Arthur CLAY
(Digital Art Weeks, ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
Keywords: digital technology in museums
Abstract:
In a time where communication technology has become a fundamental force in bringing about social-cultural change, museums are in need of becoming more aware of what might be termed as “curating the invisible”, referring to how museums can use digital technology to curate, market content, and communicate to their target audiences. The success of any institution today for the presentation of art will depend solely on that institute’s abilities to communicate to its own public, who now being digital natives breed in virtual worlds will no longer accept being presented with solely things real. It is no longer the real object itself that heads an exhibit, but its digital counterpart in context of the object it virtually links to, or how the blending of the virtual and real creates a unique experience for the visitor. Here, it’s important to note that museums and other cultural institutions should play an important role in giving recognition to new directions ad aid in acknowledging the importance of virtual space and to showcase how emerging technologies are exploring it. The not only includes changing commonly accepted cultural logic with which arts is produced, distributed, displayed and marketed, but also includes how this new form of hybridity can manifest within the walls of the museum while at the same time merge both real and virtual and expand into the invisible beyond walls.