From Object to Information: The End of Collecting in the Digital Age

The cultural skill of collecting changes fundamentally with the rise of digital technology. Once closely related to material objects, collecting takes on an altered nature in digital environments. Commonly seen as a way to re-assign meaning, to create a new order, and to display things to educate and to amaze, collecting relies on the sensuous qualities of objects whose actual presence is required to establish the reality of collection. In opposition to this definition, virtual objects can be understood as a temporary actualization of binary code referring to databases. However, these databases have no material quality even if hardware is needed for storage. Their existence relies on digits that can be translated into representations of objects, but not into the objects themselves. In a digital environment, information supersedes material things and reduces objects to providers of data. A discussion of theoretical approaches to collecting problematizes the long-upheld distinction between subject and object and will help to analyze the shift from object to information as well as the role of museums as publicly sanctioned institutions of collecting.