ABSTRACT

Every museum with a collection of objects has products manufactured that are sold in its designated location, that is, the museum's shop. The art museum has emerged from fundamental debates about its obsolescence, ruin, or status as a mausoleum. Media art has specifically pushed the boundaries of what is generally considered an art object. The museum has become a productive site at a time when many industrial production sites have become invisible, receding into the domain of the computer. When artists and the public produce and share art, the museum is challenged to become actively engaged in a culture of participation informed by the rapidly changing mass-media context, technologies of networking, and do-it-yourself publishing. Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz made media art history by realizing Hole in Space in 1980, linking two public sites in New York and Los Angeles over three evenings via a live video transmission and public projection.