Yael Eylat Van-Essen PhD – Curator / Researcher

New-Media Art and the Museum

Within the last few years we have seen a growing interest in works of art relating to the implications of the digital revolution on human existence. This paper has argued that the growing inclusion of digital artworks dealing with those issues in museum and in main art events around the globe is not solely the result of the acceptance of this artistic field as “legitimate”, as occurred earlier in the case of the photographic and video mediums. It is also the outcome of a more profound change in the museum as a medium in itself influenced by the implications of the digital paradigm. This paper will suggest interpreting essential transformations in curatorial and design concepts current in contemporary museums, as originating in issues analyzed by digital artists, referring to the fundamental ontological, epistemological and semiotic nature of the cybernetic realm, and enabling the museum’s self-reflexive mechanisms. In this respect it refers to museums in terms of “performativity”, “interactivity,” and “hybridity”, concepts which have taken a central role in the cultural discourse that has evolved in response to the introduction of new technologies.