Mapping the Musesphere

Phd. (2004), Media and Communication Department, Goldsmiths College, University of London

Abstract
This thesis investigates how new media practices are integrated into the museum and the ways in which they transform the museum experience. My research establishes a working taxonomy that identifies the different kinds of new media activities, and describes the progressions from the tangible to the (digital) intangible in the museum. This thesis argues that the new media practices which work in conjunction with the institutional mandate also reflect the same qualities and ideologies that are associated with the traditional museum. However, for an institution that prioritises the original, material object over the intangibility of the digital object, this inevitably becomes a provocation to the museum ethos of materiality and stability, and a challenge to the very core of the museum mission.

In addition, my thesis also unites both the physical and the electronic components of the museum into a cohesive and fully integrated space that I have called the Musesphere. The term Musespherewas coined to describe the tangible and intangible texts made available to both local and remote visitors through new media, and harnessed to describe both the physical and digital footprints of the museum. This enabled me to visualise the components that constituted its features and established a way to delineate the parameters of my field of inquiry.

The mapping of the Musesphere pays special attention to what belongs to the museum, and what is located outside of the museum, and identifies the essential nature of the Musesphere in an investigation of the cultures of exhibition, at the intersection of the technologies of display. This thesis argues that the qualities of authenticity and originality that are apparent in the traditional museum are the same qualities that permeate the intangible realm of the Musesphere, and in fact serve to preserve the integrity of the museum and locate it as distinct from the mass media.