NYT: Museums Morph Digitally

Approximately a year ago, the New York Times published an article called Museums Morph Digitally: The Met and Other Museums Adapt to the Digital Age, written by Steve Lohr, who reports on technology, business and economics for The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly and The Washington Monthly.

His article detailed multiple technology-based projects occurring in museums and among artists. Lohr begins the article by stating that while at first he thought it seemed that museums were “giving in to the virtual enemy” he found that so many “major museums have welcomed digital technology as not only inevitable but also as an ally in bringing culture to a wider public.” He interviews multiple museum professionals who laud the potential for digital technology to help them help their visitors explore, learn, and play in so many new ways.

Many of the projects he discusses in the article are ones we have learned about and presented on in this class, but it is absolutely worth a read to see some of the thoughts and motivations of the museum professionals behind those projects. Some interesting perspectives include:

• the goal of Colleen Stockmann at Art++ to “give you more points of access into the artwork, so that it keeps you in the moment of looking, almost as if someone is guiding you through the painting or sculpture”;
• the hopes of Elizabeth Merritt of the Center for the Future of Museums at the American Alliance of Museums, who is “waiting for a Watson museum mentor that learns, so it adopts and is personalized to my interests and level of knowledge”;
• the methods of digital artist R. Luke DuBois, co-director of the Brooklyn Experimental Media Center at the New York University School of Engineering who utilizes “data science to really investigate who we are, in ways we don’t really think about much.”

Another interesting point in the article was made by Amit Sood, director of the Google Cultural Institute in London, is that museums are “‘a little slow to the digital game. That’s a good thing,’ avoiding costly missteps and trial and error.” Most museums are slow to integrate technology and digital media, and while this may be due in part to lack of funding, staff resources, or even because of lack of interest on the part of the museum, it ends up being very fortuitous. Since most museums are non-profit institutions, they need to be careful of the kinds of projects they choose to fund. And this is not just so that they don’t compromise their educational mission or create projects that distract from their collections, but also so that they don’t waste their valuable time and resources. Trends in technology are so fast and so fleeting that it is lucky that museums are a little slow to act – I believe this usually ends up working in their favor.

The article ends on this quote from Merritt: “virtual art will never psychologically replace the real because a piece of the creator is attached to the object itself.” This statement applies not only to virtual art but also to all kinds of virtual experiences in museums, including museums’ online collections, virtual tours, mobile apps, etc. I fully agree that the experience of visiting objects in person will never become obsolete or uninteresting, because the power that comes from physically being present in front of something or within a space really can’t be replicated. Obviously advances in virtual reality are striving to do just that, but I still don’t think they can ever fully compete because at the end of the day, the user is always aware of the fact that they are not having a real experience. That fact alone detracts or changes the nature of the experience, no matter how well designed, realistic, or stimulating it may be.