Author: Dirk vom Lehn

Has anyboy met a brain in a museum lately?

exhibitions, experience, interaction, museums, Phenomenology, visitors

There is an interesting piece by the Nobel Prize Winner (2000) Eric R. Kandel in the New York Times.Titled “What the Brain Can Tell US About Art” Kandel’s piece contributes to discussions about art that have been going on for at least a decade now in the ‘science of the brain’. I remember vividly coming across Ramachandran and Hirstein’s article “The Science of Art” that pursues a similar argument as Kandel’s essay: by studying processes in the brain we can learn something about art itself. Kandel discusses some aspects of the emergence of this idea by briefly discussing the concept of the “beholder’s involvement” or “beholder’s share” as developed by Alois Riegl of the Vienna School of Art History, the teacher of Ernst Kris and Ernst Gombrich.

As part of the argument Kandel suggests that the brain completes  incomplete information s/he has received from the outer world. Interpretation of art therefore is a cognitive process through which the ‘beholder’ “recapitulates in his or her own brain the artist’s creative steps”. Furthermore, he argues that because our brains develop in much the same ways we are able to “see the world in pretty much the same way”. He thereby lodges intersubjectivity within  individual brains and presumes that intersubjectivity is a result of processes in the brain. Whilst he acknowledges that individual differences between people exist due to their individual life experience (“memories”) he ignores the situation in which people encounter works of art or other objects and how the specifics of that situation influences how people make sense of the pieces.

One situation in which people often encounter works of art are exhibitions in museums and galleries. When they examine a piece they are often with friends or acquaintances and in the presence of other people who spend time in the same gallery at the same time. The actions of all these people are perceiveable by all those in range and influence how they explore the galleries, what they look and for long and how they see and make sense of it. In museums, the individual spectator or ‘beholder’ is a myth that we rarely meet. For example, people stop at and examine works of art together. They stand with a companion side-by-side and sometimes, ‘independently’, at least for a short while, look to the piece. As their eyes cross the canvas, for instance of a famous Rembrandt portrait, something like Kandel’s version of interpretation might happen. But often already after two or three seconds one of them will refer to and comment on a particular exhibit feature that then for a short moment becomes the focus of the interaction between the pair. They briefly talk about the feature and then either return to an ‘independent’ inspection of the piece or leave the exhibit to continue with their exploration of the museum elsewhere.

The short moment when the two people align their perspectives to look a particular exhibit feature together and discuss it is when something is produced, momentarily, that we might call intersubjectivity. It is not lodged inside the people’s brains but the product of their oral and bodily actions. A moment later when the action stops the intersubjective sense making of the piece dissolves and the people continue their visit of the museum.

When calling the examination of the piece prior to the interactional engagment ‘independent’ I did not presume that the actions at the exhibit-face were arising separate from each other. Rather while the eyes cross the canvas of the painting the visitors are aware of each other and attend to even slight changes in posture and head direction as well as even to slight movements of the legs and feet that may display or foreshadow a shift in activity. ‘Independent’ and ‘individual’ therefore are not appropriate terms to describe even those moments when people  stand and look at exhibits while standing side-by-side without talking.

Essays like Kandel’s or Ramachandran and Hirstein’s article reflect how we think about looking at and interpreting art. “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder” has become a folk description of aesthitic judgments. Interestingly however the statement is often used to account for differences in aesthetic judgment and not to display intersubjective agreement about aesthetics. Kandel’s point also resonates with us as readers who sit there individually ‘interpreting’ a text that in this moment is not available to others. I read the piece in an armchair while nobody else was around in the house. Imagine the article printed on a large poster or series of posters and being read by people in pairs. Maybe like those visitors facing Rembrandt’s portrait they would stop half-way through, discuss and maybe disagree about Kandel’s claim that intersubjectivity arises in our brains.

Essays and books like Kandel’s (2012) “The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconsciousness in Art, Mind and Brain, From Vienna 1900 to the Present” are fascinating reads. However, I wonder when the time will come that this kind of brain science will leave the laboratory and be made relevant where ‘the rubber hits the road’ or where people with brains, bodies and the ability to communicate and interact face works of art.

Technology and Social Interaction

interaction, interactivity, Marketing, public places, Technology

Over the past few weeks an article by Nick Bilton in the New York Times has raised not only eyebrows but also concerns that the journalist may have gone a little far with his argument to abandon commonly accepted and taken for granted ‘rules of conduct’ and courtesy rituals when using technology. Bilton’s article has received more than 500 comments to some of which he has curteously responded and various journalists, writers and academics, including Nick Carr and Evan Selinger, have written pieces addressing some of the issues raised in his piece. Many of the comments and associated pieces call into question Bilton’s main argument that common forms of etiquette are inefficient and a waste of our time.

The debate reflects a growing uneasiness and uncertainty on the “proper” or “acceptable” use of technology in social occasions. In her film Connected Tiffany Shlain recalls a situation with a friend she had not seen for a long time when the urge to check her phone for new messages was so overwhelming that she apologized herself to the toilet just to update herself on the going-ons elsewhere in the world.

The situation Shlain describes is symptomatic for the uneasiness in the use of technology when in social situations. Whilst in some situations it is acceptable to occasionally glance at the phone in others it is not or it is not clear whether or not it is acceptable. A solution to deal with the situation then is to use techniques or methods like ‘an apology from the table’ and temporarily leave the situation. Thus, the sociability and intimacy of the situation is left intact whilst it becomes possible to use the phone away from the table. The deployment of these techniques also reveals that the leave taking from the table is an accountable action and that not all accounts will do as a satisfying explanation for leaving the table. For example, going to the toilet is acceptable whilst saying you want to check your Facebook Wall for updates in press less so.

In other situations, people unproblematically use their phones while with another person. For example, it is quite common for people sitting at a coffee table to pick up the phone and receive or make calls. Over time methods have been developed that allow people to use a cell phone in these situations. For example, when a cell phone rings at a coffee table where two friends converse the call-taker apologies her/himself while picking up the phone and taking the call. The friend then becomes a third-party to the phone conversation and often provides the call-taker privacy by excusing her/himself (e.g. to the toilet) or by engaging in other activities, such as checking her/his own phone, picking up a newspaper or book, or by looking in the distance  (Humphreys 2005). This does not mean, of course that the friend might not feel undermined or undervalued in the situation, in particular when the phone keeps on ringing and interrupting the face-to-face interaction. Hence, in such situations we sometimes decide to switch the phone off and eliminate this influence from the face encounter.

By and large, people nowadays are familiar with the ubiquitiousness of technology. They employ methods that allow them to use technology and at the same time to limit or sanction its use, depending on situational circumstances. They also create situations that are marked by new rules, such as the  “no phones at the dinner table” rule or the “techno shabbath” that ban technology from situations for longer periods. Arguments about the use of  technologies in situations arise relatively rarely and mostly with those who are not familiar with or not adhering to these rules and social conventions.1 For example, children like Evan Selinger’s daughter are being socialized into the use of technology and its fitting within different social contexts.

With regard to email that has been around for considerable time now and that features particularly prominently in Bilton’s NYT piece social conventions have been developed and are deployed on a day-to-day basis. As with the use of other technologies, such as cell phones, mobile game consoles etc., these conventions and rules are not fixed and followed but contingently drawn on and referred to when the acceptability of their use is questioned or challenged. I would presume that Bilton’s efficiency rule with regard to courtesy conduct in email has long been deployed, in certain situations when time was tight. Such conduct that uses efficiency as an account for the withholding of an act of courtesy however also can be detrimental to the very purpose of its accomplishment, e.g. the withholding of a “thank you” in receipt of an email. Most of us probably have encountered situations when the withholding of a simple “thank you” note in response to an email has occasioned an exchange by email or over the phone to confirm the receipt of an email; a “thank you” note in response to the original email would have been much more efficient than its withholding.

How we conduct ourselves and how we refer to and draw on social conventions or etiquettes comes down to the specifics of the situation in which we find ourselves when using technology and to our competencies to conduct ourselves in specific circumstances. The artificial general abandoning of courtesy action by virtue of some kind of rule set by the Biltons of this world would be non-sensical; and Nick Bilton would probably agree with this. Instead, we all gradually adapt our acquired social competencies to the pervasiveness of technology in situations, thereby embedding technology within our lives and those we live with. And as parents we are responsible for providing our children with the knowledge and skills that allow them to act and be seen as acting, competently in technology-rich situations.

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Footnotes

1 With regard to social conventions in “Technolosocial Situations” see also Mizuko Ito‘s research and Tricia Wang‘s work.

Off Grasshoppers and other Types

exhibitions, interaction, interaction, Marketing, museums, public places, visitors

The design of systems to support people’s navigation of exhibitions often draws on concepts and theories about visitors’ movement through exhibitions. In reference to relevant literature it makes inferences about people’s interests in exhibits by the ways in which they navigate galleries and at which exhibits they stop and for how long. Thereby, designers and museum managers often talk about “visiting styles” and refer to a French paper by Veron and Levasseur (1991). Therein, the authors apparently, I haven’t read the paper, use an analogy from the animal world to describe four types of visiting style: ants, fishes, butterflys and grasshoppers. These types are seen as ideal types and it is argued that mixed styles of navigation are common. In fact, as Opperman and Specht (2000) suggest in reference to Bianchi and Zancanaro’s (1999) conference paper “the classification of a visitor is no longer made stereotypically by describing a visitor uniquely as one of the four animals, but as an estimation of the ‘degree of compatibility between the user’s movement pattern and the four stereotypes’ at a given point in time” (Bianchi and Zancanaro (1999) in Opperman and Specht 2000: p.132). From this typology probabilities are derived regarding people’s navigation pattern. This allows for the fact that visitors might change their visiting style ‘mid-fly’, i.e. as they navigate and exhibition. For example, a fish who has spent relatively little or no time with exhibits in one gallery, may encounter a gallery with objects s/he is more interested in and therefore spends more time with, thus turning into an ant.

This concept of visiting style links the  way and speed in which people navigate exhibitions to their level of engagement with exhibits. Underlying this concept of museum visiting are conventional measures of visitor research, i.e. the stopping and holder power of exhibits, coupled with theories of learning, such as the late Chan Screven’s (1976) goal-referenced approach that link assumptions about ‘learning from exhibits’ to the time people spend with exhibits. Using this approach it is possible to argue for technologies that promise to extend the time of people’s engagement with exhibits because according to theory, it leads to cognitive development.

A different but related kind of typology has been developed by John Falk (2009) in his book “Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience”. Here, Falk proposes to link visitor behaviour to people’s motivations  grounded in the identity. His argument is more complex than the typology discussed above. It can be seen as an expansion of earlier work by the same author where he together with colleagues investigated visitors’ agenda for museum visiting.

As Veron and Levasseur’s (1991) typology Falks differentiation of visitors in types represents a classification scheme that in reality cannot be found in this way. It is an attempt to bring order to a messy social world and seems very useful for museum managers and marketing managers because of this lack of messiness. They can use such typologies to make decisions about exhibition programmes or technologies to be deployed in their galleries.

Such theories about museum visiting however largely ignore the reality of visitors’ experience of museums. They neglect what people actually do in museums, how they approach, examine and depart from exhibits, and how they make experiences of exhibits and generate experiences for others. This neglect is grounded on related research that is primarily interested in the individual visitor or in groups and families that are considered as social entities rather than as dynamic social processes. Researchers see the origin of actions, such as the approach to an exhibit or the departure from an exhibit, in either the visitor’s motivation or in the design of the exhibit. Yet, save for very few exceptions these researchers rarely look at how people draw each other to examine exhibits, how they encourage each other to inspect objects in particular ways, how they generate experiences for each other and how they occasion each other to move on.

By investigating the details of people’s action at the “point of experience” where the action is and where the action can be observed, researchers see how people produce experiences of exhibits in interaction with others. Whilst on the surface these details appear to ‘messy’ a closer look reveals that they are systematically produced and intelligibly orderly. Visitors in galleries behave in intelligible ways and their action becomes observable and reportable as museum visiting, without them requiring theoretical typologies to make sense of each other’s action.

It would seem that basing decisions on detailed knowledge about what people are actually doing in museums would provide decision makers in museums with a safer footing than theories about visitors’ actions. Are there any museum managers or designers out there who use detailed observational or video-based research to inform their decision making?

 

For related research go here

 

References

Bianchi, A. and M. Zancanaro, Tracking Users’ Movements in an Artistic Physical Space, in Proceedings of the i3 Annual Conference: Community of the Future, Octo- ber 20 – 22, 1999 in Siena, M. Caenepeel, D. Benyon, and D. Smith, Editors. 1999, The Human Communication Research Centre, The University of Edinburgh: Edin- burgh. p. 103 – 106.

Falk, J. H. (2009). Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press Inc. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.co.uk/Museums-Identity-John-H-Falk/dp/1598741632

Heath, C., & Vom Lehn, D. (2004). Configuring Reception: (Dis-)Regarding the “Spectator” in Museums and Galleries. Theory, Culture & Society, 21(6), 43–65. doi:10.1177/0263276404047415

Oppermann, R., & Specht, M. (2000). A Context-Sensitive Nomadic Exhibition Guide, 127–142.

Screven, C. G. (1976). Exhibit Evaluation: A goal-referenced approach. Curator, 52(9), 271–290.

Véron, E. and M. Levasseur, Ethnographie de l’exposition: L’espace, le corps et le sens. 1991, Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou Bibliothèque Publique d’Information.

vom Lehn, D. (2006). Embodying experience: A video-based examination of visitors’ conduct and interaction in museums. European Journal of Marketing, 40(11/12), 1340–1359. doi:10.1108/03090560610702849

vom Lehn, D. (2012). Configuring standpoints: Aligning perspectives in art exhibitions. Bulletin suisse de linguistique appliquée, 96, 69–90.

vom Lehn, D. (2013). Withdrawing from Exhibits: the interactional organisation of museum visits. In P. Haddington, L. Mondada, & M. Nevile (Eds.), Interaction and Mobility: Language and the Body in Motion. Berlin: de Gryter.

Jumping from Exhibit to Exhibit

exhibitions, interaction, interactivity, museums, visitors

There is an interesting discussion about linearity of exhibitions over at Nina Simon’s Museum2.0. Ed Rodley (*wave back*) has added his own take on this discussion on his blog “Thinking about Museums“. Ed highlights the relationship and between on the one hand the physical or geographical organization of exhibitions and on the other hand the narrative organization of the content of exhibitions. He kindly refers to my own post from a couple of week’s ago where I was trying to explicate some of the advantages of exhibitions that physically organize their exhibits in a linear way. Such an organization suggests to visitors where the next exhibit is and by glancing over to people standing there, can assess when it is opportune to move on without pushing or nudging the others to leave that piece.

In a way, my studies highlight the delicateness of people’s exploration of these spaces and how polite and respectful they conduct themselves when moving through these spaces that are in Lyn Lofland’s Words “A World of Strangers“.  Yet, what I implied to say as well was that whilst we may not know the other people who explore the museum at the same time they are not ‘strange’ in the sense that we couldn’t make assumptions about the trajectory of their actions. By monitoring, maybe only from the corner of the eye, what others are doing, we can assess their engagement with an exhibit and align our actions with their state of engagement; for example, when the person at the ‘next’ exhibit takes their glasses off and makes a step backward we can presume that possibly they will withdraw from the piece. Moreover, by having observed where they have come from we can also assume where they may go next and thereupon prepare our next action. Thus, in museums with a linear organisation of exhibits that we often find in art galleries and in history (of art, science or culture) museums, an “organized walking” can emerge that Tony Bennett refers to in his “The Birth of the Museum” and that some have described as “museum discipline”; Stefan Hirschauer, for instance” talks about the silent shuffling through galleries in his study of the famous (or infamous) “Body Worlds” exhibitions.

Many exhibitions these days however lack such a visible linearity. For example, for years now exhibitions have been organized in thematic clusters. These clusters contain a number of exhibits that somehow make up the theme of the cluster. We find these clustered themes in particular in science centres. They are predominantly made up of hands-on and computer-based interactives that engage visitors for considerable time. These interactives are designed in different ways; some are configured like a challenge encouraging visitors to interact with them multiple time to see whether they can improve on their previous attempt, or to compete in the challenge with others. It therefore is never quite clear for others when a visitor or a group of visitors engaging with an exhibit bring a challenge to an end and move on, vacating the space at the interactive. This leads to curious forms of conduct in these clusters:

– Visitors standing behind others who interact with an exhibit can be seen as ‘waiting’ and therefore as applying some pressure on those engaged in an activity. Challenges therefore are brought to an end prematurely because of the pressure of others waiting behind

– Visitors may continue to interact with an interactive or display an involvement with an interactive because neighbouring exhibits are occupied by others and they do not know where to go next; they do not want to end up waiting without being occupied themselves.

– Visitors who are with somebody who interacts with an exhibit look over their shoulder and alert the ‘user’ to a neighbouring exhibit becoming available.

In these exhibitions therefore it is not obvious where to go next but the onward movement is often influenced by the ‘becoming-available’ of neighbouring exhibits. When Ed points to the difference between the geographical and narrative organization of exhibits, we can see that an organization of exhibits in a non-linear way might obscure the narrative relationship between exhibits. Visitors do not know anymore why they become involved with an exhibit now, other than that this exhibit has now become available. It would seem that the narrative gap arising from the non-linear organization of exhibits requires tools that make up for the deficit. Some exhibitions try to achieve coherence by providing visitors with information on text-panels or in other ways.

Some related research can be found here.

Stepwise Exploration of Museums: arguments for a linear organisation of exhibits

exhibitions, interaction, museums, public places, visitors

There are long-standing debates in sociology and museum studies as well as amongst museum practitioners as to the layout of exhibitions, i.e. the organisation of exhibits in a given gallery space. For long, exhibits were organised in a linear order, often reflecting the history or evolution of human kind, art, science and culture. Tony Bennett famously discussed the political debates about the history of museums. He mentions that at the time it was thought that people would acquire knowledge about ‘progress’ by slowly walking along gallery walls, from exhibit to exhibit like “waking brains”. Thus, it was assumed people would see and learn about humankind’s progress as they see the advancement of culture and technology at each next exhibit.

In the recent past the linear organisation of exhibitions has come under sustained criticism. Most recently a post by Nina Simon on her Museum 2.0 blog takes up the controversy about the linear organisation of exhibits by looking at online exhibitions. Nina Simon makes a number of interesting points and towards the end wonders: “I’d love to see research on how open and closed exhibition layouts impact visitor dwell time, satisfaction, and engagement. What have you observed?” When looking at the existing body of research on visitor behaviour in museums it is noteworthy that studies  largely focus on visitors’ experience rather than on the organisation of their visit. That is, in the centre of her interest is the outcome of people’s engagement with exhibits, not the practices through which people make the engagement with exhibits happen. There are of course notable exceptions like Stephen Bitgood‘s studies of circulation in museums and his research on the “economy of movement” (with Stephany Dukes) in malls.

In a related way research at the Bartlett School of Architecture conducted by Kali Tzortzi explores the relationship between the choices of curators and the architecture of museums. Amongst others this research suggests that the visibility of exhibits from various locations in museums influences where visitors go when they navigate museums.

wmc_cluster

Space Syntax (Bartlett School)

Surprisingly perhaps none of this research shows an interest in the ways in which visitors organise the navigation of exhibitions and the examination of exhibits in social interaction with others. However there is a growing body of studies that explores the social organisation of mobility in public places. These studies include research on car driving by Barry Brown, Eric Laurier, Pentti Haddington and Lorenza Mondada, guided tours by Mathias Broth, and my own research on mobility in museums. My studies investigate how people orient to the material and visible environment while practically organising their exploration of a gallery. For example, the studies I have conductd with my colleagues at the Work, Interaction & Technology Research Centre (King’s College London) explore how visitors to an art museum bring the looking at a Rembrandt painting to a close and jointly move on without disturbing companions or others who happen to be nearby. Or they examine how visitors arrive and come to stop at paintings and begin to look at them together while standing-side-by-side. Whilst the activities like the withdrawing from and moving to a next exhibit or the approach of a next exhibit may seem mundane and uninteresting they are critical for the way in which visitors orient to the layout of exhibits in a gallery.

0070401111001 (from vom Lehn 2006)

In particular with regard to the linear organisation of exhibits in museums it is worthwhile highlighting here that for visitors to be able to see the next exhibit and to already know what (kind of) exhibit that next exhibit is, helps them to organise their visit with others. They use the visibility of (the content of) the next exhibit, e.g. “another self-portrait”, to draw their companion’s attention to that exhibit and away from the exhibit they have been looking at previously. Thus, visitors are able to organise not only their own individual museum visit but also to influence the organisation of the museum visit of their companions. It is worthwhile stressing here that visitors are able to organise their visit in this way not only because the exhibits are organised in a linear way but because of the visibility of what (kind of) exhibit the next one is.

Furthermore, visitors can see whether that possible next exhibit is occupied by other visitors. They glance to the side and notice others looking at it. Thereby, they use the visual and bodily orientation of others at the next exhibit to gauge their state of involvement with this next piece. If visitors notice that the others are about to move on they prepare their departure from the current exhibit and orient to that next one.

In light of these observations it might be worthwhile reconsidering the critique of the linear organisation of exhibits:

– The linearity of the organisation of exhibits in the gallery coupled with a visibility of information about next exhibits can support visitors in aligning their organisation of the navigation of a gallery with that of other people.

– It is not only the visibility of next exhibits that people use to navigate museums but also they use the visibility of exhibits coupled with the visibility of other people’s actions at these exhibits to fashion their own action at the current exhibit.

– A practical viewpoint of research in museums highlights how the organisation of exhibits can help people with little or no preconception of the detailed layout of the exhibition to (practically) organise their museum visit.

for more on the research go here

Apple Maps – as conversation starter?

analysis, interaction, Social Media, Twitter

Lots has been written about Apple’s problems with their Maps application. Apparently, motorists stranded in a National Park in Australia after relying on the app had to be rescued and many people complain or joke about problems with the app.

This morning, I received a Tweet via @CityJohn who used the app after arriving at Clapham South Tube station (South London). He opened the app and triggered the locate function only to be shown this map.

Image

In his tweet @CityJohn writes: Image

I don’t know what possessed me but I opened up my Apple Maps app and search for Clapham Common and was shown this map.

Image

As far as I can tell the map accurately locates Clapham Common and I decided to pass a picture of the map on to  @CityJohn. I have no idea about or interest in the technical workings of Apple Maps but found it interesting how Apple Maps, not only in this case, has become a conversation starter on Twitter. We all know by now that the app is anything but perfect and there is no need to post more examples of its shortfalls. But by posting curious examples one is almost certain to receive a response from others.

So, not surprisingly, when checking on @CityJohn’s Twitter Stream there now is at least one other short sequence of a ‘Twitter conversations’, just like the one I had with him. Maybe it’s worthwhile creating a collection of such instances. Maybe, this is not everybody’s cup o tea though….

Pricing and Amazon.com

analysis, innovation, Marketing, Technology

When I tweeted a review of Andreas Glaeser’s book yesterday that I had read on orgtheory.net a friend retweeted the post and added that “it’s only $8.55 on kindle”. Since I new the book was priced at £18.17 on amazon.co.uk I looked up the amazon.com site with my iPhone and noticed that it showed me a price of $29.10.

Image

When arriving home I checked the book on my laptop and found a difference in price when I looked into the amazon.com site from when I was not logged in.

When logged into Amazon.com the price was $29.10.

Image

When I log out of my account and search for the book again, the price goes down to $8.55.

Image

This observation points wither to personalized pricing or to big differences in geographical pricing of books and probably other items. In any case it reminds me of the advice that Eli Pariser gives in his book an on his website The Filter Bubble, clean your cookies.

Marketing & New Technologies (course outline (2011/12))

Technology

Topics and Readings

 

Week 1 (20 January 2012) – Introduction to the Course

In recent years, there has been a lot of discussion about the “internet revolution” or the “social media revolution”. These discussions principally argue that technological developments are shaping how we conduct our affairs, including how we organise our daily interactions as well as how we conduct marketing activities. This introductory lecture questions this premise that pervades also many marketing textbooks and sheds light on different perspectives on the relationship between marketing and technology.

The lecture also offers information on the practical issues involved in successfully participating in the module, such as the use of online resources, attendance and participation in lectures and tutorials and the modes of assessment operating in the course.

Readings

Bartels, R. (1986). Marketing: Management Technology or Social Process at the Twenty-First Century? In Marketing Management Technology as a Social Process. Edited by George Fisk. New York et al.: Praeger, pp.30-42.

Brassington, D. F., & Pettitt, D. S. (2007). Essentials of Marketing. Harlow/UK: Financial Times/ Prentice Hall.

Liebowirz, S.J. & Margolis, S.E. (1996). The standard typewriter keyboard is exhibit A in the hottest new case against markets. But the evidence has been cooked. http://reason.com/archives/1996/06/01/typing-errors

Marcuse, H., 1989. Some Social Implications of Technology. In A. Arate & E. Gebhardt, eds. The Essential Frankfurt School Reader. London & New York: Continuum International, pp. 138-162.

Gerardi, S., 2006. Some implications of modern technology: Revisited. The Social Science Journal, 43(2), p.293-295.

*Marx, L. (2010). Technology: The Emergence of a Hazardous Concept. Technology & Culture, 51(3), 561-577.

*Matthewman, S. (2011). Technology and Social Theory. London: Sage. (Chapt. 1)

Rust, R. & Espinoza, F., 2006. How technology advances influence business research and marketing strategy. Journal of Business Research, 59(10-11), 1072-1078.

Week 2 (27 January 2012) – Marketing Technologies

Over the course of its history marketing has developed powerful technologies that nowadays are central to the knowledge disseminated in marketing textbooks like Kotler and colleagues Principles of Marketing. This lecture uses theories and concepts of technology to examine and critically discuss some of the foundations underlying the marketing concepts and related marketing technologies.

Readings

Bowker, G. & Star, S.L., 1999. Sorting Things Out. Classification and its Consequences, Cambridge, MA/London: MIT.

Joerges, B., 1994. Do Politics have Artefacts? Social Studies of Science, 23(1), p.1-20.

Martin, A. & Lynch, M., 2009. Counting Things and People: The Practices and Politics of Counting. Social Problems, 56(2), p.243-266.

*Matthewman, S. (2011). Technology and Social Theory. London: Sage.

*Suchman, L., 1993. Do Categories have Politics? Journal of Computer Supported Collaborative Work (JCSCW), 2, p.177-190.

Tadajewski, M., 2006. The ordering of marketing theory: the influence of McCarthyism and the Cold War. Marketing Theory, 6(2), p.163-199.

*Rust, R. & Espinoza, F., 2006. How technology advances influence business research and marketing strategy. Journal of Business Research, 59(10-11), 1072-1078.

*Winner, L., 1986. Do Artifacts have Politics ? In The whale and the reactor: a search for limits in an age of high technology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 19-39.

 

Week 3 (3 February 2012) – Exchange, Markets and Networks

“Exchange” is largely seen as a “core concept of marketing” (Kotler, Armstrong et al. 2008). Whilst textbooks describe it as a social relationship between two or more participants few studies examine how these relationships are organised to achieve cooperation. Instead, cooperation in exchange relationships is often ascribed to rational decision making; participants exchanging goods and services when they both “have something of value to offer the other” (Kotler, Armstrong et al. 2008: 12). In this view, the properties of money support the emergence of exchange and therefore are key to the development of modern, capitalist economies. Markets

Underlying this concept of money and exchange is the distinction between rational action and other types of social action. In recent years, this distinction has been criticised and the social uses of money have been elaborated on. This lecture examines the relationship between different types of social action, explores the discussion of the social uses of money and the different ways in which exchange may be organised.

Readings

Bartels, R. (1986). Marketing: Management Technology or Social Process at the Twenty-First Century? In Marketing Management Technology as a Social Process. Edited by George Fisk. New York et al.: Praeger, pp.30-42.

*Beckert, J. (2009). The social order of markets. Theory and Society. Vol.28(3), pp.245-269.

Fligstein, N., & Dauter, L. (2007). The Sociology of Markets.Annual Review of Sociology, 33(1), pp.105-128.

*Granovetter, M., 1973. The Strength of Weak Ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), p.1360-1380.

Portes, A., 1998. Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology. Annual Review of Sociology, 24(1), p.1-24.

Spillman, L., 1999. Enriching Exchange : Cultural Dimensions of Markets. Journal of Economics, 58(4), p.1047-1071.

*Watts, D.J., 1999. Networks, Dynamics, and the Small-World Phenomenon. American Journal of Sociology, 105(2), p.493-527.

Zelizer, V.A., 2011. The Social Meaning of Money : “Special Monies”’. Culture, 95(2), pp.342-377.

Week 4 (10 February 2012) – Social Media (Guest Lecture – Rob Wilmot, BCS)

Rob Wilmot is one of the co-founders of the Internet Service Provider (ISP) Freeserve. Since 1998, the company facilitated mass access to the internet in the UK. After the company was sold for £1.6bn to Wannado in 2001 Rob has been investing in various ventures. He sits on a number of corporate and public sector boards. He also is Chairman at Doncaster College.

One of his current interests are developments in social media and social networking. In his lecture Rob will talk about these developments and their relationship to marketing.

Readings

Baym, N., 2010. Personal Connections in the Digital Age, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press

*Benkler, Y., 2007. The Wealth of Networks, Yale University Press. – Chapter 1, p.1-34

Bernoff, J. & Li, C., 2008. Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Brogan, C. & Smith, J., 2010. Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

*Cova, B. & Dalli, D., 2009. Working consumers: the next step in marketing theory? Marketing Theory, 9(3), p.315-339.

Hamilton, K. & Hewer, P., 2010. Tribal mattering spaces: Social-networking sites, celebrity affiliations, and tribal innovations.Journal of Marketing Management, 26(3), p.271-289.

Katona, Z., Zubcsek, P.P.A.L. & Sarvary, M., 2011. Network Effects and Personal Influences : The Diffusion of an Online Social Network. Journal of Marketing Research, XLVIII(June), p.425-443.

Kirkpatrick, D., 2010. The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company that is Connecting the World, Virgin Books.

 

Reading Week 5 (17 February 2012)

 

Week 5 (24 February 2012) – Reputation Management

Social networking sites are often used to communicate about brands, products and service. They therefore have become sites where brand image and brand vale are created or co-created with people contributing to the communication. This communication can involve talk about people’s experience with products and services and often also includes communication in which people vent their dissatisfaction with companies. And in some cases, employees submit information to social networking sites that potentially influence the company’s brand image or reputation. This lecture discusses some aspect of reputation management and social networking.

Readings

Bernoff, J., Li, C., 2008. Harnessing The Power of The Oh-So-Social Web, MIT Sloan Management Review, 2008; 49; 3; pp.35-42

Brogan, C. & Smith, J., 2010. Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

Burt, R., S., 1999. “The Social Capital of Opinion Leaders”, The ANNALS of The American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1999; 566; pp.37-54

Hutton, J., G., Goodman, M., B., Alexander, J., B., Genest, C., M., 2001. “Reputation Management: The New Face of Corporate Public Relations?” Public Relations Review, 2001; 27; pp.247-261

*Ferguson, R., 2008. Word of mouth and viral marketing: taking the temperature of the hottest trends in marketing. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 25(3), p.179 – 182.

Holloman, C., 2012. The Social Media MBA: Your Competitive Edge in Social Media Strategy Development and Delivery, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

Katona, Z., Zubcsek, P.P.A.L. & Sarvary, M., 2011. Network Effects and Personal Influences : The Diffusion of an Online Social Network. Journal of Marketing Research, XLVIII(June), p.425 -443.

Miller, D., 2011. Tales from Facebook, Cambridge: Polity Press.

*Rao, H., 1994. “The Social Construction of Reputation: Certification Contests, Legitimation, and The Survival of Organisations in The American Automobile Industry: 1895-1912”, Strategic Management Journal, 1994; 15; pp.29-44

Wartick, S., L., 1992. “The Relationship Between Intense Media Exposure and Change in Corporate Reputation”, Business Society, 1992; 31; pp.33-49

Yu, B., Singh, M., P., 2000. “A Social Mechanism of Reputation Management in Electronic Communities”, Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Cooperative Information Agents, 2000, pp.154-165

 

Week 6 (2 March 2012) – Innovation in Consumer Research (Siamack Salari)

Siamack Salari is founder of Everyday Lives a market and consumer research company that is well known for its innovative use of technology to conduct its studies. The projects of Everyday Lives include video-based research of shopping behaviour as well as detailed ethnographies of how people use products in their day-to-day lives.

Readings

*Belk, R. W. (1995). Studies in the New Consumer Behavior. In D. Miller (ed.) Acknowledging Consumption. London: Routledge, 58-95.

*Belk, R. W., & Kozinets, R. V. (2005). Videography in marketing and consumer research. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 8(2), 128-141.

 

Week 7 (9 March 2012) – Search Marketing

Over the past decade or so two important developments have emerged in the context of Internet Marketing: Search Marketingand Social Media Marketing. The growing economic weight of companies like Google suggest that Search will be one of the important marketing activities over the coming years. It is being used to obtain an understanding of the market as well as for the building of relationships and networks (Marsden and Kirby 2005; Moran and Hunt 2008). The lecture will discuss some of the practices involved in Search Marketing and assess possible problems these practices might raise for the relationship between companies and their customers. It then will turn to Social Media Marketing and explore how social networks like Facebook, Myspace or Jumo are used for marketing purposes, including the design, promotion and distribution of products and services (Penenberg 2009; Scott 2008). The discussion will touch on current debates concerned with viral marketing and online gaming as well as trust and reputation.

Readings

Marsden, P., & Kirby, J. (2005). Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz and Word of Mouth Revolution. A Butterworth-Heinemann Title.

Moran, M., & Hunt, B. (2008). Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company’s Web Site. IBM Press.

Pariser, E., 2011. The Filter Bubble: What The Internet Is Hiding From You, Viking.

Penenberg, A. (2009). Viral Loop: The Power of Pass-it-on. Sceptre.

*Phelps, J. E., Lewis, R., Mobilio, L., Perry, D., & Raman, N. (2004). Viral Marketing or Electronic Word-of-Mouth Advertising: Examining Consumer Responses and Motivations to Pass Along Email. Journal of Advertising Research, 44(04), 333-348.

Scott, D. M. (2011). The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly. (3rd Edition). Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.

*Sweeney, J. C., Soutar, G. N., & Mazzarol, T. (2008). Factors influencing word of mouth effectiveness: receiver perspectives.European Journal of Marketing, 42(3/4), 344-364.

Vaidhynathan, S., 2011. The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry), Berkely, CA: University of California Press.

 

Week 8 (16 March 2012) – Service-Marketing and Service Technology

Service-Marketing has emerged as an alternative to the managerial approach to marketing that dominated developments in the discipline for the past four or five decades. This chapter briefly introduces the key concepts of service- and relationship marketing and then turns to the recent deployment of service technology into service- and retail-settings. It will briefly discuss the research on these developments and then examine some aspects of the relationship between service technology and customers by examining video-recordings collected in museums and galleries.

Readings

Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M., & Brennan, R. (2009).Marketing an Introduction. Financial Times/ Prentice Hall.

Bitner, M. J. (2001). Service and technology: opportunities and paradoxes. Managing Service Quality, 11(6), 375 – 379.

Bitner, M., Brown, S., & Meuter, M. (2000). Technology infusion in service encounters. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 28(1), 138-149.

Curran, J. M., & Meuter, M. L. (2005). Self-service technology adoption: comparing three technologies. Journal of Services Marketing, 19(2), 103-113.

*Heath, C. & Lehn, D. vom, 2008. Configuring “Interactivity”: Enhancing Engagement in Science Centres and Museums. Social Studies of Science, 38(1), p.63-91.

Holloway, B. B., & Beatty, S. E. (2003). Service Failure in Online Retailing: A Recovery Opportunity. Journal of Service Research,6(1), 92-105.

Parasuraman, A., & Grewal, D. (2000). The impact of technology on the quality-value-loyalty chain: A research agenda. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 28(1), 168-174.

Week 9 (23 March 2012) Working in Social Media (Guest Lectures: Jadis Tillery)

Jadis Tillery is Head of Social Media for dot.talent a digital publisher for celebrity talent and top tier brands. In this role Jadis develops strategic WOM campaigns to harness the power of the social web through content creation and authentically engaging online communities.

Readings

Baym, N., 2010. Personal Connections in the Digital Age, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press

Benkler, Y., 2007. The Wealth of Networks, Yale University Press.

Bernoff, J. & Li, C., 2008. Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

*Hamilton, K. & Hewer, P., 2010. Tribal mattering spaces: Social-networking sites, celebrity affiliations, and tribal innovations.Journal of Marketing Management, 26(3), p.271-289.

Katona, Z., Zubcsek, P.P.A.L. & Sarvary, M., 2011. Network Effects and Personal Influences : The Diffusion of an Online Social Network. Journal of Marketing Research, XLVIII(June), p.425 -443.

Kirkpatrick, D., 2010. The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company that is Connecting the World, Virgin Books.

Shih, C., 2010. The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Market, Sell, and Innovate, Prentice Hall.

 

Week 10 (30 March 2012) – Marketing, Technology and Society

The growing deployment of new technologies in all parts of society is often likened to the emergence of a new form of society and coupled with that a new form of economy, namely the network economy. This lecture reflects on the content of the course and debates in sociology and related disciplines to explore how marketing theory and methods may be developed to capture current changes in marketing practice.

References

Achrol, R. S. and Kotler, P. (2010). Marketing in the Network Economy. Network, 63(1999), 146-163.

Anderson, C. (2009). The Long Tail. Business. London: Random House.

Baym, N., 2010. Personal Connections in the Digital Age, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Bennett, S., Maton, K. & Kervin, L., 2008. The “digital natives” debate: A critical review of the evidence. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(5), p.775-786.

Brogan, C. & Smith, J., 2010. Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust, John Wiley & Sons.

Benkler, Y., 2007. The Wealth of Networks, New Haven & London: Yale University Press.

Castells, M. (1996). The Rise of the Network Society. Vol. I: The Information Age. Economy, Society and Culture. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Castells, M. (2002). The Internet Galaxy. Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chaffey, D., Ellis-Chadwick, F., Mayer, R., & Johnston, M. K. (2008). Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice (4th ed.). Harlow/UK: Financial Times/Prentice Hall.

Cova, B., & Dalli, D. (2009). Working consumers: the next step in marketing theory?. Marketing Theory, 9(3), 315-339.

Ito, M. et al., 2009. Out, Hanging. Around, Messing Out. Geeking Out. Kids Living and Learning with New Media,

Palfrey, J., 2010. Born Digital. New York: Basic Books.

Qualman, E., 2010. Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

Rust, R. & Espinoza, F., 2006. How technology advances influence business research and marketing strategy. Journal of Business Research, 59(10-11), 1072-1078.

Shirky, C., 2009. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, London: Penguin.

Tapscott, D., 2008. Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World. McGraw-Hill Professional.

Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. (2008). Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. London: Atlantic Books.

The Challenge of Technology Shabbat

Uncategorized

About a year ago, I came across a documentary about the Barbie Doll, entitled The Tribe. The film links the history of Barbie to the question of what it means to be Jewish today. I was intrigued not only by the content of the film but also by its composition, a mixture of old and new, short cuts and longer sequences, and a narration by the memorable voice of Peter Coyote. The fil sparked my curiosity to look for information on who was behind the film and if the producer had embarked on other, related projects.

It didn’t take me long to find the website to the film and to that of its producer and director Tiffany Shlain. Apart from having directed and produced this fabulous documentary Tiffany also is the founder of the Webby Awards and the co-founder of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Most recently she has produced the highly praised and award winning “autoblogography” Connected.

The various communications about Connected distributed on Twitter and elsewhere enticed my curiosity about Tiffany’s larger project further. Whilst still not having seen Connected – when do you come to London, Tiffany? 😉 – the documentary (seems to) advance(s) her interest in the opportunities and challenges we face in a social world pervaded by technology designed to connect us all with each other. This technology and the social media that we increasingly use everywhere on our mobile devices allows us to connect with people across the globe. As an illustration of this interdependence between people Tiffany and her team set their Twitter followers and Facebook fans the task to translate the text of “A Declaration of Interdependence” and read out in front of a running camera. The result is short film produced in collaboration between complete strangers.

Maybe mesmerized by the possibility to connect with so many people around the world we find it increasingly difficult to put the phone to the side and connect with those nearest to us. We take out our phones in the middle of conversations or disappear to the toilet during dinner to check up on Facebook notifications and Twitter updates. Technology interrupts our daily interaction. “Who have I become?”, asks Tiffany, and comes up with the idea of a Technology Shabbat. She switches her phone off on Friday evenings, for 24hours, and encourages her friends, fans, and followers to do it like her. Apart from notifying us all about her unplugging on Friday nights together with her husband Ken Goldberg she has produced another short film, “Yelp! With Apologies to Alan Ginsberg’s ‘Howl'”.

With the film Tiffany encourages her audience to unplug as well from time to time. Do it like her, switch off your networked devices and gain the time and focus to engage with your friends and family, at least one day a week, without being interrupted by blinking and beeping devices notifying you about the arrival of new messages and updates.

Having resisted her request for a few months last weekend I decided to give it a go and unplug. Gosh! No idea had I how difficult that would be. Apart from the habit to reach for my phone whenever I sit down and check on nes, the unplugging brings with it some practical issues. A complete phone blackout was out of the question as my weekends are organised in ways that involve phone use at various occasions to coordinate meet-ups with the rest of the family. So, the only thing I did manage was to unplug from social media. Effectively I switched off my Facebook, Twitter etc. connection from Friday evening to Sunday morning. This worked out okay and gave me time to do other things without staring at the phone in the middle of a game or while reading a book. Also, rather than spending some time on Twitter on Sunday morning, I read a newspaper and then finished a book, The Digital Scholar. Overall, the Technology Shabbat has been an interesting experience for me and I will do it again, hopefully to greater effect, at the end of this week.

While refraining from accessing social media I also remembered a paper presented at the 2007 CHI Conference in San Jose, CA, namely Allison Woodruff and colleague’s “Sabbath Day Home Automation: ‘It’s Like Mixing Technology and Religion“, that seems pertinent to the issue. Woodruff discusses her observation in orthodox Jewish homes who because for religious reasons they are not allowed to operate technology, rely on on automated systems to help them out. She sees these automated systems as examples for technologies that are neatly embedded within the lives of people without interrupting or disrupting their social arrangements. Maybe over time we will find ways to embed our mobile phones and our social networks equally neatly into our lives.

Putting my half-failed attempt of a technology shabbat to one side, I am looking forward to seeing Tiffany’s project which a bit clumsily might be summed up as an exploration of the technology induced tension between interdependence and identity, develop.

Connected is in the cinemas in the USA and elsewhere since this autumn.

There are various attempts by science museums to bring to life some of the hidden ways in which the Internet works. When I visited the Science Museum in Chicago about 10 years ago there was an exhibit where I took a photograph of myself that then was transmitted to the other end of the gallery and displayed on a screen; the transmission of the picture was visualised on a wall where small packages moved along to where the screen was.

A few months ago in late March the National Media Museum’s Internet Galleries in Bradford opened together with Life Online that pursue a similar goal; making the development and functioning of the Internet intelligible.

Now in late July 2012, the Science Museum in London together with Google launched Chrome Weblab, “a series of interactive Chrome Experiments made by Google that bring the extraordinary workings of the internet to life”. The exhibition is in the basement of the Wellcome Wing. When I visited the gallery had just opened to the public and was already heaving with people.

Weblab is comprised of five ‘experiments’ people can engage with by using a Lab Tag and the various interfaces and systems displayed in the space. On entering the gallery each visitor can draw a Lab Tag from a computer system that is used as an identifier through which visitors’ engagement with the individual experiments is recorded and made retrievable from home. From here on the route took me into the gallery and a first large screen, the Data Tracer.

On entering the gallery I heard musical sounds which apparently came from the centre of the space but I had no idea who or what produced them and why. On closer look I saw a number of machines that looked like musical instruments that made sounds without anybody in particular playing them. I was intrigued but before I got to move to one of those instruments a person at the exhibit in front of me left the computer system and I engaged with the Data Tracer.

  

Data Tracer is comprised of three or four small screens connected to a large display showing a map of the world. On arrival I waited for a few minutes until a small screen become available and then fed my Lab Tag into an interface. I then was confronted with a number of thumbnail images showing objects and photographs of faces; on selecting one of the thumbnails a large copy of the image appeared on the large screen opposite locating the physical place where the image is stored and then drawing lines from there back to the Science Museum; thus, the exhibit visualizes the transformation of the image into data packages and their ‘journey’ to the Science Museum. Like the old exhibit at the Chicago Science Museum this Weblab experiment makes visible the process of using Google search engine. 

Having experimented with the exhibit for a while by tapping on two or three of the thumbnails I noticed other visitors waiting behind me and moved on to the next experiment, the Sketchbotswhere robots draw faces captured by a webcam of physical visitors in the gallery and online visitors in sand.

Only few people stopped for longer than a minute or so at the robots and often moved on when noticing that at the next lot of robots they can have their own faces or those of their children drawn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkzXSZnDs1E&feature=player_embedded

The process fascinates people. Having taken a picture they observe the robot at work and their image appearing. They take pictures on their cameras or film the process with their mobile phones, commenting on the delicate strokes the machine makes in the sand. People also exploit the possibility to take pictures of others as a means to engage their (small) children with the exhibit who otherwise may not stay with the experiment for long. They lift children up in front of the camera, take the picture of their face and then show them that the robot is drawing that picture of their face in the sand; the activity keeps the children engaged with the exhibit for considerable time.

From the robots my visitor journey took me to the Teleporter, an exhibit that uses periscopes connected to the web to look at location around the world pre-determined by the designers. For somebody on their own the use of the periscope can feel a bit strange, as you pull the system in front of your eyes and loose awareness of what is happening around you.

Looking through the periscope I saw the inside of an aquarium located in Cape Town and could turn around to get a 360 degrees view of the space. On occasions I pressed a button at the top of the periscope to take a photograph that with the help of the Lab Tag was saved on my account. As I discovered when leaving the periscope on the wall behind the exhibit my picture was displayed on small digital photo frames together with those taken by others. The picture bears a time-stamp and can be discussed with others who had no access to what I was looking at while using the system.

One of the potentially most exciting exhibits is the Universal Orchestra, a robotic orchestra made up of eight instruments simultaneously operated by people in the gallery and on the Internet. The instruments are located in the centre of the gallery, each equipped with a computer system that people can use to create sounds. You touch different notes on the screen, the information is fed to the robot that then creates the sound.

Arriving here helped explain the soundscape I had been hearing on entering the gallery. As with some of the other exhibits I was a secondary user of the exhibit, experiencing how to use the systems and what they do before I gained access to one of the instruments. The interaction with the system kept me busy for a while, as I tried to figure out how my actions on the computer screen relate to the sounds made by instruments. Also, the exhibit is described as a “real-time collaboration with people across the world” but because it is difficult to make out who creates what sound the use of the notion of “collaboration” to describe the events is problematic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCXX02dFbIM&feature=player_embedded

Finally, I went to a workstation where the Lab Tag is used to retrieve information about the activities a visitor has engaged with during their visit to the Weblab. The Lab Tag is slotted into the system and the computer screen shows what exhibits the visitor has been at and what they have accomplished there; for example, the photograph taken with the periscope or the sounds produced as part of the Universal Orchestra can be revisited. Seeing on the screen what I had done and what I had missed doing encouraged me to return to the gallery and conduct some further experiments with the Universal Orchestra before then leaving the exhibition.

Having arrived back home I booted my computer to visit the Online Chrome Weblab. I typed in the web address given on the back of the Lab Tag, scanned in the tag and immediately arrived at my Lab Report. The site shows my activities in the galleries on at the Science Museum, and allowed me to conduct the same experiments online. When opening for example, Online Sketchrobot, a site opens that shows live footage from the gallery before opening a screen that looks very similar to the one in the gallery. I took a picture of myself which then was processed ready for the robot to draw in the sand.

I then typed in my email address through which the system later notified me that the robot had completed its job.

The other exhibits work in a similar way. The Online Data Tracer invites visitors to ask the system to use for a physical location of an image file. I typed n my Twitter handle and the system located the associated picture in Isenburg, a small city in the German federal state of Hesse. TheOnline Teleporter allows the user to click on an image and obtain a live view into the bakery in North Carolina, the miniature exhibition in Hamburg and the aquarium in Cape Town. And the Online Universal Orchestra facilitates access to the eight instruments; one can view events in the gallery and play the instruments in the gallery from a remote location, audible to visitors in the museum and remotely. The played music can be recorded and then like the activities at the other exhibits, is retrievable from the Online Lab Tag Explorer.

Chrome Weblab is a fascinating experiment of an exhibition. It tries to make intelligible that the Internet connects remote locations on the planet. And this connectedness involves much more than the accessibility of information through search engines and web browsers but also allows for the possibility to act and interact with machines and people across the world in real-time.

The exhibition invites visitors to engage and participate with exhibits in the gallery and remotely and discover for themselves the relationship between the Internet and the social world in the gallery and remotely. It is successful in engaging people for considerable time with the topic of the Internet and creates an awareness for the connected world we are now living in; robots can be operated remotely, people in remote locations can “collaboratetively” make music, we can have a peek into the world of others from remote locations.

Over the past 10 years or so I had the opportunity to study visitors participating with technology in museums, including the Science Museum and the Wellcome Wing. Therefore, for me visiting Chrome Weblab was interesting also to see how features of  exhibits in Who am I? and Digitopolishave been further developed by the design team of Chrome Weblab. For example, the replacement of the flaky fingerprinting mechanism to save visitors’ activities with exhibit on a server by the physical Lab Tag is a huge improvement.  The tag works well and without problems with webcams at home (and at work) and also is a nice memorabilia from the visit. However I could imagine that in the future the Lab Tag is transferred to a mobile phone as people tend to loose or forget about items they take away from visits to museums. Also, the taking of photographs of people’s faces that has been a critical feature of exhibits in Who am I? has been improved. The interface is much more flexible and adaptable to use pictures visitors take.

There are three aspects of the exhibition that I believe might be worthwhile exploring further for the design team and google when revising the galleries. First, I think the key message of Weblab, i.e. the interconnectedness, is not coming through clearly enough. The relationship between people’s action in the gallery and remotely need to be made more intelligible and obvious. For example, at the moment it is unclear who plays what note at the instruments of the Universal Orchestra; at Data Tracer the actions on the small screens could be made visible, and at Sketchrobot more needs to be done to make the activities by the remote participant visible to give this part of the exhibit more prominence in the gallery.

Second, as the gallery is described as a laboratory the design team and their research staff might use it not only as a laboratory to experiment with technology but also as a space where they can experiment with human behaviour in technology-rich spaces. For example, it has been a common problem for museums that display a large number of computer-based exhibits that the number of interfaces is often much lower than the number of visitors who wish to participate with the exhibits at any one time. This leads to long waiting-times and queues at exhibits, people being secondary users rather than experiencing exhibits first hand, and unfortunately also people leaving disappointed because they did not get a chance to use an exhibit first-hand. Being setup as an experimental space the gallery would allow the design team to experiment with different ways to manage the flow in the galleries and to mange access to exhibits.

And third and maybe most importantly, considering that many visitors come with friends and family the design team could use the space to experiment with the provision of resources that facilitate and encourage collaboration at computer-based exhibits. The observations at the Sketchrobots where parents provide their children with access to the exhibit illustrate that visitors are interested in experiencing the exhibits together, yet the interfaces often prioritise individual users over collaboration. It would be fascinating to see experiments with novel interfaces that encourage visitors to collaborate with others in the gallery, and also with people in remote locations.

References

Heath, C., & vom Lehn, D. (2008). Configuring Interactivity: Enhancing Engagement in Science Centres and Museums. Social Studies of Science, 38(1), 63-91.

Heath, C., & vom Lehn, D. (2004). Configuring Reception: (Dis-)Regarding the “Spectator” in Museums and Galleries. Theory, Culture & Society, 21(6), 43-65.

Heath, C., Luff, P., vom Lehn, D., Hindmarsh, J., & Cleverly, J. (2002). Crafting participation: designing ecologies, configuring experience. Visual Communication, 1(1), 9-33.

Hindmarsh, J., Heath, C., vom Lehn, D., & Cleverly, J. (2005). Creating Assemblies in Public Environments: Social interaction, interactive exhibits and CSCW. Journal of Computer Supported Collaborative Work (JCSCW), 14(1), 1-41.

vom Lehn, D., Hindmarsh, J., Luff, P., & Heath, C. (2007). Engaging constable: revealing art with new technology. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on HumanComputer Interaction (pp. 1485-1494). San Jose,CA: ACM Press.

vom Lehn, D. (2010). Generating experience from ordinary activity: new technology and the museum experience. In D. O’Reilly & F. Kerrigan (Eds.), Marketing the Arts. A fresh approach (pp. 104-120). Abingdon: Routledge.

vom Lehn, D., & Heath, C. (2005). Accounting for new technology in museum exhibitions.International Journal of Arts Management, 7(6), 11-21.

vom Lehn, D., Heath, C., & Hindmarsh, J. (2001). Exhibiting interaction: Conduct and collaboration in museums and galleries. Symbolic Interaction, 24(2), 189–216.

@dirkvl

http://www.vom-lehn.net

 

interaction, interactivity, museums