Visitor Interaction and Machine Curation in the Virtual Liverpool Biennial

This project looks at how audiences interact with machine-curated virtual exhibitions, specifically in the context of the 2020-2021 Virtual Liverpool Biennial. Using machine learning technologies as curators (rather than as, say, search engines) could potentially change the landscape of online exhibitions, which are currently largely websites with some pictures of artworks (and thus look more like exhibition catalogues than the exhibitions themselves). The project will look in particular at how different types of audience (e.g. local Liverpool residents who might not visit other biennials, vs people in the international contemporary arts scene who do the whole "biennial circuit") interact and engage with the co-curated virtual biennial: looking especially at how their curatorial choices or preferences might differ. Finally, the project will look at the link between virtual exhibitions and the physical event; and point towards possible new hybrid (online and physical) models for biennials and other art exhibitions.