study, without prior permission or charge

This thesis investigates how museum companions organise their conduct regarding their engagement with the exhibition and their social interaction with each other in the course of a visit. The main objectives of the thesis are the empirical investigation of social conduct in casual group museum visits and the exploration and understanding of social conduct in real-time distributed museum visits through mobile mixed reality technology. A third area of interest is the application of qualitative methodology, based on ethnomethodology and ethnographic methods, for the fulfillment of the above objectives. In particular this thesis presents and discusses fieldwork of collocated casual group visits alongside video recordings and interviews collected in distributed museum visits during trial sessions in the Mack Room mixed reality museum environment. Drawing on vignettes of activity among collocated and distributed participants, the thesis develops discussion around three themes: the collaborative exploration of museum artefacts, aspects of the collaborative management of shared museum visits and the constitution of the visiting `order' in and through social conduct. Among others, issues of collaborative alignment, awareness, indication of engagement and disengagement and conflicting accountabilities are