Abstract
This paper examines the methodologies of practice-based research in exploring museum spaces as contested sites of historical and cultural significance. Focusing on institutional Museum spaces and the computational imaging technology of SmartPhones, the project critically interrogates how new technologies and computational systems transform our understanding of image production and display within Western museums. Grounded in phenomenological and practice-based methods, it utilises smartphone imaging capabilities to explore the ‘museum-industrial complex’ of central London, including the British Museum and the Natural History Museum, as well as heterotopic sites such as Kew Gardens and London Zoo. The visitor’s positionality—without privileged access—serves as a departure point, considering encounters with artefacts and bodies behind vitrines and the computational mediation of museum spaces through screen interfaces. Experimental outputs are showcased in the Museum of Computational Image Artefacts (MoCIA), a virtual exhibition that incorporates still images, video, 3D photogrammetry, LiDAR, and AI-generated content to critically examine how digital imaging reinforces or contests institutional narratives. This paper contextualises these methods within the broader frameworks of digital anthropology, museum studies, and visual practice, advocating for a situated and reflective approach to computational imaging technologies. It examines how such methodologies could potentially foreground contested histories and epistemologies while questioning the role of the visitor as a potential co-creator of meaning within institutional contexts. By situating practice-based research at the intersection of computational imaging and museum studies, this project calls for a re-evaluation of imaging technologies’ material and conceptual impact on representation and knowledge construction in museum spaces.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Creative and Cultural Technologies
KEYWORDS
Museum, Computation, Restitution, SmartPhones, Practice-based, Imaging
