‘Expert’ and ‘Casual’ Interfaces for Museums in Digital Times : Board and Field Games : MUDs and MMORPGs : Things and Networks

This paper explores game-like designs for interventions of digital devices, media and administrative tools in networks of museum functions. Specifically, it focuses on the ubiquity of networked mobile devices, and argues that game play presents a powerful model for understanding the impact of non-linear, multi-vocal, poly-agentic systems on the role of museums as sites of culture construction.The paper argues for digital initiatives to take a dynamic systems approach to the development of museums. It draws on the work of Latour and others on Actant-Network Theory and of Bryant on Onto-Cartography. These works offer a framework for understanding transactions and interactions among such heterogeneous entities as software codes, game mechanics and gallery structures.The site of any such transaction may be described as an `interface', and the paper sets out proposals for the design of two sites, the so-called `expert-interface' and its complementary partner, the `casual-interface'.The paper opens with descriptions of the two interfaces, sets them in the context of the museum problematic and the systems approach, then turns to detailed discussions of the workings of each and ends with brief notes on developing experimental prototypes.