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As the coronavirus outbreak forces the closure of museums, art galleries, libraries and theatres around the word, the concept of 鈥渙n demand culture鈥� is gaining momentum.
Institutions 鈥� museums, galleries and concert halls, which by their very nature rely on in-person visits 鈥� are seeking out digital solutions in the form of live-streamed performances, virtual tours and searches of online collections. The Sydney Biennale announced a display this week and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has streamed a of Beethoven鈥檚 Seventh Symphony to a live audience that peaked at 4500 and gathered thousands of subsequent viewers.
The current pandemic is dragging cultural institutions into the 21st century, forcing them to catch up with technological solutions to replace on-site experiences. But many institutions are already well down this path. They have already found the shift online has benefits and dangers.
Crossing technical boundaries
From as early as the 1920s, museums have been using the technologies of the day. Back then, it was presenting .
From the early to mid-1950s, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology collaborated with CBS to produce , a program that presented storeroom objects to a panel of industry specialists who had to figure out what in the world the objects were and who made them.
A more recent turn is towards cultural institutions partnering with digital media organisations to deliver access to mediated cultural content. , a digital platform, makes the collections of over 12,000 museums available online. Web portal , created by the European Union, hosts over 3,000 museums and libraries.
Well before the coronavirus closed ticket desks and moved some experiences onto digital media platforms, virtual gateways had become an important means of generating awareness and engagement with culture.
has illustrated how online visitors can take part in holocaust remembrance without travelling to Amsterdam. Anne Frank House now uses a chatbot to create personalised conversations with users globally via Facebook messenger. Similarly, is an Instagram page that recounts, via a series of 15 second videos, the diary of a 13-year-old girl killed in a concentration camp.
Doors shut
The forced closures as a result of coronavirus will accelerate and amplify this shift towards digital transformation.
At a time of social distancing, individual artists, small private companies and major public cultural institutions are quickly re-purposing technology in creative ways.
is an online broadcast of the usually popular live performances offered by the Victoria Arts Centre.
live streamed a music festival over the weekend, with 72 musicians across Australia each playing a 20-minute set on Instagram.
The has set up an online weekly film nights, while acknowledging it 鈥渃an鈥檛 replace the joy of being in the cinema鈥�.
What might be lost
Despite the benefits of this mediated content, social media scholars Jose Van Dijck and Thomas Poell digital technologies come with a set of core logics or rules that shape users, economic structures and institutions. These underlying rules of online engagement have long-term implications for how we engage with culture. For future generations, it鈥檚 conceivable that a visit to the library, museum, theatre or art gallery won鈥檛 be something experienced in person but rather through a digital media platform.
With the 鈥渙n demand culture鈥� comes a dispersal of audiences into online spaces. In those spaces, their private contemplation of art and culture can become fodder for data mining and analysis.
This data then feeds into the repurposing of cultural content according to the priorities of social platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. In 2018, Google Culture launched a that matched user selfies to images drawn from cultural collections. It expanded access for new global audiences, but questions remain about the extent to which phone camera images were used to train Google鈥檚 facial recognition algorithm. Some users were critical of the collection鈥檚 .
The mediation of culture highlights a new set of ethical dilemmas as content goes online.
What we gain
This isn鈥檛 to say the availability of 鈥渙n demand鈥� cultural content isn鈥檛 a good thing. At 鈥渘ormal鈥� times it can allow people to virtually visit exhibitions or enjoy performances they can鈥檛 access in real life. Online presentations can enhance understanding with 鈥渆xplore more鈥� links or additional information.
During times of crisis, online cultural experiences can be a . It is vital that we create avenues through which the community can access culture and seek out technological solutions to keep artists and cultural workers employed during what could be a long hiatus. 
14 art & culture links
- will be awarded online, as will the for female authors.
- is hosting a much-needed online groove this week.
- is where DJ D-Nice or Derrick Jones from 90s hip-hop group Boogie Down Productions is spinning tracks for 100,000+ viewers. Guest appearances include Michelle Obama, Naomi Campbell, Chaka Khan, Halle Berry, Rihanna, and Diddy.
- are celebrating Women鈥檚 History Month.
- Explore collections from around the world, from the British Museum to Macchu Pichu.
- in Spain is the place for Mark Rothco, Jeff Koons and Richard Serra.
- uses Zoom to connect singers worldwide.
- has virtual tours of the Phar Lap, dinosaur and First Peoples displays.
- , South Korea is showing meet the curators chats on YouTube.
- live music lounge in New York is streaming DJs online.
- is home to Dutch masters: Vermeer鈥檚 Milkmaid, Van Gogh鈥檚 Self-portrait and Rembrandt鈥檚 most well-known painting: the Night Watch.
- is drawing live streaming performances together in one place.
- is livestreaming lions, giraffes, snow leopard cubs, penguins and the occasional .
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