Neil Cummings
* 1947 in Aberdare (UK), lives and works in London (UK)

Marysia Lewandoska
* 1955 in Szczecin (PL), lives and works in London (UK)

Museum Futures: Distributed, 2008

The museum per se is a controversial place. The techniques of storing, arranging, and presenting carry with them the legacy of the violence of domination, and for decades have been subjected to repeated criticism, deconstruction, and various cures by artists and scientists. The call for participation and transparency, for the liquidation of museological institutions in favor of platforms where art is no longer collected and exhibited as an item or artifact, but develops as a social process, is now en vogue. As with all revolutions, though, here too the question arises as to what will happen when these forces of change themselves become institutionalized.
Marysia Lewandowska and Neil Cummings offer us a possible answer in the form of a future vision of the museum presented as a retrospective interview on the history of the Moderna Museet – or, to be precise, of the Moderna v3.0 in the year 2058. In a discussion between the director and an archivist, an evolution is elaborated, which following the collapse of the art market as trade in commodities, led to open, cooperative practices; were it not for a slight sense of the uncanny this would have been an utopian global art world: the emancipatory concepts of free content and participation have been reduced to mere technocratic newspeak, and behind social and ecological commitment lurks the will to manage. Thus, it is not surprising that the director of Moderna v3.0 responds in trepidation at the mere mention of artists such as Hans Haacke who are critical of institutions. (JB)

Museum Futures: Distributed, 2008