This open access book explores the multiple forms of curatorial agencies that develop when museum collection digitisations, narratives and new research findings circulate online. Focusing on Viking Age objects, it tracks the effects of antagonistic debates on discussion forums and the consequences of search engines, personalisation, and machine learning on American-based online platforms. Furthermore, it considers eco-systemic processes comprising computation, rare-earth minerals, electrical currents and data centres and cables as novel forms of curatorial actions. Thus, it explores curatorial agency as social constructivist, semiotic, algorithmic, and material. This book is of interest to scholars and students in the fields of museum studies, cultural heritage and media studies. It also appeals to museum practitioners concerned with curatorial innovation at the intersection of humanist interpretations and new materialist and more-than-human frameworks.

In this book, Goriunova offers a critical analysis of the processes that produce digital culture. In order to understand these processes, the author introduces the concept of the art platform, a specific configuration of creative passions, codes, events, individuals and works that are propelled by cultural currents and maintained through digitally native means. Goriunova provides a new means of understanding the development of cultural forms on the Internet, placing the phenomenon of participatory and social networks in a conceptual and historical perspective, and offering powerful tools for researching cultural phenomena overlooked by other approaches.

The Routledge International Handbook of New Digital Practices in Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums and Heritage Sites presents a fascinating picture of the ways in which today's cultural institutions are undergoing a transformation through innovative applications of digital technology. With a strong focus on digital design practice, the volume captures the vital discourse between curators, exhibition designers, historians, heritage practitioners, technologists and interaction designers from around the world. Contributors interrogate how their projects are extending the traditional reach and engagement of institutions through digital designs that reconfigure the interplay between collections, public knowledge and civic society. Bringing together the experiences of some of today’s most innovative cultural institutions and thinkers, the Handbook provides refreshingly new ideas and directions for the exciting digital challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. As such, it should be essential reading for academics, students, designers and professionals interested in the production of culture in the post-digital age.

Through an historical approach, Ross Parry excavates cultural assumptions and values that provide the basis of museum information management and display, and that are still used to this day.

Artefacts, Archives, and Documentation in the Relational Museum provides the first interdisciplinary study of the digital documentation of artefacts and archives in contemporary museums, while also exploring the implications of polyphonic, relational thinking on collections documentation. Drawing on case studies from Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the book provides a critical examination of the history of collections management and documentation since the introduction of computers to museums in the 1960s, demonstrating how technology has contributed to the disconnection of distributed collections knowledge. Jones also highlights how separate documentation systems have developed, managed by distinct, increasingly professionalised staff, impacting our ability to understand and use what we find in museums and their ever-expanding online collections. Exploring this legacy allows us to rethink current practice, focusing less on individual objects and more on the rich stories and interconnected resources that lie at the heart of the contemporary, plural, participatory ‘relational museum.’ Artefacts, Archives, and Documentation in the Relational Museum is essential reading for those who wish to better understand the institutional silos found in museums, and the changes required to make museum knowledge more accessible. The book is a particularly important addition to the fields of museum studies, archival science, information management, and the history of cultural heritage technologies.

The site of curatorial production has been expanded to include the space of the Internet and the focus of curatorial attention has been extended from the object to dynamic network systems. Part of the 'DATA Browser' series, this book explores the role of the curator in the face of these changes.

Museum Object Lessons for the Digital Age explores the nature of digital objects in museums, asking us to question our assumptions about the material, social and political foundations of digital practices. Through four wide-ranging chapters, each focused on a single object – a box, pen, effigy and cloak – this short, accessible book explores the legacies of earlier museum practices of collection, older forms of media (from dioramas to photography), and theories of how knowledge is produced in museums on a wide range of digital projects. Swooping from Ethnographic to Decorative Arts Collections, from the Google Art Project to bespoke digital experiments, Haidy Geismar explores the object lessons contained in digital form and asks what they can tell us about both the past and the future. Drawing on the author’s extensive experience working with collections across the world, Geismar argues for an understanding of digital media as material, rather than immaterial, and advocates for a more nuanced, ethnographic and historicised view of museum digitisation projects than those usually adopted in the celebratory accounts of new media in museums. By locating the digital as part of a longer history of material engagements, transformations and processes of translation, this book broadens our understanding of the reality effects that digital technologies create, and of how digital media can be mobilised in different parts of the world to very different effects.

European Heritage, Dialogue and Digital Practices focuses on the intersection of heritage, dialogue and digital culture in the context of Europe. Responding to the increased emphasis on the potential for heritage and digital technologies to foster dialogue and engender communitarian identities in Europe, the book explores what kind of role digital tools, platforms and practices play in supporting and challenging dialogue about heritage in the region. Drawing on fieldwork involving several European museums and heritage organisations, the chapters in this volume critically engage with the role of digital technology in heritage work and its association with ideas of democratisation, multivocality and possibilities for feedback and dialogic engagement in the emerging digital public sphere. The book also provides a framework for understanding dialogue in relation to other commonly used approaches in heritage institutions, such as participation, engagement and intercultural exchange. The authors map out the complex landscape of digitally mediated heritage practices in Europe, both official and unofficial, by capturing three distinct areas of practice: perceptions and applications of digitally mediated dialogues around heritage within European museums and cultural policy, facilitation of dialogue between European museums and communities through participatory design approaches and non-official mobilisation of heritage on social media. European Heritage, Dialogue and Digital Practices will be of interest to both scholars and students in the fields of heritage and museum studies, digital heritage, media studies and communication, the digital humanities, sociology and memory studies. The book will also appeal to policy makers and professionals working in a variety of different fields.

This book explores how digital culture is transforming museums in the 21st century. Offering a corpus of new evidence for readers to explore, the authors trace the digital evolution of the museum and that of their audiences, now fully immersed in digital life, from the Internet to home and work. In a world where life in code and digits has redefined human information behavior and dominates daily activity and communication, ubiquitous use of digital tools and technology is radically changing the social contexts and purposes of museum exhibitions and collections, the work of museum professionals and the expectations of visitors, real and virtual. Moving beyond their walls, with local and global communities, museums are evolving into highly dynamic, socially aware and relevant institutions as their connections to the global digital ecosystem are strengthened. As they adopt a visitor-centered model and design visitor experiences, their priorities shift to engage audiences, convey digital collections, and tell stories through exhibitions. This is all part of crafting a dynamic and innovative museum identity of the future, made whole by seamless integration with digital culture, digital thinking, aesthetics, seeing and hearing, where visitors are welcomed participants. The international and interdisciplinary chapter contributors include digital artists, academics, and museum professionals. In themed parts the chapters present varied evidence-based research and case studies on museum theory, philosophy, collections, exhibitions, libraries, digital art and digital future, to bring new insights and perspectives, designed to inspire readers. Enjoy the journey!