Here we ask for your examples of how new technologies are re-inventing museums:
- How successful do you consider these to be?
- How can innovation best be achieved?
Sunday 6 April 2008
How are new technologies re-inventing national museums?
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4 comments:
I’ll break the ice here.
I think we first need to consider the old debate of whether ‘new’ technologies re-invent the world, or whether they merely offer new ways to do the same things, but faster and more intensely. If the second is the case, are they perpetuating the same old problems but more ‘impressively’? So for example, we now can log on to virtual museums with countless artifacts – has this re-invented museums or continued old perspectives and narratives but in a flashier way?
Secondly, I think it is necessary to think critically about what we mean by ‘innovation’ and why it is framed as a goal. Do we wish to adopt new technologies for the sake of ‘innovation’, or do the characteristics of new technologies offer some kind of change or improvement to real human lives as affected by museum goals and practices? In Canada, for example, McGill’s Darin Barney addresses the way public heritage communications (Heritage Minutes) use "technology and innovation" rhetoric and myth-making to normalize neoliberal ideologies.
See you all in Leicester!
Susan Ashley
Toronto, Canada
Here is an example of how 'Second Life' has been used in a museum setting - Virtual Starry Night:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EfruH02RD9M
Contrast this with the virtual tour here:
http://amsterdam.arounder.com/van_gogh_museum/index.html
By bringing together existing technologies, Second Life affords new opportunities and new challenges. It's not a re-invention but simply a progression. Love them or hate them, next generation of web browsers will render virtual worlds natively. The question is how can our museums make best use of this new medium to alter experiences for the better?
P.s: If you're unsure what 'Second Life' is all about, Leicester's Media Zoo gives a good example:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=y7TMQzzFFdQ
In relation to Susan's insightful comments above, I'd like to hear others' thoughts on the general issue of changing (or, not changing?) relations with the object and the "real." If what museums do in part is to house the "real," the original object, how do virtual museum, Second-Life type interactions with collections (or, imagined, imaged collections...) shape the functions and/or role of museums? Is the value or function of museums inherently related to their physical space and physical holdings, and how do museums objects, "things," fit into a landscape of virtual interactions?
-Tracy
As an add-on to my comment above - if national identity is in part built on holdings of objects at national museums, can national museums continue to stake claims in this way in this landscape?
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