Co-imagining the museum of the future: Meaningful interactions among art (efacts), visitors and technology in museum spaces

Museums are exploring the potential of digital technologies and tools for, among other things, visual literacy education, visitor engagement and exhibition curation. In this chapter, we will inquire about the different functions and roles of technology in the museum space, and we will examine how to establish a meaningful interaction between art(efacts), people and tools to improve curation, visual literacy practices and visitor experiences. Experiences from the RETINA project in 2018 have shown us that interactions without this element of meaningfulness can easily lead to the development of tools and technologies that are distractive rather than supportive. Based on a co-creation workshop in 2021 with different museum stakeholders and on former museum research experiences in museum settings, we will discuss barriers and enablers to good technology uses in the museum, and supportive and distractive characteristics of technology. Furthermore, we will introduce scenarios of what future museums could look like from the perspective of technology through the eyes of youth and museum professionals and researchers.