ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways in which museums have transformed or changed their function in our culture of information and services. It examines diverse museum practices addressing audiences in Central Europe. The chapter also explores the modes of experience as well as how museums can produce a conscious engagement with the social environment. Stuart Hall came up with the idea that a museum needs to be understood as cultural space and that it provides a site for cultural activity. Kunsthaus and Neue Galerie in Graz are part of the large complex of museum institutions entitled Universal museum Joanneum, which not only comprises art museums, but the Natural History Museum, the Archeology Museum, the Folk Life Museum, Schatzkammer, Alte Galerie, Styrian Armoury and so on, and Museumsakademie Joanneum, which is a significant research workplace for contemporary innovative museology and educational discourse. The Joanneum Universal museum is a true complex of art, culture and science.
