Thomas Söderqvist “Can something that exists with no physical form be considered an object?”, asks Amber Arnold on Sev Fowles’s Columbia University “Thing theory” class web site. The answer is ‘yes, of course’. Computer people operate with virtual ‘objects’ all the time.
Amber’s conclusion — “Although blogs are virtual things in the electronic world, their role in the often emotional conversations of society cement their identity as an object and their importance in our lives” — reminds me that blogs and websites devoted to discussing the acquisition and display of museum objects, are museum objects too.
How to tag this kind of object — a museum object that comments on other museum objects — in our registration data base? Maybe it’s a ‘metamedical object’?
(thanks to Adam for drawing attention to Amber’s essay)
