Publications

Co-creating Knowledge: Participatory Practices and Museum/University partnerships
Conference paper, MW2019, Boston

Abstract:
Increasingly, museums are looking to other fields of practice in order to spark innovation, incorporating digital mindsets and design-thinking methods in their practices, and engaging in collaborations with communities, private enterprises, and university partners to develop new experiences. So what is to be gained from cross-institutional collaborations, and what lessons can be learned from an exemplary partnership project? This paper will share methods and insights from//getting online, a design-led exhibition experiment at ENIGMA Museum of Communication in Copenhagen. //getting online explores strategies for engaging users in the creation of a polyphonic narrative of Internet history, following the museum’s mission to foster dialogue. Moreover, the project is part of the transdisciplinary research programme ‘Our Museum,’ focused on museum development and advancing academic understandings of the museum experience. In the framework of the research programme, the exhibition experiments are thus also an experiment in museum practice, applying design research methodology and museological knowledge to the curatorial process. By addressing objectives, approaches, reflections, and results from the perspectives of both embedded researcher and museum host, the paper will provide an inside view of the prospects and potentials of university/museum collaborations.

Available for download from the MW archive: https://mw19.mwconf.org/paper/co-creating-knowledge-participatory-practices-and-museum-university-partnerships/

Mobile media, mobility and mobilisation in the current museum field
Published in The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Media and Communication 2019

Resumé:
Introducing the concept of a ‘mobile museology’ to describe how museums are currently set in motion by a confluence of cultural, technological and museological developments, this chapter traces the connections between mobile media and notions of mobility and mobilisation in the museum field. As illustrated by current examples in the chapter, mobile phones have thus provided an opportunity for both augmenting and transcending the museum space, blurring former boundaries between institutions and their environments. At the same time, technological advances and digitial culture developments have also required and inspired museums to become organisationally mobile, and to mobilise collections, audiences and institutions in order to fulfill museum missions. In this perspective, mobile media are thus seen as both catalysts and instruments for current museum developments.

APA citation:

Baggesen, R. H. (2019). Mobile media, mobility and mobilisation in the current museum field. In K. Drotner, V. Dziekan, R. Parry, & K. Schrøder (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Media and Communication (p. 115-127). Oxon & New York: Routledge. Routledge International Handbooks

Peer review version: Mobile media, mobility and mobilisation in the current museum field_peer review version_Baggesen 2019

Mobile museology: An exploration of fashionable museums, mobilisation and trans-museal mediation
PhD dissertation. Submitted June 4th 2015 to the PhD school at University of Copenhagen. Succesfully defended September 18th 2015.

Outline:
Drawing together perspectives from museology, digital culture studies and fashion theory, this thesis considers changes in and challenges for current-day museums as related to ‘mobile museology’. This concept is developed for and elucidated in the thesis to describe an orientation towards the fashionable, the ephemeral, and towards an (ideal) state of change and changeability. This orientation is characterised with the triplet concepts of mobile, mobility, and mobilisation, as related to mobile media and movability; to ‘trans-museal’ mediation; and to the mobilisation of collections, audiences and institutional mindsets.

The research project’s transdisciplinary and exploratory approach takes inspiration from critical design, minding Latour’s (2004a) call for rethinking critical approaches in the humanities. Through a creative process, focused on designs for framing fashion in everyday contexts and involving prospective users and professionals from Designmuseum Danmark, the project reflects on and seeks to articulate matters of concern in digital heritage and museum practice. The dissertation compiles three research articles with a selection of blog posts from the research project blog..

The project’s key perspectives – the conception of mobile museology; the fashion perspective; the notion of heteroscopia; and also the project’s methodological considerations – are considered in the conclusion as theoretical contributions to museological discourse.

Full summary: https://blatryk.wordpress.com/2015/07/02/thesis-summary/

Download: https://blatryk.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/mobile-museology_thesis_baggesen-2015.pdf

Augmenting the agora. Media and civic engagement in museums
published in Mediekultur, Journal of media and communication research, vol. 30, no 56, 2014

Abstract:
Mirroring digital culture developments in society at large, museums are increasingly incorporating social media platforms and formats into their communication practices. More than merely providing additional channels of communication, this development is invested with an understanding of social media as integral to the ongoing democra- tisation of the museum. The confluences of new media affordances with New Muse- ology objectives along with the underpinnings of the aforementioned understanding is discussed in this article. The article will argue that development in this area is not only driven by solid results and public demand but also by collective assumptions and associations as well as by a political need for institutions to justify their relevance in society. In conclusion, the article suggests that, while the integration of social media communication may serve to market the museum as inclusive, it may also simply pay lip service to genuine civic engagement and democratic exchanges with the public.

The article is available to download as PDF from http://ojs.statsbiblioteket.dk/index.php/mediekultur/article/view/8964

Museum Metamorphosis à la Mode
published in Museological Review, issue 18, 2014

Abstract:
Museums are steadily changing. Yet analogising this development with biological or mythological metamorphosis could imply an elevation or naturalisation of events, which is potentially problematic. This paper therefore suggests a supplementary perspective, arguing that certain changes in modern day museum practices correspond to the logic of fashion. Where Foucault once described museums as heterochronias; places representing an ’other-time’, museums now strive to be both of their time and in time with the Zeitgeist. As a consequence, they must keep up with the speedy cycles of technological advancements and cultural change, and not only deliver, but also stoke the desire for, novel experiences. The paper explores the current vogue for fashion exhibitions as a case in point, arguing that this trend serves to promote the museum as fashionably current, but can also support novel formats for cultural reflection. 

To read the full article, download the complete issue from:  http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/museumstudies/research-degrees/museological-review-1/museological-review

 

Webudstillingen kortlagt (Mapping the online exhibition)
Master thesis (unpublished). Danish with English summary.
IT University of Copenhagen,September 2009.

Download: https://blatryk.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/webudstillingen-kortlagt_baggesen_itu_speciale.pdf