ABSTRACT
This movement from outreach to ‘in-reach’ (Parry 2001a) identifi ed in the previous chapter marks a signifi cant change. Rather than being approached by the museum, audiences instead have the means (through digital network hypermedia) to initiate and create, collect and interpret in their own time and space, on their own terms. It amounts to nothing less than a realignment of the axes of curatorship. This shifting in the curatorial landscape is made possible not just by the modular nature of new media (which allows digital content to be broken down and moved), but also because of what Manovich calls its variability. New media are variable in as much as, unlike the fi xed text of the printed word, the fi nal cut of a fi lm, or the live broadcast of a television transmission, their content remains, instead, open to further editing and authorship. With no fi nalised moment of imprint or publication, digital content is forever an unfi nished project, open to further amendment or reconstitution. This variable quality of new media provides us with the next (our fourth) principle through which to understand the relationship between museum and computer. Much like Manovich’s other principles that we have investigated thus far, the impact of this function proves, likewise, to be double-edged – both a challenge and an opportunity for the museum. For variability interferes with the authorship and authority of the curator, and yet allows new narratives to be told and new voices to be heard.
