Talks by Jocelyn Spence and Martin Porcheron

In the first lab meeting of the academic year, we have two short talks from Jocelyn Spence and Martin Porcheron.

Jocelyn Spence

The GIFT project is concerned with hybrid museum experiences, particularly (at this stage) through gifting. No one was more surprised than I was to find that museums were originally designed around principles of theatrical performance, not just as analogy but through actual practice. This talk looks at the cultural rupture beginning in the 1950s and 1960s as manifested through developments in performance practice and new expectations placed on museums, particularly as evidenced by radical developments in museum architecture. I will argue how contemporary performance practices can shape the hybrid museum practices that this project is aiming to create: by creating hybrid versions of the radical structural changes to the museum experience that would otherwise be accomplished by visionary (and expensive) new architectures.

Martin Porcheron - Alexa in the Home

In this talk, I will introduce some of the data we have collected of the use of the Amazon Echo in the home. We have collected a large corpus of recordings, and through an EMCA approach, have begun to show how the use of the Echo (and the Alexa voice agent) is embedded in home life, and how interaction with Alexa is collaboratively managed within turns-at-talk.