Prototype places: curating practice-based research in a museum context Deborah Turnbull New Media Curation, Sydney, Australia deborah@newmediacuration.com Matthew Connell Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia matthewc@phm.gov.au Ernest Edmonds Creativity and Cognition Studios, School of Software, FEIT, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia ernest@ernestedmonds.com Abstract This paper examines the role of prototyping in a living laboratory via the medium of public exhibition. The 'living laboratory' exhibition space reported on is a small theatrette located in the Cyberworlds exhibition of the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, and is called Beta_Space. It is the public research facility of the Creativity and Cognition Studios at the University of Technology, Sydney. The two key mandates of this space are that the artworks displayed must be interactive, thus necessitating a sophisticated digital component, and that the works must be evaluated in a public context, allowing for audience feedback on the iterative lifecycle of the prototype on display. A series of case studies performed in Beta_Space are presented which illustrate the challenges that university-museum collaborations face when embarking on such an endeavor, and show how their informal processes were able to subvert traditional museum practice, thereby creating a climate for change and growth in a normally static environment. 1 Introduction "To maintain their relevance to a new generation of potential customers, corporations and institutions are forced to seek out the virtual habitat in which these consumers reside. In turn, exhibitions have become more interactive and increasingly have a dialogue with this virtual world." (Hughes, 2010:18) There is a growing expectation amongst museum visitors that they become active participants in the museum experience rather than passive recipients of curated presentations expressed primarily through artefacts in glass showcases. The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney answered this expectation by consulting experts across all relevant fields, with the focus on what the challenges of such a shift might entail, operating in such an environment. In 2008, at the behest of new director Dawn Casey, the Powerhouse Museum held a series of Future Forums. A range of key stakeholders from industry, academia, media, government, other museums, and the Powerhouse Trust and staff, were invited to these forums to discuss possible new directions for the Museum. One of the motivations for undertaking this process was the recognition that digital technologies have changed the