Internet as a museal space

This event, to mark the launch of the new MACBA Web site, aims to initiate a public debate on the use of the Web by museums and on the specific nature of the medium as regards the way it is used by artists.

The Internet and digital media have made a significant contribution to the redefinition of the traditional generic concept of the ‘new media'. This event will serve as a forum that will enable us to review the achievements of recent years from the technological perspective, as well as from the artistic and cultural point of view. We will be considering a number of issues, including the museum as a production space and the hybridisation of exhibition and communication aspects, the possible existence of a new public digital sphere that is not attached to any particular territory, and the potential of the new technologies to channel and promote new forms of self-management that challenge the traditional notion of artistic autonomy, the institution par excellence of which has historically been the museum.

It is already accepted that museums must be a part of and a repository for artistic experiences linked to the Web by involving themselves in production, display and conservation. This debate aims to define the current state of the relationship between museum institutions and the Internet by establishing co-ordinates and courses of action for the future.