From the Museum-Temple to the Museum-Interface: A Case Study of the Virtual Museum Paço Das Artes

The debate about the relationship between museum, exhibition and technology, as well as about the changes in the museum’s operation, aiming a more effective engagement of the visiting public, is not recent. The Crystal Palace, a gigantic construction of iron and glass built in London, England, to host the Grand Exhibition of 1851, could be a starting point to the debates related to the modifications caused by the technology in the museum scope. It is interesting to approach the role of the museum from the closed and neutral space image contained in the expression “White Cube”. On his essay “Inside the White Cube”, published in the magazine Artforum in 1976, the artist Brian O’Doherty makes a strong critic to the modernist exhibition space, as it was instated for the Museum of Modern Art of New York, in the first half of the 20^th century. Introspective and self-referential, the white cube is a space-temple, a sacred, aseptic and timeless place, remote from the reality of the world. It is exactly this asepsis and introspection that will be discussed by the contemporary museums that seek – using different strategies – to make the public experience increasingly attractive with the museum equipment. Digital museums, virtual museums, augmented reality, as well as social media, are some of the strategies that can be found nowadays. Finally, the project Virtual Museum Paço das Artes will be presented, a project being developed in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, product from a partnership among Paço das Artes, equipment from Estate’s Secretary of Culture of São Paulo and the University Anhembi Morumbi.