Research topic

From a historical perspective, the emergence of digital technologies has been linked to high hopes for democratising discourse and connecting a wide variety of actors globally. The museum sector joined this debate early on. As early as 1968, at a conference of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, William Paisley outlined his vision for the 1980s as one of comprehensive networking between institutions, coupled with the hope that all museum objects around the world would be viewable and accessible via the internet. This would significantly simplify research work.

Today, digital educational offerings, online collections and digital exhibitions are already part of everyday life for many cultural institutions. The coronavirus pandemic has caused another sharp increase in such offerings. However, the current debate has been focusing for some time on the issue of how to reach and retain visitors. The main focus is on precisely targeting new audiences. These digital offerings always serve the analogue museum space. Questions about how virtual space can be used optimally and what specific advantages digital technology offers take a back seat. Little attention is paid to how data from the digitisation of cultural assets can be handled responsibly and what the comprehensive transformation of a museum means for the structure of the institution.

This dissertation will address the question of when virtual museum spaces develop a disruptive force and how the potential of the specifically digital can be fully exploited to create a cultural space of meaning that is liberated from analogue institutional limitations. Aspects of accessibility to objects that no longer exist and the handling of data from sensitive collections will also be considered.