The museum has always been open to virtuality, to mimesis, since the objects it collects are often images. But with the competition from modern spectacles, the museum was quickly confronted with a broader virtuality, that of immersion, which places the viewer not in front of the image, but in the image. Obviously, the immersive aesthetic is not ideally suited to the museum’s education, cultural and cultural mandate. The long and complex history of the relationship between the museum and cinema – which culminated in the “cinéma d’exposition” – clearly demonstrates this. The museum’s recent interest in mixed-reality games, which echoes the use of the Internet and video games by mass culture, has renewed this tension. We will test these hypotheses in examining Uncle Roy All Around You (2003), an exemplary game involving street-players and online players collaborating in the search for a mysterious missing person, which was designed by Blast Theory and which premiered at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.
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Cinéma d’exposition 2.0:
Mixed-Reality Games in and around the Museum1
Olivier Asselin, Université de Montréal




   Abstract

    The museum has always been open to virtuality, to mimesis, since the objects it
    collects are often images. But with the competition from modern spectacles, the
    museum was quickly confronted with a broader virtuality, that of immersion,
    which places the viewer not in front of the image, but in the image. Obviously, the
    immersive aesthetic is not ideally suited to the museum’s education, cultural and
    cultural mandate. The long and complex history of the relationship between the
    museum and cinema – which culminated in the “cinéma d’exposition” – clearly
    demonstrates this. The museum’s recent interest in mixed-reality games, which
    echoes the use of the Internet and video games by mass culture, has renewed this
    tension. We will test these hypotheses in examining Uncle Roy All Around You
    (2003), an exemplary game involving street-players and online players collabo-
    rating in the search for a mysterious missing person, which was designed by Blast
    Theory and which premiered at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.


   For Paul Milgram and his colleagues, mixed reality refers to a large class of
technologies that create a dialogue between the real and the virtual, be it by
introducing virtual data into real space (augmented reality) or by introducing
real data into virtual space (augmented virtuality).2 Nowadays, mixed-reality


1
  A first version of this text was presented at the New Perspectives, New Technologies conference
organized by Ludovica Galeazzo, Elisa Mandelli and Emanuele Pellegrini, Università Ca’ Foscari
di Venezia and Università Iuav di Venezia, Venice, 13-15 October 2011.
2
  Paul Milgram, Haruo Takemura et al., “Augmented Reality: A Class of Displays on the Reality-
Virtuality Continuum,” in Telemanipulator and Telepresence Technologies, SPIE, vol. 2351, 1994,
pp. 282-292. See also Ronald Azuma, Yohan Baillot, Reinhold Behringer, Steven Feiner, Simon
Julier, Blair MacIntyre, “Recent Advances in Augmented Reality,” in IEEE Computer Graphics and
Applications, vol. 21, no. 6, 2001, pp. 34-47, http://www.cs.unc.edu/~azuma/cga2001, last visit 2
March 2015; Oliver Bimber, Ramesh Raskar, Spatial Augmented Reality: Merging Real and Virtual
Worlds, A.K. Peters, Wellesley (MA) 2005; Lev Manovich, The Poetics of Augmented Space, in
John T. Caldwell, Anna Everett (eds.), New Media: Theories and Practices of Digitextuality, Rout-
ledge, London 2003, pp. 75-92. This last text is also available on the author’s website (http://www.
manovich.net/DOCS/Augmented_2005.doc) and translated in French as “Pour une poétique de

                                              Cinéma & Cie, vol. XIV, no. 22/23, Spring/Fall 2014
                                          Olivier Asselin


displays are omnipresent. They appear in various forms and on different plat-
forms, mobile in particular. They have all kinds of applications and uses: they
still serve to communicate, receive and transmit information – both textual and
audiovisual – in a simply dialogical mode or a community or social network,
but they can have an amateur, professional, scientific, political, commercial,
educational, touristic or purely recreational use as well. Mixed-reality games
are thus played in both real and virtual spaces, in the city and on the Internet.
At once motivated and arbitrary, localized and delocalized, in situ and online,
these mixed-reality games cross all types of spaces: natural or urban, private or
public, commercial or institutional. Paradoxically, they are favoured in particu-
lar by the old institutions traditionally defined by a specific location, a particu-
lar building and real objects – such as museums.
   The museum has always been open to virtuality, to mimesis, since the objects
it collects are often images. But with the competition from modern spectacles,
the museum was quickly confronted with a broader virtuality, that of immer-
sion, which places the viewer not in front of the image, but in the image.3
Obviously, the immersive aesthetic is not ideally suited to the museum’s edu-
cational, cultural and cultural mandate. The long and complex history of the
relationship between the museum and cinema – which culminated in the “ciné-
ma d’exposition” – clearly demonstrates this. The museum’s recent interest in
mixed-reality games, which echoes the use of the Internet and video games by
mass culture, has renewed this tension. Here I would like to examine a mixed-
reality game that was presented in a museum context, which I think exemplifies
the dialectic condition of the museum in the digital age.




l’espace augmenté,” in Olivier Asselin, Alain Depocas, Chantal Pontbriand (eds.), “�����������
                                                                                       Écran numé-
riques,” Parachute, no. 113, 2004, pp. 34-59. Space (and much previous discussion) here prevents
me from discussing further the obviously problematic opposition between reality and virtuality.
3
  This is not the place to develop a detailed reflection on the notion of immersion. Briefly defined,
immersion is an experience that gives one the feeling of physically entering a separate space (Ol-
ivier Grau, Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion, MIT Press, Cambridge [MA] 2003). But over
the past few years, the theory of immersion has developed rapidly. Most authors today consider the
term to cover a variety of experiences, and that a distinction should be made, within the general
category, between several types of immersive experiences. For example, in her inaugural study of
immersion, which pondered the relationship between literature and virtual reality, Marie-Laure
Ryan identified four degrees of absorption: concentration, imaginative involvement, entrancement,
addiction; and three types of immersion: spatial (a response to setting), temporal (a response to
plot) and emotional (a response to character). (Marie-Laure Ryan, Narrative as Virtual Reality:
Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media, John Hopkins University Press,
Baltimore 2001). More recently, Gordon Calleja, reflecting upon immersion in video games, distin-
guished six dimensions of involvement: kinesthetic, spatial, shared, narrative, affective and ludic;
and two phases within each of these dimensions: micro-involvement and macro-involvement (Gor-
don Calleja, In-Game: From Immersion to Incorporation, MIT Press, Cambridge [MA] 2011). On
the relationships between the museum and the institution, see Alison Griffiths, Shivers down your
Spine: Cinema, Museums, and the Immersive View, Columbia University Press, New York 2008.

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                                    Cinéma d’exposition 2.0


Uncle Roy All Around You (2003)

   Blast Theory, an artist collective based in London (lead by Matt Adams, Ju
Row Farr and Nick Tandavanitj), has done pioneer work in the field by creat-
ing, as early as 2001 with Can You See Me Now?, games that merge online and
mobile technologies through the use of GPS. In 2003, Blast Theory launched a
new mixed-reality game, Uncle Roy All Around You, which takes place simulta-
neously in a real city and on the Internet, in a virtual representation of the real
city, and which involves street players and online players who enter the game
through computer terminals set inside the museum or from their homes, any-
where around the world.4 As in the first video games, the goal here is simple: you
must find someone (Uncle Roy) in a limited amount of time. Both positions of
street and online players are accessible to the public. But they are not in competi-
tion; on the contrary, they must cooperate to thwart Uncle Roy, the game master,
and his accomplices from Blast Theory.5
   Street players purchase tickets on the premises of the participating institution.
At the registration desk, they have their picture taken and are asked to “hand
over all their possessions: phone, purse, bag, loose change, etc.” In exchange,
they receive a handheld computer and a code number. They are then shown
how to operate the computer and, most importantly, they are informed of their
mission: within 60 minutes, they must find Uncle Roy, a mysterious character we
know little about, who is hiding somewhere in the city. Finally, the players are
invited to enter their code into the handheld computer, which starts the game –
and the countdown. On the small screen, a map of the district appears, which the
player can drag around, zoom in or out at will, and on which the names and posi-
tions of online players are shown. Once outside the building, the player receives
a first text message from Uncle Roy himself: “Meet me in the park by the lake.
I’ve marked your map with the location. Click the ‘I’m here’ button to confirm
you’ve arrived and I’ll come to meet you.” The game continues in the same man-
ner: when the player arrives at the first meeting point and confirms his position,
he receives a new text message from Uncle Roy giving him new directions.
   Online players may register anywhere, from any computer, on the game’s web-
site. A virtual city appears on their computer screen, a miniature version of the
real city, and their own avatar, in a third person perspective. By using the arrow
keys on their computer keyboard they can move around in this virtual world and
discover the position of other players: the online players are marked by a white
dot and the street players by a red flashing dot, which brightens when the player



4
  For the presentation of the game by the authors themselves, see the Blast Theory website: http://
www.blasttheory.co.uk/projects/uncle-roy-all-around-you, last visit 2 March 2015.
5
  The game’s operation is ensured by a small technical crew from Blast Theory. From an improvised
control room on the game’s real sites, the crew operates the server and can communicate with the
street players through an independent channel.

                                                                                               117
                                         Olivier Asselin


declares her position. But online players also have access to a map of the gaming
area and to photographs of selected locations.
   Players may interact, but exchanges are carefully regulated. Online players can
send public text messages to all other online players (whose recent exchanges ap-
pear at the bottom of the screen), and private messages to selected street players
(whose ID cards appear at the right of the screen). Street players can record and
send short voice messages to online players who write to them – or ignore them.
All players receive text messages from Uncle Roy.
   This is how players cooperate, and this cooperation is encouraged. On the one
hand, online players have only a virtual existence and they need street players to
accomplish their mission; on the other hand, street players have only a limited
knowledge of the game and may benefit from the expanded knowledge of online
players – for example, when Uncle Roy’s rendezvous are so enigmatic that they
require an exploration and an interpretation of the whole game space.6
   Towards the end of the game, Uncle Roy prompts the street player to go to a
specific address: “Go to 12 Waterloo Place and ring the bell marked Roy.” Often
with the help of an online player who has a picture of the entrance, the street play-
er finds the address and rings the doorbell. The door opens automatically and the
player finally enters Uncle Roy’s office. The office is empty, but it looks as though it
was recently occupied. Uncle Roy’s presence can be felt everywhere. The lights are
on, so is the radio. There is a red vinyl chair and a small coffee table, black metal
shelves and a large architect’s desk. On the desk is a model of the city made of
Post-it notes and on the opposing wall hangs an augmented reality display show-
ing, on the same model, all active players, whether they be online or on the street.
   At the same time, online players are informed that a street player has entered
the office and they are invited to join him, virtually. But first, they must answer a
series of questions, including this last one, which binds them:

    Somewhere in the game, there is a stranger who is also answering these questions. Are
    you willing to make a commitment to that person that you will be available for them
    if they have a crisis? The commitment will last for 12 months and, in return, they will
    commit to you for the same period.

  If they accept, online players are asked to type in their address and phone
number. Then, they are allowed to enter the virtual office, where they get a live
webcam feed of the street player in the real office.
  Meanwhile, in the real office, the street player finds a postcard on the table, on
which a simple question is printed: “When can you begin to trust a stranger?”
Uncle Roy asks the player to answer the question, in writing, on the very card,
then to look into the webcam and to imagine a stranger looking back at him. Fi-
nally, he is invited to leave the building, with the card in hand, and to wait close by


6
 Having said this, Uncle Roy All Around You is less engrossing for online players than for street
players and Blast Theory had to revise certain rules and parameters in later versions of the game.

118
                                Cinéma d’exposition 2.0


in a telephone booth. At that moment, the phone rings and a voice instructs the
player to enter a white limousine parked on the corner of the street – and to fasten
his seatbelt. The limousine is indeed there, with a driver patiently waiting. The
player enters, buckles his seatbelt and soon after Uncle Roy himself – really an
actor – climbs aboard the vehicle, which drives away. During the car ride, Uncle
Roy asks the street player the same questions online players had to answer earlier.
If the player accepts to commit herself to a complete stranger for twelve months,
she must write her contact information on the postcard. The car stops in front of
a mailbox and the player is invited to slide the card inside – addressed to Uncle
Roy. The game ends here and the player is abandoned to her fate on the sidewalk
(not far from her starting point...). But Blast Theory’s team eventually pairs each
street player who has accepted, blindly, the mutual aid contract with an online
player who has also consented. The contact information of each player is then sent
to the other one. For one year, each of the two players may receive a request for
help from the other one, whom s/he doesn’t know, and s/he is bound to answer it.
   I will not linger here on the minimal narrative situation and plot on which the
game is based – it is a story of flight and pursuit – nor on the moral relations they
try to establish – relations of power, domination and submission. They are prob-
ably linked to the potentialities and limitations of the mobile and locative technolo-
gies used. However, they undoubtedly do have a social and political meaning.


A Remediation of the Museum

   Blast Theory’s games are site-specific works: they are intimately connected to
their context of reception, have often been conceived and realized according to
a particular location and are adapted to each new location. They were made for
specific cities, events and festivals, for particular centres and museums. Uncle
Roy All Around You was commissioned by The Institute of Contemporary Arts
in London and premiered there.
   The museum here is indeed central. It is the first location of the game, its
physical starting point. Many players enter the game through the museum: this
is where the ludic contract is undertaken, through an exchange of goods and
information. But the museum is also represented in the game and in many dif-
ferent ways with indexes, icons and symbols, through speech and text, as well as
photographs models and computer graphics. Being at once the context and the
referent of the game, the museum here undergoes a mise en abyme.
   However, the museum is simultaneously and drastically marginalized. As we
have seen, online players can access the game not only from within the museum,
but from elsewhere too, from any other computer terminal. Moreover, from the
beginning of the game players, whether they be online or on foot, in virtual space
or in real space, are asked to leave the museum’s premises and explore the sur-
rounding neighbourhood. Originally, the decision may have been a technical one
(given the instability of GPS and WiFi connections), but it has aesthetic and

                                                                                  119
                                         Olivier Asselin


political consequences. Immediately, the players’ attention is diverted from the
museum’s interior – and everything it contains.
   In the virtual space of the game, which is a much simplified 3D model of
reality, all details disappear. The museum, as an institution, is reduced to its
physical reality, its contents to its container, and the collection to the archi-
tecture and the architecture to the space it occupies and to its surfaces; that
is, to coloured geometrical shapes on a map, to simple transparent wire-frame
models or opaque meshes on which photographs of facades have sometimes
been mapped. The very name of the museum is not always mentioned, though
this is also the case with every other building and the entire city. Furthermore,
real people do not appear on the screen, nor do cars, objects, signs, etc. We
only see here the abstract avatars of the players, in a textureless space which
is reminiscent of the first 3D video games. In its 3D model form, the city thus
becomes a ghost town, where only a few spectres move.
   In real space, the experience is not fundamentally different. Once outside the
museum, street players only get back to the building at the end of the game. In
the surrounding neighbourhood, they pass real people, objects and signs, but
only pay attention to them if they are or could be part of the game. (The game
thus instigates a certain paranoia in the player who must constantly wonder if
what she is encountering is relevant or irrelevant to the game.) Usually, in the real
city, players only notice that which is essential to the game and disregard the rest
(they do not have enough time to be undisciplined). Their experience is medi-
ated through an abstract image, that of the virtual city which superimposes itself
onto the real city and creates a layered, biplanar consciousness.7


The Player’s Perspective

  Mixed-reality games are characterized by an exceptional spatial, temporal
and social extension.8 Some games are played out around the entire world,
across many months and imply hundreds of players. In Blast Theory’s works,
the game space is limited to a particular area, but it expands outside the mu-
seum, into public space and in the city, usually around one square kilometre.9

7
  For a complete description of the first performance of the game, with a comparative analysis of
street and online players’ experiences, see Steve Benford, Nick Tandavanitj, Matt Adams, Ju Row-
Farr et al., “Uncle Roy All Around You: Implicating the City in a Location-Based Performance,”
http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/research_uraay_implicating_the_city.
pdf, last visit 2 March 2015.
8
  On this subject, see Steve Benford, Gabriella Giannachi, Performing Mixed Reality, MIT Press,
Cambridge (MA) 2011; Eric Gordon, Adriana de Souza e Silva, Net Locality: Why Location Mat-
ters in a Networked World, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester 2011; Markus Montola, Jaakos Stenros,
Annika Waern (eds.), Pervasive Games: Theory and Design, Morgan Kaufman Publishers, Amster-
dam 2009; Carsten Magerkurth, Carsten Röcker (eds.), Concepts and Technologies for Pervasive
Games, Shaker Verlag, Aachen 2007.
9
  Here, as in all pervasive games, the limits of the game are broad and ill-defined. They have

120
                                    Cinéma d’exposition 2.0


The duration of the game is also substantial – two hours for Can You See Me
Now?, one hour for Uncle Roy All Around You – especially if compared to the
average time spent before works of art in museums. Finally, the game implies a
large number of players – many street players, even more online players – and
it requires a constant interaction between them.10
   But the main feature of these games is obviously that they are mixed, in Mil-
gram’s sense of the word: they do not take place only in the real world (like treasure
hunts or traditional role playing games), nor only in the virtual world (like video
games and virtual reality); they mix real and virtual environments. To the street
players, real space is augmented with virtuality; it contains invisible virtual players
and it is watched by an absent virtual gaze. To the online players, virtual space is
augmented with reality, the virtual information refers to real places and real people.
   The real and virtual worlds are here similar. The virtual city is a representa-
tion of the real city and the real players, whether they are on the street or at
home, in front of their computer, have virtual avatars. Furthermore, both worlds
are linked in real time and sometimes, live. Between the two, radio and Wi-Fi
lines of communication are established which allow an instantaneous exchange
of textual, audio and visual information, and most notably an exchange of audio
messages and webcam images. But the two worlds are not only synchronized,
they are also sometimes syntopized (as we could say through symmetry), or syn-
localized (if Latin is preferred to Greek). At times, the real world and the virtual


been given various names, such as the magic circle (Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study
of the Play-Element in Culture, Beacon Press, Boston 1971; Katie Salen, David Zimmerman,
Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, MIT Press, Cambridge [MA] 2004) or the membrane
(Edward Castronova, Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, The Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, Chicago 2005). Obviously, these metaphors do not always convey the
complexity of the games and many authors have sought other models that are not strictly spatial.
In his analysis of role playing, Gary Alan Fine (Shared Fantasy. Role Playing Games as Social
Worlds, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2002) suggests considering the limits of the game
as frames – a notion borrowed from Erving Goffman (Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organiza-
tion of Experience, Northeastern University Press, Boston 1986), who himself borrowed it from
Gregory Bateson (A Theory of Play and Fantasy, in Id., Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Es-
says in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology, The University of Chicago Press,
Chicago 2000, pp. 138-148) – to underscore the conceptual, pragmatic and contextual dimen-
sion of these limits. Fine distinguishes three discursive frames: the primary framework, which is
entirely outside the game; the secondary framework, which relates to gaming rules (this frame is
meta-communicational); and the tertiary framework, which is inside the world of the game (this
frame is some ways intradiegetic). These three frameworks are mutually embedded, but players
may freely circulate from one to the other without warning or notification. Dominic Arsenault,
Bernard Perron (In the Frame of the Magic Cycle. The Circle(s) of Gameplay, in Bernard Perron,
Mark J.-P. Wolf (eds.), The Video Game Theory Reader 2, Routledge, New York 2008, pp. 109-
131) have also proposed a rich model that emphasizes the temporal dimension of gaming and
presents the incessant dialogue between the player and the system of the game as a three-fold
spiral movement in which gameplay, narrative and interpretation unfold.
10
   On the collaborative work between players, behind-the-scene staff and occasional members of
the public, see Andy Crabtree, “The Social Life of Uncle Roy: Executive Summary,” in School
of Computer Science & IT, University of Nottingham, http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/wp-content/
uploads/2013/02/research_the_social_life_of_ur_executive_summary.pdf, last visit 2 March 2015.

                                                                                             121
                                        Olivier Asselin


world are visually aligned with one another, as would be a photograph of a lo-
cation seen in that very location. And they are temporally connected, as when
there is a live audio or video exchange of information. This synchronization and
this synlocalization of the two worlds are manually ensured by the user (when he
enters his actual position into the handheld computer, when he moves his avatar
with the arrow keys of her keyboard) or automatically by the GPS.
   The importance of this synchronization and this synlocalization is never as evi-
dent as when it fails. WiFi and GPS technologies are not infallible and players in
Blast Theory’s games have experienced some connection and positioning prob-
lems. Because they have found themselves outside the game space or in dead
zones (close to or inside buildings), or because of the never-ending movements
of satellites, some street players have momentarily lost their connection, they
have sent imprecise coordinates or received data with a delay of a few seconds.11
   The fact remains that the synchronization and the synlocalization of real and
virtual spaces are what makes mixed-reality games interesting. The most striking
moments of the game are when both worlds become synchronous and synlocal-
ized when they suddenly communicate, spatially and temporally, locally and in
real time, or better, live and in situ, in the very location where the player stands.
The game really intensifies when an online player discovers in the virtual world
photographs of real places; when she sees a picture and hears the voice of the
street player whose avatar she has been following on the screen; when she un-
derstands that the street players follow, in real space, her own virtual avatar and
that she can therefore influence their itinerary; when street players pronounce
her name and discuss with her strategies to capture Uncle Roy; when Uncle Roy
himself sends her a personalized message; when a webcam image appears that
gives her direct access to Uncle Roy’s office; when the street player present in the
room suddenly looks at her; when online players using the museum’s computers
see pass by them, through the real window, the street player they had been fol-
lowing on the screen, etc. Similarly, the game becomes very effective when street
players realize they are being observed by virtual players, that is to say, by real
players who are in other locations; when the messages sent by Uncle Roy refer
to, not only real places, streets and buildings, but also to the people they happen
to walk past at that very moment (“Pay no attention to the street cleaner with
long grey hair...,” “Watch a tourist cross the road and follow them [sic],” etc.).
The game’s climax occurs when street players finally enter Uncle Roy’s office and
can sense his presence without seeing him, when they are asked to climb aboard
the limousine and finally, when Uncle Roy himself, in the flesh, sits beside them
and starts talking to them. In such games, the street player’s experience may be
more exciting than that of online players. But in both positions, the most sought-
after effect is the same: the effect of the real, the staging of the real presence of a


11
  There have been some incidents in the virtual world in which street players’ avatars suddenly
disappeared and reappeared elsewhere. Some online players concluded that the game had granted
these players special “powers.”

122
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virtual person in real space, of a real person in virtual space (but a real presence
always that is haunted by an absence).
   Metalepsis is certainly the dominant rhetorical trope at work in these games.
It blurs the diegetic registers and connect the world of the narratee, the world
of the narrator and the world of the characters, the space-time of the players,
the space-time of the authors and the space-time of fiction, the intradiegetic and
the extradiegetic: the narrator and the characters communicate with the player
at home, they enter his private life; the players enter the diegetic space, they
become characters of the game and they interact with the other characters; like-
wise, the narrator also becomes a character you run into in the diegetic space,
in a real car, etc. All narrative instances are fictionalized and integrated into the
story; they are moreover realized and integrated into the user’s life.
   These games challenge representation in two ways: on the one hand, they blur
the lines between the real and the virtual, between the factual and the fictional
(they work on the threshold of fiction); and, on the other hand, they push back the
spatial, temporal and social limits of the game (they work on the threshold of the
institution). They transform the museum and the entire city into a diegetic space
and into a game space, the narrators and narratees, the authors and the users,
the puppet-masters and the players become characters, integrated into the story
and into the game, they transform aesthetic experience into an immersive fiction.
Within the ensemble of immersive practices, these games partake of both virtual
reality and theatre or, more precisely, of live action role-playing games (or LARPs).
(They present an image that is limited, homomaterial (Eco), egocentric (Milgram),
and which involves an allo-subjective actancial identification (Schaeffer).
   Mixed-reality games such as these are therefore paradoxical. They entertain a
desire for the Real (for the thrill of real time and of live action), but at the same
time, they also cause an eclipse of the real under the fiction of the game. They
nurture a strange fetishism that fantasizes about both physical proximity and
distance. It is not surprising that the preferred genre here is the suspense thriller.
   Because they take place in a particular location, mixed-reality games seem to
invite users to leave virtual reality and become aware of actual reality, they seem to
promote, not immersion, but emersion – a rediscovery of the actual site where the
game takes place, of public spaces and local communities. But when these games
involve the development of elaborate narrative and ludic fictions, in real time and
in situ, the effect may well be reversed: the real itself is virtualized, the factual is
fictionalized, gamified, the local is delocalized and fictional immersion deepens.


The Institution’s Perspective

   The museum has always nurtured immersion. From the moment it became in-
terested in collecting not only objects, but also objects that are images, the mu-
seum opened, within its own real space, a window to virtual space and it invited
the spectator to step into it, if only by imagination. Throughout Modernity, the

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museum was much interested in monumental images, such as history paintings or
large-scale landscape paintings. And during the 20th century, it has opened itself
up to new immersive technologies – to photography, cinema, video, audio guides
and, of course, video games – in order to offer even more immersive experiences.
    The museum’s interest in immersion certainly has sociological causes. It is ob-
viously linked to the development of immersive culture in modern mass media.
It is also connected to the legitimacy crisis that all museum institutions face regu-
larly and now more than ever. The problem is not, yet, financial legitimacy (prof-
itability), but rather social and political legitimacy, which is now measured by
public success. As recent statistics show, museum attendance is stable, in relative
and absolute terms, but competition for public attention is ferocious and cultural
habits are undoubtedly changing.12 In this context, it is not surprising that muse-
ums are now courting a larger and younger public, and that their programming
includes more and more exhibitions, mediums and works that have, from this
point of view, an obvious public appeal. The museum’s interest in immersive and
interactive technologies clearly illustrates this fight for public attention.
    However, at the same time the museum has always kept from completely giving
into the immersive aesthetic, probably because it risked losing part of its specific-
ity in the process. Obviously, the museum has a plural mandate, that of exhibi-
tion and conservation, education and enjoyment (as stated by the ICOM).13 It
collects not only images but also objects, not only icons but also relics, it encour-
ages not only immersion, but also authenticity. It thus participates in a two-fold
regime that cultivates both exhibition value and cult value,14 allographic and au-
tographical forms,15 metaphorical and metonymic figures.16
    This may be the reason the museum has always preferred mixed reality to vir-


12
   See John Micklethwait, “Temples of Delight,” Special Report on Museums, The Economist,
21 December 2013, http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21591707-museums-world-
over-are-doing-amazingly-well-says-fiammetta-rocco-can-they-keep, last visit 2 March 2015. Marie
Bourke et al., “New Trends in Museums of the 21st Century,” The Learning Museum Network
Project, 2013, http://www.lemproject.eu/WORKING-GROUPS/museums-in-the-21st-century-
1/7th-report-new-trends-in-museums-of-the-21st-century, last visit 2 March 2015.
13
   The International Council of Museums (ICOM) officially defines the museum thus: “A mu-
seum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to
the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and
intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and en-
joyment.” ICOM, “Museum Definition,” http://icom.museum/the-vision/museum-definition, last
visit 2 March 2015.
14
   Walter Benjamin, Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit, Suhrkamp
Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1955 (Eng. ed. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,
Penguin, London 1936).
15
   Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols, Hackett Publishing
Company, Indianapolis 1976.
16
   It
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      is important to note that if these two programs are in opposition from the museum’s perspec-
tive, they may not be from the spectator’s: the difference between the original and the copy is not
pertinent when, in terms of the aesthetic experience, they are indistinguishable: what matters here
is not the presence, but the effect of the presence.

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tual reality, works that create experiences that are at once immersive and emer-
sive, that open to a virtual world while remaining tied to the real world such
as large-scale photography, video installations and cinéma d’exposition.17 The
museum’s interest in works using mixed technologies likely expresses a similar
concern, and it may be the symptom of the institution’s epistemological hesita-
tion. This hesitation is not new: it is inherent in the museum, and is revived
whenever a new technology is developed and spreads. But digital technologies
have brought about an extensive revolution that questions the museum’s very
foundations. The emerging culture is not only audio-visual, immersive, interac-
tive and communicational, it is also decidedly mobile and nomadic.




17
     To which we could undoubtedly add architecture, the museum’s own architecture.

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