Audiovisual archives in a sustainable museum

Budget cuts are no longer to be considered a merely temporary accident, so we have to face the fact that ours is now a post-affluent society, where vast primadonna-like museal programmes (and architectures) are going to be a thing of the past, and sustainability, as well as vernacular architectures, are the things we should take into focus. This also means downsizing infrastructures and tools. In documentation and communication - of single artefacts, collections, and museum programmes - we can consider the role of humbler (and less expensive) tools. Like social upheaval’ dissemination in the Maghreb and in the Middle East has effectively demonstrated, a smartphone can be a very powerful tool. If we think of the fact that museum professionals are very often already networked, we can easily imagine a new, “lighter” and less expensive process of collections’ documentation, based on already existing know-how. This presentation has been prepared for a meeting organized by ICOM and the City of Bologna Museums Authority, focused on the preservation of virtual memories (19 May 2011). Further details about the meeting can be found on twitter at #memorievirtuali. If not stated otherwise, all pictures are by the author.Read less