CONTACT: Communicating Organizations in Networks of Art and Culture Technologies

CONTACT går mot slutten, med 1 forsker og 2 stipendiater som arbeider heltids med vitenskapelige produksjoner. Vi har nylig gjennomført en vellykket heldags sluttkonferanse med ca 65 deltagere hovedsaklig fra kultursketoren. I forbindelse med denne ma rkeringen arrangerte vi også et PhD-seminar, Learning perspectives for media design for museums, science centers and heritage sites, hvor vi hadde 4 PhD studenter delta fra andre land. Seminaret ga innsikt i nyere forskning på temaet og skapte nye nettver ksmuligheter for CONTACT stipendiater. På sluttkonferansen lansert vi også iObserve, en ny platform finansiert gjennom VERDIKT til gjennomføring av besøksstudier i kultursektoren. Rolf Steier hadde et kortere forskningsopphold på NYU med Professor C hris Hoadly (se eget vedlegg). Dagny Stuedahl hadde diverse utenlandske forskningsopphold og reiser over flere måneder i 2012 og 2013 (se eget vedlegg) CONTACT forskere har deltatt med bidrag på internasjonale konferanser i UK, USA, og Danmark.

The cultural sector is in a changing process characterized by a deep-reaching impact on society and new relations between culture, business, and consumption. A large part of what we call the cultural sector in Western society is related to the knowledge p roduction, communication, and representation practices of museums and CHOs, which are charged with collecting and preserving cultural objects and narratives. Therefore, the capacity of museums and cultural heritage organizations (CHOs) to use technologica l innovation to support meaningful interactions between their publics and their collections is an important societal challenge. However, many issues still have not been fully imagined, understood, or critically explored in relation to the communication a nd knowledge practices (Cameron & Kenderdine, 2007). This is apparent in the large contrasts between the rapid pace with which young people take up media, technologies, and literacies today and the much slower pace of transformative change in museums and CHOs. In Norway, there is a lack of innovative use of ICT in mediating cultural heritage. In the CONTACT project we investigate the potential of ICTs to impact the organizational and communicative practices of museums and CHOs in their work of engaging audiences, particularly youth. We explore through the design of participatory media and innovative communication services the challenge of transforming digital knowledge environments, relationships with audiences, and institutional practices. This challen ge is particularly pressing in Norway in light of ongoing museum construction and expansion plans that will influence the cultural heritage field and its communicating practices for many future multicultural generations. CONTACT aims at situating Norway at the international forefront of research in the field of digital cultural heritage communication.