ABSTRACT
This chapter begins to draw the book to its conclusion. It does so by introducing the concepts of the ‘contemporary museum’, ‘contemporary museology’ and the ‘global contemporary’. Examining technological development over the last 30 years, the chapter considers how technologies have altered our relationship to time, space and knowledge; how they have rendered a world without ethics, expertise or authority. The chapter repositions the museum in this changing landscape arguing that it gives it renewed purpose: to recover its role as an autonomous truth institution essential to modern democracies. It argues that the principles of contemporary museology offer the recovery of ethical method; the application of the contemporary as a lens for understanding the world; a commitment to the human actor; understanding the world from a situated perspective; and committing to knowledge transparency.
