Il museo come medium nell'era digitale

Museums have historically functioned as media, transferring knowledge and heritage through time, communicating in the future what was deemed valuable in the past. Today, this operation is heavily mediated by digital technologies, which contribute to shaping cultural programming through the coded fiber of a variety of ever evolving devices. This research addresses the museum transformation within the digital ecosystem and in light of the use of digital technologies, framing the analysis through the concept of medium. Drawing from the media studies theoretical framework, and developing an interdisciplinary discourse which employs visual studies, museum studies and management studies perspectives, the project analyzes a series of key digital technologies used by museums today. Working from the premise that in order to understand how museums are performing their media function, it is necessary to assess the devices which are mediating this process. The work is divided into two parts, the first addressing projects which take place beyond museums’ physical walls, remotely accessible in the digital sphere, and the second assessing digital technologies employed within the museum space, mediating the interaction with the collection. These two movements, with museums that partake in the digital and with the digital entering the museum, are discussed beginning with the analysis of historical evidence, moving to a technological account, and then addressing case studies from the cultural field. Throughout the work a series of technologies are studied, such as online collections, metaverse museums, podcasts, MOOCs, museum robots, deepfakes, and the use of extended reality and artificial intelligence. By placing the case studies analysis in a strong technological and theoretical account, the work produced a framework which can serve to both position and redirect museum programming, hoping to concretely contribute to the institutional development of the digitization of culture. With the conviction that, at stake in museums’ ability to endorse contemporary technological languages, is their critical role in the shaping of today’s knowledge and visual culture.