Professionals; Memory, Ethics and Transparency

4.3.1.PROFESSIONALS;MEMORY,ETHICS AND TRANSPARENCY

Traditionally, museum ethics pertain to a ‘code of norms and rules that museum curators and staff (…) follow for the good of the institution’s operation’ (Campolmi, 2016, pp.70). As collections move toward dialogue-focussed practices their responsibilities need to be negotiated to integrate ‘difficult topics’; including the absense and presence of voices and communities (Tali, 2017, pp.28). Due to pressures for museums to act as agents of social change (Kidd, 2017, Pp.494) there is an increased pressure for collections to revisit historical narratives that have been accumulated, stored and recovered by institutions and the state (Merewether, 2006, pp.10). As discussed in the previous section, enquiries into authorship, ownership and data generation are emphasised due to the digitisation of collections and discourses. Together, this makes for an ‘ethical landscape of great complexity’ (Brown, 2014, pp.178). As research has shown, transparency plays a crucial role. Ethical specialist Janet Marstine is prominent in this conversation. For her, transparency designates accountability,

acknowledgment and responsibility for the actions of institutions (Marstine, 2012, pp.14). In her view equitable practices are not possible without these correlatives.

Marstine emphasises textual subjects as mediators for what she calls ‘radical transparency’ where in her example; ‘a radically transparent wall text would additionally engage the ethical issues of exhibiting works’ (ibid). If we are to apply her concept of radical transparency to word clouds at TL, representation of contributors must be given heightened visibility. From my investigation, I have not found an example of TL making authorship data visible via wall-based or digital word clouds. Whilst Marstine’s concern is directed towards anthropological displays where cultural objects are ‘consistently mischaracterised by the dominant culture’s classification schemes’ (Hein, 2007, pp.34), I argue that user-generated data is consistently mischaracterised at TL because their co-production is not publicly enunciated. Consequently, making ‘possible actualisations of exhibitions for audiences of different backgrounds’ (Manacorda, 2016, pp.4) is ethically complicated because ‘certain bodies, certain gestures, certain discourses’ (Foucault, 1980, pp.98) are not acknowledged.

Meanwhile, TL’s rethinking of museum interpretation to produce polyphonic¹⁴⁴ text is highly important. This is triangulated in interviews and in the literature. Francesco states that texts should be ‘successfully read with different levels of competence’ to envision more than one ‘model reader’ (Manacorda, 2016, pp. 4-5). Borrowing from semiotician Umberto Eco’s The Role of the Reader (1979), Francesco applies the characteristics of the model reader – a subject envisioned to decode and interpret text – to museum text to argue against seeing publics as ‘empirical readers' (Manacorda, 2016, pp.4-5). Through speculation, he argues that pedagogic devices should create a ‘progressive path of increasing competence’ (Manacorda, 2016, pp. 4-5) using publics’ experiential knowledge.

When undertaking this research, I have found that the characteristics of the ‘model reader’ paradoxical due to its assumptions that refuse to engage with identity. On the one

144 The term polyphonic is a border-crossing term that is mostly used in musical composition. It is an adjective that describes the production or involvement of many different sounds and/or notes, but in this instance, is used by Francesco to describe the inclusion of multiple tones of voice, and or the involvement of different voices.

hand, the model reader does not discriminate by the powers of birth, gender or sexuality that postulates equal intelligence as its ideal (Rancière, 2006, pp.301). As I have argued, this theory does not compensate for embedded hierarchies of pedagogic museum practice or textual habitus. Marked by the construction of institutions and their propensity to comply with hegemony and erase identity (Lynch and Alberti, 2010, pp.13-4), I argue that the creation of polyphonic text demands for renewed collaborative processes with publics whose identities are minoritarian in the collection. Differently from consultation – arguably a tokenistic gesture – transparency¹⁴⁵ could become a working process to involve multiple identities ‘in reality rather than in name’ (Hall, 2004, pp.9). This is crucial when remembering that museum texts are institutionalised instruments of representation (because they reflect the people who create them). When they are not transparently co-authored, institutions risk ‘embezzling’

(Bourdieu, 1991, pp.232) public voices. Thus, when texts are redistributed as cultural capital user-generated content is homogenized; and we are unable to differentiate between public and expert terms. To expand on this claim, I identify three conflictual legacies concerning word clouds at TL to challenge success and how it is measured.¹⁴⁶ Through assessing what TL means as public - ‘as what is visible and manifest’ (Mouffe, 2005b, pp.152) - it is critical to describe the institutional narratives as follows;

Institutionally, I found that TL’s memory was variable. Through interviews with professionals, I recorded a culture of narrative reproduction but no physical representation of the outcomes of co-production in the gallery. Freire has described performative interactions between educators and learners as representative of ‘false generosity’ (Freire, 2000, pp.54).

By bestowing soft power to communities to perform a co-productive exercise, it is argued that the subject in power ‘buys peace’ for themselves (pp.146). Fundamental to this idea is that the powerful subject benefits from the interaction; the status quo is preserved, and authorship is

145 It could be argued that TL delivers a different type of transparency to its audiences based on an exchangeknown as

‘transactional transparency’ in the form of the sharing of visible or online data and policies that TL make public via their website, demonstrating good professional practice and are obligatory under UK law (Garsten, C. and De Montoya, M.L.

(2008) Transparency in a new global order : unveiling organizational visions. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.).

146 Notably, this investigation continues with users and AAs who contribute their engagements as users of the word cloud devices later on in the research.

absorbed. Linked to Bourdieu’s theory of embezzlement, practitioner Sophie Hope describes false generosity as a top down approach that seeks to deliver empowerment to individuals by generosity (Hope, 2011, pp.176).

Aesthetically, there is a lack of transparency concerning the integration of word clouds in the physical gallery. This is demonstrated by the absence of public visibility and authorship.

Consequently, word clouds are perceived by users as an institutional product due to their conformity with TL’s clean, homogenised aesthetic. Aligned with Tate’s nationwide brand, all textual interpretation within the Constellations is created with the intention to transform; ‘the idea of a gallery from a single, institutional view, to a branded collection of experiences that share[d] an attitude’ (Wolff Olins, 1997, no pagination). Commissioned by consultancy firm Wolff Olins in 1997, Tate’s brand identity relies on clarity and cohesion to communicate with their users. Many argue that their branding enables Tate to communicate with their audience in a friendly, welcoming and inclusive manner (Lahav, 2011, pp.36) however, whilst this may hold value, I found that its branding erases individual, localised identities.

Academically, the numerous referenced articles cited in this chapter reinforce the positive, curatorial narrative for Constellations and its word clouds. This has been contributed to by the promotion of theoretical research around the ‘reader/viewer/learner’ dichotomy informed by authorial theories by Umberto Eco, Roland Barthes and Jacques Rancière.

Arguably, hypothesising them distracts from the efficacy of co-production in practice. In his article For Whom Do We Write Exhibitions? Toward A Museum of the Commons (Manacorda, 2016) Manacorda celebrates collections as ‘learning machines’¹⁴⁷, however there has been no research that tests how word clouds enable equitable pedagogy.

147 Francesco’s presentation at Nottingham Contemporary titled Radical Museology Working the Collection chaired by Claire Bishop (Manacorda, F., Bishop, C., Carrillo, J. and Dziewanska, M. (2014) Radical Museology Working the Collection Chaired by Claire Bishop [online]

Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCoqhN9Q9vE [Accessed: 12/06/2018]) also supports this.

In summary, from undertaking research during the ‘planning’ stage of the PAR project, I argued that the institutional narrative popularised via word clouds benefits TL’s legacy more than it has centered users. Additionally, from reviewing the literature and interview transcriptions, one can assume that co-production is a totally embedded practice at TL.

Publicly, this idea is accepted;

Tate Liverpool is a remarkable example of an art museum that has conceived knowledge production as a process driven by (…) curatorial ethics. (Campolmi, 2017, pp.81)

Significantly, though TL consistently develops new processes to encourage the production of user-generated knowledge, word clouds are limited in terms of representation and recognition. Furthermore, it is ‘absence from’ and ‘misrepresentation in those narratives’ that engenders ‘a sense of alienation and non-identification’ (Flinn, 2010a, no pagination).

Moreover, by discussing collections of contemporary art through drawing parallels with

‘readers’ (Eco) and ‘learners’ (Rancière) – who might be regarded as beneficiaries –I question whether we overlook embodied experiences of belonging in the collection. In the next section I unpick how artists might mitigate these restrictive definitions of engagement.