Code Words: Technology & Theory in the Museum

Originally an online dialogue, CODE | WORDS is a series of conversations which explores challenging questions about the identity of museums, their role in society, their responsibility to serve a global public, and the nature of collecting, preservation, education, scholarship, primary research, and ethics in a digital age. The authors aim to inspire change, and to demonstrate the important relationship between emerging digital practices and museum theory.

Among the key issues which CODE | WORDS explores are: 1 Making the value statement for museums in a digital age: How can museums determine what’s important and not just what’s easy? 2 The politics of new technologies: How do we balance the shifting equations of power, audience, and authority? 3 Dialogue and discourse in museums: Who’s talking and who’s listening? 4 Creativity, innovation, and technology: Is there a relationship between the three that’s unique to museums? 5 Digital curation: What does it mean to collect and preserve digital media, art, and information? 6 New digital technologies won’t solve all the problems in the world, or the museum, nor will they destroy everything we hold dear. Things will change, as they always do. How will we respond to those changes in a deliberate manner?