A Story of Great Expectations: Past and Present of Online/Virtual Exhibitions

The present paper attempts to discuss the practices of virtual exhibitions covering topics that were not taken into account a decade ago. Topics such as the effort involved in creating an online exhibition, which also affects the time, costs and human resources that are not always available in memory institutions of middle and small size. The best online exhibitions that enjoy international awards demand a high budget only available to large institutions. Therefore, are they good models for the remaining cultural institutions? Another issue is the degree of complementarity between a real and virtual exhibit and fears of competition. Most memory institutions prefer to create their online exhibits once the temporary exhibition is finished. Virtual exhibitions become records of museum activities that are no longer in place. Public participation in content creating was also a wish a decade ago, but new tools have facilitated such cooperation. Both behaviours generate virtual communities (local or distant) around the cultural institution, which is one of the aim of the current development of web 2.0. Of course, technical developments in IT have modified forms and possibilities of current exhibitions (i.e., virtual worlds, video, animations, XML, mobile phones) that should be tested to overcome some of previous drawbacks. The use of participatory technologies in some cases has led not only to bring nearer the museum to its audiences, but rather to subvert the traditional unidirectional relationship between them. This paper combines theoretical discussions of such topics with some empirical data obtained for more than ten years of developing and analysing virtual exhibitions.