What is Virtual Artifacts

Museums face numerous challenges in the 21st century. Among these are a loss of cultural authority and the dispersion of collected objects through museums worldwide that makes it impossible for users to know where to search, or how to search, for items that might be of interest to them. The consequences are that museums and their holdings are less well known, and less understood, than they ought to be. An emerging technical infrastructure of “smart” objects and location-aware devices can play a role in enabling museums to succeed in these tasks. If the museum adds geographical coordinates to the description of the objects in its collections, people who are in the vicinity of those locations can be informed about the holdings of the (distant) museum, 24 hrs a day. These people include those from whose cultures the objects were once taken and people visiting as tourists; these two audiences are especially interested in understanding the museum’s collection, because it is relevant to them, literally ‘where they stand.’ Having access to the cultural objects that have been removed from their original contexts can reduce demands that they be repatriated, especially if the museum can engage locals to contribute their knowledge of the objects, and tourists to supply terms in their native language that would help their compatriots find the object. In this way, geo-aware objects could help museum fulfill numerous demands currently being made of them and usher in an extra-institutional dimension to cultural interpretation. This chapter examines the requirements for museum success in a geo-aware future.