Museum

The Singapore Art Museum has a very interesting show on Histories, Identities, Technologies, Spaces, with many galleries of electronic installations and net art. The exhibition is gorgeous, with lavish use of space, and it's curated with a very selective eye.

When do Web sites and hypertexts belong in art museums? A hypertext on a plinth seems beside the point, and too much concern with packaging can send us back to bibliolatry and Birkerts. Art museums sometimes seem to have lots of money (although few curators would agree!) and so might be ripe targets for exploitation by clever Web artists, but what then of people (like painters and sculptors) who really have no other hope of having their work seen, or their groceries bought?

In my case, of course, it's a blessing. I'm trying to find a distinct hypertext spirit in Singapore, and here we have a big exhibit custom-made for my research needs. It's convenient for me, but I do wonder whether this will prove, in general, the best way to spread the word.