COVID‐19 has highlighted the need for museums to develop policies and practices that allow them t... more COVID‐19 has highlighted the need for museums to develop policies and practices that allow them to be more responsive to audiences' during a crisis, in many cases pushing them to explore new technologies and approaches. Based on an analysis of the National Museum of Australia and its digital engagement throughout the 2019/2020 bushfire season and the COVID‐19 pandemic, this paper identifies a lack of literature to support the need for digital channels to be incorporated in institutional crisis planning. Referencing “Momentous”, a purpose‐built website, and two Facebook groups, “Fridge Door Fire Stories” and “Bridging the Distance,” we explore the content shared on these platforms by users and place this in conversation with the reflections of the cultural workers who created and maintained these online platforms. We suggest digital technologies help communities to take a more active role in negotiating how the museum represents their experiences.
In this article, we explore smart deterrents and their historical precedents marketed to women an... more In this article, we explore smart deterrents and their historical precedents marketed to women and girls for the purpose of preventing harassment, sexual abuse and violence. Rape deterrents, as we define them, encompass customs, architectures, fashions, surveillant infrastructures, apps and devices conceived to manage and protect the body. Online searches reveal an array of technologies, and we engage with their prevention narratives and cultural construction discourses of the gendered body. Our critical analysis places recent rape deterrents in conversation with earlier technologies to untangle the persistent logics. These are articulated with reference to the ways that proto-digital technologies have been imported into the realm of ubiquitous computing and networks. Our conceptual framework offers novel pathways for discussing feminine bodies and their messy navigation of everyday life that include both threats to corporeal safety and collective imaginings of empowerment.
In 2018, Schweppes partnered with Ogilvy Brazil to design a smart dress that used touch-sensors t... more In 2018, Schweppes partnered with Ogilvy Brazil to design a smart dress that used touch-sensors to illustrate how women are groped in nightclubs (Dickson 2018). The dress is a strong example of a host of digital devices that mobilise smart technology to legitimate women’s testimony of sexual assault in public space. It also belongs to a growing category of technology closely attached to the body and designed to either protect it from harm or lend credence to previously silenced publics. Devices like the Ogilvy dress draw attention to the marginalisation of victims’ voices; it owes its existence to institutions of power refusing to listen to women’s testimony. However, the devices also reinscribe the same silencing dynamic by positioning themselves as necessary and more “reliable” evidence of women’s experience than their verbal statements. These devices are sorely undertheorized as potential erosions of the legitimacy of individual testimony and experience that are part of digital c...
Mobile and wearable devices provide a range of new tools and approaches to measure the output met... more Mobile and wearable devices provide a range of new tools and approaches to measure the output metrics of the human body, especially in the medical and fitness realms. Cultural institutions similarly are drawing on a range of digital technologies to better understand the neural processes associated with visitor appreciation of artefacts. Harnessing data about how artworks and objects are experienced can be derived from measurable physical observations, such as an individual’s facial geometry, heartbeat, or retina movements. The Peabody Essex Museum in Salam, Massachusetts is used as a case study to explore the onsite quantification of the museum body. This example is placed in conversation with Google’s face match app, which uses computer vision to link user selfies with cultural collections. The discussion focuses on the evolution of a more quantified modality of cultural engagement, which places greater emphasis on the collection of data as an indicator of the quality of a museum v...
COVID‐19 has highlighted the need for museums to develop policies and practices that allow them t... more COVID‐19 has highlighted the need for museums to develop policies and practices that allow them to be more responsive to audiences' during a crisis, in many cases pushing them to explore new technologies and approaches. Based on an analysis of the National Museum of Australia and its digital engagement throughout the 2019/2020 bushfire season and the COVID‐19 pandemic, this paper identifies a lack of literature to support the need for digital channels to be incorporated in institutional crisis planning. Referencing “Momentous”, a purpose‐built website, and two Facebook groups, “Fridge Door Fire Stories” and “Bridging the Distance,” we explore the content shared on these platforms by users and place this in conversation with the reflections of the cultural workers who created and maintained these online platforms. We suggest digital technologies help communities to take a more active role in negotiating how the museum represents their experiences.
In this article, we explore smart deterrents and their historical precedents marketed to women an... more In this article, we explore smart deterrents and their historical precedents marketed to women and girls for the purpose of preventing harassment, sexual abuse and violence. Rape deterrents, as we define them, encompass customs, architectures, fashions, surveillant infrastructures, apps and devices conceived to manage and protect the body. Online searches reveal an array of technologies, and we engage with their prevention narratives and cultural construction discourses of the gendered body. Our critical analysis places recent rape deterrents in conversation with earlier technologies to untangle the persistent logics. These are articulated with reference to the ways that proto-digital technologies have been imported into the realm of ubiquitous computing and networks. Our conceptual framework offers novel pathways for discussing feminine bodies and their messy navigation of everyday life that include both threats to corporeal safety and collective imaginings of empowerment.
In 2018, Schweppes partnered with Ogilvy Brazil to design a smart dress that used touch-sensors t... more In 2018, Schweppes partnered with Ogilvy Brazil to design a smart dress that used touch-sensors to illustrate how women are groped in nightclubs (Dickson 2018). The dress is a strong example of a host of digital devices that mobilise smart technology to legitimate women’s testimony of sexual assault in public space. It also belongs to a growing category of technology closely attached to the body and designed to either protect it from harm or lend credence to previously silenced publics. Devices like the Ogilvy dress draw attention to the marginalisation of victims’ voices; it owes its existence to institutions of power refusing to listen to women’s testimony. However, the devices also reinscribe the same silencing dynamic by positioning themselves as necessary and more “reliable” evidence of women’s experience than their verbal statements. These devices are sorely undertheorized as potential erosions of the legitimacy of individual testimony and experience that are part of digital c...
Mobile and wearable devices provide a range of new tools and approaches to measure the output met... more Mobile and wearable devices provide a range of new tools and approaches to measure the output metrics of the human body, especially in the medical and fitness realms. Cultural institutions similarly are drawing on a range of digital technologies to better understand the neural processes associated with visitor appreciation of artefacts. Harnessing data about how artworks and objects are experienced can be derived from measurable physical observations, such as an individual’s facial geometry, heartbeat, or retina movements. The Peabody Essex Museum in Salam, Massachusetts is used as a case study to explore the onsite quantification of the museum body. This example is placed in conversation with Google’s face match app, which uses computer vision to link user selfies with cultural collections. The discussion focuses on the evolution of a more quantified modality of cultural engagement, which places greater emphasis on the collection of data as an indicator of the quality of a museum v...
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Papers by Caroline Wilson-Barnao