Complexity vs Technology

One of the reason why it's wise to allow technology inside museums is that once you do it, you no longer have to worry about technology.

This is rather slippery ground. Italian museums, and most of the people who work in and around them, are in a relationship with technology which reminds me of an eating disorder pathology. Like puritans who for one reason or another always end up talking about sex, they are all the time pointing their fingers at people working with technology. What they are mumbling is not "Hey, what are you working on?", but rather "Hey, with whom are you chatting online?"

These were the depressing thoughts I had in mind while reaching the "Surfing & Walking" conference, held at Oval - Lingotto in Turin on saturday 2nd october. Organized as a session of the DNA Italia Fair, the panel of discussion skillfully arranged by Fondazione Fitzcarraldo also comprised Brooklyn Museum Chief of Technology Shelley Bernstein. Her work can loosely be summarized by "give up control, engage with communities and let people speak, not the institution". Bernstein's achievements are usually copied by people like myself in museums around the world, while her "mistakes" (of which she spoke during a workshop in Turin) often turn out to be even more useful than the achievements, because they map uncharted territory.

Bernstein behaves as if she was the director of the museum and forces you to deal with that. She does this not out of arrogance, but because she is so passionate and true about her work that she feels responsible for everything that goes on in the institution. At the same time, her work is subtly disrupting the institution itself, something which has not gone unnoticed in the new york contemporary art scene. In Italy Bernstein would have been fired or "promoted" to an harmless place in a couple of weeks. The fact that this does not happen at Brooklyn Museum is possible, I think, because of a deeply rooted libertarian tradition in american cultural heritage politics which allows talented individuals to reform institutions from within without rotting in the process.

I had chosen to modify my presentation according to the main points made by the other speakers at the conference. Bernstein's concept of "giving up power" was certainly one major point. The second one was put forward by the host of the event itself, Alessandro Bollo of Fondazione Fitzcarraldo. He said that "People developing web2.0 strategies for museums should be very careful not to split the institutions in two, with an engaged and community-oriented online image that does not match a dusty and authoritarian reality once you step inside the building". I added some spice, but that's what he said. Finally, a third interesting moment from my perspective was when Giuseppe Ariano, of MiBAC (the Italian Ministry oc Culture) said that he and a colleague had launched a facebok page overnight "without telling our bosses, or we'd have been stopped", and that their strategy is to "reach out to young people".

My point was that, given the situation of most italian museums, if you present your strategy as focusing on "technology" and "young people", you will face growing difficulties on the long run, and you may end up with exactly the "divided institution" that Bollo spoke about.

When negotiating with italian museum directors and curators, the idea that the web2.0 is a move to "catch up with technology" and "reach out to young people" might be very effective in the beginning. It may be the key to at least start doing something. However, there is a downside: in italian culture, "technology" and "youth" share a common problem: they are perceived as fashionable, disposable items, and portrayed by virtually all media (including high-quality newspapers) as "something detached from reality". In order to be perceived as taking part in the spirit-of-your-time, right now, in Italy you need to be old and anti-technology. This says a lot about the mess we're in in the Bel Paese.
In our culture it is perfectly acceptable to declare you despise technology and get away with an image of charme, originality and self-confidence. This applies to popular culture, to conservative petite bourgeoisie and even to leftist radicals.

It's no surprise then that many museum curators in Italy are ready to accept a web 2.0 strategy based on "tech and youth": it fits in perfectly with their view of the world. If you accept this outside-imposed narration of your own work, you will end up finding, one day, that what you do is considered disposable and not real.

My advice is to avoid confrontation on these grounds, and to look for other ways of presenting your web2.0 strategy. There are literally dozens of reasons why using social networks inside a museum is a good idea. Statistically, some of them must be likely to be shared by your boss without putting your work in a minority condition.
As an example, I have put forward the idea that social network help museums to let people understand and benefit from their complexity. From this particular perspective, I am using Murray Gell-Mann's definition of complexity which goes something like: "the length of the concise description of the regularities encountered in a pattern". Translated, this means that museums with, say, an important permanent collection on Sumerian ritual body paintings find it easy to talk about a single exhibition, but find it difficult to convey the depth and preciousness of their decades-long work on researching and showing their collection. Regularities in the pattern are A LOT, and their description, however concise, takes a lot of time and commitment to be read.
On the other hand, if you upload 2,000 images of Sumerian body paintings on flickr and have your users tag, discuss, share, promote, share, correct, print, use and "own" them, complexity will be there - it's magic at work under your eyes!
Your audience will even shape descriptions of objects in a way which makes it possible for other people to find them, which is something museum cannot do and sometimes don't want to do.

The hard part is precisely this: exposing museum curators and directors to this magic. This is what we have failed to do up to now - with some notable exceptions, and this is what I think our goal should be in 2011.