BECKONING BODIES, MAKING SUBJECTS: INTERACTIVE AND IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGIES IN CANADIAN MUSEUMS, 1967-2014 by May Chew A thesis submitted to the Department of Cultural Studies In conformity with the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada (March, 2015) Copyright © May Chew, 2015 Abstract Focusing on the uses of interactive and immersive technologies in Canadian exhibits from 1967 to the present, this dissertation investigates how embodied rites of cultural citizenship summon subjects to interface with nation and heritage in supposedly postcolonial and multicultural frameworks. The technologies I examine encompass the diverse processes and materials that render abstract notions of nation, heritage and citizenship into tangible archives that we encounter directly through our bodies. The first chapter centres on Iris Häussler’s immersive installation, He Named Her Amber, staged in Toronto’s historic Grange manor in 2008. This work elucidates the processes through which settler colonial history is rebranded through neoliberal Creative City discourses, and the audience is affectively positioned as naturalized settler who, unlike displaced Indigenous communities, is endowed with the right to occupy the home. Following this, the National Gallery of Canada’s introduction of the audio guide for its monumental 1967 Centennial exhibit provides the historical context from which to investigate the celebration and consecration of Canada’s technological modernity. This chapter analyzes how the construction of an interactive art-historical audio-scape facilitated the citizen’s entrance into national modernity through technological access and participation. The next chapter surveys the implementation of digital touchscreens at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology, arguing that the expanded haptic interface is drafted as both material and rhetorical apparatus to strategically proclaim inclusive, multicultural paradigms. Concurrently, this interface reveals the very limits of interaction, and the paradoxes of the liberal public sphere. Lastly, the dissertation turns to the visitor-generated projections at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump (a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Alberta) in order to illustrate how motion-sensored, phantasmagoric projections work to locate but also unsettle the visitor’s body within official national—and “universal”—heritage frameworks. Here, I demonstrate how cultural citizenship is ii secured through the substantiating buttresses of heritage and archaeology, which emplace the visitor within an “ancient” landscape and narratology of nation which depends on inscription as much as erasure. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that these technological overtures of nation facilitate the everyday, quotidian encounters with violence which seduce subjects into—and out of—narratives of belonging. iii Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible had it not been for my supervisor, Susan Lord, whose intellectual depth and rigour is matched only by her generosity of spirit and caring. I also benefitted immensely from the patient and insightful feedback from members of my committee: Lynda Jessup, Sarah E. K. Smith, Kirsty Robertson, and Dorit Naaman. It was Lynda who first pointed me towards the Acoustiguide, and this tip changed the course of my project for the better. A number of librarians and archivists also aided my research, including Wendy Gomoll at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Ann Stevenson at the Museum of Anthropology, and Cyndie Campbell at the National Gallery of Canada. Even faced with diminishing funding and resources, they were generous in their offers of time and advice. This research was supported through grants from Queen’s University and a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. I had the opportunity to hash out these ideas in their most fledgling forms in a number of conferences throughout recent years, of which two were especially impactful: Material Cultures at the University of Ottawa in 2011, and Objects of Affection at Princeton University in 2012. Here, I learned through trial by fire the various risks and exhilarations of interdisciplinary research. Another invaluable intellectual arena has been my Film and Media undergraduate classes at Queen’s. These confirmed both my love of teaching, and that I have much more to learn about how ideas can be pedagogically translated in ways that encourage engagement and also productively unsettle us. I extend my gratitude to friends and colleagues at Queen’s who in their myriad ways contributed to the eventuation of this tome. My fellow first hatchlings of Cultural Studies, especially Karl Hardy, Mimi Gellman, Mohamed Abdou, and Jeffrey Barbeau, all helped to hone iv my thinking, but more importantly, deepened my understanding of the ethical stakes of intellectual engagement. I am also particularly thankful for Claire Grady-Smith’s and Melissa D’Souza’s kind and unswerving friendships. I could not have gotten through this process without a number of enduring relationships as well as more effervescent ones which alighted in the most critical of times. To that end, I extend my gratitude to Lisa Figge, Alexis Forde, Meaghan Frauts, Erin Mandzak, Michelle Milani, Fumi Sakata, Claudia Sicondolfo, Alexandra Simpson, Jessica Jacobson-Konefall, Anice Wong, and Grace Wu. Ashley DeMartini and Negin Dahya provided an idyllic summer writing retreat which pushed me to work out some demons and finally start writing. To Marwa Fadol, words would not begin to express the depth of my love and appreciation. My family plied me with the encouragement, laughs, joy and gentle chiding that I needed to push through—or simply ride out—the bleakest periods. I am grateful for my uncle Teng Beng, the premier Dr. Chew and OG, who supported my path in academia when others might have thought it strange or unwise. I am also indebted to my grandmother, terrific aunts and army of cousins, but especially Chloe Flower, Hannah Lo and Lilian Snodgrass, three very different but equally formidable women who sustained me emotionally and/or intellectually when I needed it most. My brother James proves simply that political and aesthetic synchrony are ultimately irrelevant when it comes to love. My father teaches me every day about the importance of creativity, passion, and making the decision to open oneself up to the world. From Scott O’Connor, I continue to learn about love, gratitude, and commitment with regard to matters of the heart and mind alike. To my mother I owe absolutely everything. v Statement of Originality I hereby certify that all of the work described within this thesis is the original work of the author. Any published (or unpublished) ideas and/or techniques from the work of others are fully acknowledged in accordance with the standard referencing practices. May Chew (March, 2015) vi Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... ii Statement of Originality .................................................................................................................. vi Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................... vii List of Figures ................................................................................................................................. ix List of Abbreviations ........................................................................................................................ x Chapter 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Methodology ......................................................................................................................... 11 1.2 Chapters ................................................................................................................................ 20 Chapter 2. Theoretical Context ...................................................................................................... 27 2.1 The Imagined Community and Beyond ................................................................................ 32 2.2 Postcolonial Affect ............................................................................................................... 39 2.3 Technologies of Immersion .................................................................................................. 48 Chapter 3 He Named her Amber at the Grange Manor .................................................................. 60 3.1 The Grange Manor ................................................................................................................ 64 3.2 Settler Colonialism and the Creative City ............................................................................ 76 3.3 He Named Her Amber: Archival Seductions and the Choreography of Citizenship............ 86 3.4 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 102 Chapter 4. Acoustiguides at the National Gallery of Canada’s Centennial Exhibit .................... 105 4.1 1960s Canada .....................................................................................................................