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ФЕДЕРАЛЬНОЕ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОЕ АВТОНОМНОЕ
ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОЕ УЧРЕЖДЕНИЕ ВЫСШЕГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ
НАЦИОНАЛЬНЫЙ ИССЛЕДОВАТЕЛЬСКИЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ
«ВЫСШАЯ ШКОЛА ЭКОНОМИКИ»
Факультет гуманитарных наук
Направление подготовки 51.04.01 Культурология
Образовательная программа «Визуальная культура»
Маркушевская Дарья Александровна
КУРСОВАЯ РАБОТА
на тему:
«ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННЫЕ МУЗЕИ И ОПЫТ ПАНДЕМИИ: АНАЛИЗ ГРАНИЦ
И ПРЕИМУЩЕСТВ ВИРТУАЛЬНОГО МУЗЕЙНОГО ПРОСТРАНСТВА»
“ART MUSEUMS AND THE PANDEMIC EXPERIENCE: EXAMINING THE
LIMITS AND BENEFITS OF VIRTUAL MUSEUM SPACE”
Руководитель
Приглашенный преподаватель Школы философии и культурологии, Усманова
Альмира Рифовна
(ученая степень, Ф.И.О.)
Москва, 2022
2
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………..3
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………4
Introduction………………………………………………………………………..5
Literature Review………………………………………………………………….8
Theories of Space and Social Production of Space…………………………8
Museum Function on Production of Knowledge and Enjoyment………….10
Museums and Visitors……………………………………………………...12
Chapter 1. Responding to Change: Transformations and Effects Caused by the
Pandemic………………………………………………………………………….14
1.1 Museum Strategies for Reaching the Public …………………………..15
1.2 Transition to New Practices of Displays Both Online and Offline…….19
1.3 Social Effects of Digitization…………………………………………..23
Chapter 2. The Limitations of the Digital Operations of Art Museums………….26
2.1 The False Impression of Direct Contact……………………………….27
2.2 A Reduction of Knowledge to Information……………………………29
2.3 “Too-muchness”………………………………………………….……31
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………..32
References………………………………………………………………………..34
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………...37
Appendices……………………………………………………………………….42
3
Acknowledgements
First, I would like to express my deep gratitude to everyone who is involved in the
master’s program “Visual Culture” of the Higher School of Economics. All
involved, including a unique cast of faculty members and my dear classmates, have
done amazing things over the past academic year, namely, endowing me with
incredible knowledge and insights in the broad field of cultural studies, philosophy,
contemporary trends in aesthetics, film theory and art history. Without such a
contribution, this work would simply not be possible.
Second, I do acknowledge the helpful word and the attentive eye of my supervisor
Almira Ousmanova. She was providing support and invaluable assistance
throughout the whole writing process of this research project.
I also thank my family and fiancé, who has been a source of emotional support
longer than they could. Solely thanks to their example, I had no right to give up.
4
Abstract
This paper examines the digital operations of art museums - the Garage
Museum of Contemporary Art and the Tate Modern - during the critical period of
the Pandemic (2019/21). Following the urgent need of transition to new practices
of displays both online and offline, museums adopted digital techniques and
created tools that would help them to preserve and expand their function. The aim
of this work is to produce a very specific analysis of limits and benefits of
incorporating virtual museum spaces, and, thus, to give a new meaning to the idea
of museum social and cultural model in the digital post-pandemic era. Thus,
further analysis is devoted to exploration of Garage and Tate Modern digital
collections as an enhanced and technologically enabled form of creating museum
narratives and reconstructing meanings, reaching much wider and more diverse
audiences on the global scale.
Keywords: digital culture, virtual museum space, COVID-related lockdown
measures, limitations of digitization, Tate Modern, Garage Museum of
Contemporary Art
5
Introduction
Every now and then, museums as social and cultural phenomenon continues
to flicker in studies as overcapitalized [1], supervising [2], colonial [3], racist and
sexist [4]. This critique of traditional notion of a museum and urgency of change
among diverse number of scholars in art history, cultural and museum studies
(Krauss 2021, Giannini & Bowen 2019, Gonzáles 2011, Bennett 1995, Karp and
Lavine 1991, Crimp 1985) gave birth to alternative models of cultural institutions
that could satisfy the global needs of creativity, specificity, and responsiveness to
context. But the problem is that their ideas of institution as an open and flexible
infrastructure for interaction with cultural heritage was made mostly in terms of
goals, rather than in terms of means. Thus, there is still a gap in understanding for
practitioners in museum industry how to fully implement these ideas in practice.
Moreover, in 2020, when the major cultural institutions were preparing for another
successful year
1
, happened the pandemic, which not only ruined plans, but insisted
to rethink previous practices and radically transform onsite exhibitions and tours.
Setting the scene, on the 11th of March 2020, the World Health Organization
(WHO) declared a Covid-19 pandemic, obliging the world community to impose
severe restrictions, which included a complete lockdown and border closures. So,
in the following days and weeks, Russia and Great Britain introduced their first
national lockdown, completely stopping the work of cultural institutions (including
museums) for several months. Seeking for available instruments, the museums
community quickly turned their practices to the online format in the hope of
somehow “touch” the audience.
No doubt, the time of pandemic was declared as critical period for public-
facing institutions. Plus, remembering the conclusion reached by the members of
Comité des Sages that were invited by European Commission to examine the level
of digitization among cultural institutions: “The museums and heritage industry is
still struggling to keep up with the rapid advance of ever new technologies” [5,
1
According to Tate official report 2018- 19. Link: https://www.tate.org.uk/about-us/tate-reports
6
p.15]. However, some of them were able to reach certain goals through the
incorporation of digital projects; thus, experimenting with the classification, and
juxtaposition of a museum collection within the Internet space. As successful
examples can be considered two institutions – Tate Modern in UK and Garage in
Russia - that, even despite the protracted lockdown, turned out to be among the
first in the lines of popularity among art museums. For this reason, in this paper
their virtual spaces are taken as an alternative mode of work for cultural centers in
post- pandemic epoch.
Further investigation is dedicated to the concrete digital tools and techniques
that were used by Garage and Tate Modern to stay up to date with their audiences
during the lockdown and a complete closure of cultural institutions in Russia and
the United Kingdom. Thus, the work presented below is centered around the
museum virtual space as a modern way of communication and inclusion that is
capable to alter visitor’ experience and expand the positions of a museum in a
global scale. Furthermore, digital operations and digital images produced within
the given context might be productively analyzed as particular articulations of
networked knowledge and new dimensions to accustomed practices of co-
creation.
Taking the thematic analysis of media publications since the beginning of
the pandemic, were identified main themes and motivations of the digital practice
accomplished by Garage and Tate Modern. The findings helped to examine diverse
opinions on the topic of pandemic’ impact on the work of museums including
spatial and social transformations of online visits experiences, and new
forms of curation within the museum space. Furthermore, for the comparison of
focuses of these institutions were taken a content analysis of official reports and
social media accounts for the period between 2019-21 that gave the sight from the
first hand on the outreach of digital operations. The main purpose of taken analysis
was not only to show the impact of the crisis on the operations of museums, but to
examine persisting problems in museum industry that the pandemic reinforced.
7
There is still a necessity to transform traditional museum models that do not
meet the new standards of postmodern and post- human culture; namely, not to
restore pre-pandemic “normality”, rather to open new perspectives of
communication between large institutions and their audiences via virtual spaces.
Here it will be necessary to recall the words by the American economist Douglas
C. North, who defined the role of human interaction with institutions for its
transformation: “Cooperation is difficult to sustain when the game is not repeated
(or there is an endgame), when information on the other players is lacking, and
where there are large number of players” [6, p. 97]. The problem is that the driving
forces of cultural ‘institutional evolution’ (North, 1991, p.97) together with social
interaction and technology employed are not explained either: reforms are in many
ways simply happening. Accordingly, the topic of introducing digital initiatives
into the work of art spaces is not disclosed and needs further in-depth consideration
with detailed study of specific examples both from small regional institutions and
large national galleries.
8
Literature Review
Theories of Space and Social Production of Space
What seems to be the traditional museum viewing experience managed to be
transformed over the years since the first European art museums open their doors
for the public in the late eighteenth – early nineteenth century. So, it is worthwhile
to analyze the museum space in terms of display arrangement and the style of the
museum building to understand that the institutions had changed a lot since two
hundred years ago wealthy families gave up their collections to be preserved and
shared after their death. Considering globalization, the continuous increase in the
volume of information and the rapid development of digital technologies, it seems
necessary to also characterize the virtual space for its further applied analysis of
modern museology.
Traditional public museum traces the origins to the French Revolution
(1789-1799) and its manifest of public good and intellect (Lee, 1997, p. 1). From
the one hand, opening of the French Royal Collections of rare objects (the Cabinet
du Roi and the Cabinet d’Histoire Naturelle) to the public was a sign of social
transformation and the beginning of new cultural epoch with an accessible
education in Europe. From the other side, the cultural heritage as a “soft power”
has become a tool of manipulation by the ruling parties in the face of such
administration organizations such as the Arts Council, regional arts associations,
and the Royal Academy (Pearson, 1982, p. 35). Moreover, a cultural historian
Paula Young Lee, while describing the “transitive process of thought” in the end of
the eighteenth century in France, focuses the reader's attention on the fact that if
until that period the term muséum had the meaning of “knowing”, after that it has
been used in means of “place for showing” [7]. Thus, the vast number of cultural
scholars examining the art museum space projected in the late eighteenth century
(Bennett, 1995; Crimp, 1985; Pearson, 1982) assume that the knowledge/ power
relations embodied to its agency always govern the visitor, depriving him of the
opportunity to fully interact with art objects.
9
If Tony Bennett defines the classical museum space as an ‘exhibitionary
complex’ [8] that, in terms of Foucault's “carceral archipelago” with self-
monitoring technology (Foucault, 1977, p. 115-16) and Gramsci’s “ethical function
of the modern state” (Gramsci, 1971, p. 244), broadcasts the dominance of power
and surveillance over the public, then, the media theorist Vilém Flusser provides
an alternative idea of ‘mutual value space’ [9] that could be constructed via
interfaces or digital images. The latest author continues that “traditional images
finding refuge from the inflation of texts in ghettos, such as museums, salons, and
galleries, became hermetic (universally undecodable) and lost their influence on
daily life” (Flusser, 1983, p.18). Thus, explaining the cultural crisis of the salon-
style and “white cube” arrangements of art, Flusser promotes the convention of
choice to read and interpret objects from our own perspective. So, the play with
diverse combinations of surfaces/ ‘photographic images’ is stated to be a concept
of freedom (Flusser, 1983, p.93).
Later, this idea of ‘new visual vernacular’ of new media [10] was somehow
developed by several cultural scholars (Beaulieu and De Rijcke, 2016; Akker, C.
and Legêne, 2016), among whom were Eilean Hooper-Greenhill (2000). She
introduced a new term – “post-museum” [11] that is a space or site of experience
and mutuality, where are excluded elitist connotations (the classifier, authoritative
holder, technology of power) and hierarchical thinking, which ‘modern’ museum
has. Thus, in terms of digital era, post-museum is “the visitor’s partner in the
creation of meaning, hosting on-site and online communities” [12, p. 9]. Plus, from
the Grosz’s perspective of “connective materialism” [13], the virtuality gives the
recipient a steady coherence to the collection, time after time introducing him new
insights in objects and images. In this way, the meaning of an art object becomes
not just something that already belongs to the work, but rather something that we
add to it through our lived experiences and discussions upon them.
10
Museum Function on Production of Knowledge and Enjoyment
We live in a world of the forward- looking digital technology, where about
nighty percent of all households as in advanced, as in developing countries have an
Internet access [14] to take a detailed look on the intriguing art objects from all
over the world and to find the vast number of sources that could give an
information to the artefact’s provenance, author, and context. So, the question is
why the modern society still needs these storehouses full of allegedly
nonfunctional trophies and exotic curiosities removed from the context? Why
should we visit and preserve them? Clarifying the boundaries and defining
strategies for further development is the main question that modern museology
asks, according to the statement of Gubarenko and Schlyahtina [15]. In other
words, contemporary museum is going through the change of its epistemological
function with new means of documenting, ordering, and framing the various
collections.
The Art Newspaper Annual Survey [16] shows that the overall attendance of
the world’s most-visited art museums even for the critical period of 2019-20 was
284 million, what is a huge number, taking in mind the pandemic damage and
mandatory closure in 2020. This data speaks for oneself that the museum pertains
to be treated as an important educational and cultural asset for the communities. It
is true that the on-site visits are not the lean-back entertainment, but rather an act
of anaesthetization, communication and negotiation of norms, values, and
temporalities. Museums uphold the charge of not only keeping things safe, but
recontextualize them in novel and enlightening ways [17]. Plus, they give platform
for the dialogue between artists and their public. Thus, museums turn out to be the
university in its Ancient Greek ontology – Musaeum or Mouseion at Alexandria
[18], cultivating the active contact with protected objects.
Images matter, entangling the visitors of a museum with a continuum of a
shared human identity and history, and the technology has transformed how we
learn about what we are seeing. Museums promote curiosity about the foreign,
tolerate the luminal zone between past and present, and detain the dialectics of
11
tangible and intangible, nature, and culture; while the modern visitor become a
“cultural consumer”, highly oriented on getting pleasure (Schlyahtina, 2011, p.2).
Nevertheless, it is true that for a long time, the museum has been masked its
exclusive dependence on a complex chain of state or bourgeois sponsorship, which
implies strict determinism and unswerving promotion of the national interest (the
idea of historical representation), distancing them from demands and interests of
public funding bodies and local communities [19]. Since the nineteenth century, as
Bennett (1995) describes, museums have been the most important ideological
capital, functioning within the framework of a certain state agenda, rather than as
an institution-infrastructure to support various artistic practices. Dependent on
possible financial cuts and cultural reforms, museums must remain “obedient”
cultural agents [20]. Otherwise, cultural institutions must look for alternative
options for coexistence with cultural arrays operating on the market that cooperate
with well-known curators, giant artists and are able to organize large-scale
projects.
Despite a significant number of shortcomings and omissions in the original
mechanism of the work of museums, they remain the most important cultural
phenomena that influence public opinion and the general attitude towards art.
Recent lines of research in museum studies, focusing on interdisciplinary and
horizontal approaches (Krauss, 2021; Prottas, 2017; Jay, 1993; Berger 1972), offer
the chance to emerge a new flexible form of cultural institutions that will finally be
accessible and open to a wider range of visitors and representations. For instance, a
pioneer of 'new art history', Carol Duncan [21] stated that museums are certainly
forming a concrete socio-cultural environment based on the prototype of their
visitors; thus, the theme of exhibitions, the range of publications and position in
the art world - all this determines the reflective atmosphere in which the institution
organizes its practice. That concept brings into life the new “knowledge
infrastructure” [22, p. xi]: work with rather than work for.
12
Museums and Visitors
The above criticisms of the "classic" - snobbish, elitist, colonial - model of
the museum led to discussions about its place in the modern world. So, to return
the significance of the art museum today, within the “generation of passionate
interests” (Barry & Thrift, 2007), it is necessary to identify its function,
corresponding to new multicultural and aesthetic trends. True, if we consider
museums as a repository of the past – in a word, a collection of artefacts under
specific conditions for an exclusive social group of specialists, then a visit remains
nothing more than an information-oriented movement in one direction. However, if
we look on public art museums from the perspective of an open space for
“practical aesthetic imagination” (Thrift, 2008, p. 291), the new value of a museum
is determined not by place and time, but mainly by visitors/ spectators. In this
perspective, recalling the words of Boris Groys: “The museum is within us, if we
want to see
2
” [23]; this means that the very idea of the new museum is driven by
the personalized, visitor-centric visit.
Reflecting on the fate of the new approach in museology, American art critic
and curator Douglas Crimp asked very important questions: “If we can agree that
meaning is not just something that is there in the work to be ferreted out, but rather
something that we are adding to the work through our interpretations, then we
should ask why we want to add this or that thing. What does it do for us? What
does it do for the politics that we inhabit?” [24, p.150] The development of the
participatory agenda in the museum space is enlightened, on the one hand, by the
growing role of cultural consumption in late capitalist society and, on the other
hand, by the contemporary museum’ initiatives in the field of public discourse. In
contrast to the homogeneous policy of the traditional museum structure and its
aesthetics, which is based on the mandatory exclusion of views, a new
participatory approach is seen as a “museum without walls” or “musée imaginaire”
(Malraux, 1967) that presents no prohibition and will be opened for everyone. In
other words, this concept is to create your own art collection that does not replace
2
Translation from Russian by author: «Музей внутри нас, если мы хотим видеть».
13
the art museum, rather is constituted from the myriad of sources: art books, life
experiences, virtual museums, mass media, etc.
Returning to the question of purposes of art in relation to man, the answer
will always lead to the ‘aesthetic pleasure’ or the affective response. “The
aesthetics is bound up with the discovery of new and alluring imaginative
territories that reflect upon themselves” [25, p.292], writes Thrift. In this sense of
aesthetics practice (as an experiment), the visitor is evaluated as an active
participant in making own meaning of an art object based on the acknowledgement
of his choices, while the curatorial (expert) agency is set aside. This shift in focus
between the museum, curators and the public significantly change the notion of
public arts institution from a non-profit educational organization, as it has been
designed since the Enlightenment, to a more modern focus on the visitor as a client
and a collaborator for the institutional progress. Thus, it becomes important for the
museum to check the visitor numbers, their feedback, and the frequency of visits to
estimate the outreach of its operations: exhibitions and communications.
However, Sharon McDonald's text
3
, which is key to understanding social
interaction in the museum space, demonstrates that there is still a gap in the
understanding of museum professionals about the thoughts and desires of the
visitor. This is because the "visitor" for the museum remains nothing more than a
simulated projection, built on an idealized representation of the visit observed from
a distance. So, there should be a range of approaches
4
that would take the visitor
out of the museum discourse and provide an individual perspective on the
perceptual possibilities within the museum experience.
3
“Behind the Scenes at the Science Museum”, 2002
4
These could be ethnographic study like direct observations, and the study of visiting patterns made by survey
methods.
14
Chapter 1
Responding to Change: Transformations and Effects Caused by the Pandemic
Back in the late twentieth-century, a range of art theorists like Rosalind E.
Krauss (1990) and Leo Steinberg (1972) commented on the art museums struck
focusing particularly on the demand for “new informational order” [26] based on
the “horizontal thinking” [27] and the multisensory making that would be
accessible for everyone. Later, for decades their ideas were endemic for critical
museum studies; however, the consequences of institutional inaction, apparently,
were not so tangible, if the structural shifts towards contemporary intervention of
mass culture and digital technologies were simply matter of choice. However, the
crisis of the COVID-19 greatly accelerated this process having demonstrated the
real risks of closure to which art museums were not prepared. Due to the
heightened concerns over an imminent fall in visitors, the huge drop in income,
and the loss of jobs, museum practitioners returned to the previously expressed
idea of a “continuum” [28] – an expansive space for a dialogue between the
artifacts and spectators that finally embodied in digital presentation of museum
collections. So, as a prophecy now, after two years of strict measures, Alloway’s
words are heard: “The spectator can go to the National Gallery by day and the
London Pavilion by night, without getting smeared up and down the pyramid” [29,
p. 15].
Continuing this perspective, this chapter will provide an overview of recent
developments in the museum industry from the beginning of the first wave of the
Covid-19 crisis to post-pandemic times. In parallel with illustrative examples of
the rapidly changing environment at Garage and Tate Modern, the text below
provides reflections on the effects of new patterns of cultural consumption and
production, communication between actors, and institutional epistemological
change in the zeitgeist.
15
1.1 Museum Strategies for Reaching the Public
As can be judged from the above, over the years museums have become huge
corporations offering leisure and work to many people. For this reason, any
changes that occur within such institutions cannot be called spontaneous or
thoughtless. Most often, museums act according to a common strategy, which, no
doubt, can change over time, but most often appears as a rather complex monolith.
By virtue of this research, it will be interesting to look at the example of two
institutions - Garage and Tate Modern - how they changed their perspective and
practices towards new initiatives to achieve specific development goals during the
pandemic: to get in touch with target audiences, to increase the number of visitors,
to enhance the visitor-consumer experience. The purpose of this part is to track the
strategy of selected museums in order to understand the potential and
responsiveness of museum managers to visitor needs and global trends. In this
regard, author used a comparison analysis of the last official reports and
publications made from 2018 to 2021.
According to OECD
5
(Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development) and UNESCO
6
reports, about nighty percent of the existing
museums were temporally closed to the public and over a half of this number
suffered the highest decline of their proceeds that forced them to revise their
operating budgets and suspend most of the ongoing projects. So, it goes without
saying that the main thematic shaping the cultural life worldwide has been the
COVID-19 and the reports provided by cultural institutions by the end of 2020
were mostly mentioning topic of prevention, restrictions, and limitations. Tate
Modern and Garage are no exception, and reports published in early 2021 also
showed major changes following the introduction of measures to contain the
spread of the virus. However, referencing the words of Lionel Barber
7
,
nevertheless “an economic and public health crisis has had a devastating impact on
the arts and cultural sector” [30, p. 2], the period of 2019-20 has continued to be a
5
OECD. Culture shock: COVID-19 and the cultural and creative sectors. September 2020, pp. 15
6
UNESCO. Museums Around the World: in the Face of COVID-19. April 2021, pp.11
7
Chairman of the Trustees of the Tate Gallery
16
"successful" year for the institution (Tate Modern), with this announcement
primarily focusing on exhibitions and shows held during that time.
And on the other side of the world, at about the same time, the Moscow
Museum of Modern Art Garage publishes a series of articles that also denounce a
global humanitarian catastrophe as a necessary measure to transform institutions
and the world as a whole. In particular, Sergey Mokhov, in his article “Death
matters. What death and pandemic can teach us”
8
actively promotes the idea of
meaningful changes regarding the theme of the eternal dialectic between nature
and man, as well as in relation to solidarity and equality in a post-pandemic
society. On the one hand, this may seem inappropriate, but even in such a difficult
time, these two institutions boldly declare their position without falling into a state
of despair and melancholy due to the current situation of a devastating crisis. Such
a purposeful approach of both institutions, despite everything, is truly amazing and
leaves behind several questions: what is the strength of their business model that
allows to stay flexible towards diverse circumstances and what can it lead to?
I dare to suggest that this position is deeply intertwined with the history of
the emergence of these two institutions and, most importantly, the ideas that
underlie the actions of both their leaders and the people working for them. So,
reconstructing the genealogy of Tate Modern: back in 2002, Susan Collins
9
,
together with Sandy Nairne
10
, initiated to create a new exhibition space for the
Tate' s collection of contemporary art and started the conceptual reorganization of
the Tate Group towards the duality of old and new British art. The salient point for
this study is that although the original idea of a gallery in space (Tate in Space by
Susan Collins) was never fully realized, the whole concept around which Tate
Modern was subsequently built was based on the radical insertion of the new
media to the production of open-ended possibilities both for artists and viewers
[31]. For all these and other reasons, Tate Modern has become a unique art center,
8
Мохов, Сергей. «Death matters. Чему смерть и пандемия может научить нас» // GARAGE, July 2020.
9
Susan Collins - (b. 1964 London) is one of the UK's leading artists working with digital media. URL:
https://www.tate.org.uk/intermediaart/entry15406.shtm
10
Sandy Nairne – (1994- 2002) former director of programmes at Tate, working alongside Nicholas Serota, in the
creation of Tate Modern. URL: https://www.npg.org.uk/blog/authors/sandy-nairne
17
if only because it began its journey not from a traditional exhibition complex, but
from the challenge “to rethink the very concept of the museum” [32, p. 14] within
the virtual realm.
The Garage Center for Contemporary Culture Moscow (CCC Moscow) also
emerged from the innovation in Autumn of 2008, wishing to move away from the
traditional Russian gallery context with a strict hierarchy and canonical practices of
viewing and working with artifacts. Thus, in the official press release
11
for the
opening of their first exhibition, it was stated that the key activity of the center for
the promotion and development of contemporary art and culture of Russia will be
work with its audience, which involves a “membership scheme” that supports more
active involvement of its members with the exhibition space and contemporary
culture.
In support of the above, there is a summary (See Figure 1.) consisting of key
focuses mentioned both by Tate Modern and Garage reports over the past three
years - from 2018 to 2020. Data taken from their latest announcements shows
topics that were from the first importance to the company's agency. It is valuable to
note that the theme of the year does not remain just an eloquent slogan, but is
embodied through various projects, digital tools, discoveries of new artists and
collaborations with experts in the relevant field of tasks. An interesting aspect
remains in the similarity of directionality in both columns, i.e., for both Tate and
Garage. Thus, for these art institutions, the 2018-19 period was devoted to social
issues, such as attracting a diverse audience, the presence of which was previously
usually ignored (disabled people, children), as well as sustainable development
with an emphasis on protecting the environment. The next period 2019/2020,
despite the global crisis associated with the pandemic, did not stop previously set
goals - such as equality of opportunity, reduction of carbon consumption, diversity
of online and face-to-face audiences - but only deeper rooted in the work of these
11
Официальное открытие Центра современной культуры «Гараж». Выставка Ильи и Эмилии Кабаковых.
Пресс-релиз, pp. 5. URL: https://russianartarchive.net/ru/catalogue/document/E7392
18
art museums. How exactly Tate Modern and Garage put their ideas into practice
will be shown in the analysis of the next part.
Figure 1. Summary of Tate Modern and Garage Commitments 2018-2020
Year
Tate Modern
Garage
2018-19
1) Attraction of younger audiences
to art practices.
2) Transnational cooperation
between artists and partners in
museum’ cultural field (“To
enhance our role as a global
innovator”).
3) Climate Emergency program.
1) Inclusiveness for disabled
visitors (mostly blind).
2) Self-organized Art Initiatives.
3) Sustainable Development
program – Green Office
4) Incorporation of online
platform - Garage Digital.
2019-20
1) Sustainability.
2) Race Equality Taskforce.
3) Access for all children to visual
art through an arts-rich
curriculum.
4) Art from a less Western-centric
vantage point.
5) Attraction of a diverse global
audience to Tate’s exhibitions
and digital spaces.
1) The study of contemporary
developments in culture.
2) The use of new technology in
art and museum practices,
and on research projects that
can help fill in the blanks in
the history of Russian art.
3) Garage Teens’ Team.
4) Three large-scale forums: the
8th Garage International
Conference; European-art.net;
the annual Garage conference
on inclusion - Experiencing
the Museum.
19
1.2 Transition to New Practices of Displays Both Online and Offline
The main purpose of this part is to show the impact of the COVID-19 on the
museum operations in Russia and UK after March 2020. Starting with the
identification of specific problems caused by the pandemic, the author gradually
demonstrates the reaction of cultural institutions to the forced situation to indicate
a possible direction for the restoration or even reconstruction of institutions in the
post-pandemic time. The main motive of this part, of course, is concentrated
around the largely new space of virtual reality, but it does not exclude the analysis
of hybrid formats. It is generally accepted that the latter one can become a
meaningful alternative for a modern institution after the re-opening of museums.
Thus, long before the pandemic, new media scholar Sokolova (2009) wrote that the
emergence of hybrid cultural forms and spaces united by multiple platforms
represent a new market logic for the development of a post-industrial society [33].
Concluding from the previous part, it may seem that Tate Modern and the
Garage Art Centre began to prepare for a pandemic in advance, introducing more
and more digital technologies into their daily practice. And there is. For instance,
the digitization of artefacts, which is mistakenly perceived as synonymous with the
digital culture of museums [34], Tate Modern began since its opening in 2002,
while Garage, in turn, started it in 2008. It is worth recognizing that their approach
to digital opportunities differs significantly from the common museum practice,
rather referring to the transmedia concept proposed by Jenkins
12
, where the
physical museum space with its collections comes to be a “synergy” dispersed by
several media channels. Thus, operations of the institutions selected for analysis
are mainly aimed at building a virtual/imaginary universe consisting of various
platforms - social media networks, podcasts, video tours, online lectures - in order
to provide its visitor with the richest cultural experience. Referencing the Jenkins,
who within the example of Matrix franchise explained the transmedia storytelling:
12
Jenkins H. Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. N. Y.: New York University Press, 2006. P.
13-15.
20
“There is no one single source or ur-text where one can turn to gain all of the
information needed to comprehend the Matrix universe” [35].
From this perspective, virtual space appears as a modern entertainment
platform that can play an important role being not only a contemporary aesthetic
feature, but even an economic imperative for the overall work of museum. That is,
the technology does not replace the traditional visit, but infinitely expands it into
immaterial, transcendent space, offering the visitor to choose the most attractive
practice for him to study and immerse himself into art through the “pure
simulacrum”, in words of Baudrillard [36, p. 12].
Having determined the structure and functionality of the virtual space, it is
now necessary to demonstrate the techniques used by the institutions on the basis
of empirical material:
- During the first lockdown in Spring 2020 Tate Modern initiated to
transform their onsite exhibitions of Warhol and Beardsley show to
virtual tours and made them accessible only for Tate Members.
Moreover, by purchasing membership Tate’s website visitors are able to
get an access to the electronic magazines (Tate Etc. and Tate Guide), be
the first viewers of upcoming online shows, and even have private tours
with Tate’s experts (Member Rooms). In terms of a long-term marketing
strategy aimed at the exclusive loyalty of regular visitors, this practice
has demonstrated the potential of the institution to quickly respond to
exceptional circumstances without forcing the client-visitor to wait for
the end of the lockdown. Thus, Tate Modern’s staff members showed that
it is not a problem for them “to make digital part of everything they do”
by placing audiences at the center of experiences. Moreover, Tate also
did not postpone the annual BMW Tate Exhibition, but simply held the
long- awaiting performances by Faustin Linyekula, Okwui Okpokwasili
and Tanya Lukin Linklater
13
in the way of ticketed live broadcasts.
13
BMW Tate Live Exhibition: Our Bodies, Our Archive. (20-29 M ar ch 2020)
URL: h ttps:/ /www.ta te.or g. uk/ wh ats- on/ ta te-mod er n/bmw- ta te-li ve- ex hi bi ti on -2020
21
- Plus, at the very beginning of the lockdown, in order to attract a younger
audience, as well as to popularize such family leisure as visiting Tate art
spaces, the Tate group created an entire website dedicated only to the
segment of children's art education, calling it Tate Kids
14
. In this way, the
institution not only attracted a new segment of visitors to its alternative
media platform, but also enabled the younger generation to interact with
artifacts in a way that would never have been possible in a physical space
due to the traditional security features inside art spaces such as protective
glass, ropes and do not touch signs.
- Speaking about the second institution - the Garage, it would be
appropriate to recall the ideas of Marks (2004) and Sutton & Martin-
Jones (2008) that the virtual space should be understood in a
phenomenological sense, that is, as a space of multimodal exchange,
rather than a series of objects [37]. In that perspective, the project called
Garage Digital (launched already in 2019) is an illustrative example of a
new space for interaction between artists, art experts and just a curious
online audience “to explore and support the new languages of visual
culture that are emerging under the influence of advanced technologies
and new media”
15
. Speaking of outreach, this project has brought more
than 200 digital artists from around the world to the public in 2021 and
has created a gigantic infrastructure of knowledge and experience among
various new media researchers through ongoing chats, news feeds,
documentaries, articles and video games.
- Further example of Garage pandemic practices is the launch of self-
isolation.garagemca.org landing page (March 2020) and the roundtable
discussion “The Museum as a Social Institution in Times of Global
Crisis” (September 2020) that refers more to the performative experience
of ekphrasia (pure phantasia). These two operations should be treated,
14
Tate Kids. URL: https://www.tate.org.uk/kids
15
Garage Digital: About the Program. URL: https://garage.digital/en/garage-digital
22
according to the researcher of this phenomenon Webb (2009), as a new
method of story- telling focused mainly on recipient’s attention [38]. The
Garage encouraged their online audiences to build their own stories
about the pandemic experience, in turn, inviting them to immerse in
the imaginary world marked by their own memories and priorities. As
it was declared on the self-isolation.garagemca.org opening page:
“We no longer have an SMM team. We are using the time credit we have
been given to get to know our visitors and contact them directly”
16
. True
that this kind of museum practice shows the high coordination between
diverse institution’s departments in provision of efforts and information.
Thus, during the discussions taken by Vlad Strukov (2021) at
Coscmoscow, Anton Belov
17
shared his thoughts of the changes in the
Garage during the pandemic: “I made a very simple decision. I gave our
web team complete freedom to produce content for the Museum. They
did whatever they liked. That’s how the Self-Isolation platform was
launched. They were managing it all from there, while all other
departments were creating content for them. As a result, a young (in
terms of age) but already very experienced team was defining the whole
communication strategy for the institution” [39, p. 31].
Putting together the entire set of digital and hybrid operations described
above, it is possible to draw an initial conclusion that Tate Modern and Garage
presented an example of an extraordinary creative work, trying to adapt to new
realities in which there was no possibility of physical contact with the direct
visitor. Undoubtedly, the results of such a transmedia approach are extremely
difficult to determine due to their close relationship with the personal experience of
each individual. However, the next chapter will attempt to assess the possible
societal implications of the digitalization of museums.
16
Self- isolation by Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. URL: https://self-isolation.garagemca.org/en
17
Anton Belov - Director of Garage Museum of Contemporary Art since 2010. URL: https://garagemca.org/en/about
23
1.2 Social Effects of Digitization
The key and perhaps the most obvious aspect of the pandemic has been
global isolation, which has turned into virtual social networking. This experience
can be assessed in different ways, but as part of the study of the virtual museum
space, it will be important to focus on rethinking the boundaries of the visitor's
body in a changing reality. In Gert Lovink's essay "A Critical Theory of the
Internet" (2019), one can find the assertion that in the mode of constant
availability, the distance between technologies and users gradually disappears, and
it is replaced by an outward-directed entity that constantly reproduces social capital
[40]. Thus, in the prism of such a transition of the “social” to online, it is worth
considering the response of visitors to virtual museum spaces and subsequent
change in terms of cultural “prosumerism”
18
, communication, and embodiment.
So, my aim in this part is to map the diverse interactions or a “communicology”
19
(Vilem Flusser) with technical images both from the visitors and the museums
side.
The gradual blurring of the boundaries between the consumer and the
partner of creative production was written long before the critical 2020 (Manovich
2009, Bassett 2008, O'Reilly 2005). But the prospects for prosumerism - as the
fundamental implication of Web 2.0
20
- became most clearly visible for the public
with the passage of the pandemic, when the amount of screen time prolonged, and,
consequently, the diversity of constantly updated media content also expanded
[41]. Thus, the new qualities of the online audience suggest the act of media
consumption as primarily an active process based on an interpretive relationship
with the medium. In the case of the museum business, different types of interaction
with web materials are possible. Firstly, it can be qualitatively unlimited activity of
18
Prosumerism is the increased involvement of customers in the production process, typified by the use of customer
feedback and direct design request in high-tech industries like computer-aided manufacturing systems. (A. Toffler,
The Third Wave. New York: Bantam Books, 1980, p.285)
19
Vilem Flusser’s version of communication theory that is based of his concept of technical imagination (Flusser.
Kommunikologie. 4. Auflage, Fischer, Mannheim, 2007. Pp. 255).
20
The term was incorporated in media studies by Tim O’ Reilly (2005) and means an improved model of the
Internet based on the principles of multidirectional communication or collective interaction in the network.
24
individual users of online museum platforms like the one found in the Garage
space - self-isolation.garagemca.org, where visitors could freely share their
experience of isolation. Another option involves less agency from online users,
based mainly on reactions (likes, shares, comments and retweets) to various
publications by the institution itself. For instance, Tate Group in 2021 summed up
that they received more than fifteen million engagements in response to their posts
in the past economic year 2019/20
21
, while in 2018/19 the number of active users
was four million fewer
22
.
Today, in the light of global digitalization, technology needs to be
understood primarily as a medium of our collective coexistence, through which our
cultural habits and even identities develop, as Sokolova writes with reference to
McLuhan [42]. While social networks (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.),
according to Wendy Chun (2021), having already a long history of penetration into
our daily lives, are becoming something like systems of authoritative opinion,
accumulating their own ideology among the social groups involved [43]. By
applying this almost default assumption to the data provided by Garage and Tate
Modern, one can appreciate the significant impact these two art institutions have
on their subscribers. For example, Tate's social media platforms (unified pages for
all Tate Group galleries) have a total of 3.5 million followers in 180 countries, with
over 550 million impressions over the 2019-2020 period
23
. The digital realm of
social media and other virtual platforms for both Garage and Tate Modern has, in a
sense, made it possible to survive the pandemic staying with their loyal members
in contact. Since the beginning of the pandemic, social networks have become
more frequent and more diligent under the leadership of institutions, the formats of
publications have changed from the usual narrative ones to those open to reflection
and creativity. Thus, the Garage Museum, as it is written on their web page
24
,
21
Tate Annual Report 2019/20, Pp. 15. URL: https://www.tate.org.uk/documents/1683/tate_annual_report_1920.pdf
22
According to Tate Annual Report 2018/19, “People interacted with likes, shares, comments and retweets nearly
11 million times”. Pp. 30, URL: https://www.tate.org.uk/documents/1574/tate_annual_report_1819_8mb_1.pdf
23
Ibid, Pp. 15
24
Музей «Гараж» впервые в своей практике объявляет open call для сборки будущей выставки // GARAGE Новости (Июль, 2020)
URL: https://garagemca.org/ru/news/2020-07-15-for-the-first-time-in-its-history-garage-has-announced-an-open-call-to-select-participants-for-a-
future-exhibition
25
began to wonder what a museum could be for its audience other than physical
exhibition space, and the product of such reflection in the open call mode was the
collective project "Reflections", driven by the humanitarian mission of helping its
community deal with the crisis.
Another intriguing social aspect of digital technologies is the position of the
viewer in relation to the screen. For instance, in the case of Garage Digital the
platform for online sharing of texts and NET artefacts has become an experimental
play with visual effects forcing the reader to click on smoothly pop-up windows on
the screen. Similarly, Tate Modern, while the gallery was closed, started to create a
series of short videos (Tate Shots, Art Talk, #TurnersModernWorld) and online
screenings about art and artists on their social media channels (Instagram and
YouTube). In fact, the published videos were filled with unmotivated inserts and
parallelisms, breaking off and remaining, in a sense, unsaid. Thus, the role that the
creators of these videos gave to the viewer was not inferior to the level of
participation of actors-artists, and sometimes even exceeded it. Analyzing this
experience from the point of view of haptic perception, the creators managed to
overcome the paradigm of classical representation, that is, the traditional
methodology of art history, and entered the realm of embodied perception without
a critical distance to what was being demonstrated but leaving an empty space for
reflection in front of the viewer. Remembering in this case Merleau-Ponty: “The
mystery of my body is based on the fact that it is both seeing and visible” [44, p.
221].
Such examples of projects addressed primarily to the viewer that arose in
Garage and Tate during the pandemic, acquire a noticeable character of an
epistemological shift in the relationship between a work of art (object), a museum
(channel) and a recipient body (subject). Perhaps the topic of digital interaction
between art and public was not something exclusively new for these two
institutions, but over the past years it has become a key one.
26
Chapter 2
The Limitations of the Digital Operations of Art Museums
In the previous chapter, it was proposed to consider the virtual space in a
rather positivistic manner, that is, under the prism of expansion, communication,
and collective creative practices. However, the analysis will not be complete if it
lacks those details of museum practice, due to which virtual visits cannot yet fully
replace the physical dialogue with artifacts. Perhaps the virus has deprived loyal
members of Garage and Tate Modern of in situ visits and the audiences globally
have gone looking for an online alternative, in general, two years after the
pandemic, the digital format remains primarily a means of communication offering
the online visitor interactive program of museum activities, news and sometimes
behind the scenes, but not the full transition.
What are the limitations of a seemingly limitless virtual space? And why
artworld still needs a real museum space? Answers to these and related questions
will be found in the following chapter.
27
2.1 The False Impression of Direct Contact
Earlier in this work there was a reference to the principle of new type of
communication according to Flusser, which led the viewer of technical images to
freedom of choice. On the one hand, the inexhaustible set of software features
gives an illusion of unlimited variety of operations. But, on the other hand, in the
conditions of modern technological development, the program path in the web
space is still limited or predetermined by the software. Flusser called this
phenomenon as a ‘discursive totalitarianism’[45]. Thus, the online visitor
searching for an individual experience with digital collections of a museum is
never alone: while he is using an online platform, analytical data sorting and
targeting strategies deprive from him the privilege to privacy. The range of practice
in this case is inevitably linked to the technical potential of the online platform in
which the cultural institution operates. Even if digital practice is not limited to the
tasks of curators or museum managers, users of the platform in one way or another
act based on the technical capabilities provided to them.
In addition to the pre-programmed experience, there was also noticed a
permanent reference of these two institutions to the physical experience of being in
the gallery; likewise, Virilio (1995), writing about the properties of digital objects,
has mainly focused on the binary opposition of virtual space, namely the absent
presence of an image [46]. Thus, the textual accompaniment of posts seen on the
social networks of Tate Modern and Garage referred to the familiar experience of
on-site visit, which directly contradicted their statements regarding complete
adaptation to the new pandemic reality. Below are just a few examples of this
practice:
- “Which artwork could you spend hours in front to?” (See image 1)
- “Usually, this room is alive with the sound of visitors and the overlapping
radio broadcasts, so the silence during cleaning has been very surreal…”
(See image 2)
- “After the end of the live broadcasts of “Guide on the Coach”, they were
really waiting for it – the “Garage” guides return offline!” (See image 3)
28
- “Today at 19:00 we will remember all Garage Square Commissions
projects together with guides on the sofa…” (See image 4)
Perhaps this aspect could be perceived two-faced, when happened “the
imminent collapse of the social as such” [47] and many needed of the third-party
support, but one way or another, these examples of texts refer to the need for
the actual physical (tangible) reality, where, according to the creators of such
content, an emotional exchange with art objects is the only possible place.
As Stevens describes the affective browsing of the Tate digital collection:
“Artworks appear on the Internet as virtual, hyperlinked objects
with the fundamental properties or “crucial bits of art” essentially lost
in the process” [48, p.18]; thus, in his opinion, it is simply impossible to intervene
in them due to their fragmentation, while the screen in this perspective is perceived
as the boundary of affective interaction. Adherents of the phenomenological
approach (like Laura Marks or Vivian Sobchak) would argue with such an
assumption. However, Stevens can still be considered right in his conviction of
digital images inferiority. As Galloway and LaRivière (2017) would put it: The
structure of belief is crucial. Only by believing in art will art affect us” [49, p.
134]. This quote should be understood as the principle of collective affect in
relation to diverse images, created due to the peculiarities of the work of our
consciousness and external influences on it.
Based on the above, the limitations of the digital operations faced by
museums, even such technically advanced ones as Garage and Tate Modern, have
an ambivalent justification. Firstly, digital content is exclusively dependent on the
creativity of the museum's web department, which should ensure the
expansion/complication of the online platform through the constant involvement of
new technical tools and softs. Secondly, all departments, including managers and
curators need to believe in the possibilities of virtual space: the uncertainty affects
much more than the quality of content and its appearance, but also the attitude to
the digital sphere of much wider audience.
29
2.2 A Reduction of Knowledge to Information
The findings of the first chapter demonstrates that, in the case of the Tate
Modern and the Garage, the conceptual development of both institutions during a
pandemic was less oriented towards information transfer (education) and more
towards the visitor (edutainment). So, knowing that online platforms are the only
field for communication with the audience, these two museums had no choice but
to come up with creative models for narrating about art and their collection in
particular. However, the question is: was their content and its presentation style an
invitation to knowledge, that is, to give online visitors a range of freedom to
explore (immersive and interactive content), or it remained in the manner of
information support (text-based content)?
Referencing Hooper-Greenhill (2000), “to recognize something, it is
necessary to have prior knowledge of it – thus, observation depends on already
knowing that for which one is searching. This contradictory and complex situation
is at the heart of the museum experience” [50, p.15]. Thus, by analyzing the
findings of the previous part (“False impression of direct contact”), it becomes
obvious that online practice is strongly tied to its physical reference, since it gives
a sense of previous bodily experience that museum buildings provide. From this
perspective, if the visual content used in the museum's social media duplicates the
well-known collection of a museum, and the textual accompaniment to the posts
resembles the general narrative of the exhibitions (provided by the curators), then
the online format in this case is never an extension of the knowledge, but rather a
digital copy of a traditional museum with all its homogeneous practices of
exhibiting. Art objects never speak for themselves, there need to be someone or
something to present it in the right context [51]. The word cloud below (Figure 2)
clearly demonstrates the terms that were used on the museum web page in order to
set this context during the period between 2020-22.
30
Figure 2. Word Cloud of Terms Used to Discuss Online Exhibitions/ Digitized
Collection/ Artists (self-isolation.garagemca.org/en)
Figure 3. Word Cloud of Terms Used to Discuss Online Exhibitions/ Digitized
Collection/ Artists (Tate.org.uk/art)
31
2.3 “Too-muchness”
The consequences of the isolation of 2020 and the continued spread of a
culture of always-on Internet accessibility has brought the issue of surplus (“too-
muchness”) to the surface of cultural studies (Hodge 2014-15; Andrejevic 2013).
Since the mid-2010s, Hodge has been insisting on the emergence of a new
affective territory of both pleasure and anxiety [52], which the virtual space has
only cultivated over the years. According to the author, technological self-affection
leads to the viewer's loss of intimacy and subsequent identification with the
imaginary on the screen. Thus, during the pandemic, when the user was left alone
with technology, the new entertainment industry (including online museum
platforms) struggled to keep the person online by increasing ubiquity. It may seem
that there should have been forms of self-government that would coordinate the
user between physical and virtual reality, but this did not happen. Moreover, as
sociological surveys and visitation metrics show, people have become dependent
on virtual space.
However, from the other side, the new forms of communication within the
web space – reels, short videos, stories – cultivates the shortage of user’s attention.
Erkki Huhtamo (2004), as the creator of new media studies of “screenology”
25
,
wrote about new media consumption as a modern social ritual of dispersed
perception. In this case, one cannot speak of filling the audience experience with
archaic museum practices that insist on the prolonged viewing of the exhibits and
close following the proposed narrative of art. Cultural institutions are now (in the
post-pandemic era) faced with the task of imposing a new cultural language of
spectatorship: to leave the emotional connection with a new type of visitor, the
museum needs to strive for sameness with him. While some cultural practices fall
apart, new traditions are invented and new connections created, perhaps the hybrid.
25
Screenology or Media Archaeology of the Screen is a contemporary media practice that is focusing on the study
of screens (Huhtamo, E. Elements of Screenology: Toward an Archaeology of the Screen // Publisher, Japan Society
of Image Arts and Sciences, 2004)
32
Conclusion
It must be admitted that the author's initial view of digitalization in the
museum environment was too optimistic. If at the beginning it seemed that the
pandemic played a key role in the process of digitization of museum practice, now,
at the end of the research project, it can be safely said that this is not the case at all.
As it turns out, the Garage and Tate Modern examples have a long history of
introducing horizontal practices using new media. Quoting Oreet Ashery: “We’ve
been preparing for this our whole lives” [53, p. 14]. Nevertheless, it could be
concluded that the digital mindset and collaborative creative effort of both
museums, accumulated over the years, has become their advantage in comparison
with other cultural institutions during the crisis of 2019/ 20.
The dramatic changes brought by the pandemic - the isolation and
subsequent redesign of sociality, information overload, feelings of social tension
and anxiety - all these premises of a huge cultural reorganization made the author
think of digital technologies in terms of a new “ideology”
26
that requires a deep
analysis of the consequences, asking themselves: "how farther?".
After two crisis years of the pandemic, the gradual return of cultural
institutions to the usual museum routine has begun, finally including the constant
physical presence of both team members and visitors. However, the emerging
process of "return" presented both the Tate Modern and the Garage Museum with a
difficult choice: accepting pre-crisis work motives or, conversely, taking the
alternative (hybrid) model of behavior that could arouse the demands of a wide
range of agents.
Recent lines of research in museum studies, focusing on interdisciplinary
and horizontal approaches, offer the chance to emerge a new flexible form of
cultural institution that will finally be accessible and open to a wider range of
26
A concept of ideology by Louis Althusser: imaginary structures and systems that enable the concept of self.
(Althusser, L. Ideology, and Ideological State Apparatuses. in Lenin and Philosophy and other Essays (1971),
translated by Ben Brewster, pp. 121–76).
33
visitors and representations. Perhaps the most notable symptom of this shift in
philosophical, ethical and ontological questions is reflections on the future. It was
shown in the first chapter how crucial were the “round tables” and direct
communication with the potential audience for foregoing epistemological changes
at the Garage and the Tate Modern and to the relationships between the museum,
and its public. During the prolonged period of self-isolation, both museums created
a model of work within the virtual space that appeared as a kind of transmedia
universe supported mostly by the engaged online visitors.
Undoubtedly, the virtual space still has a number of limitations related to its
dependence on the general capabilities of the online platforms used. Moreover, the
virtual space, in addition to the new cultural vernacular, has given rise to a number
of major social problems, such as an excess of information, a decrease in critical
thinking and a lack of attention, which must be combated by new cultural scholars.
Obviously, the post-pandemic reconstruction of art museums is connected not only
to the postcolonial and post- socialist cultural sector; it also has to do with the field
of new media production and digital technology.
This work was limited by two museums, what means that the conclusions
reached cannot be generalized. It is worth remembering that each cultural
institution differs in its cultural, historical, political and economic context, so the
study of the virtual space in the general scale of the post-pandemic effects has not
yet been completed. Thus, the case of the Tate Modern and the Garage is just one
example that reflects the promises of new media: horizontality, responsiveness to
actuality, inclusiveness, visitor-centered approach; but there are still many
unresolved issues with the transition of institutions to new practices.
34
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Appendices
Image 1: Social media post by Tate, 11th November 2020
Image 2: Social media post by Tate, 26th November 2020
43
Image 3: Social media post by Garage, 22nd July 2020
Image 4: Social media post by Garage, 15th May 2020
