Curating Performance Installations

Daniel Felstead Kate Bailey

AllofUs Victoria and Albert Museum
112–116 Old Street, London EC1V 9BG Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL
United Kingdom United Kingdom
daniel@allofus.com k.bailey@vam,ac.uk

In this paper we will examine the use of the digital screen display as a primary form of accessing
information within the museum context. We will argue that this mode of dissemination, achieved
primarily through a Graphic User Interface (GUI) though highly efficient in providing contextual
support, can be detrimental to a wider sense of social interaction and engagement between
visitors, both of which are recognised as key aspects of how we experience and learn within the
museum. By using the Edward Gordon Craig: Space & Light exhibition held at the V&A Museum as
a case study, we will explore the potential of a more performative mode of digital interactivity,
whereby through notions of the re-enactment, a material reality can be constructed, based not on
interpretation or objecthood, but oscillation and trajectory. As such, new perspectives and
understandings can emerge through the activation and experience of the visitor within the
museum, creating a more embodied sense of learning.

Dissemination. Interactivity. Performative. Performance. Installation. Technology.

Materiality. GUI. Screen. Museum. Objecthood. Form. Trajectory. Content.
Interpretation. Information. Re-Enactment. Exhibition. Experience. Becoming. Being.
Nothing.

1. INTRODUCTION visual feedback about the effect of each action

(The Linux Information Project, 2004). Through its
There has been significant attention given to the familiarity and ubiquity the GUI creates a pervasive
museum usage of digital technology (Cameron & paradigm of interactive engagement. This
Kenderine, 2007; Tallon & Walker, 2008; Parry, paradigm, that favours the easy access of
2010). A large proportion of this attention has been information primarily through a directional, goal-
directed towards two areas. Firstly the potential of a orientated basis, mediates our experience with
museums online presence, with the promise of digital technology on an almost permanent and
enabling the museum to present their collection to, hegemonic basis. With this in mind it is easy to see
and communicate directly with visitors in a why it would be enthusiastically embraced by the
localised, personalised, and constructivist manner museum. It provides visitors access to information,
(Parry & Arbach, 2007). The second concerns the in a recognised and socially practiced form that is
digital screen display within the museum, and its apparently effective and efficient, thereby
role as a fundamental means of accessing encouraging as wide a spectrum and scale of
interpretative information (Gammon, 1999). visitor as possible, both through the museum doors
and externally via their website.
The heavy reliance of screen interactives within the
museum reflects a wider cultural dominance of the However, as highlighted by Christian Heath & Dirk
digital display as the principle technological means vom Lehn, there are major issues concerning the
of accessing information. With an estimated 90% of use of this particular model of interactivity.
digital screen devices using this mode (Tuck, Principally it is concerned with an interaction
2001), the predominant form of digital interactivity between an individual user and the screen, and not
is experienced through a Graphic User Interface an interaction between people (Heath & vom Lehn,
(GUI), encountered on computer Operating 2010). As described by N. Katherine Hayles this
Systems, websites, touch-screens, and smart- should not come as a surprise given that the model
phones. GUI is a human-computer interface that has its history rooted in a predominant strand of
uses icons, taskbars, windows and other objects, cybernetics, Artificial Intelligence, and human
which can be manipulated and controlled by a computer interaction, which promoted the
mouse or other pointing device. It creates an easy, conception of information as a disembodied entity,
intuitive, user experience by providing immediate, flowing freely between humans and computers in a

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simplified single system; “humans were seen University of Michigan on measuring the creativity
primarily as information-processing entities who are of people with attention deficit hyperactivity
essentially similar to intelligent machines” (Hayles, disorder (ADHD), as well as recent research by
1999). This model focuses primarily on the scientists at the University of Toronto and Harvard,
individual’s interaction with a computer system, and suggest that constructive distractions could have
presumes that the actions of users are driven highly positive effects on learning and knowledge
principally by plans and goals, and therefore the creation (White & Shah, 2011).
interface is organised to achieve these goals in the
most efficient, and logical way possible (Heath & Furthermore, the screen’s demand for our full
vom Lehn, 2010). attention could arguably reveal an opaque
In this paper we explore the issues arising from this authoritative dimension to the apparent “user
GUI paradigm and its underlying effects and centered” GUI paradigm. Cultural critics have long
implications within the museum. From this we will found different ways to describe the profound
use the interactive installation Edward Gordon transformative effect of technology. Eric Havelock
Craig: Space & Light, exhibited at the V&A and Walter Ong have both used the notion of
Museum in September 2010-March 2011 as a case ‘transformation theory’ to show how new
study of an alternative form of digital interactivity, communication tools, far from simply allowing us to
throwing into relief the latent consequences of this do things more effectively, radically transform
approach as well as potential opportunities for the human perception and culture (Ong, 1982;
museum and its visitors alike to engage with Havelock, 1963). In a society that is constructed,
different models of interactivity. In doing so we maintained and mediated largely through digital
hope to introduce the basis for an alternative mode forms of communication, interactive technologies
for interactive installations – one that promotes a that add a tangible dimension of active participation
fully embodied experience within the physical may well have significant and far-reaching
surroundings of the museum, one that fosters transformative powers. It is precisely through its
social interaction, and one that uses digital ease of use, pervasiveness and sense of
interactivity as a tool for a more performative participation that the GUI paradigm imposes its
engagement with artefacts, archival material and own authority on the content it displays, and as
the museum at large. such upon its users. Within the museum this
imposing hand could be highly unsympathetic and
damaging to the aims of the museum experience.
2. SCREENING ATTENTION
More significantly, digital interactive displays have
In his observation of the iPhone Matthew Jones a real potential to damage or weaken the
highlights the screen’s compelling demand for our collaborative and socially interactive dimension that
full attention, impelling users towards the is so potent in the museum
illuminated digital display, “the iPhone is a experience/environment. This can be exacerbated
beautiful, seductive but jealous mistress that craves by the physical arrangement of the digital screens
your attention, and enslaves you to its jaw-dropping within the exhibition galleries. For example, a single
gorgeousness at the expense of the world around user access point can make it difficult for non-
you” (Jones, 2007). This complete absorption participants to access the information displayed,
creates, through a hand-eye relationship, a highly turning them into partial witnesses to the activities
concentrated and focused rendezvous with the happening on-screen (Heath & vom Lehn, 2010).
screen, replacing a wider social awareness and
participation with a decisive engagement and Concentration on the usability, utility, satisfaction,
involvement with the activities generated on- and communicative qualities of an interface design,
screen. Reflecting on this, Tom Armitage draws our to the exclusion of possibilities to incorporate
attention to how the magnetising effect of the sociability, can have damaging social implications.
screen display has even percolated into the wider Gillian Crampton Smith describes this neatly:
cultural understanding, presented as a virtuous “When IT systems fail to support the social aspect
trait, as demonstrated in an Microsoft Mobile 7 to work and leisure, when they dehumanise and
advert which depicts a crowded city street scene de-civilize our relationship with each other, they
where everybody is transfixed to their mobile impoverish the rich social web in which we live and
phones, oblivious to their chaotic surroundings operate, essential for both well-being and
(Armitage, 2011). efficiency” (Crampton Smith, 2007).
Though the reduction of outside distractions is Social interaction and engagement between visitors
obviously useful for the interface, it could have is acknowledged to be critical to how we
detrimental effects on learning within the museum experience and learn within the museum (Falk and
environment. Research undertaken by Holly A. Dierking 1992; Hein 1998), as we often visit
White of Eckerd College and Priti Shah of the museums and galleries with friends and family, and

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even when visiting on our own we are aware of 3. DIGITAL OBJECTHOOD

others around us. Our experience of, and
discussions around an object, artefact or exhibition The use of digital interactivity to access interpretive
occur in and through the museum. The museum is information has led the digital interface to be
enveloped by these social interactions, and framed primarily as a functional, immaterial, virtual
awareness of others who are present in the same informational supplier, with little or no “aura” or
space at the same time as us (cf. Bradburne 2000; presence of its own. Fiona Cameron however
Heath & vom Lehn, 2010; Leinhardt, Crowley, and argues that digitalization within the museum can
Knutson 2002). The absorbing lure of the digital create a new digital artefact by way of the very
display and the resulting obfuscation of the outside process of deciding what to digitalize, and what not
environment and space is especially felt within the to, which she argues is a critical and active process
museum, as it has a significant impact on our and one that generates value and meaning
sensitivity and attentiveness to the presence and equivalent to the physical object (Cameron, 2007).
behaviour of others, detrimentally affecting the Furthermore, she proposes that far from
social interaction between visitors (Heath, C. & D. threatening the “aura” of an artefact as Walter
vom Lehn 2010), resulting in a poorer, more Benjamin suggests (Benjamin, 2008) the value of
disembodied experience. the original increases as a process of its digitalized
replication. Cameron puts forward the notion that
Another issue that arises from the familiarity and both the real artefact and its digital replica by
easy access of information is its effect on learning. definition are material objects, in that “they are a
The very characteristics that make the GUI result of human creativity, exist in real time, can be
paradigm so appealing could have a reductive touched, can be looked at from many angles, and
effect on the act of learning in the museum. One of are the target for feelings and actions” (Cameron,
the driving principles of a “user centered “ interface 2007). By defining itself as an object in its own
is its ease of use and removal of surplus cognitive right, its particular principles, ‘user behaviour’ and
effort on the part of the user, as Steve Krug clearly ‘experience’ (Cameron, 2007), can construct a set
states in his book on web usability, “Don’t make me of material characteristics such as variability,
think! It’s the overall principle – the ultimate interactivity, computability, collaborative and
tiebreaker when deciding on whether something distributable (Dietz, 1999; Cook & Graham, 2004).
works or doesn’t in a web design” (Krug, 2006).
However recent developments in neuroscience Though Cameron celebrates the liberation of the
suggest that though familiarity is a comfortable and digital object from the original, she still confines the
pleasing state, it can be detrimental to the digital object to the role of interpetative replica, a
production of new neurological connections. By digital modality restricted to representing the
measuring the level of brain activity required for original. Andrea Witcomb, however, manages to
different tasks, researchers found that brain activity break away from this representation trap by
surged when individuals addressed more difficult stressing the issues in only understanding digital
problems, compared to when a problem was solved technology within the museum as a tool for
easily where changes in brain activity were virtually interpretation, suggesting the limiting effect on its
undetectable (Chugani, 1996; Shore, 1997). possible imaginative and emotional uses. Witcomb
Furthermore, though many believe that reducing proposes that rather than simply seeing digital
superfluous cognitive load is beneficial to the technology as a space that offers more information,
learning process (Sweller & Chandler, 1994), there there is great promise in seeing “multimedia as a
is increasing evidence that making material harder material form of expression” (Witcomb, 2007). By
to learn can actually improve long-term learning playing with notions of experience, digital
and retention (Bjork, 1994; Richland et al., 2005; interactive installations have the power to affect
Duckworth et al., 2011). One experiment increased visitors emotionally, and in doing so have a
the depth of processing by requiring the subjects to persuasive power to create an experience in which
generate rather than passively consume their sense of self is shifted (Witcomb, 2007).
information, which resulted in higher retention rates
(Richland et al., 2005). Similarly, a recent study by Certainly the most astute museums have identified
Connor Diemand, Daniel M. Oppenheimer, and the value in providing an experiential environment.
Erikka B. Vaughan found that retention of material As Nick Prior points out, “the most innovative and
could be significantly improved by presenting clear-sighted museum directors are those who
reading material in a format that is slightly harder to recognized and exploited the plasticity of the
read whereby the brain has to make more effort to museum idea in order to overlay various levels of
process (Diemand et al., 2010). aesthetic experience” (Prior, 2003). However by
becoming such centres, museums can no longer
maintain a static position “like objective
autonomous shells” as Olafur Eliasson describes
(Eliasson, 2005). Museums are embedded in the

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“experience economy” (Pine & Gilmore, 1999); they light lenses around, the camera tracked the
are selling experience and therefore have movement of the pieces. Using the 3D software
responsibilities with that system. Given that the package Unity, AllofUs were able to build a 3D
museum is entrenched within the experiential gaming model of the stage, which, taking the
market place, the question that arises is how, with information tracked by the camera, could
the increased use of digital interactivity, can the reconstruct and display (in real-time) a 3D render of
museum avoid simply becoming a venue of the constructed and changing stage as the visitor
consumer pleasure, and instead become one that physically composed it on the table. Furthermore
succeeds in communicating art in a way that the changes in ‘stage lighting’, which could be
maintains a critical dimension by raising manipulated by the visitors’ positioning of the
challenging, and pertinent questions (Eliasson, lenses and their adjustment of the levels of light
2005)? intensity, were accurately reflected in the 3D
render. The way the light fell on the objects and the
shadows cast could also be realised on screen.
4. EDWARD GORDON CRAIG: SPACE & LIGHT
– CASE STUDY The calico projection screen had an important dual
role. It not only provided a screen for the visitor
With these questions in mind we would now like to who was interacting with the table, but also acted
use the digital interactive installation, which formed as a membrane between the two sides of the
one of the central focuses of the Edward Gordon space. Due to the porous nature of the calico, the
Craig: Space & Light exhibition held at the V&A projected light was able to seep through the
Museum from September 2010 to March 2011, as screen, simultaneously displaying the stage
a case study for an alternative approach to the use composition to visitors on the other side. This
of digital interactive installation within the museum. simple technique offered us a tangible and
eloquent way to further emphasise the physical
The interactive installation was conceived and dimension of light in shaping space, as well as
realised by a cross-disciplinary team of curator providing a more social forum for the interaction.
Kate Bailey, scenographer Simon Donger, and Furthermore, it created a sense of intrigue and
interactive design consultants AllofUs. The mystery within the space as visitors who had used
exhibition consisted of a 6x6 metre box, which the interactive installation and then walked around
visitors accessed through two entrances on either to the other side of the screen were confronted
side of the box. On entering the darkened space, (and often delighted) by the realisation that their
visitors were greeted with an audio ‘radio play’ activities had been visible to, and enjoyed by,
which weaved archival recordings of Craig with fellow visitors within the installation, bestowing a
archival material recited by an actor. Cutting new understanding of the space and their role in
diagonally through the interior was a 3x2 meter shaping it.
calico stretched screen. On one side of the screen
sat Craig’s model for St Matthew Passion. On the The interactive installation had no instructions and
other sat the bespoke 160cm long interactive table, very little interpretive information; it trusted visitors
which acted as a digitally enhanced theatre model- would be propelled to experiment, play, and
box, allowing visitors to explore some of Craig’s explore without any clear goals or objectives. As
key formal ideas through the movement and the objects were not fixed to the table, and were
placement of a number of wooden blocks, figures therefore relatively easy to steal or misuse, an
and light lenses, inspired by Craig’s stage ‘screens’ additional element of trust was placed with visitors.
as well as archival photographic and drawing It is a testament to the visitors of the museum that
material of his working methodologies. As visitors in the seven months in which the installation was
moved and composed their Craigian set, a real- exhibited only one piece needed to be replaced.
time 3D render of their composition was projected The installation relied on the effectiveness of
onto the calico screen as if they were manipulating visitors generating a sophisticated appreciation and
a real-life set on stage before their very eyes. This deep understanding of the exhibition through their
simultaneously gave them a unique, multiple physical actions, thereby generating a richer,
viewpoint of their composition as it was being embodied, and engaging sensual perception of the
constructed. relationship between space and light in ways that a
touch-screen providing interpretative information on
Connected to the bottom of the table was a black Craig would have been unable to achieve.
base, which spanned the same height and width of
the table. Housed inside the base was a camera The unique use of digital interactivity in the case of
pointing up towards the Perspex tabletop, an Apple the Craig exhibition provided a highly engaging and
Mac Mini, and a number of infrared lights which useful tool for visitors to develop an understanding
flooded the internal space of the base. As visitors of some of Craig’s formal principles, achieved
placed and moved the wooden blocks, figures and through the very process of a physical interaction

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and presence in the space. This level of general exhibition there was significant effort on the part of
engagement and understanding would be difficult the curatorial team to distil Craig’s ideas in such a
to achieve in any other medium, and provided both way that AllofUs, who had some basic knowledge
young and old a hands-on experience of creating a of Craig but were in no way experts on him and his
Craigian stage set. legacy, could interpret them. Likewise, the
curatorial team contained a number of Craig
However in providing this form of interactivity there experts who had little or a very particular
was a definite simplification of some of Craig’s understanding and experience of digital
ideas. In some respect the act of simplification was interactivity. As such there was a delicate process
a necessary and productive process. The of interfacing between the different parties within
installation’s success depended in part on the exhibition team, creating a real potential for
pinpointing Craig’s key formal principles relating to misinterpretation on all sides, as well as exciting
the topic of the exhibition. In so doing an new outcomes.
installation could be created that explored those
ideas in a way that enabled visitors to develop an This complex human interfacing placed significant
understanding and appreciation of them. pressure on the curator to be very clear about the
aims of the exhibition, not to mention selecting a
Technical considerations also made it an team capable of operating within such a fragile
imperative to focus on a collection of clear key framework. It also placed a further responsibility on
ideas, which could then be translated into a set of the designers of the installation to fully engage with
technological functions and behaviours that would the subject matter in a way that may have been
make up the interface. Limited time and resources outside their usual working practice, as well as
also played a significant part. Although it would working with experts/practitioners from different
have been technically possible to develop the fields who might know little about interactivity, or
installation in such a way that would allow for more who might have strong feelings towards the use of
complexity, to do so would have required additional it in relation to their area of expertise. However this
time and resources. Furthermore, in the pursuit of two-way translation process and constant
crafting an engaging interactive for as wide a range negotiation has in this case proved to be very
of visitors as possible, some of Craig’s more fruitful, suggesting great opportunities for future
complex and contentious ideas were felt to be explorations of historic/artistic work or an exhibition
potentially distracting to the purpose of the topic.
interactive experience as a whole. The success of
making an engaging interactive was in some part at
the expense of Craig’s critical dimension, which 5. PERFORMATIVE MATERIALISM
would have been more difficult (though not
impossible) to embed into the installation. This As Andrea Witcomb has indicated, a multimedia
simplification meant that there was a real risk the installation can become its own material object
installation became as much an installation about which visitors activate by their physical presence in
interactive technologies as it was about Craig. As and through the installation (Witcombe, 2007b).
such, it could be argued that the qualities and However, whilst still bound to the role of a replica or
aspects of Craig’s theories that were most simulation, the Craig installation intimates at a
compatible with digital interactivity highjacked the more radical modality for interactive installations
installation, not necessarily because they were the within the museum, ways in which it can operate
most important or interesting Craigian themes but beyond that of an additional interpretive layer or as
that they were the areas that interactive an object in its own right. It could rather operate in
technologies could most effectively deliver. It is a similar way to the performing arts, whereby each
worth noting that several people referred to the interactive is not seen as an object to rival the
installation as “the Craig computer game”. Though original but rather an instigator of a re-enactment.
there were obvious aesthetic reasons for this (the In doing so a materiality can be constructed, not in
projected renders were built using gaming the interactive installation itself but rather through
software) it would be naïve to ignore the critical the resulting generated dialectical tension
dimension to this nickname. generated between the original artefact and the re-
enacted version which has the original’s formal
The obfuscation of significant parts of Craig’s content (the ideas, topics, principles) embedded
critical legacy resulted in the installation becoming within it. In this way, the interactive installation
primarily an exploration of his formal principles. becomes a ‘tool’ for exploration, examination and
Again there are a number of possible reasons for testing – activated and realised by the visitors’
this, and it is certainly worthy of further analysis. involvement and negotiation with the installation.
For the purpose of this paper, however, we would One could see how (pushed further) the Craig
like to highlight one aspect concerning the practical installation might have developed in such a way
undertaking of such the installation. For the Craig that it specifically explored space and light within

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the gallery itself, whereby light and shadows are Rather than the attempt at becoming a material
cast on the building’s interior architecture as well as object itself, the interactive installation generates a
other visitors, turning the gallery into a stage, process whereby through the oscillation between
concomitantly turn fellow visitors into actors. an artefact’s physical form (Being) and its re-
enacted formal content (Nothing), a materiality
This would have removed the need for an takes shape (Becoming), ex nihilo "out of nothing”.
interpretative blanket to justify it or the requirement As Žižek elaborates, “the Nothingness of self-
to produce it’s own sense of objecthood. As such, relating negativity, is the very nihilo out of which
its aim would not be to reveal hidden meaning in every new figure emerges” (Žižek & Woodard,
the original work, but rather to bring attention to the 2011b). This materiality is actualised by and
formal qualities of the work, in an attempt to experienced through the visitor’s presence and
develop “a descriptive, rather than prescriptive, activity in the installation. As such this materiality is
vocabulary—for form” (Sontag, 2009a). In doing so fundamentally performative, continuously in a state
the visitor is confronted with the “sensuous of lability, in a constant dialogue with itself, in-
immediacy” (Sontag, 2009b) of experiencing forming itself as it were. In this sense, notions of
oneself experiencing, or as Robert Irving puts it, materiality shift from objecthood to ones of
“perceiving yourself perceiving” (Eliasson, & Irwin, trajectory, whereby the work of art becomes the
2007). trajectory and each re-enactment is simply one of
its continuous steps, as suggested by Bruno Latour
What this model aims to produce is a type of (Latour, 2011). The system which generates this
Žižekian parallax rupture, whereby an artefact’s exchange, this ongoing negotiation, therefore
physical form and its formal content are separated becomes a highly productive and exciting one, as
onto two sides of a Moebius strip-like structure, each new re-enactment runs the risk of damaging,
seemingly connected but in fact opposing each losing, or recapturing the original “the aura keeps
other (Žižek, 2006a). By way of the constant migrating and might well come back suddenly… or
dialectical tension that at once binds and opposes disappear altogether” (Latour & Lowe, 2010).
the two sides of this inverted-inside eight formation, Furthermore (when done well) it also possesses
a material reality takes shape through a the potent potential to retroactively change the past
performative process of construction (Malabou, itself, revealing dimensions of the original that were
2008), providing new perspectives and formal only made apparent through the re-enactment
understandings. By way of this performative (Žižek, 2011). This shifts the very idea of time and
process, the artefact transforms itself into the form from a static end-point position to one that
source of its own mutations, which take the shape provides a sense of contingency and direction
of re-enactments. In doing so, the original is (Elliason, 2005). Does this not emulate the most
prevented from becoming “manageable, recent and current understanding of brain
comfortable” and complete, thereby maintaining its organisation (Malabou, 2008), one of a closed
“capacity to make us nervous” (Sontag, 1961c). structure, yet one which maintains a radical
plasticity, and through the actions it performs a
Crucially this material reality is radically different shape is taken, “so it means that inside of it, we
from the one described by Cameron and have all kinds of possibilities to wiggle and escape
Witcombe. Žižek formulates it as the following: from the rigidity of the structure” as Catherine
“Materialism means that the reality I see is never Malabou describes (Vahanian, 2008)?
“whole”—not because a large part of it eludes me,
but because it contains a stain, a blind spot, which
indicates my inclusion in it” (Žižek, 2006b). For him 6. CONCLUSION
then reality is in itself incomplete, “non-all”, and in
an attempt to fill in this incompleteness reality gets The digital screen display can certainly enhance
trapped into a ‘compulsion-to-repeat’ from which visitor’s appreciation of the museum experience,
materiality emerges, as Žižek describes “precisely especially by providing visitors with pre and post
because Being and Nothing are not directly context, which can help focus and guide learning.
identical: Being is a form, the first formal-notional However as we have indicated, the ‘user centred’
determination, whose only content is Nothing; the GUI paradigm of digital interactivity, which focuses
couple Being/Nothing forms the highest on an individualistic mode of interfacing with a
contradiction, and to resolve this impossibility, this digital display to access information, can, in a goal
deadlock, one passes into Becoming, into orientated process, be highly disruptive to social
oscillation between the two poles” (Žižek & interaction and phenomenological awareness
Woodard, 2011a). This form therefore has a within the museum – themselves both crucial and
temporal dimension to it “caught up in the tissue of significant elements in forming a rich museum
exchange” as Olafur Elliason suggests (Elliason, experience. Moreover, the very familiarity and ease
2009). of use that the GUI promotes itself on could in fact
be detrimental to the act of learning. We have

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