theatlantic:

Museum as Node: What to Love About the Walker Art Center’s New Website

In the physical world, cultural institutions thought their authority derived from their precious collections of irreproducible objects. On the Internet, every website is successful to the extent that people want to reproduce — on their own screens — whatever culture you happen to be making. So, it takes a considerable shift for museum directors and their patrons to somehow want their collections flung across the world, every single person making her own ‘print’ of a painting each time she opens a browser and surfs to a museum collection. 

Museums have options. One, they can stay off the web, hoarding their treasures offline and doing what they’ve always done. Two, they can dabble on the web and try to use it as a marketing platform to maximize the value of their physical spaces. Three, they can take advantage of the Internet’s reach and figure out a way to become valuable within the new paradigm. We’ve seen a lot of options one and two, but the Walker is a definitive step down the third way. Read more