The ‘new’ museum is “one which is focused on providing both intellectual and physical access, democratizing the interpretation of its holdings by using a mode of communication associated with contemporary popular culture.” (Witcomb, 2003: 37) According to Stephen E. Weil, where museums were once an “establishment-like institution focused primarily inward on growth, care and study of its collection,” they are emerging as being “entrepreneurial institutions,” that are more outward focused and concentrated on providing services to the public in a “demonstratively effective way.” (Sandall, 2007: 31) This is attributed to several causes, including the impact of development, related to the growth in scale, influence, and variety of professional associations during the 20th century. More specifically, art museums, both public and private, have fallen victim to dwindling public funding and increased exposure to market forces, causing many to take a ‘hard-nosed’, market-driven approach to attracting and retaining audiences and funding. (Hyland, 2006) Such an approach is necessary in a field that is becoming diluted by a growing number of cultural organizations and events, as evidenced by the number of museums which turns up in a Google Maps search, seen in Figure 1.1
Fig 1.1 – Google Map of ‘museums’ Fig 1.2 – Google Map of ‘entertainment’
Museums are in heated competition with other entertainment venues from theaters to amusement parks. (Figure 1.2 shows search results for ‘entertainment’ in New York City) When one considers that audiences choose to go to an average of 1.9 cultural events a month (LaPlaca Cohen, 2007)--and that ‘culture’ in this sense comprises everything from dance, to performance art, theatre and live music--one can understand why art museums are now in competition with other forms of entertainment, not just other museums. The competition among cultural institutions has risen to such a degree that museums must rely on ‘box-office’ income—entrance fees as well as auxiliary funds. (Sandall, 2007: 32) In addition, museums have experienced increased professionalism from leading to developments in professional standards and cultural norms (Sandell, 2007: 32). Subsequently, museums are being held to higher standards of accountability and transparency as public educational institutions. As Kenneth Hudson said in UNESCO’s Museum International, “the most fundamental change that has affected museums during the past half century…is the now almost universal conviction that they exist in order to serve the public.” (Sandall, 2007: 32). A museum that did not prove an ‘outcome,’ or profit, to its community became considered socially irresponsible, a failure and a “waste of society’s resources.” (Watson, 2007: 1) Essentially, the museum’s prime responsibility is now its visitors, rather than its collection. Hudson’s assertions about the museum as an institution of public service have been validated by the number of museums, which have reformed their brands, renovated their buildings, and initiated new programs and events promoted with large-scale advertising campaigns financially supported by corporate sponsorship. Unfortunately, this has put necessary stress on positioning the organization to be competitive, and creating a brand and communications strategy that will differentiate it from others.
Projecting difference is achieved through a strong brand identity, which designer Michael Beirut defined as the “characteristic way a company or institution writes its name and rules that govern that characteristic signature.” (Hyland, 2006) This also comprises the “visual management of the various promotional activities the company engages in” and works to extend brand experiences, not just on the TV or in the newspaper or on the billboard, but into environments, sounds, smells and attitudes” on and off line. (Hyland, 2006) To implement a new branding strategy, many museums are turning to specialists and consultancies to ‘re-brand’ the organization and create communications materials that will make them an appealing destination, with an emphasis placed on ‘experience’ rather than ‘content.’ (Hyland, 2006) This is evidenced by the Tate’s facelift in 2000, which their consultants at Wolff Olins described as “brand-led rather than institution-led, which is as much about entertainment and enjoyment as it is about culture and art.” (Hyland, 2006) As the Tate case study shows, the focus on the bottom-line has compelled museum directors to focus on making the museum attractive to visitors. In a word, the museum has become self-conscious. Rather than ‘selling’ traditional offerings, they are ‘marketing’ offerings to the publics’ needs or interests. (Sandall, 2007: 32) And the ‘offer’ they are hawking is a lifestyle choice, rather than a product offering (display of art objects).
Despite these efforts, the majority of museum-goers “still have a rather narrow view of art museums that reflects a lack of understanding of the mission of these institutions as well as the important role of art in helping to shape and interpret our world.” (Beall-Fontana, 2007: vii) This perception is slowly changing as more museums adopt digital technologies and engage in social media practices, which continues to penetrate the public sphere at alarming rates. In the non-profit sector, organizations typically use social media to “streamline their management functions, interact with volunteers and donors, and educate others about programs and services.” (Waters, 2009) Meanwhile, sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Flickr and YouTube have proved critical to raising awareness and driving action through strategies and tactics that are described in detail further on.
Technology is doing more than changing the way museums communicate; it is also shifting public perception of the museum as an institution, as both a mediating object and physical structure. The ‘new’ museums are not trapped by their lived architecture. Museums now exist in a ‘third place,’ which includes the offline and online world. By this, I mean museums increasingly exist in a hybrid, virtual space, whether this is a supplement to a physical location or not. ‘Traditional,’ virtual museums, provide visitors with practical information and hyperlinks to various events and activities supported by the museum. The most successful of these, such as the New Museum (newmuseum.org) in New York City, has incorporated social media tools (Blog, RSS feed, Facebook and Twitter) in order to form a community of people with shared interest in the arts. Still other museums have adapted the notion of the virtual museum into that of a virtual reality, allowing visitors to the site to virtually tour the entire museum, not just by viewing photos of works online, but by actually moving through a 3-D computer rendering of the galleries and exhibition halls, such as the AlBalad Museum in Saudi Arabia.
However complex, virtual museums are fundamental to the success of a museum both as an enhancement to traditional media, as well as through its ability to tap into new audience and generate public awareness and online community that invites visitors to engage in real-world community endeavors. This development is particularly intriguing once one considers that by providing a “new setting for works of culture,” museums are now also functioning as a technological environment, which allows cultural artifacts to be refashioned in ways that facilitate their deployment for new purposes (political, social or otherwise). (Bennett, 1995: 6) Thus museums today are presented with an opportunity to create a space simultaneously “committed to developing the means of instruction which will help bridge the gap between the invisible order of significance it constructs and the social distribution of the capacity to see those invisible significances.” (Bennett, 1995: 173)
The ridging of the real and the virtual, as well as art and commerce, is evident in the Adobe Museum of Digital Media (AMDM). Through AMDM, Adobe Systems Incorporated (the software company famous for creating creative tools such as Photoshop, Acrobat Reader and Flash) has assumed the lofty aim of reinventing the museum space, thereby placing the transformation of the museum experience out of the hands of curators and into the hands of a group of entrepreneurs, architects and computer engineers tasked with creating an “online destination for viewing digital art.” (Kasprzak, 2011)
Fig 2.0 – Adobe Museum of Digital Media homepage
Adobe claims the mission of the ‘museum’ to be “an interactive venue to present and preserve groundbreaking digital media works, inspire creative ideas and experimentation, and provide a forum for expert commentary on how digital media influences culture and society”. (Adobe, 2010) This is an admirable mission, but save for the reference to preservation, it does not exactly mirror that of the IMC, thereby calling into question the decision to use this descriptor (versus gallery). (Kasprzak, 2011) As Kasprzak points out, it’s an online museum immediately disqualifies it from membership by the American Association of Museums (AAM), which, it is worth noting, seems to run contrary to the aim of public service, since it actually provides unfettered public access (a point which will be developed later during a discussion of the Google Art Project).
The museum further challenges museum canons due to its incubation within a for-profit corporation. Regardless of the benefits to society this site may bring, it cannot be regarded as anything less than part of a strategy supporting the company’s bottom-line. Furthermore, are we to look to a corporation as a “steward of public intellectual heritage” or as the archivists for digital art? How sustainable is a venture whose lifeblood is contingent on quarterly profits? (Kasprzak, 2011) Finally, is it arrogant to assume that one can simply create a museum by doing nothing more than calling it as such? In other words, is the corporation usurping the authority and credibility of trained art historians and curators? Finally, on what basis should we accept this? So far, society has placed trust in museums and international organizations such as UNESCO to determine what cultural objects are representative of our heritage and worth preserving. But in the new field of digital art and art based on new media, is it appropriate to lean upon technology companies to determine how best to preserve digital works? Is Adobe successful in extending the definition of cultural heritage to include online media? The Library of Congress certainly recognizes it as such, and has begun archiving tweets, under the premise that “online expression as intangible heritage.” (Kasprzak, 2011)
For more information on the debate as the validity of this ‘museum,’ and the definition of a museum in the Internet age, I invite the reader to read Kasprzak’s article, “Moving the Museum Online.” Kasprzak does an excellent job in juxtaposing the aims of the Adobe museum with that of the ICOM’s definition. She also examines several intriguing online museums and addresses their impact, including: the Museum of Online Museum (MoOM) by Coudal Partners, which catalogs online collections; and Domenico Quaranta’s MINI Museum, a “7'' digital photo frame accompanied by 4 GB of storage space, which travels from artist to artist, with each artist adding their own ‘solo exhibition’ to the museum until the 4 GB capacity of the Museum is reached.” (Kasprzak, 2011)
For more information on the debate as the validity of this ‘museum,’ and the definition of a museum in the Internet age, I invite the reader to read Kasprzak’s article, “Moving the Museum Online.” Kasprzak does an excellent job in juxtaposing the aims of the Adobe museum with that of the ICOM’s definition. She also examines several intriguing online museums and addresses their impact, including: the Museum of Online Museum (MoOM) by Coudal Partners, which catalogs online collections; and Domenico Quaranta’s MINI Museum, a “7'' digital photo frame accompanied by 4 GB of storage space, which travels from artist to artist, with each artist adding their own ‘solo exhibition’ to the museum until the 4 GB capacity of the Museum is reached.” (Kasprzak, 2011)
Fig 2.1 – MINI Museum, Domenico Quaranta
While these raise interesting questions as to the importance placed on solo-exhibitions, the limitations of physical spaces in presenting a museum’s collection, and the hierarchy in which physical and digital museums are placed, the point I would like to bring attention to is that none of these experiments, or those mentioned later in this paper, were conceived, curated, designed, endorsed or in any way affiliated with a museum.
