Museums in 2034. Same as it ever was?
Posted in Internationalism, Politics, Presentism, Technology on 07. Jan, 2009
The Centre of Future of Museums, part of the American Association of Museums, comissioned Reach Advisors for a trends paper to begin discussions about… the future of museums.
They asked Reach Advisors to be “edgy and provocative”.
The paper looks 15 years into the future and studies the population’s age, gender, economic status and communication technologies. So, people get older, live longer, have financial worries and everyone uses facebook and youtube.
(The whole section on women in this paper baffles me.)
15 years into the future of museums will look like… right now? Not a single mention of future legal issues, like copyright or deaccesioning/repatriation ethics. I do agree on the point that globalisation will change things, bigger museums going “global”. Still, this sounds like now, not 2034.
Apparently, 2034 museums will act as a “respite/retreat” from technological future shock. (Someone better tell the Brooklyn Museum).
All together, the paper feels thin. There are more interesting discussions about the future happening out there on the blogs. This paper doesn’t so much start the discussions, but state some very basic points. I would hope the future isn’t so mundane.
(via Bridget Mckenzie)
Ha! I think if you come here for a visit, you’ll see how lo-tech we actually are :) Unfortunately the blog gives the sense that we use technology everywhere, but the truth is we use it very rarely (we just post about it too much). I for one am actually not a big fan of technology in galleries – I’d rather see art! Thanks for posting.
@Shelley,
You had an iPod. I don’t even own an iPod.
A flickring, twittering, youtubing museum such as yourself must find phrases “Museums will be oases of the real in an increasingly virtual world” a bit neo-Luddite, right?