In the twenty-first century museums and biennales of contemporary arts have become mainstream, rapidly colonizing diverse spaces in the world. For example, in 2018 Riga (Latvia) and Bangkok (Thailand) will hold their first biennales, thus achieving the objectives of developing the country’s symbolic economies and building the cities’ brands. Digital media assist global cultural exchanges, linking artistic communities and reaching out to audiences worldwide.
In this talk Vlad will focus on two aspects of this neoliberal proliferation of technologies of ‘contemporary arts’, the (assumed) materiality of displays and the multiple, extended self. How will museums work with subjectivities immersed in virtual worlds? What will museums curate after the era of experiential ontologies is over? How will museums speak to the neoliberal self that will be ‘curated’, too? What role will visual media play in the future museum? The discussion will be based on Vlad’s analysis of museums of contemporary arts in Continental Europe, North and South America, Russia, and the UK.