Exhibition Experiments

The last two decades have seen a proliferation of experiments with museological form. Museums and exhibitions have been established in many parts of the world, often interacting syncretically with existing cultural forms to produce novel versions of the museum idea. Museums and exhibitions are at the forefront of avant-garde architecture and design. New technologies - such as electronic media - have invaded exhibition space, transforming traditional strategies of display and exhibitionary potential. Conventional museological taxonomies - art and science, high and popular culture, representer and represented - have been disrupted, producing challenging new possibilities. Exhibition Experiments will probe some of these experiments and explore their motivations and effects. The collection samples a range of examples of experimentalism, from many different countries, and combines them with cutting-edge museum theory. Culling innovative exhibition and installation ideas from around the globe---Australia, Austria, Germany, Israel, Luxembourg, Sweden, the UK and the US--and brashly challenging disciplinary boundaries (contributors are a mix of anthropologists, art historians and sociologists), Exhibition Experiments will chart the frontier of museum studies--the popularity and proliferation of museum experimentation, exhibitionary forms and their impact on knowledge and identity, the fate of coventional notions of 'object' and 'representation,' and the electrifying yet dizzying effect all of this is having on museum-goers.