| Museums rely upon people’s ability to navigate spaces and objects in an ordered and routine fashion. On entry to an exhibition visitors progressively move from one exhibit to another and thereby accomplish what is sometimes described as the “museum discipline”. The paper draws on the growing body of research on behaviour in public places, mobility and multimodal interaction. It explores how visitors withdraw from a particular exhibit and progressively and collaboratively approach a next exhibit or exhibition area. By inspecting video-recordings of participants transition between exhibits the analysis elaborates on the ways in which the retreat and withdrawal from exhibits is organised and accomplished. The analysis investigates the relevance of that interaction to people’s navigation of museums. The fragments discussed in the chapter have been drawn from a large body of video-recording comprised of approximately 700 hours of video. They have been recorded in a wide range of museums including the Tate Britain, the National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum. |
