The Virtual Museum, a Shift in Meaning.

Transcription

1 The Virtual Museum, a Shift in Meaning. M A S S I M O N E G R I E M A D I R E C T O R 3 RD K E N N E T H H U D S O N S E M I N A R B E R T I N O R O, N O V E M B E R

2 A Definition January 1997, Technology & Learning Jamie McKenzie, «A virtual museum is a collection of electronic artifacts and information resources-virtually anything which can be digitalized. The collection may include paintings,drawings,photographs, diagrams,recordings, video segments, newspaper articles, transcripts of interviews, numerical databases and a host of other items which may be saved on the virtual museum s file server. It may also offer pointers to great resources around the world relevant to the museum s main focus.»

3 Museums on the the web, a mirrored image of the real museum? Interestingly enough, in McKenzie s definition the Internet was not esplicitly mentioned. In the 90s the museum community was still debating about the web seen as a possible threat or as an opportunity. The discussion about «real-virtual» was also complicated by the emerging notion of that «intangible heritage» (collective memory, etc.) which inevitably was destined to go digital From the museological point of view, terminology has started (and still is) registering a permanent shifting of meanings and accents.

4 The Digital Museum and the Virtual Museum On the contrary, in the current museum jargon «virtual» seems inevitably associated to the Internet (which was not exactly the same 15 years ago) But digital resources are proving to have a pervasive potential also in the context of the museum environment, the virtual museum is also present inside the museum environment, offering visitors and users «virtual experiences»

5 The canals room in the new Museum of the History of Bologna- Genus Bononiae

6 ..in the same place Museums going digital in the heart of the exhibition Digital objects in show Digital experiences everywhere Is the «real» museum becoming a digital world?

7 Beyond space, time and collections Exhibitions on line Archives of temporary exhibitions environments Experiencing the backstage of the museum (storages, restoration workshops, etc.) Exhibitions of objects destined to disappear Enriching users experience :closer access to masterpieces but at distance (Google Art), augmented reality, 3D modelling. RSS: following history in its becoming The virtual dimension offer spaces and experiences that goes beyond architectural spaces and beyond collections limits

8 Museums as meeting places Social networking: following the museum daily Interactive devices: E-learning and participatory learning environments Webcams The Internet site becomes a museum in itself with most of the social functions of the «real» museum The Virtual Museum becomes the result of a complex variety of impulses from a complex variety of actors The «real museum» becomes a contamination of all this.

9 A new breed of users From visitors to users Multitask visitors/multitask users Do you remember the ant, the fish, the grasshopper? Obsolescence of devices, obsolescence of behaviours «I Tweet little tips every day.and people just follow me. I blog, I am on Facebook, I have thousands of friends on Facebook and this is just how I live» a participants into the first social media night at Dali Museum, St. Peterburgh, Florida.

10 A Cyber Museology? We have just entered an era of growing and fast integration between the physical and virtual dimension as well as of growing contradictions and frictions between these two spheres of human experience, this is not a temporary condition, but a permanent and long term process Museums are deeply involved in it and have still a lot to learn

11 The first «Museum and the Web» international conference in 1998 Somebody said : «Let the museum be the museum and the web be the web» Is this still possible?