VIDEO GAME NARRATIVES IN EXHIBIT DESIGN: THE THESIS OF ANDREY MINTCHEV

Final Project Reflections | Caitlin McCurdy

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The number of students who choose to do the thesis stream of the MMSt program is considerably smaller than those who choose the exhibition project route. One of these students is Andrey Mintchev, and he very kindly took the time to answer some of my questions about his path to the thesis stream.

His decision to pursue a thesis occurred after taking Velian Pandeliev’s course INF2164H: UX Research and Design for Video Games. He described the class as a study of the positive impact that UX-forward thinking has on elements such as level design and gameplay in video games. He then thought to himself, “Is anyone doing this in museum studies? How awesome would it be if museums felt like videogames?” As he discussed this idea with Prof. Pandeliev and continued learning more about human-computer interactive (HCI) sciences and their research methods, he realized that there wasn’t a particular class on this topic, and that his new conception of an amalgamation of gaming and museology would be best realized in a thesis. 

Courtesy of Andrey Mintchev.

Andrey has a very interesting story about how he came to meet his thesis supervisor, Tony Tang:

“I was waiting for the light to go green on Saint George and Bloor, when I overheard a conversation between two people, who were discussing something about AR. The one guy responded with a “I don’t know Tony, but that sounds interesting” and I immediately assumed that it was Tony Tang. I sheepishly interrupted with a “hi, sorry, but are you Tony Tang? I want to talk to you about turning museums into a VR world”, to which he pleasantly offered up his email.

Andrey then fulfilled his research methods course requirement with a reading course overseen by Prof. Tang, where he was able to make connections between HCI and museology and began to work out his ideas for his thesis. Andrey’s final thesis proposal was the fourth or fifth iteration of his initial idea, and it was at this point that he approached Costis Dallas about being his second reader.

When I asked Andrey for the elevator pitch for the current iteration of his thesis, he was kind enough to give me the short elevator ride pitch, the slightly longer elevator ride pitch, and the elevator ride to the penthouse pitch. Here’s what he said:

“My thesis is on applying videogame level design and narrative design to exhibit design. What I’ve done is record 14 hours of gameplay between five games that boast a compelling narrative, recorded every instance where the story was being conveyed and what the level in that moment looked like, and then produced 598 lines of code to synthesize each screenshot into qualitative data. The idea is to use my synthesized data to identify the best practices for level design and narrative design and apply them to the reinterpretation of an existing museum exhibit. The final deliverable should produce a compelling exhibit that improves on the existing one.”

Courtesy of Andrey Mintchev

This all sounds very fascinating to me, as someone doing an almost entirely theoretical thesis based in historical research and epistemological philosophizing. I’m excited to see the final product of Andrey’s work, I think his research could definitely shed light on how video game practices could innovate our approaches to exhibit design.

Courtesy of Andrey Mintchev

I asked Andrey to give one tip for prospective students considering the thesis stream, and his answer was very insightful.

“There is no right or wrong stream at our school, but if you’ve got this awesome idea, I promise you that our faculty will do everything it can to help [you] walk out of this program with a publication that you’ll be proud of.”

Ultimately, if you have an idea you can’t get out of your head that you’ve brought into the program with you, you can make the thesis stream work for you, and you control the subject, process, and end result of your work, with insight along the way from your very knowledgeable supervisor(s). Andrey also pointed out that this control is fairly unique to the thesis stream, as the final exhibition project is subject to variables like the makeup of your student group and the flexibility of your industry partner. To give Andrey the last word, “Real-talk, it’s the most academically satisfying thing you can do if you hate group work.”

HOW TO TURN YOUR FIXATION ON AN OBSCURE MUSEUM IN ENGLAND INTO ACADEMIC RESEARCH: THE THESIS STREAM

Final Project Reflections | Caitlin McCurdy

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This new Musings column will hopefully illuminate a road rarely walked down, and one I am currently venturing down: the MMSt thesis stream. First, let’s go over some basics. What is a thesis? Why do one? What am I doing? Here we go:

The basic requirements for the thesis stream include all the usual museum studies course requirements, in addition to INF1240 Research Methods or an independent reading course. The thesis itself is worth 2.0 credits, so keep that in mind while planning out your second year or you may end up taking 1.0 credit extra by accident.

The next step is to find a supervisor. Now what I did, was panic email the MMSt director unsure of where to start or how to even ask such a question of my professors. But it need not be a panic-inducing situation, after a quick meeting with the MMSt director, I was quickly pointed in the right direction, and found my co-supervisors Irina D. Mihalache and Patrick Keilty. At the start of Year 2, you submit your thesis proposal, and it is approved by Graduate Committee on Standing in early September. Most of the thesis work is done in the second year (that’s where I’m at). During Fall & Winter of your second year, you got to research, write, research, and also maybe write. More information can be found here

Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. Photo courtesy of Caitlin McCurdy.

What initially drew me to doing a thesis was an interest in exploring the connections and parallels in the development of three industries/ways of thinking that emerged in the 19th century: Egyptology, museums, and sexual classification. Honestly, it was a trip to England in February of 2018 that I credit (blame) for making me reconsider an Egyptology MA and instead shifting focus to museum studies.
My research centers a case study on the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, a small university museum in London, England based out of University College London. I was entranced by a. the sheer volume of stuff they have and b. the direct ties to Egyptology founding figure and the museum’s namesake, William Flinders Petrie, and how the current museum is grappling with the shift in academic and popular thinking away from glorifying colonizers.

Me at the Petrie, circa 2018. 

Over the last year, this initial curiosity has grown and matured in an actual research framework with methodology and scope. There is a number of ancient Egyptian artifacts that can be considered erotic or lude, I’ve written about a few in my previous column, most notably this Temple Wall of Senwosret. Through research I did in my undergrad, I found that the erotic that was presumed onto these objects were sometime misplaced or a misinterpretation on the part of a modern scholar. Epistemologically, what does this mean for Egyptology as a field and museums as a place for safekeeping knowledge.

Ultimately, the question I am trying to answer is “How does historical knowing function erotically within ancient Egypt?”. Now, what does that actually mean I’m researching? Excellent question, I don’t know. But here’s what I’ve been reading for the last six months.

The foundational texts for my thesis are The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective by Arjun Appadurai and Unpacking Culture: Art and Commodity in Colonial and Postcolonial Worlds by Ruth B. Phillips and Christopher B. Steiner. Through a Marxist framework informed by these books, I define 19th century Egyptology as a tournament of values, where Egyptian artifacts are reconfigured as commodities, with new meaning and value ascribed to them, which then alters their “biography”. This process effects any meaning making that has occurred since their initial removal from Egypt. So, my earlier question of what does erotic knowing look like in ancient Egypt may be more accurately written as how is this knowledge produced, and who is producing it?

I love a good chart!

Because I’m focusing on erotic artifacts, I knew eventually my research would lead me into the realm of queer theory. I had previously read some Foucault and David Halperin writings on how to historically study sex and sexuality but was unsure where to begin to tie such a framwork into my museological framework. One of my supervisors, Patrick Keilty, referred me to the writings of Elizabeth Freeman and Valerie Traub on erotohistoriography and Pete Sigal’s writings on Ethnopornography, which ultimately became the lens through which I will be studying my selected artifacts from the Petrie.

My current thinking is that colonial knowledge and commoditization create a “Victorian scrim”, raising questions of whose erotic experience is being interpreted, and whose erotic way of knowing is involved in erotohistoriography. Now that I have a framework and direction, my next step is some historical and archival research into the museum itself. This means searching through annual reports, archaeological field reports and various other publications. Wish me luck!

Next in this column, we’ll hear about what other theses the fine folks in the MMSt thesis stream are doing.

Exterior of the Petrie, the pizza shop next door provides a unique olfactory experience. Source