Appreciation

Park Güell. Photo by Nick Wright Planning on Flickr.

Recently I visited Park Güell, the famous Barcelonan park designed by Gaudí. If you haven’t been there, you might know it from movies such as Vicky Cristina Barcelona in which both Cristina and Juan Antonio use the park as a source of inspiration. Often in literature and motion pictures the park is a spot for inspiration and creative freedom.

In reality the park has turned into a horrid mass-attraction devoid of all artistic charm.

Those parts not covered in yellow under-construction tape, are crowded with photo-happy tourists. A strict guard blows his whistle every time a visitor steps out of line. Nowhere to sit down quietly and read. Nowhere to draw. Shut up, walk around quickly and move on. It made me think of some of the art museums I’ve been, those where a security guard tails you.

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What would Lady Gaga do if she were a museum?

Inspired by the thought-provoking presentation below and the fact Lady Gaga has almost 80 million scrobbles on last.fm, all-time second after only the Beatles, I wondered: What would Lady Gaga do if she were a museum?

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Creating Trustville – A museum as community centre for cultural and social development and activity

This is an article I wrote for the (recently launched) project Creating Trustville. This project is a place for ideation of new social structures and the conceptualisation of the institutions of the future, started by Vandejong.

What is a museum?

Over the course of history museums have had to reinvent themselves a couple of times. Once they housed the private collections of kings and other leaders. Their audience: the owner’s friends and enemies whom he wished to impress. Then museums became centres of research, romanticised in the late 20th century in movies such as Indiana Jones. In the meantime museums had discovered their public role, often housing elaborate educational and visitor programmes.

In the early 21st century, with the Internet and the 2.0 revolution, museums all over the world flirted with yet another meaning for themselves. Visitors became actors. The recently launched YouTube Play project of the Guggenheim museum in New York exemplifies this change. Online video artists have a change to see their work displayed in one of the most renowned museums in the world. It is my strong believe that by the year 2020 this paradigm shift in thinking about museums and their role in society will have had a lasting impact on the sector.

So, what will a museum be in 2020?

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