Where is the museum for the digital generation? This project explores the cultural formation of  “the distributed museum.”  No longer located in a particular physical space, the contemporary museum extends its presence through all sorts of virtual spaces on the Web as well as in the transient spaces created through  diverse practices and technologies of mobility.

Our research develops an analytical framework to describe and map the museology of the distributed museum as it unfolds across conceptual divides between physical and the virtual, the fixed and the mobile, and closed and open.

The broad horizon of this research is not simply to create new theoretical insights about the distributed nature of museology in a digital age, but also to use these insights as guideposts in the creation of a new, networked museum experience.  The project manifests the contribution of cultural studies  and its analytic methods to the praxis of designing culture.

This project continues the research originally supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (2008-2009) on the future of libraries and museums as mixed reality learning sites. Early research focused on a review of the literature on the incorporation of digital media use by libraries and museums.