What Do Museums Connect?: Museums in a Post-Pandemic World

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) held an online international symposium titled What Do Museums Connect?: Museums in a Post-Pandemic World from September 14 to 30, 2021. This research publication was released in connection with the symposium after collecting essays that expand and deepen some of the interests that emerged from the presentations delivered there. At the end of this book is a record of the roundtable discussion that was held upon the conclusion of the symposium.

In a situation whereby non-contact encounters and digitalization are accelerated as if pushed by unrelenting trends, What Do Museums Connect?: Museums in a Post-Pandemic World aimed to provide eclectic perspectives to explore such changes. The ten Korean and foreign researchers, curators, and critics who were invited to this symposium examined many of the changes of the times through their respective viewpoints, and then discussed the newly required role(s) for museums as well as their cultural, social, and technical contexts and specific cases.

The publication consists of two parts. Part 1, “Boundaries Dissolved: Other Variables,” offers critical views about the social and technological contexts of today’s museums. Part 2, “New Dimensions: Directions of Practice,” highlights a number of artistic/social attempts which have been made in the context of the times. When we can think and diagnose phenomena while maintaining a posture of reflection and criticism, our experience ultimately provides a modicum of wisdom for the next step. Moving forward, we hope that this book will serve as an opportunity to contemplate the current era, explore future possibilities, and trigger thoughts and practices on all that we have examined.

Table of contents
Foreword: Youn Bummo (Director, MMCA)
Introduction to What do Museums Connect?: Museums in a Post-Pandemic World: Kim Namin (Curator, MMCA)

Part I. Boundaries Dissolved: Other Variables
–Questioning Technology Today: Lee Kwang-Suk (Associate Professor, Digital & Cultural Policy Department, Seoul National University of Science & Technology)
–Sad by Design: Geerk Lovink (Founding Director of the Institute of Network Cultures)
–AI and the Arts in the Software Era: Lev Manovich (Presidential Professor, Graduate Center, CUNY)
–Delinking: Global Art and a World System: Seo Dongjin (Professor, Department of Intermedia Art, Kaywon University of Art & Design)
–Infra-Humanism, or Taking Care of Nature, Technology, and the World after the Pandemic: Kwak Yung Bin (Visiting Professor, Graduate School of Communication & Arts, Yonsei University)

Part II. New Dimensions: Directions of Practice
–Five Vectors for Future Art Ecosystems in the Emerging Metaverse: Victoria Ivanova (Serpentine Arts Technologies’ R&D Strategic Lead) and Kay Watson (Head of Arts Technologies at Serpentine)
–What Museums Connect: The Online Experience and the Value of Museums: Hong Leeji (Curator, MMCA)
–A Short Compendium of Computational Museology: Sarah Kenderdine (Professor, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne [EPFL]; Director and lead curator of EPFL Pavilions)
–Connecting Collections: Rebecca Kahn (Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Vienna)
–Taiwan’s Cultural Experiments and Practices in the Pandemic Era: Wu Dar-Kuen (Director of Contemper Art Platform at the Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab [C-LAB])

Roundtable discussion
–What Do Museums Connect?: Museums in a Post-Pandemic World: Panelists: Rebecca Kahn, Lee Kwang-Suk, Kay Watson, Hong Leeji, and Geert Lovink. Moderator: Kim Namin

Book information
Title: What Museums Do 4. What Do Museums Connect?: Museums in a Post-Pandemic World
Publisher: MMCA (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea)
Size: 150 x 230 mm
Pages: 220
ISBN: 978-89-6303-322-8 (93600)
Sales: MMCA Art Book Shop
Price: 20,000 KRW