classify, and catalogue people, and facilitated universal regulations that also instilled self-discipline, as people feared punishment. In institutions such as factories, there was an increase in systems designed to monitor and manage workers to ensure maximization of profits while reducing risk and crime. These systems of governance have continued to develop, and, today, Kitchin and Dodge argue, we should be increasingly concerned, as a range of new technologies – such as closed-circuit television (CCTV ) – are playing an important role in supporting a “culture of control.” In addition, software has been transforming how individuals and societies are being governed. And, despite some issues of communication with advances in tools and systems of organization,11 they suggest that “software is ideally suited

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to monitoring, managing, and processing capta about people, objects, and their interaction, and is leading to a new mode of governmentality,” a mode that they call “automated management” (85). As they explain, “automated management is the regulation of people and objects through processes that are automated (technologically enacted), automatic (the technology performs the regulation without prompting or direction) and autonomous (regulation, discipline and outcomes are enacted without human oversight) in nature” (85). Automated management of society, therefore, is enabled through varying degrees of automation related to the collection, calculation, and monitoring of data, and, ultimately, data-related decision-making processes. But how much of this is “new,” how much is really automated by and through “new technologies,” and what can we learn about automated management from the MUM App case at the McCord Museum? Historically, the McCord had collected statistics on visitors through various practices and devices – from using technologies such as clicker counters and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to count and calculate the number of visitors to the museum or its exhibitions, to hiring consultants for visitor observation and evaluation, which involved stealth observation and photography. So, to some extent, partial and simple automated management was not “new,” and neither were activities of surveillance. But, in the case of the MUM App, these more traditional methods of collecting information and monitoring visitors would not have worked, since the “museum visit” took place outside the museum, across the city, and through the personal devices of “visitors.” Therefore, no longer could the museum (or possible consultants) use traditional methods to count or observe “visitors.” However, aspects of these “old” data collection practices were, in this case, redistributed and redelegated across novel assemblages of actors in the app’s network. For example, when a user employed the MUM App to view collections, the app collected data, which it then sent to Google Analytics. In turn, Google Analytics received, calculated, stored, and presented statistical information on standardized dashboards. As a result, an unprecedented amount of statistical information was presented on these dashboard reports. Not only did the dashboards show the number of “visits” to the MUM App’s exhibit, but they also displayed detailed information about, for example, how many times a particular

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image had been viewed, what types of devices were used by “visitors,” and even the country of origin of the device. In turn, the information presented could be used in at least a couple of ways: to learn more about the “visitors” to the exhibit and to change or improve the app. For example, the museum could have used the statistics to understand more about what the “visitors” to the exhibit saw and where they went, to determine which images were viewed most and therefore what locations were most visited? The museum could then (in theory) add or remove historical photographic images based on high or low traffic to a particular area or based on the theme of the most popular images. In this way, the dashboard could be considered another example of a “centre of calculation” (Latour 1987), an interface for making decisions and a way to thus “mobilize” actors through the decisions made. But, gathering this type of information is not exactly new, since the museum previously hired consultants to gather similar information by tracking visitors in exhibitions, albeit in a less automated way. Yet, while some aspects of these monitoring processes had been rendered “automated,” others were not. A closer inspection of the “automated” processes in this case shows that, while aspects of data collection, calculation, and presentation had been redistributed to assemblages of non-human actors – such as the MUM App (which gathered and organized data for transmission), the mobile device (and other technologies and infrastructures that transmitted data), and the Google Analytics platform (which stored and presented the calculated statistical information) – humans were still very much a part of those assemblages and were always involved in the entire chain of production. Humans were required in the development and maintenance of the app, in using the app, and in ensuring the mobile devices worked. Even though maintenance work by programmers and technicians is often invisible and taken for granted, humans were still always behind the maintenance of the large infrastructures involved, such as GPS, telecommunication services, and the Google Analytics platform (as has been argued by Star and Ruhleder 1996; Star 1999; Bowker et al. 2009). Thus, it may be said that the notion “automated management” can lead to a deterministic reading, in that it characterizes assemblages (of both humans and non-humans) as “automated,” rendering humans and their work invisible.

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Still, it is evident that software, mobile devices, and other technologies and infrastructures described in this case assisted in “accelerating” moves related to statistical reporting. Charting these moves unveils their long chains of production regardless of their makeup, similar to the ways in which “digital maps” exposed the long chains of production related to “paper maps” (November, Camacho-Hübner, and Latour 2010) (see chapter 2). It also shows the increase in speed with which large volumes of data were being collected, processed, and presented. This type of acceleration was particularly evident when examining the Google Analytics dashboards. They immediately revealed how increasingly “automated” networks for gathering statistics could be faster than previous, less automated methods. First, data were collected, organized, calculated, stored, and presented in real time. Second, the statistical information provided multiple views: for example, usage statistics could be displayed by device, originating city, or originating country. Third, information on the dashboards could be viewed from practically “anywhere” – as long as museum employees had an access ID and password for Google Analytics, a computing device, and a reliable internet connection. But while digital media technologies and vast infrastructures helped accelerate tracking and reporting processes and seemingly provided a range of informational and possible actionable benefits, they were still open to failure and disruption. If an internet connection was not available or a computing device broke down, access was not possible. Or if the user’s mobile device did not work or its cellular signal failed, the MUM App “exhibit” could not even happen. Yet, when these elements did work, the gathering and processing of such unprecedented amounts of information was (at least on first glance) extraordinary. But did this increasingly “automated” process allow for additional “surveillance” and “control”? To answer this question, I next examine the data collected and statistical information presented on Google Analytics and how management at the museum used (or did not use) this information.

Surveillance? User Tracking and the Corporatization of Big Data Given that more data were being collected about the MUM App’s use and more statistical information could be presented through the

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Google Analytics dashboards than the museum ever had before about its “physical” exhibits, the question arises as to what the museum was doing with so much data. The sheer volume of data can certainly raise questions and concerns similar to Kitchin and Dodge’s on “surveillance” activities and possible “control of society.” Indeed, how museums were using data collected through “surveillance-capable technologies” (D. Mason et al. 2002, 138) was increasingly being questioned in the mainstream press. For example, Gamerman (2014) was concerned about privacy issues in relation to the increasing use of beacon technology combined with smartphones to track visitors in museums. Around the same time, Merritt (2014) pointed to how museums were “adapting surveillance technologies to their own purposes” and “monitoring real-time tweets and location data” (n.p.). But was the McCord Museum able to engage in user surveillance? If yes, how and to what extent? And did the Google Analytics dashboard information give the museum additional power to control? As Thrift and French (2002), and Kitchin and Dodge (2011), have pointed out, concerns about activities of surveillance have escalated as software has become more ubiquitous, and particularly as now almost all technologies have some surveillance capability. For Mason et al., who explore surveillance technologies in the context of the social relations in workplaces, there exists a “continuum of surveillancecapable technologies”: At one extreme are those designed primarily with a surveillance function (such as closed circuit television (CCTV ) security systems). At the other are systems that are designed with non-surveillance functions in mind (such as workflow control technologies) and where the capacity to monitor individual’s work is a by-product. In between are those where a surveillance or audit function has been intentionally designed in, but where the relative emphasis on various system capacities is dependent on local needs and implementation strategies. (D. Mason et al. 2002, 138–9) As they also point out, “almost any modern technology in common use could, if desired, be utilized for surveillance purposes” (139).

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Similarly, technologies used by the McCord to track “visitors” could be used for surveillance purposes. While the Google Analytics dashboards provided only aggregated statistics, they still, at least at first glance, provided significant information about users’ actions and devices. As mentioned before, the dashboards showed statistical information about how many times particular images had been viewed and therefore which locations of the city exhibit were visited most, what types of devices were used by “visitors,” the language of the device, and the city and country in which it was registered. To understand how much more data was being collected about the MUM App “digital” display than had previously been collected for “physical” exhibits at the McCord Museum, I conducted an interview with the museum’s accountant. She was in charge of collating, calculating, and reporting statistical information for the museum’s management, its board of trustees, and its annual reports. In the case of “physical” exhibits, information on museum visits was often based on clicker-counter tallies as well as ticket sales. The accountant often used a standard spreadsheet to calculate monthly and yearly statistics about visits to the museum and to particular exhibits. The information collected was then provided to management for internal departmental reviews or meetings with the board of trustees and used in annual reporting. The reports were used in meetings to discuss the success (or failure) of past exhibitions in order to decide on future exhibits. For example, looking at one of the accountant’s spreadsheets, it was easy to see why a toy-themed exhibit was reorganized and re-exhibited several years in a row. The first Toys exhibit proved extremely popular in the winter months of 2010/11 (around the holiday season), and, as a result, toy-themed exhibits were displayed in 2011/12 as Toys 2; in 2012/13 as Toys 3; in 2013/14 as Toys again; and in 2014/15 as The Island of Toys. In addition, the information collected was used to report statistics to the board of trustees and the public, through regular and annual reporting. The annual reports could be used to justify budgets and funds spent on exhibitions put on by the museum. But all of this data collected, and statistical information reported, seemed basic when initially compared to the information presented on the Google Analytics dashboards.

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In comparison to these more traditional reporting practices, for which mainly visitor numbers were collected, the Google Analytics dashboards displayed a staggering amount of statistical information about the app’s usage. The five examples of standard dashboard views shown in appendix E illustrate how much information could be displayed about the use of the app. As presented, all dashboards examples show statistical data for a period of one year, from 17 August 2011 to 20 September 2012. The first dashboard (figure E.1) displays usage by device and depicts the types of devices onto which the MUM App had been downloaded. The second dashboard (figure E.2) displays the originating country; the third (figure E.3) the originating city; and the fourth (figure E.4) the language of the device. Further, the dashboards could show what images from the collection had been viewed (figure E.5). This level of detailed statistical information could not have been easily collected and presented for a “physical” exhibit. It would have taken much (more) human labour (and the use of other technologies, such as Excel) to produce daily visualizations similar to those presented on the dashboards, like the line-graph in figure E.1 that plotted usage – the, “lifeline,” so to speak – of the app in real time. Museum management could easily interpret some of the visual information presented on the Google Analytics dashboards. For example, the peak in October 2011 of figure E.1 could be explained as coinciding with the launch of the app. The low usage in February could be explained by cold winter weather, which made a hike around the city less attractive and manipulating the device more challenging. Other statistical information presented was vague and harder for management to interpret. For example, in an interview, I asked the head of IT to explain what some of the column headers on the dashboards meant, such as “entrances,” “bounce rate,” and “percent exit.” He did not know what they meant, nor could he determine their meaning when he looked to Google for more guidance during the interview. This interview took place over a year after the app had been released, yet the column headers were still cryptic and undeciphered. As a result, a significant portion of the statistical information presented through the dashboards could contribute little to meaningful interpretations about, for example, whether the app was working, or not,

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in practice. Even column headers that seemed more straightforward, such as “page views,” “unique page views,” or “average time on pages,” were ambiguous – not just because they were novel to museum management, but, more fundamentally, because they were not fully explained on the dashboard, and the code behind the statistics was hidden from view. Thus, while the Google Analytics dashboards, with their sometimes cryptic column headers, left museum management wondering, the issue was not one of competency. Ambiguity meant that the dashboards raised more questions than answers. Were “page views” calculated twice if one was viewing an image in augmented reality and then tapped the screen to see the two-dimensional view of the same image? The same question could be asked about “average time on pages.” And what if a user closed the app and then opened it again? Did that count as a different session, and was it thus considered a “new visit”? What if the app crashed and was restarted again – was that a “new visit”? Furthermore, the statistical information presented did not exactly capture how the user performed the “visit” with the app, nor did it explain their experience of it. Did users pay more attention to the collections – that is, the historical photographic images on display – or to the city sites onto which the images were superimposed? Did they close the app after each use or just abandon it mid-use? If they did abandon it, why did they do so? Were they interrupted, were they distracted, were they bored, or was it just how they decided to use the app? Was there an issue of “black screens” or “green squares”? This is not necessarily a problem associated with just the app, its code, and the Google Analytics dashboards: as de Certeau stated in The Practice of Everyday Life, “surveys of routes miss what was” (1984, 97). In this case, the dashboards presented information related more to the device and the activity of the “app” than the specific actions of the users. So, statistical information about “average time on pages” (see figure E.5) was less meaningful without clear indications about how the data were being collected and calculated. Management could not be sure about how long a user actually looked at a particular image and whether they were looking at it or the surrounding sites. Earlier chapters considered how participants looked at the images on display as well as the sites of the city and how distractions – such as shops

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and texts – abounded. I wonder how many of the dashboard statistics were thrown off by glitches, the “disobedience” of users, and the many distractions on the streets of Montreal. Further, management at the museum seemed little aware that the Google Analytics dashboards presented an opportunity for “user surveillance” – that issue was never brought up in my interviews with head of IT . This is not a new finding as, Mason et al. found that, in the case of workplace technologies, managers often seemed unaware of the surveillance potential of the systems they used. This is not to say that “surveillance” did not occur at the museum. After all, the museum did hire a consultant to do just that when they stealthily observed visitors to the permanent exhibit Montreal – Points of View after its opening. Such observation is not uncommon at museums. In his article “The Museum Is Watching You,” Isaac Arnsdorf discusses Matt Sikora, the Detroit Institute of Arts’ director of evaluation, as “a stealth observer” who “doesn’t look at the Rembrandts and Rodins” – rather “his eyes are trained on the people looking at them”: Mr. Sikora watches where visitors stop, whether they talk or read, how much time they spend. He records his observations in a handheld computer, often viewing his subjects through the display cases or tiptoeing behind them to stay out of their line of sight. “Teenage daughter was with, but did not interact, sat on bench, then left,” read his notes of one visit. (2010, n.p.) During such stealth operations, visitors often remain unaware that they are being watched. Arnsdorf suggests that most visitors do not know they are being observed: they are not told unless identifying information needs to be collected. Museum researchers say they doubt most visitors know they might be subjects of ethnographic studies. They notify visitors or ask their permission before gathering any identifying information. At the Detroit Institute of Arts, observers carry a letter from Mr. Sikora explaining the purpose of the study in case anyone asks. No one has, Mr. Sikora says, adding he hasn’t received any complaints. (n.p.)

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But the point of this stealth observation or surveillance, according to Arnsdorf, is that museums may rearrange art or rewrite the exhibit based on such visitor studies. “Their efforts reflect the broader change in the mission of museums: It’s no longer enough to hang artfully curated works. Museum exhibits are expected to be interactive and engaging. As well, many foundations and donors are requiring proof that their funding is well-spent, and the studies provide data to show a rise in traffic or exhibit engagement” (n.p.). Similarly, the McCord Museum used a consultant to stealthily examine visitors to the Montreal – Points of View exhibit in order to improve the interactivity and arrangement of its displays in the hopes of improving traffic. What Arnsdorf’s article and the McCord Museum’s use of consultants to examine how visitors see displays show is that “stealth observation” can be accomplished with or without “new technologies.” And the case of the MUM App and the Google Analytics dashboards shows that, while digital media technologies may be increasingly used to collect “big data,” these data can be more opaque and therefore less meaningful than data gathered in more traditional ways. So, while the head of IT at the museum had an impressive amount of information displayed to him by the Google Analytics dashboards, it did not mean that he or other museum employees (like the project manager of Web and Multimedia) could act on it and make significant changes to the app. First, the museum had resource constraints: the limited budget for this project did not allow for changes to the MUM App without additional external funding. Second, and perhaps more glaringly, the museum did not have any practices in place to manage a “digital” display with the amount of information that was presented on a real-time basis – and this also left management with more questions than answers. Were they supposed to rotate digital images regularly, like the curators did for the permanent exhibit Montreal – Points of View? Or were they supposed to just keep adding images to the existing set? Or eliminate those that were little viewed? There were other questions too. How should they have responded to the MUM App’s use by particular visitors – those that were local versus those from other countries, for example? Ultimately, without establishing “new” practices in response to the “rise” in information presented through the Google Analytic dashboards, and without more funds, museum

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employees were limited in their ability to assert more “control” over the city exhibit – by, for example, removing or adding images on display – and were far from controlling “visitors” as they trailed through the “disordered” city (see chapter 5). While this may be so, I am not suggesting that digital media technologies have not, cannot, and may not be employed by individuals, institutions, companies, and/or government agencies in surveillance activities. Rather, my point is that broad and sweeping generalizations should not be made about the use of digital media technologies across institutions – like museums, in this case. This study also suggests that, to gauge the implications of surveillance activities, these activities must be examined in relation to the technologies, practices, and directives put in place. In other words, research should aim to understand what data is collected; how it is stored, calculated, and presented; who has access to it; how those data are being interpreted and actioned; and what the outcomes and consequences are.

Conclusion In this chapter, I examined the MUM App’s politics in relation to how it was made and how it was employed in practice. It is notable that the industry reports that proposed more apps and augmented reality technologies for museums were created by the very technology companies that sell the products and services through which such app technologies are developed, distributed, and used. By revealing the links between the reports’ proposals, museum decisions, and novel practices, such as “visitors” bringing their own device to see the augmented reality exhibit, the analysis showed that these links not only entangled particular technologies in the museum’s practices but also entangled a portion of the public with particular devices. Such negotiations can lead, in turn, to a “lock-in effect” of particular digital media standards, networks, and infrastructures – which can be later difficult to modify or change. I examined how design decisions limited the histories that could be told, which enabled “old” gender and cultural politics to be reinscribed as historical photographic images were superimposed across sites in Montreal. Yet not all the participants found the images political, nor did they feel inclined to discuss

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them in this way. As this case shows, politics was not a result of collections of historical photographic images alone, or just limited space on displays, or just the cultural lists, lives, and interests of “visitors” to exhibits. Politics was not a given. Rather, it arose in situated negotiations that involved the actors described and myriad others across space and time. This chapter also examined claims that the increasing use of “new technologies,” including software, allows for the automated management and even the control of society through activities like surveillance. At first glance, the Google Analytics dashboards, which provided data obtained through the app, offered an unprecedented amount of information compared to what could be gathered and collated about a “physical” exhibit at the museum. But, as discussed, some of this information was provided in cryptic categories and could not be decoded by management. The statistical information could also be opaque: it said more about the app and the device than the experience of the “visitor.” Further, the museum did not have practices in place to use the statistical information in meaningful ways. And, in any case, the museum was constrained in acting on the information, as it continued to be under-resourced with respect to projects like the app, which made changes to the “exhibit” unlikely without external funding or more commercial sponsorships. Ultimately, this case points to how visitor tracking was more likely to be employed in curatorial practices and economic decisions related to “physical” exhibits at the museum – for example, to design profitable exhibits like the toy-themed exhibitions that the McCord Museum repeated yearly or to document foot traffic in order to maintain funding or secure more sponsors. While “control” may still be a part of such practices, the museum’s main underlying aims (besides those related to exhibition making) were to operate and survive on limited resources. There is also a paradox at play here. Theorists, media reports, and technology companies alike have suggested that the more software is used, the more “control” that may be instilled. Which is to say that the more that spaces have been infiltrated with software and devices, the more control there is over user and spatial actions. But I have found the opposite in the present case. The more I traced practices where software was used, the less “control” there seemed to be. Indeed, while

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an unprecedented array of usage statistics were displayed on Google Analytics dashboards, the museum knew little about what visitors actually did. Despite the plethora of data, it’s impossible to answer questions about whether a “visitor” saw an entire zone, let alone the entire exhibit. And, since “visitors” saw the MUM App’s augmented reality exhibit on their own in the city, there was no control over how they used the app and what they saw. Recall the findings in chapters 2 and 3: the confusion that arose as participants employed the app, commenting that they felt “jumbled” and asking for more direction; the uncertainty about how the app would work in relation to so many actors, including the architecture of the city, the sun, and even the weather; how some participants rescripted the app, like the participant who used the display platform to navigate the exhibit; how museum things became “multiple,” and local “museum visitors” became “tourists”; and how spaces became “heterotopic,” as spaces that were a “campus,” a “park,” or a “street” were, at the same time, a “place to view collections.” If I take all this precariousness, lack of control, confusion, uncertainty, multiplicity, and heterotopias into account, they point more to what Law et al. (2013) call the “non-coherence” of practices and the “disorder” of spaces. So, in the next chapter, I explore how disorder and non-coherence relate to the processes of remediation and reconfiguration that have been discussed thus far.

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Preceding chapters have shown how participants “visiting” (or “touring”) the MUM App’s exhibit, much like the museum’s management viewing statistics about the app’s usage, found themselves at times in uncertain, unexpected, and confusing situations. Here, I expand on how innovations like the MUM App allow us to observe the negotiations that take place between heterogeneous actors. This allows me to elaborate on how things become multiple and spaces heterotopic, and therefore how non-coherent practices exist in disordered spaces. In the first section of this chapter, I examine the non-coherent practices observed in this study and draw on science, technology, and society (STS ) studies literature to explain how (dis)order is performatively accomplished – that is, how practices underneath the bonnet are performed in a non-coherent way through six modes of syncretism (Law, Afdal, et al. 2013). I then discuss how early studies in sociology and ethnomethodology looked to reveal the messy non-coherence of everyday social life, and how these studies are relevant to this case. Understanding practices as non-coherent or syncretic, and spaces as disorderly, also allows me to take account of three related outcomes of this case study. First, I propose that we consider as “experimental” not only the first instance of an “exhibition” (Macdonald and Basu 2007) but also its subsequent iterations, given that such remediations also bring actors together into novel arrangements with unexpected results and because such socio-technical and socio-material rearrangements can occur in already disordered spaces. Second, I return to the problem of considering digital innovations, such as the MUM App, through the mutually exclusive categories of “success” and “failure.” I examine how understanding the outcomes of releasing the MUM App through

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these limited dichotomous categories ignores the variety of possible experiences and denies the disorder of spaces, the non-coherence of practices, the multiplicity of things, and the experimentality of remediations. This exploration leads me to the third consideration of this chapter, which I characterize as the paradox of digital media technologies. In this discussion, I assess why some theorists, media reports, and technology companies have previously proposed that the increasing use of software generally allows for increasing “control” of individuals, space, and society, when this case has shown the opposite.

The Work of Purifying Disorder While spaces, like the “parks” and “streets” of Montreal, may seem to be orderly at first glance, things are actually messy upon closer inspection. Drawing on Bruno Latour’s We Have Never Been Modern (1993b), Law, Afdal, et al. argue that disorder and non-coherence is obfuscated by our modern tendency to “purify” disorder: “modernity presents itself as gleaming, consistent and coherent; as something that is pure. Not fuzzy” (2013, 2). As an example, they point to the mass transport system in twentieth-century London, with its familiar icons that give a sense of coherence, explaining that, underneath it all, “it isn’t pure at all” (2; emphasis in original). Think . . . of London Transport. At the beginning of the twentieth century this was a mishmash of different companies with different equipment, different standards, different approaches to design, and different labour forces. We’re tempted to say that it was a mess. But it would be better to say that it was non-coherent. (Note that: non-coherent, not incoherent.) Or perhaps, more simply, that it was impure: very fuzzy indeed. The ticket halls were various, but you could see the lumpy machinery, all bits and pieces; the buses likewise; and . . . the underground map was complex and cartographic rather than functional and smooth. (2; emphasis in original) For Law and his colleagues, “modernity is complicated, angular, messy, and not particularly consistent” (Law, Afdal, et al. 2013, 2). So,

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if London Transport “is functional, then it is functional in terms of a whole variety of different engineering, architectural, social and geographical logics that have been jumbled up together” but “from the point of view of London Transport as a whole, it doesn’t have any coherence” (2). Therefore, modernity can be said to be “both/and,” which is to say that it’s “both pure, and it isn’t pure at all” (2). As they explain, the London Transport example helps reveal this: Because historically what happened was that there was a modernist makeover of the London transport system in the 1920s and the 1930s. The different companies were amalgamated into a single organisation in 1929, and the authority, under the leadership of a man called Frank Pick, decided that they needed to persuade everyone – and not least passengers and employees – that it was indeed a single organisation. So they did this – and sought at the same time to persuade the travelling public to travel more – with the makeover that we’ve just been describing. At which point they began to design out all the messy differences. And the system started to present itself as pure. (2) For these authors (as much as for Latour), “purity” is not just superficial; rather, it is a performative accomplishment. It’s tempting to say that underneath the smooth surface it was really messy after all; that the London Transport makeover was superficial. But this is both true, and it isn’t true at all. And such is the point of Latour’s argument. Because the makeover wasn’t just superficial; it was thoroughly performative too. The idea of consistency started to shape the system. People travelled more. They liked travelling more. The identities of the employees shifted. And as the new buses and stations rolled out, so the material realities started to change too. In the twenty-first century it may look shabby, but in its heyday it was a triumph. It was a performative triumph. (Law, Afdal, et al. 2013, 2) “Impurity” is performatively accomplished too. As Law and his colleagues explain, underneath it all, the London Transport system “was necessarily still a patchwork of different social, economic, technical

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and professional logics, and it always would be” (Law, Afdal, et al. 2013, 2). So the system worked as “both/and,” because it was able to draw on the strengths of both purity and impurity. In denial of its impurity, “it was able to present itself as pure, gleaming, shiny, iconic, coherent, integrated, and organized in terms of a single logic of efficiency” (2). But as “modernity” is a large category, they also caution that any grand narrative must be looked at warily. Non-coherence is not just about “the story of modernity” but also about how “the practices that generate purity effects are also non-coherent” (2). Thus, the world has always been fuzzy, messy, and non-coherent “because different ‘logics’ are always at hand,” but the persistence of modernity’s “bias to purity” prevents us from seeing this (3).

Looking for the Mess: Awkward Breaches and Impression Management In contrast to modernity’s bias toward “purification” (Latour 1993b), STS studies have had a reverse bias, toward “impurity” (Law, Afdal, et al. 2013, 3). For example, early empirical research on “science in action” showed how the scientific method was an idealization, since “science in the laboratory was messy, non-coherent, heterogeneous, pragmatic and fuzzy” (3).1 But such studies were not the only ones that have revealed non-coherent practices and the work of purification. In his book Studies in Ethnomethodology, first published in 1967, Harold Garfinkel uses the term breach as a concept and language for discussing the rather awkward moments when, to use Law and his colleague’s term, non-coherence is revealed momentarily by a disruptive event. For Garfinkel, “common sense knowledge of the facts of social life for the members of the society” not only portrays a “real society for those members” through their matter-of-fact lenses but also works to reproduce it: “in the manner of a self-fulfilling prophecy the features of the real society are produced by persons’ motivated compliance with the set background expectancies” (1967, 53). Such responses to matters of fact are institutionalized as a “normative” set of knowledge and practices. As Garfinkel explains: The stability of concerted actions should vary directly with whatsoever are the real conditions of social organization that guarantee persons’ motivated compliance with this background

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texture of relevance as a legitimate order of beliefs about life in society seen “from within” the society. Seen from the person’s point of view, his commitments to motivated compliance consist of his grasp of and subscription to the “natural facts of life in society.” (53–4) Seen from this vantage point, as knowledge and practices stabilize – that is, as they become normative, common-sense facts – the fuzziness and messiness of the world become hidden from view, at least until they are “breached” in one fashion or another. As the preceding chapters have shown, the introduction of an innovation can provide glimpses of non-coherent practices and disorder – and particularly so through the viewpoint of the “breach.” For example, the coherence of situations was breached for participants who were using the MUM App when passers-by thought they were filming or taking photographs. In such cases, I observed how passers-by waited for participants to finish “taking photographs” or ducked out of the way of the “shot.” These mistaken assumptions made the participants nervous, and they repeatedly stated how uncomfortable they felt that passers-by did not know what they were doing. Eventually, participants began to address passers-by, explaining they were neither taking photographs nor filming. Recall also the situation where a passer-by assumed that Participant 9 and I were tourists and asked if we would like her to take our picture. In that situation, Participant 9 went a step further by explaining or “translating” what he was doing – he told the passer-by that he was doing “a tour museum-type thing . . . 3-D type thing.” But that translation did not seem to quell the confusion or the awkwardness. Her puzzled look suggested she had no idea what he meant. The exchange was a “breach” of her common-sense knowledge and, therefore, her expectations. She saw us as “tourists” because she assumed we were taking pictures of ourselves and city sites. Her common-sense knowledge told her that she should comply with that “fact” by doing what polite passers-by do – ask tourists if they want their picture taken. The exchange left her visibly disappointed, but we turned back to our own work, and that was already challenging enough to make coherent, because Participant 9 and I were involved in two practices – the “visit” and the

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“study.” As for the passer-by, she had no choice but to awkwardly move on. As Garfinkel has noted, “the firmer a societal member’s grasp of What Anyone Like Us Necessarily Knows, the more severe should be his disturbance when ‘natural facts of life’ are impugned for him as a depiction of his real circumstances” (1967, 54). Awkward “breaches” like these also resonate with the embarrassing intrusions discussed in Erving Goffman’s ([1959] 1990) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, whereby outsiders or “intruders” happen upon a particular “performance” they did not anticipate. As Goffman explains, “when audience segregation fails and an outsider happens upon a performance that was not meant for him, difficult problems in impression management arise” (139). In such situations, the performers will find themselves temporarily torn between two possible realities, and until signals can be given and received members of the team may have no guide as to what line they are to follow. Embarrassment is almost certain to result. Under such circumstances it is understandable that the intruder may be accorded neither of the accommodative treatments . . . but rather treated as if he were not there at all or quite unceremoniously asked to stay out. (140) Goffman sees performers, who work as a “team,” then taking one of two possible approaches to handling the situation: either they shift to a performance suitable to the intruder, or they welcome the intruder as someone who should have been there all along. Goffman’s observations, general as they are, were attempting to make sense of the “mess” and “fuzziness” of everyday life through metaphors related to the theatre. The scenario of the “intruder” happening upon a “performance” not meant for them is a situation where non-coherence (to use Law and his colleagues’ term) is revealed. This can be illustrated through an example of “intrusion” that occurred in the present study. While I was filming Participants 5 and 6 “visiting” the “exhibit,” a passer-by came up to us and began taking photographs of us with his own mobile device. He then addressed us to let us know what he was doing: “I took pictures of you guys, taking pictures. I thought this was a good one because there’s a statue.” The participants

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and I had been so busy with making our own “performances” coherent – both the “study” and the “visit” – that we were all taken aback by this intrusion on what we were doing. Of the three of us that made up a “team,” Participant 5 tried most to “manage impressions,” as Goffman would term it, and said to the intruder, “So, you took pictures of us with your iPhone, while we were on this phone, and she’s taking video, she’s watching us interact on this phone also. We’re trying on the app.” But even after having explained (or “translated”) what we were doing, the passer-by still had no clear idea as to what our performances were all about. Wrapped up in his own pursuits, the passer-by then went on to make sense of what was happening through a cinematic metaphor: “It’s like Inception, with cameras, a layer upon a layer.”2 But, as Goffman admits, neither a shift in performance nor a welcome to the intruder really ever works, as either response still results in confusion – perhaps this observation was Goffman’s early nod to the problem that non-coherent practices run the risk of never being made to cohere. In the case above, the passer-by was welcomed to a certain extent by Participant 5, but that participant’s attempt at “impression management” through his translation of what was going on was not enough to eliminate the confusion for the passer-by, who instead brought forth his own cinematic metaphor. In the end, to avoid further confusion and eliminate the work of “managing impressions” and “accommodating intruders,” we chose to ignore the passer-by – acting “as if he were not there at all” – and instead turned back to the work of making the “visit” and the “research study” cohere. Humans were not the only “intruders.” On one occasion, the McGill campus had turned into a construction zone where large load-carrying trucks were parked. One particularly large truck, parked just inside the front gates of McGill’s campus, carried a machine making a loud pounding noise. The machine and its dissonant symphony intruded on the “visit” and the “study” while Participants 10 and 11 were viewing the MUM App’s exhibit (see figure 5.1). The machine acted as a breach to the “visit” – its pounding noise giving “disorder” a voice. This was not the quiet and (seemingly) ordered space of the serpentine halls at the McCord Museum, where such construction work would be arranged to take place “off hours” so as not to disturb museum employees and visitors. Rather, this was a pounding unsupervised machine

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Figure 5.1 Viewing collections alongside a noisy machine.

going about its own business, despite its noise being non-compliant and incommensurate with viewing museum collections. Curiously, the participants continued to view the images in the augmented reality exhibit without once complaining to me about the noise of the machine – they were firmly performing the “visit” I had invited them to make, and the “study” they had accepted to be in, and ignoring the distracting noise. But the loud machine’s intrusion was not limited to the participants’ “visit.” It also impinged on the “study,” since it disrupted the ability of the microphone on my iPad to record what the participants were saying while viewing collections. When I watched the recorded footage later on, I found the participants’ voices were completely muffled by the pounding noise. Thus, intruders can be both human and non-human and can “breach” not only the exchanges between humans and humans, but also non-humans and non-humans. My observations show that intrusions like these, whether human or non-human, like a pesky nuisance, are often given a bit of attention at first, then less attention as they occur again, and are ultimately ignored

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and forgotten (if and where possible). But this “ignorance” has the unintentional effect of obfuscating the non-coherence of practices and the simultaneous purification of disordered of spaces.

How It Holds Together: Modes of Syncretism and Dominant Systems A question that arises from the foregoing is, how can practices be nonpure and, simultaneously, practices of purification? Here is how Law and his colleagues respond: Our answer is: one, it depends; two, we can only find out by working empirically; and three, since the matter is empirical, there’s no reason to suppose that any list will ever be complete. But this doesn’t mean that it’s not worthwhile looking, empirically, for different ways in which they hold together (or fall apart). Our argument, then . . . is that it becomes important to look for styles of non-coherence. (Law, Afdal, et al. 2013, 3) In their estimation of “how it all hangs together,” the authors propose six styles of non-coherence or modes of syncretism:3 denial, domestication, separation, care, conflict, and collapse (4). Denial is the refusal of the possibility of non-coherence. Domestication is a recognition of non-coherence followed by practices that look to domesticate differences – that is, to make things cohere.4 Separation (which may be temporal, social, or spatial) recognizes that syncretism can be avoided if non-coherent practices are never performed together – or, as Law and his colleagues put it, “different logics can co-exist so long as they do not collapse together in the same space and time” (7). Such practices become an issue only when they are brought back together. Care is about striking a balance in the face of uncertainties, and constantly rebalancing, to hold things together in a rather imperfect, provisional, adaptable, and responsive way. Conflict is about how different forms of logic go (or, rather, do not go) with one another, the clash between different authorities and modes of authority, and a view that noncoherence is bad. Lastly, collapse is about mixing and matching different logics in a way unconcerned with purity.

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As Law and his colleagues note, this is not a complete list, nor are the suggested modes of syncretism mutually exclusive – particularly as they tend to “overlap in different ways” and since “how non-coherent practices hold together is an empirical matter” (Law, Afdal, et al. 2013, 11). Furthermore, the authors suggest that there are no good or bad modes of syncretism. Instead, there are just non-coherent practices that “hang together.” How this is done, and how to do it well, is necessarily a “located contingency” (13). When they do “hang together” through any mode (or modes) of syncretism, practices become normative in particular contexts. This means . . . that the logic of our argument is that normativities don’t float above the world, but are embedded in the materially heterogeneous practices ordered by different modes of syncretism. In practice this also means that any particular location or set of practices carries and enacts a rich ecology of goods. In addition, it means that particular normativities become important in particular contexts, but also that they fade into the background in other circumstances – which indeed is what one would expect in a fuzzy world. (14) Normativity can be considered another way of expressing practices as “stabilizing” – whereby “non-coherent” (or “syncretic”) practices persist as what Law (2008) calls “dominant systems.” Dominant systems are made up of non-coherence – or non-coherent practices and elements that structure and order, but only partially hang together. As Law explains, such systems are made of “relations of subordination that are relatively invulnerable precisely because they are not tightly connected . . . When one is undone the others are not pulled down with it” (641). An example of a dominant system in the present study would be the museum. As was observed in the participant study, in chapter 2, while some aspects of the dominant system came undone – for example, “museum visitors” and the “museum visit” were reconsidered and reclassified as “tourists” and a “tour” – the museum as a whole still “hung together.” This suggests that Hooper-Greenhill was correct in her observations that “there is no essential museum. The

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museum is not a pre-constituted entity that is produced in the same way at all times” (1992, 192).5

Museums, Repeat Experiments, and City-Laboratories Both historically and in the present day, experiments have been conducted in exhibitionary spaces. As Basu and Macdonald (2007) argue, the “history of experiments” and “exhibitionary practices” have much in common if one considers that display has historically been part of the apparatus of experimentation, and experimentation the apparatus of display. In the seventeenth century Robert Hooke, we might note, was the Royal Society’s first curator of experiments. (The word “curator” was first used to refer to an officer in charge of a museum collection around the same time as the founding of the Royal Society.) Furthermore, the world’s first university museum – the Ashmolean, which opened its doors in 1683 – was also a venue for the public demonstration of scientific experiments. (2) For Basu and Macdonald, “contemporary exhibitionary practices cannot be conceived merely as a means for the display and dissemination of already existing, preformulated knowledges (the Aristotelian model rejected by the scientific experimentalists)” (2). Rather, they argue, “contemporary exhibitionary practice is – or should be – also an experimental practice” whereby exhibition spaces provide “a site for the generation rather than reproduction of knowledge and experience” (2). In this sense, exhibitionary spaces may be also considered as synonymous with “scientific laboratories,” where “various ‘actants’ (visitors, curators, objects, technologies, institutional and architectural spaces, and so forth) are brought into relation with each other with no sure sense of what the results will be” (2–3). And, as has been demonstrated in the preceding chapters, this is as true for “physical” exhibits in museum spaces as it is for “digital” exhibits in city spaces, like the MUM App’s augmented reality display. Basu and Macdonald, examine the question of whether an experiment is, or remains, experimental when it is repeated and/or moved into the mainstream:

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The movement of experiments into the mainstream raises the question of whether an experiment remains experimental in all contexts, or when it is repeated. In the natural sciences one feature of experiments is that they should be replicable. Nevertheless, it is the first use of a particular experiment that establishes new knowledge – the replications are intended to confirm it. The repetition of an experiment, therefore, is less “experimental” in the sense that we have defined it above, than is the first, more risky and indeterminate, attempt. (2007, 19) While the authors do admit that repeat experiments “may bring them to new audiences” and “turn out to have results that are more novel than expected,” they also conclude that “this is not to say that such exhibitions are necessarily experimental – that is, that they trouble existing knowledge and practice” (19). But the case of the MUM App shows that what was considered a “repeat” exhibit – save, for example, the historical photographic images – proved to be exactly that. The app was remade through a processes of remediation that brought novel actors into relation with each other and participated in reconfiguring things and spaces in unpredicted ways and with uncertain outcomes. This was evidenced, for example, when existing knowledge of what constitutes a “museum visitor” or “museum visit” was troubled, reconsidered as “tourists” doing a “tour.” I propose, then, that we must understand exhibitionary practices as always “experimental” – that is, as having uncertain, unexpected, unpredictable, and indeterminate outcomes – even in the case of repeat exhibits, like the MUM App. We must consider repeat exhibitions as experimental for four reasons. First, the case of the MUM App has shown us that even repeat innovations bring actors together into novel arrangements. Second, we cannot predict how such innovations will be implicated in processes of reconfiguration or if the same result will be produced every time. Third, innovations involve networks of actors that are rearranged in spaces that are already disorderly and non-coherent. And fourth, the case of the MUM App has also shown us that repeat experiments may be even riskier than the initial one. Perhaps most obvious and “risky” to the life of the McCord Museum’s app was Montreal’s bitingly cold weather, which had to be endured by its “museum visitors” at least six months of the year. Frozen fingertips

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simply did not make for a comfortable “visit” (or “tour” or “study,” for that matter). But if repeat exhibits, and evidently those that involve digital media technologies, are risky experiments with uncertain, unpredictable, unexpected, and indeterminate outcomes, how can we ever evaluate and anticipate a repeat “success” or avoid a future “failure”?

Predicting Experiments as Successes or Failures To accept that repeat exhibits are experimental, much like the MUM App and its augmented reality exhibit proved to be, is to acknowledge that they can always have uncertain, unpredictable, unexpected, and indeterminate outcomes. And, thus, evaluations that assign a fixed “success” or “failure” are incommensurate with the findings in this case study. I therefore propose moving away from this limited, if not erroneous, way to understand the lives of exhibits, and the remediations and reconfigurations that are involved, by offering up three points of consideration. First, to accept that repeat exhibits are “experimental” is to accept that exhibitions are always made up of heterogeneous actors that co-produce them. So, an app, like the Streetmuseum App or the MUM App, by itself can never be a “success” or a “failure” (save perhaps if it did not itself function at all). We have seen that the MUM App was always embedded in a complex network of (at times, unexpected) actors, and that, at any given moment, those actors could breakdown or not cooperate at all – hence, its outcomes were always situated and co-produced along with its wider network. Second, and relatedly, the dichotomous categories of “success” or “failure” do not capture the variety of experiences of individual “visitors” (or “tourists,” as the case may be) and the unexpected inconsistencies of the circumstances in which they find themselves (whether as a result of distractions or intruders) or the issues that arise (be they technical or environmental). Third, to deem a repeat exhibit (or “promotional device” or “innovative digital media technology”) as a “success” or “failure” is to be in “denial” about the disorder of spaces and the non-coherence of practices. In the past, researchers, much like museum professionals, have had the tendency to consider, evaluate, and deem exhibits and digital

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media technologies as either “successes” or “failures”. For example, Smørdal, Stuedahl, and Idunn’s study Experimental Zones (2014) examined the use of mobile devices to create “experimental” interactional schemas between the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology and the public. While the study explored aspects of the two “experimental zones” placed outside the walls of the museum, the authors maintained that the ultimate aim of the project, and the study, was to find ways of integrating digital media in the museum “successfully.” As they explained, the developers of these experimental zones looked to find “appropriate ways of integrating social media and digital technologies into dialogues with visitors” (224). For these authors “success” was coterminous with “integration”: “there is an increasing understanding that successful use of digital resources entails how they are integrated into the social, timing, and spatial aspects of exhibitions” (225; emphasis in the original). But, as the present case study has shown, reading a digital media technology as a “success” or a “failure” is limited in terms of predicting how well it will do in the future and can lead to erroneous assumptions. The McCord Museum’s management initially read media reports that suggested the Streetmuseum App was a “success.” As was explained in the introduction, some reports noted that it was downloaded 65,000 times in its first month. In turn, reports of its “success” became negotiators in the McCord’s decisions to make a similar app. But, despite having nearly the exact same features, the MUM App received fewer than 2,500 “unique visitors” during its first year (see appendix E, figure E.4). But to call the MUM App a “failure” (and the Streetmuseum App a “success”) is to ignore its (and their) experimentality. Part of the reason for this significant difference in outcomes is that processes of remediation bring actors together into novel rearrangements, and this brings with it uncertainty of how things might work out. For example, given the relative lack of high-rise buildings in central London, the Streetmuseum App would not have been subject to the GPS signal problems that resulted from the presence of so many tall buildings in Montreal’s city center. And MUM App users had to contend with Montreal’s bitingly cold weather, which limited their ability to manipulate their iPhone in order to see the MUM App’s exhibit – again, something that would not have been a factor in London.

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It was no surprise, then, that the MUM App had lower usage across the colder months of the year, from October to April. But while the weather did not completely deter the use of the app, we saw that other actors such as funding could either limit or increase the possibilities for how interesting an app might be in the long run. Consider that the McCord Museum updated the MUM App with nine images, using funds from a commercial sponsorship from a local real estate company, Ivanhoé Cambridge. By contrast, the Museum of London was in a financial position not only to update the Streetmuseum App with a sleeker look and integrate temporary exhibitions, like the Cheapside Hoard exhibition in 2013, but also to release a second augmented reality app, the Streetmuseum™ Londinium App. In the end, an assignment of “success” or “failure” to the MUM App (or its predecessor) is (and was) not accurate, as both existed and lived as actor-networks – they could not be unproblematically carved out of their experimental assemblages for evaluation. Further, the categories of “success” and “failure” do not capture the variety of experiences of individual “visitors” (or “tourists”) and the unexpected inconsistencies of the circumstances in which they found themselves. We saw earlier, participants had varied experiences with the MUM App. At times, participants certainly enjoyed viewing historical photographic images in augmented reality, expressing their enjoyment, as did Participant 3, with repeated “wow” remarks. But they also experienced unusual issues (blank screens and green squares, for example) that temporarily barred them from viewing collections altogether. These varied experiences were a result not only of the app itself but of the negotiations between the app and its network – be it the mobile device on which it ran or the sun or weather. Even in my own experiences, there were times when I thought the app worked spectacularly, such as when I viewed a set of images on Mount Royal. But I also had unfavourable experiences while using the app – particularly when images overlapped in augmented reality view in front of the museum (figure B.3) and on St Catherine Street (figure B.6), among other issues. So, to suggest that the MUM App was a “success” or “failure” is to mask the variety of experiences users may have in each instance and location. The inevitable conclusion is that using the MUM App was consistent only in terms of its uncertain, unpredictable, and

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unexpected results. This was so not only across participants’ varying experiences during their visits on different days or in different seasons (for example, based on how cold it was outside), but also within the duration of any participant’s individual “visit” to the exhibit, since participants could go from being in awe one moment to experiencing pesky and even frustrating technical issues in another. Furthermore, to assign “failure” to a particular app, such as the MUM App, is also to be in the “denial” mode of syncretism – that is, “the refusal of non-coherence” (Law, Asdal, et al. 2013, 5). While, at times, the MUM App did not work as expected, and though it was not used as frequently as the Streetmuseum App, we cannot unproblematically categorize the app as a “failure,” since this would be a denial of the disorder in which it was deployed. As Law and his colleagues explain, denial is “the purest possible expression of the will to purity” (5). In this case, assigning the MUM App as a “failure” would be to deny all the actors in the network (including the vast infrastructures) in which it was embedded, as well as the various practices, distractions, and intrusions offered up by the Montreal city centre. I am thinking here of the participants who were mobilized – along with app and mobile technologies, museum collections, and viewing practices – to locations across a disordered city with non-coherent practices. Thus, the MUM App itself should not and cannot be considered a “failure.” No. This would be an unfair evaluation of such a novel award-winning app. Instead, it may be more accurate to say that the app simply did not “stabilize” into the city’s, museum’s and users’ practices – particularly given the novelty of the practice and the negotiations between the constantly experimental assemblages of actors – including those that would distract, intrude, and interrupt. As Law and his colleagues suggest, we need to clearly distinguish between “failure” and “denial.” They illustrate this through an example of the British cattle-tracing system (used as a disease control measure). This system requires all British cows to be tagged, with serious fines exacted on farmers for failure to do so. But the inspectors and the system ignore the difficulties that farmers experience, such as the challenges of tagging cows and the accidental loss of tags when cows push their heads against hedges. This example illustrates that, while “the system notices failure” (a missing tag will result in a fine),

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it “neither sees nor cares about the messy processes that are needed to make it work” (Law, Asdal, et al. 2013, 5). In other words, rather than admit disorder and non-coherence, we instead tend to focus on “failure” – the “point at which we have shifted to denial” (5; emphasis in original). Continuing with the example of the British cattle-tracing system, they explain that such denial is why we say the system is utopian. It’s like the smooth and glossy version of London Transport without its impure hinterland. But this means that it’s in denial about all the messy practices that are needed to keep it going; all the invisible labour and its difficulties; all the different material bits and pieces that have to be ordered and kept in place. (5) In the case of the MUM App, to call it a “success” is likewise to view it in a “glossy version.” And to call it a “failure” is to be in denial of disorder and the messy processes that were needed to make it work – indeed, as Law and his colleagues suggest, to be in denial mode is to purify the world of disorder. Such a judgment would ignore the app’s experimentality – the myriad actors, mobilizations, delegations, and reconfigurations that occurred when it was being used in practice. And it would disregard the “modes of syncretism” – the practices of “impression management” and “translation” that were attempted to make the app’s use cohere among other non-coherent practices in the city. If one needed an alternative to using the dichotomy of “success” and “failure” to assess the use of an innovative app, like the MUM App, then perhaps the evaluation could be centred on the stabilization of its actor-network in novel rearrangements and across non-coherent practices. The present study suggests that such a goal would, ironically, have required the re-materialization of aspects of this “digital” exhibit by, for example, providing human guides and more decal footprints identifying augmented reality display locations in the city. Indeed, some of the participants asked for more direction and guidance and, in some cases, indicated that a “tour guide” could help explain what to do and how to move their body. And consider that passers-by had little to cue them as to what participants were doing. Clearly, the iPhone

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Figure 5.2 The MUM App’s decal footprint.

mobile device, which could be used in many ways, was not enough to signal to passers-by that participants were performing a “museum visit.” So to cue the public, perhaps more decal footprints, similar to the one in figure 5.2, could have been installed. The existing decals seemed to act more as promotional stickers, while indicating a few spots where the museum’s historical photographic images could be viewed. Yet they could have more intentionally been used as “props” (to use Goffman’s term) in more locations, cuing passers-by that a “museum visit” was happening (since the explanations that participants gave to passers-by never seemed to quell the confusion about what participants were doing). But while re-materializing aspects of this “digital” display – with human guides and decal props – may have increased the app’s stabilization and improved its usage in the short term, it would not have necessarily fixed all of the problems – like the cold weather of the city, which deterred some winter “visits,” or the lack of funding to continually improve or update its displays.

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In the final analysis, the app did not stabilize in practice, and so lacked longevity: it was discontinued by the McCord Museum.

The Paradox: Increasing Control and Disorder? The findings in this book reveal a paradox at play: theorists, media reporters, and technology companies alike insist that, the more software and technologies are used, the more “control” (and therefore “power”) can be exerted over users, action, processes, space, and society. But this study has demonstrated the opposite: the outcome of introducing more software and technologies in exhibition-related practices has brought confusion, uncertainty, indeterminacy, and more disorder. Consider first that the city’s spaces were already disordered and practices non-coherent before the MUM App was introduced into the mix. And then recall again the findings in chapter 2, how participants” felt “jumbled,” “weird,” and “confused.” And consider their awkward interactions with passers-by who confused what participants were doing with “taking photographs” or “filming” – practices usually linked to “tourism.” Such situations demanded that participants become “spokespersons” for the MUM App, explaining to passers-by what it was they were using and what it was they were doing, if in sometimes imprecise language. Other participants rescripted the MUM App and acted according to their own desires and whims. Participant 9 landed his “visit” to the McCord Museum’s augmented reality exhibit in a completely different museum, while a couple using the app ran away with my iPhone to take pictures of themselves, disrupting both the “visit” and the “study.” That couple went totally off script! Such findings show that the practice of viewing collections with the MUM App was certainly no more controlled than the visits observed at the McCord’s Montreal – Points of View permanent exhibit or the Food for Thought exhibit at the Science Museum. And, ultimately, museum management actually had less control over what “visitors” did, since the viewing of collections occurred across the city, where the museum and the app had little command. We might revisit the question, discussed in chapter 3, concerning software as increasingly “directing” urban spaces. The present case found that, as bodies, practices, collections, and technologies were

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mobilized across the city in relation to the MUM App, agency was redistributed too. Tasks, roles, and responsibilities that were formerly accomplished by curators, technicians, and security officers at the McCord Museum were redelegated to the “visitors” as well as an extensive set of heterogeneous actors, including complex networks of vast infrastructures. The app’s network included both expected actors, such as software, devices, telecommunication service providers, GPS , and satellites in space, as well as unexpected actors, including the architecture in the city, weather systems, and even the sun. But this impressive network precariously worked together, if only enough to make the augmented reality exhibit work – most of the time. And it made visiting collections that much more challenging for all the actors learning to perform museum roles that they had been delegated (that of curators, technicians, and security officers). Therefore, neither the MUM App’s software nor its impressive network could “direct” or “control” so many (unintentionally) delegated tasks and so many (unexpected) actors. The city spaces across which the actors were mobilized were disordered to begin with, because they were made up not only of non-coherent practices, but also things that were multiple and sites that were heterotopic. Within these messy arenas, participants in the study, who could be easily considered “museum visitors” inside the museum, became “tourists” as they viewed collections with the MUM App – and the “museum visit” a “tour” (while also a “study”). In all this confusion and disorder, of course participants often looked to me, or the app, for more direction and more guidance. But that is not all. We might return to the findings in chapter 4 that the head of IT was at a loss as to how to interpret and use the statistical information reported on the Google Analytics dashboards. He too needed more guidance – on what the headers meant and how the data were calculated. But without that direction, much of the information about the use of the MUM App could not be interpreted in a meaningful way and could not be fully employed in managing the exhibit, despite now having access to more information than ever before. Even if the data had been easier to interpret and rendered more meaningful, the museum had not yet established practices in relation to how collections should be managed on “digital” exhibits, like the one produced with the MUM App. Museum employees were left

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asking two “big data” questions: “What do the data say?” and “What do we do with the data?” Considering these findings, we can perhaps conclude that the introduction of this app only added to the existing disorder, rather than controlling it. Further, this study showed that enacting control requires more than just bodies and digital media technologies – it requires other actors too, like funds! In this case, the museum was constrained in acting upon the information collected, given the expense associated with the British-based gatekeepers who were engaged in the process of remaking the Streetmuseum App into the MUM App. But while concerns over a “culture of control” enacted through “software” and “automated management” are not supported in this empirical study, this does not mean that digital media technologies cannot be used to control practices. Rather it is to say that how data are collected, stored, calculated, and subsequently employed in society by diverse institutions – be they nonprofit, commercial, governmental, or otherwise – cannot be generalized, much like we cannot assume that all museums will use software technologies to surveil their visitors. For the McCord Museum, remaking the app resulted in the museum having less control not only over “museum visitors” and “exhibitionary spaces,” but also over the design, curation, management, and maintenance practices related to this “digital” exhibit. As discussed in chapter 1, since the app (and its predecessor) were made for Apple’s mobile devices, Apple became a gatekeeper that had a (final) say in the look of the app – its style and features – as well as whether the app could be “sold” (even for “free”) on the App Store. And the app could not be updated (for example, with new content or designs) or maintained (technically) without always engaging the two expensive British-based players – Brothers and Sisters and Thumbspark. As processes became more “automated” (that is, hidden), the museum seemingly lost more control, as was evidenced in management’s difficulty in deciphering the app’s statistics, with the headers on the Google Analytics dashboards still cryptic for museum employees a year after its launch. Lack of funding further limited the museum’s possibilities in modifying the app, and so additional commercial players had to be brought in to add more images– including Ivanhoé Cambridge. Thus, decision-making power related to the curation of contents for the

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MUM App’s “exhibit,” and the histories told on the app, was increasingly redistributed and redelegated to external commercial players. Conclusion This chapter has suggested that, to fully understand, assess, and evaluate processes of remediation and reconfiguration, we must examine such processes as “experimental,” as bringing together heterogeneous actors into novel relations that have unpredictable, unexpected, uncertain, and indeterminate results. Further, this case study has shown that experiments are not contained to enclosed spaces, such as the exhibition rooms of museums (or even creative advertising agencies and app-development companies) but rather that they play out across institutions, city sites, and everyday social life – and involve actors as far reaching as the sun. Such experiments are ongoing for several reasons. First, as the “remediation” thesis states, media (“old” or “new”) are in a perpetual process of refashioning. Second, such experiments continue to bring together experimental assemblages of (sometimes unexpected) heterogeneous actors in each instance of their employment. And third, remediations involve processes of reconfiguration that are continuous: therefore, processes of transformation do not end with the refashioning of an actor-network; rather, while they continue to engage with other actors, they generate (opportunities for) “new” situated knowledge and practices. This chapter has demonstrated that innovative digital media technologies can both reveal the existing disorder as well as introduce more disorder – that is, more things that are multiple, more sites that are heterotopic, and more practices that are non-coherent. But if the existing disorder and its non-coherent practices can be made visible, like in this case study, why do we not accept that “normativities in practice are always syncretic” (Law, Afdal, et al. 2013, 15)? Why are we so often scared of a fuzzy world? . . . No doubt the answer is that we are still partially beholden to the will to purity; that we are still committed in part to the modernist redesign that leads to the shiny and gleaming surface, rather than to the messy heterogeneities hidden by that surface; to

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straight lines and to curves rather than to jury-rigged boxes and wires, ambiguities, tensions and the messy social arrangements of impurity; in short to the idea that the opposite of coherence is incoherence rather than non-coherence. But then again, perhaps things are changing. If we are able to talk of fuzzy logics, heterogeneities, and the both-and commitments of non-modernity, then also it seems likely that the will to purity is starting to lose its grip. Such, at any rate, is our assumption, and this is why we have talked of modes of syncretism. (15) But perhaps it is less that we are “scared of a fuzzy world” and more that most of us are simply unaware of it. If we are to be (more) aware of the messiness and fuzziness, then “disorder” must be brought to the forethought of both academic and professional practices.

conc Lus i o n

The concepts of remediation and reconfiguration have been employed in this book to both express and examine how social, cultural, and political transformations occur as novel digital media technologies – like the McCord Museum’s MUM App – emerge and then participate in institutional practices and social life. Remediation provided a starting point for conceptualizing and analyzing how digital media technologies emerge as actor-networks. As actor-networks, digital media technologies are never “new” but rather a refashioning of “older” into “newer” media and/or a refashioning of “newer” into “older” media. Considering digital media technologies as actor-networks necessitated a socio-technical approach to their study derived from science, technology, and society (STS ) studies, which consider both the social and technical (as well as humans and non-humans) together to avoid asymmetrical analyses that can fall into one of either technological determinism or social constructivism. In reconstructing how the MUM App was made, I found that this process of remediation involved negotiations of myriad heterogeneous actors, both human (employees from the McCord Museum, a digital producer from the creative agency Brothers and Sisters, and app developers from the development company Thumbspark, and so on) and non-human (including industry reports, the predecessor Streetmuseum App, the city’s architecture, funding, imagined audiences, themes, mobile devices, a specialized camera, development and retail platforms such as the App Store, and digitized images, to name but a few). Surprisingly, some actors that one would expect to find in the process of making an exhibit – such as “curators” – were not involved at any point. The absence of curators has provided a view into how classifications – here, the museum considering the MUM App to be a “digital” project rather than an “exhibit” – were part of the negotiation as to which actors would be involved and how (curatorial) practices would therefore

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be redistributed and redelegated across actors involved in remaking the app. Understanding the MUM App as an actor-network has also provided a method to consider how the app worked in practice. This study first analyzed how the app worked in relation to specific actors, in various locations across the city, and on different occasions. The list of actors involved in how the app worked (or did not work) in practice was extensive. It included not only the user, app, mobile device, operating systems, telecommunications service providers, GPS , satellites in space, signals, and so on, but also unexpected actors, like tall buildings, the weather, and the sun. Each actor negotiated the outcomes of the app’s use – either cooperating to make it work or disrupting the app or practice from happening (sometimes, at all). Since the novel practice of using the MUM App to view collections in augmented reality involved novel arrangements of actors, some practices performed normally by actors at the museum – like those of curators, technicians, security, and even display cases – were redistributed across those actors involved in how the app worked in practice. Participants took on learning new skills, roles, and responsibilities previously performed at the museum – like finding the right display lighting, fixing technical glitches, ensuring their own security (and that of the device), as well as holding up the device “just so” to see the augmented reality displays. In observing participants viewing collections, I was struck by the uncertainty and the confusion that ensued. Because they were learning new skills, participants were uncertain about how to use the app in practice – how to hold the device and even how to move their bodies – despite the app being “easy to use.” More confusion followed in exchanges with passers-by, who mistook the participants for “taking photos” and “filming.” This is where the concept of reconfiguration helped in examining how (museum) things transformed in relation to the introduction of this novel app and its associated practices. For some participants, the “visit” (or “study,” as it also was) became a “tour,” whereby participants were no longer “visitors” but rather “tourists” in the city (despite being locals). Such reclassifications emerged from the novel and situated rearrangements in which participants found themselves. Among particular sets of actors and in specific situations, the MUM App could be constituted

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in various ways – for example, it was initially conceived of as a public relations “promotional tool” by Brothers and Sisters and the museum, but it was later also an “exhibit” when described to the public in press releases by the museum’s marketing team. These transformations show that things around us – be they bodies, practices, and even apps – are not only reclassified (an epistemological concern) but also done as “multiple” things (engaging ontological arguments as well). But how and whether they stabilize, or are “enacted and enacted again,” is uncertain and unpredictable, given the indeterminacy of novel assemblages and their situated outcomes. The concept of reconfiguration also provided a way to examine how digital media technologies are inscribed during their design and, at times, rescripted in practice. The MUM App had two main scripts or programs of action – a navigational platform (where users referred to the pinned card to find locations where images could be seen in augmented reality) and a display platform (where users pressed the 3D View button to see the augmented reality superimpositions). But while most participants flipped back and forth from the map view or pinned card to the augmented reality view as inscribed, the app was not always used as intended. For example, Participant 3 used the “display platform” to “navigate” his entire “visit.” That was not the only anti-program I observed. Another participant navigated his “visit” into a completely different museum (the Redpath), and a capricious couple disrupted the “visit” (and hijacked the “study”) by running off with my iPhone to take pictures of themselves. The concept of reconfiguration was also here applied to analyze how spaces were reordered and sites rewritten as participants employed the MUM App. I traced how the navigational platform of the app (and the display platform, in the case of Participant 3) along with its network of actors (the “visitor,” the device, GPS , cellular service, and so on) all played roles in the mobilization of bodies, practices, collections, and technologies across the city and, in doing so, allowed for the reordering of city spaces. When the app was employed as a “display platform,” city sites – such as a university campus, parks, and streets – were “transduced,” or “rewritten” as places where the museum’s collections could be viewed. Here again, the study showed how things can become multiple – in this case, sites became more “heterotopic.” Thus,

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I speculated that the rewriting of sites along with “digital” displays, like the MUM App’s augmented reality display, can increase the possibilities for how spaces can be reimagined and repurposed, the outcome of which could be more non-coherent practices, and thereby more fuzziness, messiness, and, ultimately, disorder. The findings of this study point not only to how we may understand and examine social and cultural changes around us, but also how we may consider the politics of such transformations and their outcomes.

The Entangled Politics of “Digital” Displays What also struck me during this study was the way in which politics was an outcome of myriad negotiations that entangled particular actors in processes of remediation and reconfiguration. I found that industry reports, and particularly the Horizon reports, helped advise management at the McCord Museum as to relevant digital media technologies, and thus acted as negotiators in the museum’s decisions on what technologies to use and make. But closer inspection revealed that these reports were developed by NMC , a joint venture that included Apple Computers, Adobe, Macromedia, and Sony. Therefore, the Horizon reports not only negotiated the McCord’s decision to make more apps, but also served to entangle the museum and its “visitors,” in unprecedented social, cultural, and economic ways, with the very products that those commercial organizations sold. This was especially so, given that “visitors” needed to have their own Apple mobile device in order to download the “free” app. The increase in the use of apps, devices, and platforms by the museum and its “visitors” suggested increased sales for commercial companies, like Apple, and a steady increase in the stabilization of “digital” infrastructures. So, this case points to how “digital” display politics is entangled, on the one hand, with the decisions and possibilities related to exhibition making and, on the other hand, with the extensive corporatization of “digital” infrastructures (as Kitchin 2014 has argued in relation to “smart” city governance) and how such corporatization is increasingly networked into museum exhibitionary practices. This trend is interesting, not because commercial involvement is new to exhibitionary practice, but rather because power relations are hidden inside these

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vast black-boxed infrastructures, whereby designs may get “locked in” and “new” gatekeepers established. In these novel arrangements, commercial players can (increasingly) have a word – indeed, sometimes the last word – on museum displays. In reconstructing how the MUM App was made, this study found that the museum’s exhibitionary practices were ultimately entangled with commercial companies – initially Brothers and Sisters and Thumbspark, and then Apple – to the extent that these companies became gatekeepers with respect to the app’s design and its modification and maintenance. As “copyright holder” of the Streetmuseum App, which was remade into the MUM App, Brothers and Sisters would necessarily be a mediator between Thumbspark and the museum. Thumbspark was the developer of the code for the MUM App – based on its work on its predecessor, the Streetmuseum App – and the “seller” of both apps on the App Store, and therefore had to also be involved in any changes to the display. Any apps sold on the App Store had to be approved by Apple before they could be released on that platform. So ultimately, these gatekeepers negotiated both the opportunities for and limitations on how the app would be designed, developed, curated, and maintained (or not). Perhaps these constraints would not have been so pronounced if the McCord had more funds at its disposal, but, because its budget was limited, significant design modifications and changes to the images on display could not be made. These limitations would lead the museum to continue to entangle itself with more commercial players, such as Ivanhoé Cambridge, a real estate company that sponsored the addition of nine historical photographic images to the MUM App’s exhibit. Importantly, the aim here is not to critique any particular actor – human or non-human, commercial or non-commercial. I am not advocating “us” versus “them” arguments, nor am I suggesting that involving commercial organizations is (or should be) undesirable for museums. Instead, my aim has been to reveal how politics emerges through processes of remediation, in the entanglements made across novel networks of actors, and to expose how decision making can then be reconfigured across assemblages, such that power is redistributed to unexpected actors. This study has not just pointed to the power of commercial organizations, however; it has also spoken to the importance of museum

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budgets and funding. A lack of significant funding meant that constraints plagued the McCord Museum’s “digital” display both in terms of the app’s design – the relatively small number of historical photographic images that could be initially included and the limited way in which they could be described, for example – as well as how few modifications and improvements could be made later on. These constraints were in stark contrast to the undertakings of the Museum of London, which frequently updated its Streetmuseum App and also created more innovative and interactive apps, like the dynamic Londinium App. Lack of funding at the McCord Museum meant that sponsors like McGill University ultimately had a say in what would be part of the initial augmented reality display: a significant number of historical photographic images would be displayed in and around the university campus. The small budgets and lack of funding not only meant limits in the app’s design and curation, but also “old” display politics. Perhaps no one involved – at the university or the museum – could have expected that the images would wind up being so political. But the “old” gender and cultural politics presented in the images did not go unnoticed by participants, some of whom expressed their discontent. For example, images that depicted women and men in ways consistent with the traditional gendered roles of the early twentieth century were superimposed on today’s city views, with little context or explanation. Other histories were omitted: associations between some of Montreal’s wealthiest men and the somewhat disreputable liquor and tobacco trades were not explained, and working-class neighbourhoods were simply absent. But not all participants found the images on display political. Thus, this case showed how politics emerged in situated ways, through myriad negotiations of a multitude of actors over space and time – from budgets to participants’ “cultural lists” and “interests,” and from antiquated gender and cultural practices to the (often contrived) poses of the historical photographic images (to name only a few). The case of the MUM App also provided an opportunity to examine the question of whether digital media technologies allow for increased “direction,” “control,” and, to some extent, the “automated management of society.” I first explored the claim that software technologies are increasingly directing urban spaces. This case showed that the

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MUM App’s augmented reality exhibit required a mobilization of bodies, practices, collections, and technologies, outside the museum and across the city. This mobilization entailed a redelegation of museum tasks, roles, and responsibilities to both humans and non-humans involved in how the app worked, and thereby agency was redistributed across the novel set of heterogeneous actors that formed the app’s actor-network. Aside from acting like a “visitor” (or “tourist”), participants were also tasked with the roles and responsibilities of museum curators, technicians, and even security. Ultimately, participants were often left wanting more direction – be it how to use the app, how to best see the displays, or how to fix issues arising. Non-humans were also tasked with things to do: for example, some sunlight was needed to ensure that superimpositions worked well, but too much sun caused the camera of the device, and therefore the app, to blank out. Such findings indicate that direction was limited, and control was compromised, given the redistribution of agency and the delegations made. Ultimately, the viewing of the MUM App’s augmented reality display – which relied on the negotiation and cooperation of myriad actors, including vast infrastructures, and even the weather and the sun – became a precarious and uncertain act. Further, without a “guide,” or someone to provide more direction, participants, as we have seen, were left to their own strategies, desires, and whims. While the digital media technologies involved did not provide enough direction for the participants, this study also suggests that museum employees also had less control over what “visitors” did, because myriad heterogeneous actors were involved in making the app work, because employees had little command over the technologies and infrastructures involved (like the personal mobile devices of “visitors,” GPS , and telecommunications services), and because the “visit” took place outside the walls of the museum, where employees had little to no say about what happened. I turned to examine the processes that were “automated” in relation to the management of the MUM App and I explored how these might be used to “control” at least the exhibit. I found that the museum’s head of IT had access to a Google Analytics dashboard that presented more statistical information than the museum had ever had for a “physical exhibit.” But while an unprecedented amount of data were

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being gathered, stored, calculated, and displayed in statistical format, the information presented was little used in management processes for two reasons: museum staff found it difficult to make sense of the headers and data displayed, and the museum had not (yet) established practices for that level of information and type of “digital” display. Therefore, while the MUM App gathered, in an automated fashion, a large amount of data, the statistical information presented through the Google Analytics dashboards did not allow the museum to increase its management or control over the way in which collections were viewed or what would be displayed. Further, even if the museum had wanted to make changes to the app, any modifications remained limited by a lack of funding: if one thing has been made clear, it is that, while agency is a distributed accomplishment, some actors, like funds, have more power and more say than others. There were other ways in which the politics of this innovative “digital” display could be assessed. For example, I observed two ways in which both humans and non-humans could discriminate with respect to the app: by determining who could use the MUM App and by configuring the user according to one bias or another. On the one hand, the MUM App was made for Apple’s iOS and mobile devices, and therefore it discriminated against mobile devices that use the Android operating system. Potential audiences who did not have an Apple device (like an iPhone) could not download the app and see the augmented reality exhibit – and this was a particular issue in Quebec, where statistics showed that iPhones were less popular than other smartphone brands. Audiences that could not afford to purchase an Apple device and pay for an expensive data plan were also left out of the fold. The mode of the display – as an augmented reality exhibit shown across the city of Montreal – also discriminated against those that were too old or too young to trek across the city. On the other hand, mobile devices participated in configuring users as well. The devices certainly played a part in the situations where “participants” were considered “tourists.” But they also played a part in establishing biases: for one participant, the use of the particular device signalled whether users were “professional” or not. While the politics and entanglements observed here may be relevant to other studies, it is important to note again that these and other “effects” were specific to

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this case study and were situated within specific rearrangements of actors mobilized and brought together in experimental assemblages. The political entanglements and findings here (as in all studies) should therefore not be taken as generalizations about all “visitors,” apps, mobile devices, augmented reality exhibits, or museums.

Implications for Future Research As it was pointed out in the introduction, while the concern about “the digital” continues to grow in museum research and literature, there still need to be more empirical “behind the scenes” investigations that take a socio-technical approach and thereby employ the actornetwork theory (ANT ) principle of symmetry to the study of how novel digital media emerge in particular contexts and what their social, cultural, economic, and political implications are. Taking a symmetrical approach to the study of how the MUM App was remediated put this study in a position to reveal some of the myriad heterogeneous actors involved in making the MUM App and to unveil the “effects” of their negotiations. In examining who and what made the app, the analysis has unveiled how both human actors (such as staff from the McCord Museum, Brothers and Sisters, and Thumbspark) and non-human actors (such as industry reports, funding, a predecessor app, commercial platforms, imagined audiences, themes, cameras, the city’s architecture, and so on) negotiated its remediation. Revealing these heterogeneous actors allowed me to trace and unveil both their negotiations and their politics. My analysis has shown that these actors were involved in negotiating, for example, the app’s design, the photographic images selected, the way in which collections would be displayed and explained, the app’s platform, and even what devices it would be used on. These negotiations reflected “new” politics for the McCord Museum, including the establishment of two foreign gatekeepers in the museum’s “digital” display practices. They also reflected “old” politics: for example, in the way in which historical gender-based representations made through the app’s photographic display reinscribed gender biases across contemporary city sites, even if just momentarily. Perhaps most important to this study is the way in which the symmetrical analysis traced the MUM App’s politics back to a set of

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heterogeneous actors and thereby revealed what power each actor had. This study has shown that the remediation of the app redistributed power across a novel set of actors – both human and non-human – and each with more or less negotiating power. For example, funding was an all-too-powerful negotiator in terms of the MUM App’s design, content, development, and maintenance. Thus, by employing a symmetrical approach, this study was able to avoid determinist and constructivist explanations that look to explain why certain social, cultural, or political “effects” occur, and instead described how they occur. And I was in a better position to trace power relations across networks of heterogeneous actors in the decision-making processes relating to designing, curating, developing, maintaining, and managing the exhibit. Had I taken a determinist analytical perspective, I would likely have mainly examined how the digital media technologies limited, constrained, or opened up the possibilities of how the MUM App could be made. And, had I taken a constructivist approach, I would have focused on the humans involved – their decisions and their politics. By contrast, the symmetrical approach taken in this study thickened the analysis in relation to who or what mattered in the negotiations of the MUM App’s making as well as the reconfigurations that took place and their politics. For example, I found that both humans and nonhumans were involved in “curating” the app display. Recall that, since staff at the museum considered this a “digital” project, rather than an “exhibit,” it was assigned to the project manager of Web and Multimedia. And that, due to time constraints and limited funds, an intern was assigned with the main tasks of selecting, labelling, and describing collections for the app – activities usually done by “curators.” But this app was not “curated” just by an intern. By taking a socio-technical approach, I was able to follow the human and non-human actors that negotiated such tasks. For example, while the intern chose historical photographic images from the museum’s immense Notman Photographic Archives, this could be done only from a subset of images that had already been digitized – therefore, the form of the images (digitized or not) acted as negotiator in the selection process and, thus, in “curating” this display. Further, ideas about what “imagined audiences” would want (for example, what would be aesthetically pleasing or

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interesting to view) also acted as negotiators in the selection of historical photographs and were a reason for which numerous images depicting natural disasters were chosen for display. The analysis unveiled that “curatorial” tasks not only were reassigned to particular museum employees and interns but were, in practice, accomplished by networks of human and non-human actors. The implication here, again, is that if we want to understand why certain museum collections are put on display and others are not – as was the case when Participant 4 asked why more images in her own neighbourhood were not on display – we must look at how such decisions happen. Taking a symmetrical approach also allowed me to trace how reconfigurations occur. The mobilization of bodies, practices, collections, and technologies allowed for work to be redelegated, whereby tasks, roles, and responsibilities performed inside the museum were displaced across the app’s network of actors. For example, I found that, when the MUM App was used to view collections in practice, participants performed tasks normally done by museum curators, technicians, and security staff. As I have demonstrated, participants had to find the right lighting and the best position from which to view augmented reality displays. As Participant 3 remarked, “I think the sun is affecting the program; in the shadow it works quicker.” Participants also had to fix any issues relating to the display – be it related to the app, the device they were using, or the sun’s interference with the display. And, as I found out in my own experience of using the app, sometimes the camera shutter wouldn’t open, and sometimes I could no longer exit screens. Participants also had to think about security – like being careful when crossing streets. But, to make matters more complicated, I also found that non-humans had also been delegated tasks, some of which were normally designated for humans. For example, the app needed accurate geolocational readings to position images correctly in the augmented reality display, but signals were disrupted by tall buildings in the city centre of Montreal that interfered with such readings. By taking a symmetrical approach, this case study has shown that this innovative “digital” display displaced tasks, skills, and responsibilities across heterogeneous actors as far reaching as the sun and that, without those actors, it did not work. This case therefore provides an opportunity to observe a point “where society and matter

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exchange properties” (Latour 1994, 35). As Latour points out, technical mediation “designates a very specific type of delegation, of movement, of shifting, that crosses over with entities that have different timing, different properties, different ontologies, and that are made to share the same destiny, thus creating a new actant” (44). Agency, as Suchman (2007) has stated, is therefore a “distributed accomplishment” and can be traced only by taking into account both the social and the technical, humans and non-humans. This symmetrical analysis also allowed me to trace how the MUM App was rescripted, given the novel arrangements in which actors found themselves. In this study, we found that participants viewed the collections with the MUM App in different ways. While Participant 1 developed a strategy to flip back and forth from the “navigation platform” to the “display platform” as she navigated and saw the exhibit, Participant 3 used the “display platform” to navigate the exhibit, pointing the mobile device this way or that in hopes of being surprised and delighted by what might appear along his path. But nonhuman actors also played a part in how the “visit” would happen. The proximity of the Redpath Museum, for example, stimulated childhood memories of its dinosaur display in Participant 9, who then decided to navigate his “visit” to the exhibit in another museum altogether. Ultimately, there was not one way that this “museum visit” was done, or one way that it could be described. Here, the analysis has traced how reclassifications arose in practice through the negotiations of heterogeneous actors, and has found how in some instances, the “museum visit” became a “tour,” and the “museum visitors” (or “participants”) became “tourists”. Such reconfigurations were a result of myriad heterogeneous actors negotiating how things were done, how they could be understood, and what to call them – and such processes occurred on an ongoing basis. They were ongoing because, as the analysis has shown, the MUM App could exist as “multiple” things – as a public relations “promotional tool” (when being developed as a way to promote the reopening of the McCord’s permanent exhibit), as an “app” (on the App Store), and as an “exhibit” (when described to the public in press releases). The study has also pointed to how sites can become increasingly “heterotopic” based on the growing possibilities that novel as-

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semblages of “code/spaces” or “coded assemblages” open up (here, a campus, streets, and parks became places for viewing the museum’s collections). Yet, at the same time, it has shown that performances that use “coded assemblages” can be more precarious and uncertain – that is, open to glitches and breakdowns. Consider the complexities of the actors involved in making the MUM App “code/spaces” happen – including GPS systems and vast infrastructures like telecommunication services, which were themselves made up of networks of actors. And how, if any one of these broke down, the performance would be disrupted, as when tall buildings interfered with GPS signals and geolocational readings. Consider also how spaces are disordered – and practices non-coherent – and how this only increases the precarity of stabilizing novel assemblages that constitutes a “code/space.” Yet even though this app did not stabilize and was discontinued, this symmetrical ANT study has shown how its short life served one longer-term and broader purpose: it contributed, in its time, to the standardization of particular technologies, platforms, and the infrastructures it was embedded in.

Deflating the “Digital” Myths This study has considered claims that digital media technologies increase “access,” that they may be “domesticated” over time, and that they allow for “surveillance” and “control,” and has found them, in the present context, to be myths. These myths need to be deflated, and one way this can be accomplished is by using a symmetrical approach to analysis. By taking a socio-technical approach, this study has shown that, at least in this case, “accessibility” was still limited with the use of digital media (given that not everyone had an Apple device) – this was one example of how non-humans can be “discriminators.” The analysis has also shown that “domestication” is nearly impossible when complex displacements and redelegations of tasks, roles, and responsibilities are made across networks of both human and non-human actors. How could such an extensive network of actors and vast infrastructures be made obedient? Who, or what, could “tame” the couple who decided to hijack the “visit” (and my “study”) as they ran in an unexpected direction, or the participant who landed in another museum

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altogether? And who could domesticate the non-humans, not just the MUM App but its extensive network of actors – the architecture of the city, satellites orbiting in space, and even the sun and the weather. Again, viewing collections with the app was not only a precarious act, given the amazing orchestration and cooperation it required, but also unpredictable and uncertain – at any point one (or many) actor(s) in the app’s network could break down or not work. Further, generalizations could be eliminated by conducting empirical studies, since “the impact of new technologies depends crucially on their local social context,” as has been shown before in studies of surveillance (D. Mason et al. 2002, 152). In this case, while a significant amount of “big data” was collected, stored, calculated, and displayed on statistical dashboards, it did not enable the museum to exercise “surveillance” or increase “control.” There were many challenges to translating the data (such as the cryptic dashboard headings), the data were opaque (since information about how they were calculated was not available), and the museum did not have funds or the practices in place to act on the information displayed. So, even though scholars and other observers have made claims about increased “surveillance” and “control”, particularly in a time of “ubiquitous software,” “always connected devices,” and “big data,” such claims seem largely to be technological myths. Ultimately, since activities of “surveillance” and “control” do not depend on the use of digital media (recall the stealth consultants that museums hire), and since digital media are not always employed in “surveillance” and “control” activities (even if they are “surveillance-capable”), it can be said that there is no deterministic relationship between the two. Therefore, it is not software or other technologies that necessarily increase the propensity toward “surveillance” and a “culture of control,” but rather the practices established, and the aims and goals set, by individuals within institutions. But to be clear, while this case has shown that there is no deterministic relationship between digital media technologies and increased “access,” “surveillance,” and “control,” this does not mean that such technologies cannot be employed in these activities. Rather, it is to say that to institute more “control” requires overcoming significant challenges related to orchestrating complex networks embedded in

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vast infrastructures, as well as establishing funding and practices to achieve such aims.

Implications for Practitioners An objective of this book was to raise questions and engage in debates not only for the purposes of scholarship, but also to bring research insights to the attention of practitioners. After all, practitioners are often charged with socio-technical changes related to designing, implementing, improving, and maintaining digital media and other technologies – be they apps, devices, platforms or other configurations – and practitioners are held accountable for their ultimate “success” or “failure.” I hope that the now familiar example of the McCord Museum’s MUM App has provided museum practitioners (and others) with more incisive ways to both consider socio-technical changes and pay attention to their social, cultural, and political implications. In relation to the findings in this case, I provide eight points of consideration for professionals. 1 The emergence of an (innovative) digital media technology always involves processes of remediation, or the refashioning of an actornetwork. As a result, practitioners must take into consideration the heterogeneous actors (both human and non-human) that may be involved in such processes. Doing so involves going beyond what is expected. In analyzing the making of the MUM App, it meant going beyond the obvious “museum curator,” the “digital producer” at the creative agency, and the “developers,” because, as we saw in this case, unexpected actors, like the predecessor app, an intern, a specialized camera, the digitized format of collections, geographic inscriptions, and imagined audiences, to name but a few, also participated in how the app would be made. It is important to understand not only what actors are involved and what “negotiations” take place but also what power each actor may have in design, development, improvement, management, and maintenance activities, as actors can become powerful negotiators (like budgets and funding

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were in this case) or gatekeepers (like Apple and others were in relation to aspects of the app’s making and use). As part of charting actors involved in remediations, unexpected actors must be taken into account, since they can increase the complexity of how digital media will work in practice and can also hinder practices from happening at all (like the tall buildings or the sun in this case). Further, remediation can also involve (hidden) displacements and redelegations of roles, tasks, and responsibilities. As a consequence, something as simple as viewing a museum’s collections can become a complex “redistributed accomplishment” that involves, for example, “visitors” taking on the tasks of curators, technicians, and security officers, and the sun providing essential lighting for the exhibit. Therefore, practitioners are challenged to trace how tasks might be displaced and shifted across networks of human and non-human actors and to determine what might compensate for these shifts. 2 Remediation also involves processes of reconfiguration – that is, processes that reclassify, rescript, reorder and rewrite – and such processes are ongoing. In the present case, we saw that the reclassification of museum things and the rescripting of the MUM App were “effects” of the negotiations of networks of actors in particular situations. Thus, how things are reclassified and rescripted depends on the assemblages that are experimentally brought together in each instance. In some situations, we saw that the “museum visit” and the “visitor” became “tour” and “tourist,” but this was not the case for every participant. Similarly, spaces were reordered, and sites rewritten, not just with digital media but within “coded assemblages” that include both humans and non-humans. Given the extensive networks of actors required to create “code/spaces,” the rewriting of particular sites can be a precarious act. The idea here is not that practitioners should necessarily pre-empt all the unexpected actors that might be involved and all the possible incidents that might happen, but rather that they should embrace the uncertainty of how things may be reconfigured and unfold in practice. 3 Things exist as multiple and spaces are heterotopic. As this study has shown, how the “museum visit” and the “museum visitor” may

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be constituted is subject to “multiple” possibilities in relation to specific practices and assemblages. The “museum visit” turned into a “tour” for some participants. Similarly, “participants” could be “museum visitors” in one instance, “tourists” in other situations, and “users” in still other cases. To make matters more complex, the spaces within which the participants, the practice of viewing collections, and a host of other actors, were mobilized were already disordered and made up of non-coherent practices. So, practices and bodies may be done in multiple ways, depending on the assemblages in which actors find themselves. And how they may settle (if ever), or where they will stabilize (if anywhere), is not easy to predict. The awkwardness and confusion experienced by participants, given the unsettled nature of the novel practices they were performing, affected some participants’ enjoyment while viewing the MUM App’s augmented reality exhibit. So, of course, practitioners may consider incorporating more “trials” and “test runs” in advance of novel media releases. Still, while trial runs may be indicative of some things that may go wrong, they may not anticipate all problems. For example, during the trial runs held by employees at the McCord Museum, the project manager of Web and Multimedia was most concerned over the safety of “museum visitors,” since they were prone to cross the street while viewing the MUM App and without looking at the traffic, but the museum had not anticipated the awkwardness when passers-by would mistake “visitors” for “tourists.” It is impossible to anticipate all possible situations. After all, the museum could not have predicted the “intruders” that happened upon the participants in this study. 4 Processes of remediation and reconfiguration entail both “new” politics and “old” politics. The making of the MUM App, and the subsequent reconfigurations that occurred, involved “new” relations between museums, commercial companies, museum visitors, urban spaces, historical collections, and so on. Such relations were hidden, due to the complexity of the networks of actors and the “black boxed” nature of platforms and infrastructures within which novel digital media technologies may emerge and can be embedded. But aspects of their politics may be revealed

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by considering in advance the implications of developing particular types of digital media technologies in specific contexts. Developing apps entails specific platforms and devices that come with their own politics – be it Apple acting as a “gatekeeper” or remaking apps for one particular operating system (Apple’s iOS ), and thus “discriminating” against mobile devices that use another (Android). Where it concerns museums, it should by now be expected that “visitors” may also interpret and relate to collections in unexpected ways. In this study, “older” gender and cultural representational politics re-emerged as historical photographic images were superimposed across city sites. In the same manner that “physical” collections and displays have been afforded increased sensitivity by curators – for example, in the ways that artefacts are meticulously described and glass displays made accessible by lowering them to be seen by more visitors – so too “digital” displays need close scrutiny. 5 Processes of remediation and reconfiguration are experimental. Remediations of digital media technologies should always be treated as experimental. As this case showed, even though the MUM App was a repeat exhibit, it still brought together experimental assemblages, as can be seen from a number of observations. First, the refashioning of digital media involves novel networks of actors. Second, such remediations can entail (hidden) delegations. Third, digital media are employed in already “disordered” spaces made up of non-coherent practices. And so, the more that digital media technologies are embedded in complex networks of actors, which involve vast infrastructures that extend beyond institutions, cities, nations, and the planet, the more it would seem that the outcomes of processes of remediation and reconfiguration will become unexpected, uncertain, and unpredictable. For practitioners, this may mean considering more of the risks – be they, for example, operational, financial, legal, technological, reputational, or environmental – and how digital media use might be perceived by audiences, the public, sponsors and other institutions, organizations, and funding bodies.

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6 The experimentality of digital media technologies is incommensurate with evaluations of digital media technologies as “successes” or “failures.” While practitioners are held accountable for the “success” or “failure” of digital media, this study has problematized such evaluations, given the complexity of how remediations actually occur, the experimentality of the assemblages they produce, and the reconfigurations made possible. To accept the “experimentality” of digital media is to accept that a technology cannot itself be a “success” or “failure” (save perhaps its not functioning at all, though even then we must ask “how” it failed to work), because it is always rearranged and embedded in networks of (sometimes unexpected) actors. Relatedly, the dichotomous categories of “success” and “failure” do not capture the full variety of experiences – that, for example, individual “users” (or “visitors” or “tourists,” as may be the case) may encounter varied and unexpected issues. Finally, to deem a digital media technology as a “success” or “failure” is to be in “denial” about disorder and the non-coherence of practices (Law, Afdal, et al. 2013). Ultimately, laying blame on a particular technology would be the answer to a “why” question, rather than a result of a “how” analysis. Practitioners would thus be in a better position to evaluate digital media technologies by exploring “how” they emerge, “how” they reconfigure things and spaces, and “how” they negotiate outcomes along with specific actors. Alternative assessments are also possible. For example, one alternative to using the dichotomous concepts of “success” and “failure” could be to appraise how, and to what extent, innovative digital media technologies and their associated networks of actors and practices stabilize in novel rearrangements – though given the experimentality of assemblages, such appraisals will be situated and limited. 7 There is not a deterministic relationship between digital media technologies and increased “access,” “control,” or “surveillance”; and “big data” are not always insightful or useful. Practitioners should be wary of any generalizing promises – made by technology companies and service providers – that their products or services always improve processes, whether by providing increased

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access or improved control. Similarly, practitioners should be cautious when reading critical reports that suspect all digital media technologies and institutions of increased “surveillance” activities. While some have claimed that museums are increasingly involved in “surveillance” of museum visitors, particularly as they have access to “big data” by way of novel digital media technologies and platforms, this case reveals this claim as more of a myth. The study has shown that such “digital” politics cannot be generalized across all institutions and that such claims do not consider the situated negotiations of heterogeneous actors involved in, for example, activities of interpreting and acting upon “big data” statistical information. 8 Reconfiguration is intervention. For Suchman, the concept of reconfiguration also refers to “how it might be otherwise” or interventions that can be made “both in the staging of humanmachine encounters and through the reconfiguration of relations, practices, and projects of technology design and use” (2007, 6). This case has shown that interventions need to be considered on a much broader, environmental level as well. For example, we might consider, in this case, how to intervene in environmental issues like digital pollution. As was discussed in chapter 4, the standardization of the use of “apps” as exhibit displays may seem less problematic than, say, the standardization of gasoline-based cars, given the pollution that such vehicles contribute. But app standardization becomes more serious when we consider the ways in which remaking apps helps to stabilize the wider industry and particularly the continuous production, purchase, use, and upgrades of mobile, tablet, and desktop devices, which end up in digital dumps. While technology companies certainly contribute to this problem, they can also positively intervene in such issues, like Apple did when it put in place its Apple GiveBack recycling program, made donations to Conservation International, and introduced robots like Liam and Daisy that disassemble mobile devices to recover materials from its devices.1 However, more can be done. As Greenpeace has noted, “many of Apple’s latest devices are now designed in a way to make it much more difficult, if not impossible to repair or

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upgrade, shortening their useful life, and increasing the potential negative impacts of Apple’s products on the planet.”2 While researchers such as Löwgren and Reimer (2013) have called for an “interventionist turn” to begin, with more collaborations across research and practice, this study has shown that interventions, particularly those of a substantial nature, will require not only researchers’ and practitioners’ attention to design and use, but also significant resources and funds to put interventionist plans into action. With a public that remains divided on environmental issues, and governments besieged with economic crises – among other matters – such activities will likely necessitate more corporate collaborations, sponsorships, programs, and therefore initiative from practitioners. In the last analysis, digital media technologies – their design, development, use, and even repair and disposal – along with any interventions in these processes, will always be more or less political. Therefore, we need to “open up the space of politics” whereby the social, cultural, political, economic, and environmental implications of the increasing use of digital media technologies are discussed, debated, and contested more publicly. What STS offers the practitioner, much like the researcher, is a symmetrical approach to understanding and examining how digital media technologies emerge and how they participate in transforming social, cultural, and political life. This study has shown that it is not simply “commercialization” or “digitization” that reconfigures aspects of the museum, but rather complex networks of actors, negotiations, and contingent practices that, while involving commercial players and digital media technologies, also involve a broader set of heterogeneous actors. Only by tracing socio-technical (and socio-material) reconfigurations in practice can we unveil how transformations occur. A symmetrical approach reveals how “digital” politics occur and how we may intervene.

A PPenDix A

The Montreal – Points of View Exhibit

The McCord Museum’s permanent exhibit that reopened in 2011 as Montreal – Points of View depicted over 370 years of history – from a settlement site of First Nations peoples, to periods of French and British colonization, and to more recent events and landmarks that contributed to Montreal’s contemporary identity. The physical exhibit was divided into ten zones, each ordered chronologically and themed in relation to particular historical events and specific locations in the city. An online version of the exhibit was developed for the McCord Museum’s website, though it depicted only nine of the ten zones of the physical exhibit. These are outlined here according to the McCord’s descriptions of each zone. The first visiting zone of the permanent exhibit described early Iroquoian (Haudenosaunee) settlements along the St Lawrence, and particularly, the “Dawson Site” – an archeological site that was excavated in 1860 near Metcalfe Street and de Maisonneuve Boulevard. This fifteenth-century site was believed to be the forerunner to Hochelaga, the Iroquoian village visited by Jacques Cartier in 1535. The second zone was titled “A Town Under Threat” and depicted the first French settlement of missionaries that founded Montreal (as Ville Marie) in 1642 and that contended with the “sometimes hostile First Nations.” It featured Place Royale, the original town common, which was the site of the fur market where French merchants and Indigenous traders met. “Canada’s Financial Hub” was the title of the third zone, which discussed the economic development of Montreal in the early nineteenth century and the switch from French to English rule, which saw a move from the fur trade to economic expansion through import-export, transportation,

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industry, and finance activities. It featured St James Street as “Canada’s Wall Street” and financial hub. The fourth zone, “Cradle of Industrialization,” depicted the growth of transportation networks and industries in the late nineteenth century. It featured the Lachine Canal as an important transportation link to western Canada and the United States. “A City by Design,” the fifth zone, focused on the building of the city’s infrastructure and public buildings and parks. It featured the Maisonneuve Market, a large farmers’ market. The sixth zone, the “North-South Axis,” highlighted the division of the island into east and west by St Lawrence Street, with the predominantly English-speaking population in the west and French-speaking communities of the east. “Shops, Shows and Streetcars,” the seventh zone, featured St Catherine Street and its role – as the city’s main retail and entertainment area. The eighth zone, “Modern Infrastructure,” focused on infrastructure completed in the 1960s and featured Notre-Dame Island. It displayed artefacts from key events in the history of Montreal, like the World Exposition held in 1967. The ninth zone, “Mount Royal: A Defining Feature of Montreal,” showcased a panoramic view from Mount Royal, the city’s central park. A window opening through the panoramic display in the exhibit provided visitors with a sliver of a view of Mount Royal. In the physical exhibit, a tenth visiting zone provided a sitting area from which all the nine other zones could be seen. The space also offered contemporary artwork, mainly photograph displays, that featured current cityscapes.

APPenD ix B

Diary Notes on Using the MUM App

The following accounts outline what viewing collections with the MUM App is like in practice and provide a further description of what actors were involved in the practice of viewing collections with the app. The accounts are based on field notes I made, which were documented remotely through the Blogger App and subsequently posted to Blogger after each visit. I went to all six zones where collections were displayed in Montreal: McGill University (Zone 1), St Catherine Street (Zone 2), Old Montreal (Zone 3), Sherbrooke Street West (Zone 5), Sherbrooke Street East (Zone 4), and Mount Royal (Zone 6) (see figure B.1). These visits occurred on six different occasions, with one zone of the city visited each day. On days 1–3, I used the MUM App in English; on days 4–6, I used it in French. These accounts provide information that could not otherwise be collected during the participant study (such as screenshots of images displayed on the device’s screen), and also details about how collections are displayed and viewed in particular zones (beyond Zone 1, which all participants visited). Further, these accounts illustrate aspects about interacting with the MUM App that participants may not have experienced or may not have verbalized. For instance, I saw the exhibit at different times of the day and visited all six zones (whereas the participants visited only one), and I also took note of technical glitches that participants either did not experience or verbalize. On Day 1, I went to Zone 1, beginning just outside the McCord Museum on Sherbrooke Street. Holding the iPhone in my left hand and using the index finger on my right hand, I pressed the “Home” button on the device. I then swiped and tapped the screen several times until I opened the MUM App. I chose English as my language preference by tapping “English.” This displayed

Figure B.1 Zones visited.

Figure B.2 Looking at the map view outside the McCord Museum.

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a map as a pinned card. I zoomed in to the pinned card by manipulating the device’s screen in ways the iPhone recognizes – for example, “tapping” to select objects or functions, “swiping” across to move the map in a particular direction, and “pinching” to make the map smaller, or the reverse to make it bigger. In response, the pinned card displayed a blue dot to indicate my location and red pins to mark the locations of photographic images. I noticed the lack of precision in determining my location (which had been previously explained to me at the museum as a problem related to GPS signal issues). Instead of indicating my location (I was on the street corner of Sherbrooke and Victoria Street) outside the museum, the blue dot indicated that I was inside the museum (see figure B.2). The lack of precision in determining location would affect other features of the display too. For example, I touched the bright red 3D View button, located in the lower right-hand corner of the screen, to start up the augmented reality function, and brought the device up to shoulder height in front of me. As I scanned left and right with the iPhone in my hand, photographic images came into the camera’s view, but these were overlapping and intersecting with one another (see figure B.3), some appearing backwards. I found myself moving my own body, stepping back and forth and sideways as I tried to align the images to the sites in the background. My attention was focused more on

Figure B.3 Looking at the “Student Union Building” superimposition.

Figure B.4 Looking south on McGill College Avenue.

Figure B.5 Looking at the “Macdonald Chemistry Building” superimposition.

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trying to make it work than on what collections were on display. Eventually I moved on hoping to find a better spot to see the collections on display. After walking a block down Sherbrooke Street toward the McGill University campus, I looked at the map again. Pressing the 3D View button again, I began to view more images. This time the image that came up, “McGill College Avenue, looking south,” superimposed very well (see figure B.4). Next, I crossed the road toward McGill and entered the campus, feeling rather chilly. It had been only about 10–15 minutes since I had started my “visit” to this zone of the exhibit, but the October weather in Montreal was acting up: my hands were cold and it was increasingly unpleasant to manipulate the device. The weather was quickly becoming an unexpected actor in this “museum visit” – one that, I began to think, would have perhaps been less of a consideration when using the Streetmuseum App in London, with that city’s milder climate. I walked around the campus for about five minutes more, viewing images along the way (such as the Macdonald Chemistry Building, figure B.5). But with hands too cold to manipulate the device, I soon decided to return to the museum. On Day 2, I went to St Catherine Street (Zone 2). This is Montreal’s fashion and shopping district. It is a busy area of Montreal, and the car traffic makes it noisy. As soon as I got there, I noticed that the streets were crowded

Figure B.6 Looking west on St Catherine Street.

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Figure B.7 Looking at the “Capitol Theatre” superimposition.

with pedestrians. I made my way to a spot on the edge of the sidewalk to open the MUM App. With iPhone in hand, I began to make my way through the crowds, using the pinned card to find the location of collections. I paused further on, again on the edge of the sidewalk. After I pressed the 3D View button, the camera view opened in the app, and several images appeared – too many images, in fact, making it again challenging to see them (figure B.6). I felt again like I had to try to align the images myself, shifting my body around and waving the device in the air. But pedestrians on the sidewalk made it rather difficult to move my body freely into position. My attention was drawn to avoiding pedestrians, so as to not stand or get in their way, and to the noise of cars zooming and honking as they were driven by, their radios blaring. I stood beside telephone booths or on the edges of sidewalks to avoid pedestrians. When I viewed more images, the superimpositions were not quite right – like that of the Capitol Theatre (figure B.7). On Day 3, I went to Old Montreal (Zone 3), arriving around Bonsecours Market. It was a Monday, and – unlike my previous experience in the St Catherine Street shopping district – there were few people or moving cars in view. I pulled out my iPhone and opened the MUM App. Looking at the pinned card, I noticed that the pins were well distanced from each other (see

Figure B.8 Looking at the map view on the way to Bonsecours Market.

Figure B.9 Looking at the “Bonsecours Market” superimposition.

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figure B.8), leading to less overlaps of images. In fact, the images I looked at using the 3D View superimposed relatively well (see figure B.9). I moved on to visit other areas around Bonsecours Market. But, while this area was free of people, cars, and noise, I soon began to experience a series of other technical glitches. On one occasion, the photographic image appeared but the camera shutter would not open (see figure B.10). When I tried to view the same image again, the exit button (marked by an “X” on the lower right-hand corner of the screen) did not appear (see figure B.11). But, as I was in the city – far removed from the McCord Museum – there was no one to report the issue to or ask about how it may be fixed. I decided to close the app and reopen it again, hoping to reset it, which seemed to work. I went on to view images of “natural disasters” (which the project manager of Web and Multimedia had mentioned) and other early twentieth century superimpositions until, about 10 minutes later, I was notified by a flashing red-coloured indicator on the device that the battery was running very low. This unexpected turn could only happen with a “digital” display, although, I thought, such breakdowns can occur in a museum – like when there is an electrical blackout. I rushed like in the closing hour of a museum and hastily viewed a few more images with what battery life was left.

Figure B.10 Closed shutter issue.

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193

Figure B.11 No exit button issue.

On Day 4, I selected the French version of the MUM App. I began this “visit” to the exhibit on Sherbrooke Street, further east of the McCord Museum (in Zone 4). Ironically, the first image I looked at displayed the title of the photographic image in English: “Royal Victoria College.” I moved further down the street. Standing on the edge of a sidewalk (to not impede pedestrians), I shifted the iPhone left and right to superimpose another image entitled “Promotions de la Faculté des Arts.” While I did this, a man approached me from behind and – to my surprise – asked whether I wanted my picture taken. I wanted to answer that I was in the middle of viewing a museum display for a research project, but decided it may be too complicated to explain, especially since I apparently looked like I was taking pictures. Instead, I declined politely. But he was not finished. He began to make small talk about how great he thought iPhones are. I nodded in agreement, hoping to return to what I was doing. But he was still not finished. To my second surprise, he then asked me if I had any spare change. I had not expected this turn – after all, I was in the middle of viewing a museum exhibit! The situation was uncomfortable: I had barely noticed this man come up from behind, and it made me feel vulnerable and insecure, despite being on a busy street. I gave him some change. We happened to both be crossing the street, and, as I followed behind him, I became more

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involved in watching him make his way instead of doing the “museum visit.” I saw him check a parking meter for money. My heart was beating fast. I was no longer within the walls of the museum. Looking around, I again became aware of the loud noise of roaring engines, blaring stereos, and occasional honks of passing cars. Buses barrelled through the streets and intersections. The street scene was again taking away my attention from what could be on “augmented” display to what was “really” happening around. I slowly picked up from where I left, though considerably less at ease. I took another look at the photographic image “Promotions de la Faculté des Arts” and noticed this time that its description suggested “taking a photo with the class.” Too late, I thought: I already declined the stranger’s offer! I wondered who the museum thought should take the photo. I returned to the pinned card by tapping on the device screen and decided to find the house where William Notman – after whom the museum’s archive is named – lived. By the time I arrived (see the pinned card in figure B.12), it had become dark outside, and colder, and the images no longer superimposed well (see figure B.13). While the display is available “7 days a week” and “24 hours a day,” it does not work that way in practice. MUM is reliant not only on the user, the device, the GPS system, and the weather (to name a few), but also on the light of day.

Figure B.12 Looking at the map view near William Notman’s residence.

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195

Figure B.13 Looking at the “Résidence de William Notman” superimposition.

On Day 5, I opened the MUM App in French again. I was in Zone 5, where Sherbrooke Street meets Stanley Street. Though the blue dot indicated that I was standing next to a pinned object, I could not find a landmark to confirm that I was in the right spot. The area was so built up with tall office buildings and hotels that the image of a stately stone house was far removed from this contemporary cityscape. While trying to figure out in which direction to point the device, I became distracted by a personal text that popped up on my iPhone – displayed on a thin bar at the top of the screen. Surprised, as I had not seen this happen before, I hesitated for a moment, but then made a move to tap the message on the screen. It was too late. Instead I tapped the app on the upper right-hand corner, and an instructional page for how to use the MUM App appeared. Voila, I thought! This was how I found the instructions for the app (it occurred to me that the app should come with a user guide outlining how to find this instruction in the first place). I made a note of it and moved on. Close to the intersection of Sherbrooke and Drummond Street, I came upon the site where I viewed “Cadets du Collège militaire royal” (figure B.14). Looking at this image, which happened to appear well superimposed on the streetscape, I felt a shiver run up my spine – perhaps because the cadets looked to me like yesterday’s ghosts lost amidst the city of today, or because

Figure B.14 Looking at the “Cadets du Collège militaire royal” superimposition.

Figure B.15 Superimposition error.

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197

I found military marches overwhelming, or maybe it was just getting chilly outside again. Whatever it was, I was momentarily engrossed in the display. Eventually, I moved further west toward De la Montagne Street, looking for the “Construction des Appartements Château,” but “I” couldn’t make the display work (see figure B.15) . . . or was it the device that had difficulty superimposing the image? Or was it both of us together that made this superimposition seem difficult to make happen? Or was it the design: perhaps too many images (or pins) close together caused this issue? Or was it the GPS technology? Was it the downtown location that interrupted the GPS signal? Was it my impatience? The cold weather? After unsuccessfully trying to see the image superimpose on the “real view,” I went back to the pinned card to check the map rather impatiently. I looked up and around, and I saw some fancy retail shops across the street. I sighed – this was no museum space. It was the world outside filled with all of its distractions. While the city (its shops, buildings, and parks) are used as a backdrop for the Museum’s MUM App display, they also compete with this display. On the last day, Day 6, I went to view photographic images on Mount Royal (Zone 6). Mount Royal is famous for its hilltop terrace vistas and urban park. It provides a mountain-like backdrop to the city’s downtown skyline and is encircled by its neighborhoods. As picturesque as it may be, to get there is a bit of a hike. I first walked up steep inclined uphill roads – and then came the endless climb up the stairs. I began with one set of steep stairs, which only led to another similar set of stairs (see figure B.16). It required a tremendous physical effort to visit this museum display. When I did arrive at the summit, I was out of breath and quite light-headed. I wondered who could make such a journey. What audiences would be left out? Once I reached the summit, I opened the MUM App in French. Though the images did not display as they should, I saw a forest outfitted with historical photographs as if hanging in thin air – a biodigital exhibition of photographic art (see Figure B.16 The last set of stairs up to Mount Royal. figure B.17). The photographic images that

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Figure B.17 Looking across Mount Royal.

were previously thought of as “digital objects” now seemed more like true “hybrids” – half technological (digital images displayed through a host of technologies) yet half biological (made possible by my holding up the display, the natural light of the sun, and the environment in which the exhibition is set). Nature was here “at work” too, making possible the show on display, as much as did the technology (the MUM App and the iPhone device) and the many elements of its infrastructures (satellites, radio towers, and so on). I began to move around the summit, viewing different photographic images such as “Le belvédère,” “Salon de thé,” and “M. Diggle à la balustrade.” The last photographic image I looked at was “Ms Grant à la balustrade,” with the sun softly glowing through her image (see figure 1.7). It was here that I felt most enthralled, though rather exhausted from the trek up the mountain – this “museum visit” was working well, and it was now a most spectacular sight to see.

A PPenD ix c

Questionnaires

MUM App Questionnaire Each participant in the MUM App study was asked to complete a questionnaire after employing the app. Questions 1–42 are provided below. As the primary methods used in this study were observation (including filming), interviews, and documentary analysis, this questionnaire acted as a supporting method to collect additional reflections, opinions, and experiences of the participants that they may not have vocalized while using the app. Only some responses were used for this study. 1. Name of Participant: 2. Date: 3. Locations Visited and Viewed: 4. Gender: ☐ Male ☐ Female ☐ Other 5. What is your age group? ☐ Under 18 ☐ 18 to 25 ☐ 26 to 35 ☐ 36 to 45 ☐ 46 to 55 ☐ 56 to 65 ☐ Over 65

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6. What is your profession? 7. What languages do you speak at home? ☐ French ☐ English ☐ French and English ☐ Other (please name all): 8. With what heritage do you most identify? ☐ French Canadian ☐ English Canadian ☐ Canadian ☐ Other (please name all): 9. Did you use the MTL Urban Museum App in French or English? ☐ French ☐ English ☐ Both 10. Had you used the MTL Urban Museum App before today? ☐ Yes ☐ No 11. How often do you visit the McCord Museum? ☐ Never ☐ Less than once a year (i.e., once every few years) ☐ 1 to 2 times a year ☐ 2 to 5 times a year ☐ More than 5 times a year 12. How familiar are you with the McCord Museum? ☐ Not familiar ☐ I know very little about the Museum ☐ I am somewhat familiar with the Museum ☐ I am familiar with the Museum ☐ I am very familiar with the Museum 13. How familiar are you with the Notman Photographic Archives? ☐ Not familiar ☐ I know very little about the collection ☐ I am somewhat familiar with the collection ☐ I am familiar with the collection ☐ I am very familiar with the collection

Questionnaires

14. How familiar are you with the Montreal – Points of View permanent exhibit at the McCord Museum? ☐ Not familiar ☐ I know very little about the exhibit ☐ I am somewhat familiar with the exhibit ☐ I am familiar with the exhibit ☐ I am very familiar with the exhibit 15. How familiar are you with McGill University? ☐ Not familiar ☐ I know very little about the university ☐ I am somewhat familiar with the university ☐ I am familiar with the university ☐ I am very familiar with the university 16. How familiar are you with Montreal? ☐ Not familiar ☐ I know very little about the city ☐ I am somewhat familiar with the city ☐ I am familiar with the city ☐ I am very familiar with the city 17. a) What would you say the MTL Urban Museum App is most about? ☐ McCord Museum ☐ Notman Photographic Archives ☐ Montreal – Points of View exhibit ☐ McGill University ☐ Montreal the city ☐ Other b) Please state why:

18. On a scale of 1–5, how much was the MTL Urban Museum App about each of the following: (Scale: 1 = not at all, 2 = a little bit,

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3 = somewhat, 4 = it was about this, 5 = it was very much about this, N/A = I don’t know) McCord Museum

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

Notman Photographic Archives

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

Montreal – Points of View exhibit

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

McGill University

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

Montreal, the city

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

Other (please fill in):

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

19. Was anything lacking from the views you saw depicted through the MTL Urban Museum App (in relation to what you think it was about)?

20. Did you have previous knowledge of the photographs from the Notman Photographic Archives viewed today? ☐ Not at all ☐ A little bit familiar ☐ Somewhat familiar ☐ Familiar ☐ Very familiar 21. Did you have previous knowledge of the present day sites viewed today? ☐ Not at all ☐ A little bit familiar ☐ Somewhat familiar ☐ Familiar ☐ Very familiar 22. a) Do you feel you know more about the Notman Archives’ photographs seen today? ☐ Yes ☐ No

Questionnaires

203

b) If yes, what do you know more about them?

23. a) Do you feel you know more about the sites seen today? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) If yes, what do you know more about the physical sites?

24. If you had to choose one or the other, do you feel you now know more about the Notman Photographic Archives or the present day sites seen today? ☐ Photographs ☐ Sites 25. Did you have previous knowledge of the history of the sites from the 19th and early 20th centuries? ☐ Not at all ☐ A little bit familiar ☐ Somewhat familiar ☐ Familiar ☐ Very familiar 26. Did the images in the photographs you saw coincide with what you previously knew about the history of the sites? ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ N /A , I didn’t know anything about them before today 27. Did the labels under the photographs coincide with what you previously knew about the history of the sites? ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ N /A , I didn’t know anything about them before today 28. Did the labels assist you in knowing what you were viewing? ☐ Yes ☐ No 29. Did you consult the additional descriptions of the images? ☐ Yes ☐ No

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30. Did the additional descriptions about the photographs coincide with what you previously knew about the history of the sites? ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ N /A , I didn’t know anything about them before today 31. Did the descriptions assist you in knowing more about what you were viewing? ☐ Yes ☐ No 32. Did seeing the photographs superimposed on real camera views give you a sense that the images were true (i.e., that the pictures were not altered or manipulated at any time) more than if you had seen them anywhere else? ☐ Yes ☐ No 33. Do you think you obtained more knowledge of the photographs by seeing them through the augmented reality App and across the city, rather than: Inside a museum ☐ Yes ☐ No On a website ☐ Yes ☐ No On a fixed display outside ☐ Yes ☐ No (such as on McGill College) 34. a) Did this experience make you want to know more about the history of the sites you saw in Montreal? ☐ Not at all ☐ A little bit ☐ Somewhat ☐ It would be good to know more ☐ I want to know a lot more b) Please state why or why not.

35. Did this experience make you want to know more about any of the following: McCord Museum ☐ Yes ☐ No Notman Photographic Archives ☐ Yes ☐ No

205

Questionnaires

Montreal – Points of View exhibit McGill University Montreal the city Augmented reality technology Online photographs displays Other

☐ Yes ☐ Yes ☐ Yes ☐ Yes ☐ Yes

☐ No ☐ No ☐ No ☐ No ☐ No

36. a) Did this experience make you want to visit more exhibits at the McCord Museum? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) Please state why or why not.

37. a) Was it easy to interact with the MTL Urban Museum App? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) Please explain (i.e., What made it easy or not easy?):

38. a) Did the pinned card (i.e., the GPS map with pin location markers) help you make sense of the exhibit? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) If yes, how?

39. a) Did you encounter any technical difficulties while using the MTL Urban Museum App? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) If yes, please explain:

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40. If any, did those difficulties affect your desire to use the MTL Urban Museum App in the future? ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ N /A , I didn’t experience technical difficulties today 41. a) Would you have liked to be able to interact with this exhibit more (for example, leaving comments, seeing what others have seen, adding pictures)? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) Please explain how:

42. a) Does the use of such augmented reality apps lessen the importance of the physical museum? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) Please explain:

Montreal – Points of View Questionnaire I asked thirteen individuals if they would respond to a questionnaire after they had visited the Montreal – Points of View exhibit at the McCord Museum. Questions 1–40 are provided below. While I had observed visitors to the exhibit, this questionnaire acted as a supporting method to collect reflections, opinions, and experiences of participating respondents. Only some responses were used for this study. 1. a) First name: b) Date: 2. Gender: ☐ Male ☐ Female ☐ Other

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207

3. What is your age group? ☐ Under 18 ☐ 18 to 25 ☐ 26 to 35 ☐ 36 to 45 ☐ 46 to 55 ☐ 56 to 65 ☐ Over 65 4. What is your profession? 5. What languages do you speak at home? ☐ French ☐ English ☐ French and English ☐ Other (please name all): 6. a) If you are Canadian, what heritage do you identify yourself with? ☐ French Canadian ☐ English Canadian ☐ Canadian ☐ First Nations ☐ Other (please name all): b) If other nationality, what heritage do you identify yourself with? ☐ Please specify: 7. Is this your first time visiting Montreal? ☐ Yes ☐ No 8. How familiar are you with Montreal? ☐ Not at all ☐ I know very little about the city ☐ I am somewhat familiar with the city ☐ I am familiar with the city ☐ I am very familiar with the city 9. Is this your first visit to the McCord Museum? ☐ Yes ☐ No

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10. How familiar are you with the McCord Museum? ☐ Not at all ☐ I know very little about the museum ☐ I am somewhat familiar with the museum ☐ I am familiar with the museum ☐ I am very familiar with the museum 11. Have you visited the online McCord Museum website before today? ☐ Yes ☐ No 12. How familiar are you with the McCord Museum website? ☐ Not at all ☐ I have never visited the website but I know it exists ☐ I am somewhat familiar with the website, I have visited it a few times ☐ I am familiar with the website, I have visited it many times ☐ I am very familiar with the website, I visit it frequently/ regularly 13. Is this your first time visiting the Montreal – Points of View exhibit? ☐ Yes ☐ No 14. How familiar are you with the Montreal – Points of View exhibit? ☐ Not at all ☐ I know very little about the exhibit ☐ I am somewhat familiar with the exhibit ☐ I am familiar with the exhibit ☐ I am very familiar with the exhibit 15. a) Have you visited the online version of the Montreal –Points of View exhibit (found on the McCord Museum website)? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) If not, why not:

16. a) Did you know there were “ten zones” in this exhibit? ☐ Yes ☐ No

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209

b) If yes, how did you know that?

17. Did you visit all “ten zones”? ☐ Yes ☐ No 18. a) Did you know each zone depicted a particular “timeframe” and “location” of Montreal? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) If yes, how did you know that?

19. a) Did the layout and information on the “ten zones” make sense to you? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) Please state why or why not:

20. a) Did you visit the exhibit clockwise or counter-clockwise? ☐ Clockwise ☐ Counter-clockwise ☐ Other, please specify: b) Do you prefer normally to view exhibits in chronological order? ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ I have no preference 21. a) Did you feel the exhibit provided thorough perspectives of Montreal? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) Please state why or why not:

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22. Did you have previous knowledge of the history of Montreal? ☐ Not at all ☐ A little bit familiar ☐ Somewhat familiar ☐ Familiar ☐ Very familiar 23. On a scale of 1–5, how much was the Montreal – Points of View Exhibit about each of the following: (Scale: 1 = not at all, 2 = a little bit, 3 = somewhat, 4 = it was about this, 5 = it was very much about this, N /A = I don’t know) First Nations

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

French community

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

British community

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

Contemporary Canadians

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

Men and women

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

All social classes

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

All age groups

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

All immigrants

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

Other (please fill in):

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

24. a) Do you think any perspectives were lacking about Montreal? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) Please explain:

25. a) Do you feel you know more about Montreal after visiting the exhibit? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) If yes, what more do you know?

Questionnaires

211

c) Do you feel you know more about the historical timeframes of Montreal? ☐ Yes ☐ No d) Do you feel you know more about the locations depicted in Montreal? ☐ Yes ☐ No 26. a) Did you consult the videos about each of the zones (located at the centre of the Montreal – Points of View exhibit)? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) If yes, did you find them helpful in knowing more about each zone? ☐ Yes ☐ No c) If yes, did you find them helpful in knowing more about the exhibit or about Montreal? ☐ Exhibit ☐ Montreal 27. a) Did the descriptions on the zone placards assist you in knowing what you were viewing? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) If not, please explain why not:

28. a) Did the descriptions on the object labels assist you in knowing what you were viewing? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) If not, please explain why not:

29. a) Did you use a museum-provided iPod for the exhibit today? ☐ Yes ☐ No

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b) If not, please explain why not:

30. a) Did you consult the recorded descriptions on the iPod during your visit? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) If not, please explain why not:

c) Did the recorded descriptions assist you in knowing more about what you were viewing? ☐ Yes ☐ No d) If not, please explain why not:

31. a) Have you heard about the MTL Urban Museum App for the iPhone/iPad? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) If yes, have you visited the MTL Urban Museum App exhibit? ☐ Yes ☐ No c) If not, please explain why not:

d) If yes, in terms of your experience, did you prefer using the MTL Urban Museum App more than visiting the museum today? ☐ Yes ☐ No 32. Did this experience make you want to know more about any of the following: David McCord ☐ Yes ☐ No McCord Museum ☐ Yes ☐ No

213

Questionnaires

Notman Photographic Archives Montreal – Points of View exhibit Montreal the city Montreal’s history Other

☐ Yes ☐ Yes ☐ Yes ☐ Yes

☐ No ☐ No ☐ No ☐ No

33. a) Did this experience make you want to visit more exhibits at the McCord Museum? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) Please state why or why not:

34. a) Did you leave your point of view about “What Montreal Means to You” at the interactive booth today? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) If not, please explain why not:

35. a) Would you have liked to interact with the Montreal – Points of View exhibit in other ways today? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) Please explain:

36. a) Do you think the Montreal – Points of View exhibit should have more interactive displays? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) Please explain:

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37. a) With the increasing use of digital display technologies like augmented reality, websites, and other virtual displays of collections, do you think museums will still have an important role? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) Please explain:

38. On a scale of 1–5, which values will museums hold moving forward? (Scale: 1 = not at all; 2 = a little bit, 3 = somewhat, 4 = it holds this value, 5 = very much) Social (interaction)

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

Educational (instructional)

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

Academic (research)

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

Political

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

Economic

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

Aesthetic (pleasing)

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

Other (please fill in):

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

39. If you had to choose one or the other, do you feel you now know more about the Montreal – Points of View exhibit or about Montreal? ☐ Montreal – Points of View exhibit ☐ Montreal 40. Will you research more about Montreal (such as its people, history, places) after seeing this exhibit? ☐ Yes ☐ No b) Please explain:

APPenDix D

Smartphone, OS, and Mobile Device Statistics

Table D.1 Worldwide smartphone sales to end users, 2013 and 2014 Company

2013

2014

Units (1,000s)

Market share (%)

Units (1,000s)

Market share (%)

Samsung

299,795

30.9

307,597

24.7

Apple

150,786

15.5

191,426

15.4

57,424

5.9

81,416

6.5

Lenovo* Huawei

46,609

4.8

68,081

5.5

LG Electronics

46,432

4.8

57,661

4.6

Others

368,675

38.0

538,710

43.3

Total

969,721

100.0

1,244,890

100.0

* The results for Lenovo include sales of mobile phones by Lenovo and Motorola. Source: Gartner, “Gartner Says Smartphone Sales Surpassed One Billion Units in 2014,” press release, 3 March 2015, Gartner Newsroom, last accessed 9 August 2015, http://www.gartner.com/ newsroom/id/2996817 (page discontinued).

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Table D.2 Worldwide mobile device sales to end users, 2009 and 2010 Company

2009

2010

Units (1,000s)

Market share (%)

Units (1,000s)

Market share (%)

Nokia

440,881.6

36.4

461,318.2

28.9

Samsung

235,772.0

19.5

281,065.8

17.6

LG Electronics

121,972.1

10.1

114,154.6

7.1

Research in Motion

34,346.6

2.8

47,451.6

3.0

Apple

24,889.7

2.1

46,598.3

2.9

Sony Ericsson

54,956.6

4.5

41,819.2

2.6

Motorola

58,475.2

4.8

38,553.7

2.4

ZTe

16,026.1

1.3

28,768.7

1.8

HTC

10,811.9

0.9

24,688.4

1.5

Huawei

13,490.6

1.1

23,814.7

1.5

Others Total

199,617.2

16.5

488,569.3

30.6

1,211,239.6

100.0

1,596,802.4

100.0

Source: Gartner, “Gartner Says Worldwide Mobile Device Sales to End Users Reached 1.6 Billion Units in 2010; Smartphone Sales Grew 72 Percent in 2010,” press release, 9 February 2011, Gartner Newsroom, last accessed 9 August 2011, http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1543014 (page discontinued).

Table D.3 Worldwide smartphone sales to end users by OS , 2013 and 2014 Operating system

2013 Units (1,000s)

2014

Market share (%)

Units (1,000s)

Market share (%)

Android

761,288

78.5

1,004,675

80.7

iOS

150,786

15.5

191,426

15.4

Windows

30,714

3.2

35,133

2.8

BlackBerry

18,606

1.9

7,911

0.6

8,327

0.9

5,745

0.5

969,721

100.0

1,244,890

100.0

Other OS Total

Source: Gartner, “Gartner Says Smartphone Sales Surpassed One Billion Units in 2014,” press release, 3 March 2015, Gartner Newsroom, last accessed 9 August 2015, http://www.gartner.com/ newsroom/id/2996817 (page discontinued).

217

Smartphone, OS, and Mobile Device Statistics

Table D.4 Worldwide smartphone sales to end users by OS , 2009 and 2010 Company

2009

2010

Units (1,000s)

Market share (%)

Units (1,000s)

Market share (%)

Symbian

80,878.3

46.9

111,576.7

37.6

Android

6,798.4

3.9

67,224.5

22.7

Research in Motion

34,346.6

19.9

47,451.6

16.0

iOS

24,889.7

14.4

46,598.3

15.7

Microsoft

15,031.0

8.7

12,378.2

4.2

Other OS s

10432.1

6.1

11417.4

3.8

172,376.1

100.0

296,646.6

100.0

Total

Source: Gartner, “Gartner Says Worldwide Mobile Device Sales to End Users Reached 1.6 Billion Units in 2010; Smartphone Sales Grew 72 Percent in 2010,” press release, 9 February 2011, Gartner Newsroom, last accessed 9 August 2011, http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1543014 (page discontinued).

Table D.5 Percentage of Canadians owning a mobile device, 2011–15 Mobile device

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

Cellphone

77

80

83

83

86

Smartphone

37

51

62

66

73

Tablet

10

26

39

49

52

Source: Media Technology Monitor, 2015 (Respondents: Canadians aged 18+); based on the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (2016).

Table D.6 Percentage of Canadians owning a mobile device, by linguistic group, 2011–15 Mobile device

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

En

Fr

En

Fr

En

Fr

En

Fr

En

Fr

Cellphone

80

68

83

71

86

74

86

75

89

78

Smartphone

41

26

55

39

66

49

69

54

77

61

Tablet

12

6

28

17

42

30

51

41

53

48

Source: Media Technology Monitor, 2015 (Respondents: Canadians aged 18+); based on the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (2016).

218

AP P END IX D

Table D.7 Average Canadian mobile wireless prices by service basket, 2011–15 (CAN $) 2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

34

31

36

36

37

Level 2

51

45

45

45

49

Level 3

100

94

80

80

85

Level 4

–

–

–

93

83

Level 1

Note: Level 1 included 150 incoming and outgoing minutes per month, with 10 percent of outgoing minutes treated as long distance. Level 2 included 450 incoming and outgoing minutes per month, with 10 percent of outgoing minutes treated as long distance, two optional features (voice mail and call display), and 300 texts per month. Level 3 included 1,200 incoming and outgoing minutes per month, with 15 percent of outgoing minutes treated as long distance, full set of optional features, 300 texts, and 1 GB data usage per month. Level 4 included unlimited nationwide talk and text (no international calling included), voice mail, call display, and 2 GB data usage per month. No historical price data was available for 2011–13 at Level 4, since the basket was introduced in 2014. Source: The Wireless and Internet Services in Canada and with Foreign Jurisdictions report, developed by Wall Communications Inc. for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (2015), last accessed 28 December 2020, https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/publications/reports/ wall2015/rp1506wall.pdf (page discontinued).

APPen Dix e

Google Dashboard Statistics on the MUM App

All dashboards examples show statistical data for a period from 17 August 2011 to 20 September 2012.

Figure E.1 Usage statistics by device

Source: Courtesy of the McCord Museum, screenshot of Google Analytics for 17 August 2011 to 20 September 2012, retrieved on 20 September 2012

220

AP P E ND IX E

Figure E.2 Usage statistics by originating country (top 10)

Source: Courtesy of the McCord Museum, screenshot of Google Analytics for 17 August 2011 to 20 September 2012, retrieved on 20 September 2012

Google Dashboard Statistics on the MUM App

Figure E.3 Usage statistics by originating city (top 10)

Source: Courtesy of the McCord Museum, screenshot of Google Analytics for 17 August 2011 to 20 September 2012, retrieved on 20 September 2012

221

222

AP P E ND IX E

Figure E.4 Usage statistics by language (top 10)

Note: fr-CA : Canadian French; en-CA : Canadian English; en-US : US English; fr-FR : French; en-GB : British English; it-IT : Italian; ru-RU : Russian; es-eS : Spanish; pt-PT : Portuguese; en-AU : Australian English. Source: Courtesy of the McCord Museum, screenshot of Google Analytics for 17 August 2011 to 20 September 2012, retrieved on 20 September 2012

Google Dashboard Statistics on the MUM App

223

Figure E.5 Usage statistics by pages viewed (top 10)

Source: Courtesy of the McCord Museum, screenshot of Google Analytics for 17 August 2011 to 20 September 2012, retrieved on 20 September 2012

n ote s

i n tR o Duc ti o n

1 I do not mean to suggest that the city becomes a museum – this is not a “museumification” argument as made in Gendreau (2009). As I will explain in chapter 3, the MUM App enables the mobilization of actors across the city, which allows for spaces to be reordered and sites rewritten (as “parks” and “streets” become places to also view collections) – though only momentarily, fleetingly, and situationally. By charting how spaces are produced in relation to different assemblages, the analysis unveils how spaces become “heterotopic” Hetherington (1995). 2 As Suchman (2007) points out, we carve out “humans” and “non-humans” for empirical analysis, and how we do so is an issue and can be problematic. Still, I point to particular actors throughout this book to explore not only agency, which is consider in this analysis as a “distributed accomplishment,” but also the power of such actors. 3 Martin Muller provides a good overview and discussion of the concept of assemblage and its links to ANT . For Muller, assemblage denotes “a mode of ordering heterogeneous entities so that they work together for a certain time” (2015, 28). He points to how assemblage (as developed by French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in works such as A Thousand Plateaus) has been taken up by ANT scholars, and particularly Bruno Latour. For example, in Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, Latour (2005a) draws on the term assemblage for its focus on the associations made when ordering heterogeneous entities, leading him to redefine sociology as the “tracing of associations” instead of the “science of the social.” 4 Latour (1994) uses the term actants to denote that both humans and nonhumans can act – and, as actor-networks, have agency. 5 The term hybrids refers to how we arbitrarily delineate things around us, by applying categories as a way to produce knowledge and, by doing so, create “hybrids” of things. As Latour explains, in We Have Never Been Modern, the term hybrid can be used to describe how in modern, Western society, demarcations are made between things using particular categories, such as culture versus nature. Through processes of association (and disassociation), hybrids are constantly created (as well as unmade). Latour specifically points to two

226

6

7

8

9

10

11

Notes to pages 5–13

actions, that of “translation” and “purification.” Translation “creates mixtures between entirely new types of beings, hybrids of nature and culture,” and purification “creates two entirely distinct ontological zones: that of human beings on the one hand; that of nonhumans on the other” (1993b, 10–11). As Latour points out, the act of purification paradoxically ends up creating more hybrids. “Mtl Urban Museum: Cutting-Edge Application from the Mccord Museum for High-Tech Discovery of Montreal, Past and Present,” 30 August 2011, last accessed 28 July 2018, http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/pdf/PR/ PR_MUM_EN.pdf (page discontinued). Haraway (1990) recognized technologies as acting agents implicated in social relations and having social, material, and political consequences, and called for a revision of our thinking beyond essentialist human roles and categories. She introduced the “cyborg” as “a hybrid machine and organism” and used it as a resource to map and reveal the boundaries of “traditional science” as debatable and political. Challenging the boundaries between the animal and the human, between animal-humans (organism) and machines, and between the physical and the non-physical, Haraway showed how those distinctions are interwoven with power dynamics that are increasingly obscured by information and communication technologies, which “are everywhere and invisible” (195). In their editorial titled “Conceptualizing Mediatization: Contexts, Traditions, Arguments,” Couldry and Hepp suggest “mediatization” as a way “to capture somehow the broad consequences for everyday life and practical organization (social, political, cultural, economic) of media, and more particularly of the pervasive spread of media contents and platforms through all types of context and practice” (2013, 191). In Life after New Media: Mediation as a Vital Process, Kember and Zylinska follow Heidegger in stating that “we have always been technical” and therefore that “we have always been mediated,” whereby “mediation becomes a key trope for understanding and articulating our being in, and becoming with, the technological world, our emergence and ways of intra-acting with it, as well as the acts and processes of temporarily stabilizing the world into media, agents, relations, and networks” (2012, xv; emphasis in the original). Van Dijck’s The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media (2013) explores how social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, are increasingly connected and connecting information with people, institutions, and technologies in ways that give users an increased sense of participation, while obscuring the larger part that institutional and technological mechanisms play in their “connective” orchestration. To help the analysis of this “digital” display, I use examples from “physical” exhibits (such as the Food for Thought exhibit, and the McCord Museum’s

Notes to pages 14–24

12

13 14

15 16

17 18

19

227

permanent exhibit Montreal – Points of View described in appendix A). This is not meant to be a comparison, since, as actor-networks, they both still involve the other: a “digital” display involves devices as much as humans, and a “physical” display may include some digital media and other technologies, like application programs and iPads or LCD screens (and to indicate this issue, the terms are always used in quotation marks). Rather it helps show that remaking a “digital” display is as much embedded in socio-technical and socio-material arrangements as a “physical” display (see chapter 1) though, in this case, the MUM App’s politics involves new players (see chapters 1 and 4). Both McLuhan and Williams carried out most of their work in the 1960s and 1970s. As Lister et al. explain, while Williams became known as “one of the founding figures of British media and cultural studies,” McLuhan developed a following by a range of theorists interested in new media, including Baudrillard and Virilio (2009, 78). Lupton (2015) references Bruno Latour’s Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory (2005a) and Science in Action (1987). The NMC was founded in 1993 through a joint venture that included Adobe Systems, Apple Computer, Sony Electronics, FWB Inc., Macromedia, Prentice Hall, and SuperMac: Technology, companies “who realized that the ultimate success of their multimedia-capable products depended upon their widespread acceptance by the higher education community in a way that had never been achieved before,” NMC website (last accessed 24 January 2018), http://www.nmc.org/about/nmc-history/ (page discontinued). Note that, as of February 2018, NMC was acquired by eDUCAUSe ; however, an analysis of how the NMC and its reports were incorporated (or not) into eDUCAUSe was beyond the scope and timelines of this case study. As outlined on the McCord Museum’s website (last accessed 13 January 2021), https://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/en/mission/. “Streetmuseum Hits the Streets of London,” Museum of London press release, 1 June 2010 (last accessed 8 March 2013), http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Corporate/Press-media/Press-releases/ Streetmuseum-hits-the-streets-of-London.htm (page discontinued). From the McCord Museum website (last accessed 31 August 2012), http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/en/keys/collections/ (page discontinued). “McCord Museum Wins the Gold MultiméDi’art Interactive Award for Its Mtl Urban Museum Application,” McCord Museum press release, 22 October 2012 (last accessed 22 July 2015), http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/pdf/PR/ PR_Premier_prix_ MUM_EN.pdf (page discontinued). The MUM App was downloaded most to the iPhone device (see figure E.1). For this reason, the app study was conducted on an iPhone, and the ensuing analyses focus on this device.

228

Notes to pages 31–6 c hA P t eR on e

1 This information was posted on a blog by the Creative Cooperation in Cultural Heritage (last accessed 9 January 2012), http://chief.uc.pt/blog/ index.php/streetmuseum-a-successful-partnership-between-technologyand-cultural-heritage/ (page discontinued). Similar information was discussed in the Museum of London governors’ report and financial statements for the year that ended 31 March 2011. The report noted that the Streetmuseum App had been “a major success,” given that it was “downloaded by 85,000 iPhone users within the first months, reaching 200,000 by the end of the year,” Governor’s Report (last accessed 28 July 2018), https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/application/files/9514/5468/1037/ Museumof-London-Accounts-2011.pdf (page discontinued). 2 As described in the Museum of London’s governor’s report on the Museum of London website (last accessed 28 July 2018), https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/application/files/9514/5468/1037/ Museumof-London-Accounts-2011.pdf (page discontinued). 3 As noted in “Mtl Urban Museum: A Cutting-Edge Application from the McCord Museum for High-Tech Discovery of Montreal, Past and Present!” McCord Museum press release, 30 August 2011 (last accessed 28 July 2018), http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/pdf/PR/PR_MUM_EN.pdf (page discontinued). 4 The provincial law in Quebec governs language rights, regulations, and obligations, ensuring that all commercial signs, documents, websites, and so on are in French as well as English. 5 The Museum of London is part of the Museum of London Group of museums (which also includes the Museum of London at London Wall, the Museum of London Docklands, and the Museum of London Archaeology). Around the time when these apps were made, the Museum of London Group reported incoming funds of £32,053,000 in the 2010/11 fiscal year, whereas the McCord Museum reported CA $5,366,228 in 2011. This information was made public in the museums’ annual reports and was available on their respective websites (last accessed 28 July 2018), https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/about-us/ corporate-information/annual-reports-and-accounts and http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/en/annual-reports/, but the reports have since been removed. 6 The StreetmuseumTM Londinium App and a description of its features were available online on the App Store at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ streetmuseum-londinium/id449426452?mt=8 (page discontinued). 7 In addition to these (possible) funders, there may have been other institutions or commercial companies that funded the making of the MUM App. I cannot

Notes to pages 37–58

8

9

10

11 12 13

14

15

229

confirm this because, when I interviewed the project manager of Web and Multimedia, I could sense that funding was an uncomfortable topic and so I dropped this line of questioning. As I will explain in chapter 4, by developing the app for particular mobile devices, operating systems, and platforms, it engendered device “discrimination” (Latour 1992) that resulted in more or less access to the app. The “Map Kit Framework” could be used to embed geolocational map interfaces into apps, which could then be annotated with custom images, text, and other content. As described on the Apple developer site for iOS Apps (last accessed 15 February 2013), https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#referencelibrary/ GettingStarted/RoadMapiOS/chapters/Introduction.html. As described on the Apple developer guide (last accessed 28 February 2013), https://developer.apple.com/appstore/guidelines.html (page discontinued). In the case of the MUM App, while Thumbspark was the seller, the McCord Museum owned the copyright. This thinking about imagined audiences is not unlike the negotiators and negotiations involved in curatorial practices for “physical” exhibits. Macdonald (2002) made the same observation while examining the making of the Food for Thought exhibition at the London Science Museum, whereby imagined audiences became negotiators in how the exhibition was designed, the type of displays and activities made available, and how artefacts were described. “Sensor technology” allows the device to be location-aware through its GPS sensor. The compass sensor allows for the device to be direction-aware, and the accelerometer sensor indicates when the device is in motion, making it motion-aware. Camera technology allows developers to add graphics or other media, such as 2-D or 3-D images or text, as an overlay on its real-time displays, using pattern recognition for placement (Azavea and Philadelphia Department of Records 2011). The Sony HX 5V has a built-in GPS receiver and compass that allows it to tag images with the location and direction of the camera. Tag information is used by the iPhone’s software to display images on a map by location. For information on the Sony DSC -HX 5V camera, see http://www.imaging-resource.com/ PRODS/HX5V/HX5VA.HTM. ch A P t eR tWo

1 Sensors allowed the device to be location-aware, direction-aware, and motionaware. To understand more how sensor technologies work in relation to augmented reality displays, the head of IT at the McCord provided me with a whitepaper by Azavea and the Philadelphia Department of Records (2011).

230

Notes to pages 63–73

2 Question 37(a) of the MUM App Questionnaire asked, “Was it easy to interact with the MTL Urban Museum App?” Eight participants selected “yes.” Of those that did not, Participant 2 wrote in “yes and no” (“yes” because it was “clear to use”; “no” because it was “not easy to flip between 2D and 3D ” and “hard to walk in the city while looking @ phone”). Participant 9 wrote in “inbetween” (noting that it was “a bit tricky”), and Participant 11 selected “no” (he wrote that he needed “more practice with touchscreens and iPhones generally,” “the GPS positioning is not as accurate,” he was “fighting with the device at times,” “the process began to feel somewhat exhausting rather than relaxing,” and “the cold weather (fingers) and bright sun (screen) resulted in some limitations to [his] enjoyment of the experience”). 3 Question 11 of the MUM App Questionnaire asked, “How often do you visit the McCord Museum?” Only Participants 3, 7, and 8 selected “never,” which makes me feel comfortable that most understood what the museum was about and what a “museum visit” is like. 4 Question 16 of the MUM App Questionnaire asked, “How familiar are you with Montreal?” Six participants selected “very familiar,” four selected “familiar,” and one selected “somewhat familiar.” 5 While I was in residence at the McCord Museum, I also asked thirteen visitors to the Montreal – Points of View permanent exhibit to respond to a short questionnaire. Question 20 a) of the that questionnaire asked, “Did you visit the exhibit clockwise or counterclockwise?” Nine responded that they visited it clockwise (which would be counter-chronologically or “backwards”), two counterclockwise (which would mean chronologically), and two said both! 6 As Macdonald explains, “some visitors were too active” (2002, 230). There was “outright pilfering and vandalism in a relatively unprotected exhibition: items like knives and forks and fake food from exhibits ‘walked,’ pieces were broken off one exhibit, and fake carrots were stuffed in the mouths of the figures in the Sainsbury’s reconstruction” (230). 7 The Redpath Museum is an academic unit of McGill University, which holds collections in the fields of paleontology, zoology, mineralogy, and world cultures (ethnology). See the museum website, at https://www.mcgill.ca/ redpath/about. 8 As Berker et al. explain in their introduction, domestication “in the traditional sense, refers to the taming of a wild animal” (2006, 2). Domestication has thus been metaphorically used to denote a “domestication process when users, in a variety of environments, are confronted with new technologies. These “strange” and “wild” technologies have to be “house-trained”; they have to be integrated into the structures, daily routines and values of users and their environments” (2).

Notes to pages 79–92

231

c hA P t eR th R e e

1 Thank you to an anonymous reviewer who pointed me to this literature, which helped me to clarify some of the observations made. 2 For Kitchin and Dodge, software “is diverse in nature, varying from abstract machine code and assembly language to more formal programming languages, applications, user-created macros, and scripts” (2011, 4). 3 In this way, the museum has also been likened to a laboratory. As Bennett suggests, referring to Latour and Woolgar’s Laboratory Life (1986), “different types of museum[s] are able to fabricate new entities as a result of the distinctive procedures (of abstraction, purification, transcription, and mediation) through which they work on and with the gatherings of heterogeneous objects that they assemble” (2006, 523). 4 For Hetherington, homogeneity could be “organized through classificatory, aesthetic, narrative, and auratic means” whereby “the museum display perform[ed] some kind of a homogeneous relation between things on display through an ordering of material elements and their semiotic effects” (1999, 51). Thus, the modern museum not only changed the “mode of ordering the heterogeneous but also chang[ed] conceptualizations of heterogeneity as well” (52): for modern museums, “heterogeneity should not be there” (52). 5 The reordering of spaces could also happen in other ways in relation to the app: for example, spaces were reordered when Participant 3 used the app’s display platform as a navigational tool. It should be noted that spaces were reordered when using the 2-D view, but only a subset of actors would be involved (for example, internet cellular service and GPS would not be required since the images resided within the files of the MUM App). In this case, too, sites would be rewritten as places to view collections. 6 Coded objects “rely on software to perform as designed.” They can be divided into coded machine-readable objects such as DVD s and coded objects that rely on embedded software to perform, such as networked vending machines (Kitchin and Dodge 2011, 5). 7 Coded infrastructures “are both networks that link coded objects together and infrastructures that are monitored and regulated, fully or in part, by software,” such as computing networks, utility networks, and financial networks (Kitchin and Dodge 2011, 6). 8 Coded processes are the “transactions and flows of digital capta across coded infrastructure. Here the traffic is more than rudimentary instructions to regulate coded objects within an infrastructure; rather, the flows are structured capta and processed information” (Kitchin and Dodge 2011, 6). 9 Coded assemblages “occur where several different coded infrastructures converge working together – in nested systems or in parallel, some using coded

232

Notes to pages 106–24

processes and other not – and become integral to one another over time in producing particular environments, such as automated warehouses, hospitals, transport systems and supermarkets” (Kitchin and Dodge 2011, 7). chA P t eR fo u R

1 As of February 2018, the NMC was acquired by eDUCAUSe , and so the actors involved, and the aims of the organization, may have subsequently changed. 2 The quotation was retrieved on 24 July 2018 from the NMC website, http:// www.nmc.org/about/nmc-history/ last, but is no longer available. 3 For Akrich, Callon, and Latour (2002a) irreversibility is much like the successive passes in Scrabble, which saturate the board. For Callon, “irreversibility” occurs with the stabilization of relations of actors in a network and “the longevity of these connections and the extent to which they are predetermined” (1991, 133). 4 The video The Digital Dump: Exporting Re-use and Abuse to Africa, produced by the Basel Action Network, can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=8tVdTBnBXw0. A link to the report of the same name was accessed 28 July 2018, at https://static1.squarespace.com/static/558f1c27e4b0927589e0edad/ t/55d79038e4b069c9055c8720/1440190520196/BANsDigitalDump-2005.pdf, but the page has since been discontinued. 5 As noted in “The McCord Museum Enhances Its Mtl Urban Museum Application with New Points of Interest and a Brand New Indoor Component,” McCord press release, 17 July 2014 (last accessed 22 July 2015), http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/pdf/PR/PR_Musee-McCord-etend-sonapplication-Musee-Urbain_EN.pdf (page discontinued). 6 Gartner, Newsroom, http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2996817, last accessed 9 August 2015 (page discontinued). 7 CBC News, “Android popularity swells among Canadian smartphone users,” 17 September 2012, https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/androidpopularity-swells-among-canadian-smartphone-users-1.1285174. 8 The McCord Museum had a dedicated employee, the head, Education Programs, who was responsible for educational and outreach programs. One program involved “memory boxes,” in which elderly individuals were coupled with students in a memory-sharing triggered by the handling of items in the museum’s material collections. 9 How and when users are configured has been a long debate in STS . A good resource that both describes and contributes to the debate is Oudshoorn and Pinch’s edited volume How Users Matter: The Co-Construction of Users and Technology (2003). 10 This example brings to mind Ellen van Oost’s (2003) study on shavers. She found that shavers help “configure” users’ femininity or masculinity as a

Notes to pages 125–81

233

result of how they are scripted (e.g., shapely pink shavers for “women” and dark rugged shavers for “men”). 11 Kitchin and Dodge point to Hannah (1997), who suggests that, regardless of “advances in the surveillance tools and systems of organization . . . the disciplinary grid created has remained open to vertical (within an activity) and horizontal (across activities) fragmentation,” such as imperfect communications across different agencies and difficulties exchanging and comparing information across different organizations (2011, 84). ch A P t eR f i v e

1 See, for instance, Latour and Woolgar’s Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts (1986) and Latour’s Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society (1987). 2 Inception is a 2010 science fiction action film in which experimental technologies are used to perform the act of “inception” – that is, to plant an idea in the subconscious of someone else during a false awakening (or “dreaming within a dream”) – hence, the “layer upon a layer” analogy. 3 As Law and his colleagues explain, syncretism, a term borrowed from anthropology and religious studies, may be considered as “a matter-of-fact way of talking of religious coherence that is also non-coherent” (Law, Afdal, et al. 2013, 4). 4 Though, in light of my critique regarding the term domestication, in relation to its use in domestication theory (discussed in chapter 2), I understand this mode as perhaps closer to the work of “impression management” or “translation” – as illustrated by the case of Participants 9 and 5 who both attempted, in different situations, to make practices cohere by explaining what they were doing to intruding passers-by. 5 Here we may think, for example, of how “cabinets of curiosities” in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were enacted as an early arrangement of the “museum.” con c Lus i o n

1 The use of robots Liam and Daisy is mentioned in Apple’s Environmental Responsibility Report: 2018 Progress Report, Covering Fiscal Year 2017, https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/Apple_Environmental_ Responsibility_Report_2018.pdf. 2 This information was part of Greenpeace’s “2017 Company Report Card on Apple,” https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/ GGE2017_Apple.pdf.

R ef e Ren c e s

Akrich, M. 1992. “The De-Scription of Technical Objects.” In Bijker and Law 1992b, 205–24. Akrich, M., M. Callon, and B. Latour. 2002a. “The Key to Success in Innovation Part I: The Art of Interessement.” International Journal of Innovation Management 6, no. 2: 187–206. – 2002b. “The Key to Success in Innovation Part II: The Art of Choosing Good Spokespersons.” International Journal of Innovation Management 6, no. 2: 207–25. Akrich, M., and B. Latour. 1992. “A Summary of a Convenient Vocabulary for the Semiotics of Human and Nonhuman Assemblies.” In Bijker and Law 1992b, 259–64. Amin, A., and N. Thrift. 2002. Cities: Reimagining the Urban. Oxford: Polity. Arnsdorf, Isaac. 2010. “The Museum Is Watching You: Galleries Quietly Study What People Like, or Skip, to Decide What Hangs Where.” Wall Street Journal, 18 August. Azavea and Philadelphia Department of Records. 2011. Implementing Mobile Augmented Reality Technology for Viewing Historic Images. http://2rct3i2488 gxf9jvb1lqhek9-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/ Augmented_Reality_by_PhillyHistory_Whitepaper_v02.pdf. Barry, A. 1998. “On Interactivity: Consumers, Citizens and Culture.” In The Politics of Display: Museums, Science, Culture, edited by S. Macdonald, 98–117. London: Routledge. – 2001. Political Machines: Governing a Technological Society. Bodmin, UK : MPG Books. Barthes, R. 1980. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. New York: Hill and Wang. Basu, P., and S. Macdonald. 2007. “Introduction: Experiments in Exhibition, Ethnography, Art and Science.” In Macdonald and Basu 2007, 1–24. Bennett, T. 1995. The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics. New York: Routledge. – 2006. “Civic Laboratories: Museums, Cultural Objecthood and the Governance of the Social.” Cultural Studies 19, no. 5: 521–47.

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inD e x

actant, 7, 50, 96, 148, 172, 225n4. See also space-time-actant actor, 7. See also actant; actornetwork; assemblage actor-network, 6, 7–8, 13–16, 53, 152, 154, 159, 161–2, 167 actor-network theory (ANT ), 7–8, 12; and domestication theory, 74–6; and “new media” studies, 13–16. See also actor; principle of symmetry agency, 5, 7, 16, 18–19, 157, 167; as distributed accomplishment, 96–7, 102, 168, 172. See also relational effect; secondary agency agent, 7. See also actor Akrich, Madeleine, 7, 18, 50, 51–2, 75, 107 anti-program, 52, 63, 68–70, 75, 87, 163 Apple GiveBack program, 108, 180 Apple Inc., 24, 37, 53, 121–2. See also gatekeeper artificial intelligence (AI ), 96–7 assemblage, 7–8, 15–16. See also coded assemblage; experimental assemblage; method assemblage automated management, 93, 124–8 Barad, Karen, 18 Barry, Andrew, 96, 97, 103 Basu, Paul, 9, 138, 148–9 Bennett, Tony, 80 big data, 104, 124, 134, 158, 174, 179– 80. See also automated management; surveillance

black box, 37, 49 Bolter, Jay David, 8, 13–16 Bowker, Geoffrey, 54–5, 91, 127 breaches, 141–6 Brothers and Sisters (company), 29, 31, 32, 38, 46, 47, 48, 108, 163, 165. See also gatekeeper Callon, Michel, 7, 65, 107 care, as mode of syncretism, 146. See also syncretism, modes of code/space, 80, 83, 85–6; code not determining space, 86–90, 94, 97; difference from “physical” space, 98–101, 173, 176 coded assemblage, 83, 87, 92, 173, 176, 231n9 coded infrastructure, 83, 92–3, 231n7. See also digital infrastructure; infrastructure collapse, as mode of syncretism, 146. See also syncretism, modes of configuration: as method, 16–18; of the user, 123–4, 168. See also figuration; reconfiguration conflict, as mode of syncretism, 146. See also syncretism, modes of constructivism. See social constructivism corporatization: of digital infrastructures, 164; of smart city governance, 107, 164 Couldry, Nick, 10 culture of connectivity, 10 cyborg, 10, 226n7

250

Index

David, Paul, 107 denial, as mode of syncretism, 146, 150, 153–4, 179. See also syncretism, modes of design: in engineering, 8–9, 17–18; and (general) museum digital practice, 12. See also configuration; figuration; reconfiguration determinism. See technological determinism digital dump, 108, 180–1 digital infrastructure, 164–5. See also coded infrastructure; infrastructure digital media technologies, 6–8; in museums, 12, 19–20. See also Horizon reports discriminatory code and devices, 97, 120–4, 168 disorder. See non-coherence displacement, 48, 61–2, 87–90, 94–6, 171–2, 173, 176. See also agency Dodge, Martin, 80, 83–5, 86–90, 92–3, 124–6, 129 domestication, 230n8; as mode of syncretism, 146; as theory of domestication, 73–6, 173–4. See also syncretism, modes of dominant system, 147–8. See also non-coherence effect. See relational effect environmental issues. See digital dump; irreversibility; lock-in effect experimental assemblage, 9, 11, 50, 76, 95–6, 126–7, 152–3, 159, 169, 176, 178–9. See also assemblage experiments: museum apps, 12, 151; museum exhibitions, 9, 138, 148–9. See also experimental assemblage

failure, 150–6, 179. See also denial, as mode of syncretism figuration, 8–9, 17–19. See also configuration; reconfiguration Food for Thought exhibit (London), 12, 26, 69, 72, 116, 156, 229n13 French, Shaun, 79, 90–3, 96, 101–3, 129 French language, 23, 24, 35, 60, 116, 184; in diary notes, 185, 193–8. See also laws Galleries of Modern London exhibit, 21, 31, 66 Garfinkel, Harold, 141–4, 155 Gartner (company), 121. See also gatekeeper; statistics gatekeeper, 29, 37–8, 48, 108, 158, 164–5, 169, 176, 178 Goffman, Erving, 143–4 Google Analytics, 58; and automated management of society, 126–8; and control, 157–8, 167–8; dashboards, 124, 219–23; and surveillance, 128–35 Grusin, Richard, 8, 13–16 Haraway, Donna, 10, 117–18, 226n7 Henning, Michelle, 12, 20 Hepp, Andreas, 10 heterotopic spaces, 79, 85, 101, 157–8, 163, 172, 176–7 Hetherington, Kevin, 80, 85–6, 231n4 HistoryPin, 22, 119 Honouring Memory exhibit, 98 Hooper-Greenhill, Eileen, 80, 147 Horizon reports, 20, 21, 29, 30–2, 36, 106, 164. See also New Media Consortium (NMC ) hybrids, 7, 14–16, 52, 225n5, 226n7

251

Index

industry reports. See Horizon reports infrastructure, 52–6, 86–90, 95–8, 100, 105, 106–7, 119, 127–8, 153, 157, 167, 173, 177–8. See also coded infrastructure; digital infrastructure innovation, 8–10; 142, 149–50, 175. See also domestication; reconfiguration; remediation inscription, 2, 18, 51–2, 163; and domestication theory, 75–6; of MUM App, 56–9; reinscribing “old” politics, 2, 19, 109–20, 169. See also reconfiguration; rescripting the MUM App intervention, 9, 180–1 interventionist turn, 181 intruder, 143–6 irreversibility, 107–8. See also lock-in effect Kember, Sarah, 10 Kitchin, Rob, 80, 83–93, 107, 124–5, 129, 164 Latour, Bruno, 6, 7, 9, 16, 18, 29, 30, 37, 51, 52, 56–7, 76, 79, 81, 82, 83–6, 96, 107, 120, 127–8, 139, 140, 141, 172 Law, John, 7, 17, 66, 77, 138, 139–41, 143, 146–8, 153–4, 159, 179 laws: copyright, 32; language, 23, 32, 35 Living Landscapes exhibit, 98–100 lock-in effect, 105, 106–8, 165 Löwgren, Jonas, 181 Macdonald, Sharon, 9, 12–13, 36, 69, 71, 104, 111, 116, 118, 138, 148–9 McCord Museum: history, 20, 23–4; mission, 48–9. See also

Montreal – Points of View exhibit;

MTL Urban Museum App;

Notman Photographic Archives McLuhan, Marshall, 14–15 mediation, 16; technical mediation 10, 96, 172. See also negotiation mediatization, 10 method assemblage, 16–17 mobilization, 7, 13, 19, 31, 65, 73, 81–2, 127, 153–4, 156–7, 163, 166–7, 168–9, 171, 177 Mol, Annemarie, 9, 52, 66, 76 Montreal, history of, 22–3, 183–4 Montreal – Points of View exhibit: layout (by zones), 183–4; overview, 23–4; questionnaire for participants, 206–14. See also experimental assemblage MTL Urban Museum App: layout (by zones), 40–1; overview 24, 33–5; questionnaire for participants, 199–206; using, 185–98. See also Google Analytics: dashboards; McCord Museum multiple, things enacted as, 52, 77, 157, 163–4, 172, 176–7. See also heterotopic spaces MUM App. See MTL Urban Museum App museum. See dominant system; McCord Museum; Museum of London Museum of London, 31–2, 228n5. See also Galleries of Modern London exhibit; Streetmuseum App negotiation, 6, 7, 9–11, 12–13, 16; things as non-negotiable, 33, 38, 94, 109. See also agency; nonnegotiator; reconfiguration; remediation

252

Index

negotiator. See actor; non-negotiator new media, 8, 13–16; and museums, 12. See also digital media technologies New Media Consortium (NMC ), 20, 29, 106, 164, 227n14. See also Horizon reports non-coherence, 138–47, 149–50, 153–4, 156–7, 160, 164, 173, 177–9. See also syncretism, modes of non-negotiator, 32–3, 35. See also actor; laws non-user, 97 Notman Photographic Archives, 3, 22–4, 38, 41, 61, 98 Olesen, Anne, 12 Parry, Ross, 12, 20 political: definition, 103; “old” politics, 2, 19, 109–20, 169, 177–8; politics of “digital” display, 164–9; reconfiguration as political, 8–12, 19; software as political, 91–2. See also automated management; digital dump; discriminative code and devices; intervention; lock-in effect; surveillance principle of symmetry, 7, 169. See also symmetrical approach professionals, implications of digital media technologies for, 175–81 props, 155 reclassifying museum things, 63–7. See also reconfiguration reconfiguration, 8–9, 16–19, 76, 87, 149, 104, 162–3, 164, 165, 176, 177–8; as experimental process, 149, 178; as intervention 180–1. See also reclassifying museum things;

reordering space; rescripting the

MUM App; rewriting sites Redpath Museum, 42, 72–3, 114, 172 Reimer, Bo, 181 relational effect, 7, 9, 97; referred to as “effect,” 9–10, 19, 106, 119, 168, 169–70, 176 remediation, 8, 13–16; as experimental process, 138–9, 149, 151, 178; of the MUM App, 29–48, 161, 164, 165, 169–70, 175–6, 177–8 reordering space, 81–2, 213n5. See also reconfiguration rescripting the MUM App, 67–73. See also reconfiguration rewriting sites, 83–6. See also reconfiguration robots: Cog, 97; Daisy, 180; Liam, 180. See also artificial intelligence (AI ) secondary agency, 92 separation, as mode of syncretism, 146. See also syncretism, modes of smart city governance. See corporatization social constructivism, 3, 6–7, 14, 161, 170 socio-material, 8, 26, 40, 47, 62, 66, 95, 138, 181 socio-technical: approach, 6–9; artefacts, 17–18. See also symmetrical approach space, 79, 83–5; on reordering, 81–2, 176; on rewriting, 83–6, 176. See also code/space space-time-actant, 84–5 spokesperson, 63–7, 156. See also translation Star, Susan Leigh, 16, 54–5, 91, 120–1, 127

Index

statistics: smartphone sales, OS, and mobile device, 215–23. See also Google Analytics: dashboards Streetmuseum App, 9, 11, 21, 32–5, 66, 150–3, 165–6. See also Horizon reports; Museum of London Streetmuseum Londinium App, 35–6, 152, 166 success, evaluating, 150–6, 179 Suchman, Lucy, 8–9, 16–19, 40, 52, 95–7, 101–2, 172, 180 surveillance, 105, 124–6, 128–35, 173–4, 179–80 symmetrical approach, 6–9, 11, 49, 125, 169–73, 181. See also principle of symmetry syncretism, modes of, 138, 146–7, 153–4, 159–60 teams, Goffman’s analysis of, 143–4 technological determinism, 3, 6–7, 14–15, 20, 28, 161, 179; and automated management, 127, 174; and

253

domestication theory, 74; and space, 86–7, 90–3, 101 Thrift, Nigel, 79, 90–3, 96, 101–3, 129 Thumbspark Ltd, 29, 32, 46–8. See also gatekeeper transduction, 80, 83–4, 87, 90, 94, 97, 101, 163 translation, 65, 84, 142–4, 154, 226n5 Urban Forest installation, 98–100 Urry, John, 107 van Dijck, José, 10 Williams, Raymond, 14–15 Woolgar, Steve, 7, 26, 29 Wyatt, Sally, 97 Yaneva, Albena, 62–3, 79, 85 Young, Brian, 20 Zylinksa, Joanna, 10