City museums in the age of datafication: could museums be meaningful sites of data practice in smart cities?

ABSTRACT

The article documents connections and synergies between city museums’ visions and programming as well as emerging smart city issues and dilemmas in a fast-paced urban environment marked with the processes of increasing digitalization and datafication. The research employs policy/document analysis and semi-structured interviews with smart city government representatives and museum professionals to investigating both smart city policy frameworks as well as city museum's data-driven installations and activities in New York, London and Singapore. A comparative program analysis of the Singapore City Gallery, Museum of the City of New York and Museum of London identifies such sites of data practices as Data storytelling, interpretation and eco-curation. Discussing these sites as dedicated spaces of smart citizen engagement, the article reveals that city museums can either empower their visitors to consider their roles as active city co-makers or see them as passive recipients of the smart city transformations.

KEYWORDS:

• City museum
• smart city
• Open Data
• Singapore City Gallery
• Museum of London
• Museum of the City of New York

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Natalia Grincheva

Dr Natalia Grincheva is an internationally recognized expert in innovative forms and global trends in contemporary museology, digital diplomacy, and international cultural relations. She received many prestigious international academic awards, including Fulbright (2007–2009), Quebec Fund (2011–2013), Australian Endeavour (2012–2013), SOROS research grant (2013–2014) and visiting research Fellowship (2020) at the University of Oxford. Most recently she accepted a position of a Program Leader in Arts Management at LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore. Her major publications include two monographs: Museum Diplomacy in the Digital Age (Routledge: 2020) and Global Trends in Museum Diplomacy (Routledge: 2019). Currently she is working on a new co-authored monograph, Geopolitics of Digital Heritage (Cambridge University Press: forthcoming 2023).