A.A. Nikonova’s research while affiliated with St Petersburg University and other places

The assessment of the status of contemporary art is theoretically justified in the context of institutional theory, developed in the works of George Dickie and Arthur C. Danto. Museums are pillars of the institutional theory, as they mainly provide art with an undisputed status. The phenomenon of the museum boom of the present day, as the phenomenon of the emergence of the concept of “imaginary museums” in the second half of the 20th century, is associated with longing for “true” art, which ultimately leads to museums, or to the idea of museum. If in a classical museum a viewer expected to see “authentic”, as in “not fake”, works of the old masters, in a museum of contemporary art they expect to see at least “true” art, i.e. works “with the status of art.” Museums give art the quality of “authenticity”, hence the interest in museums and museum projects nowadays, despite the abundance of publicized images of museum artefacts in the media. Instead of these “simulacrums”, museums offer “real” artworks, and the idea of museum attracts a considerable attention, reflected in numerous curatorial projects dedicated to the image and the idea of museum. Among such projects were, for example, the exhibition Voices of Andre Malraux’s Imaginary Museum at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow and the exhibition The Keeper at the New Museum in New York. © 2018. Comenius University in Bratislava. All rights reserved.

This paper considers the advantages and disadvantages of digital technologies in the field of preservation of cultural heritage. The methods of creating of virtual cultural storages do not always allow to preserve the true reflection of memory, history and tradition the same way a real museum does and consequently, the axiological meaning of the term heritage is lost. In contrast, virtual museums and digital reconstructions of cultural artefacts help to protect and preserve information which otherwise would be lost. In this paper, we analyze the properties of virtual forms of cultural heritage preservations in the context of interaction between contemporary society and cultural tradition.

This article analyses interdisciplinary approaches in the area of digital technologies in the context of preservation of cultural heritage, as well as humanitarian and interdisciplinary aspects of application of virtual technologies in the practice of creating of virtual cultural storages, i.e. virtual museums, and more specifically religious museums in Russia. The article considers the interdisciplinary issues of social scientists, museum workers, art historians in the field of preservation of digital cultural heritage in the information society.