Virtual Museum |
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On the internet, emerging organizations whose focus is not yet specified are growing in parallel to traditional institutions with respect to the following areas of research: cultural and informative portals, virtual galleries, multimedia journals, magazines and newspapers, self-managed user networks capable of mobilizing the attention of the masses and, most of all, of the younger generation versed in the internet. Unlike the cumbersome, traditional structures of display, these fluid organizations offer specific advantages: easy-access to space, economy of space, long-distance, part-time work unfettered by time/place constraints, quick and easy access to the most specialized personnel around the world, speedy installation, no shipping or insurance costs, no actual construction, access to a wider audience - drawn by the internet's interactive, participatory, and ever-surprising persona. However, the design of significant on-line expositions demands time, testing, new synergies of specialists and fields (conception, programming, planning, visualizing, animation, computer graphics, communication), and imply the use of considerable budgets for production, constant management and updating. The average cost of online exhibitions, per visitor, is however without a doubt cheaper, particularly because of the incredible number of users which continues to grow steadily. At the same time, since an entrance ticket is as of yet unthinkable, the only actual funding in the short-term can be provided by advertising and sponsorship. However, in the long run, well-designed and flexible 'containers' will attract works of artists, more or less known, to create a valuable cultural and economic resource. Those collectors who nowadays are willing to pay millions of dollars to acquire works of art could, in the future, be attracted to a different kind of art which we cannot yet picture. |
Quondam's lucky. Its yearly operating cost is much less than $500 a year, and occasionally makes money selling pieces of its collection. The collection, moreover, is unlike any traditional museum collection because it continually generates its own growth. Digital data has the inherent ability to spawn more and more new digital data. |
Quondam © 2004.02.15 |