THE NEW ANCIENT ETRUSCAN SPYING MUSEUM
October 2, 2022 -Durt Fibo

In September, as Italy was flagellating itself through a national election, the city of Milan opened just in time a new art museum at the Fondazione Luigi Rovati, an historic building on the Corso Venezia. The 1871 edifice, previously known as the Palazzo Bocconi-Rizzoli-Carraro, began undergoing remodeling in 2017 by the architect Mario Cucinella, and was finally destroyed by the digital technology and design firm inspiringly named Dotdotdot, of the same doomed nation.

While the main draw of the museum is its subterranean collection of Etruscan cinerary urns, vases, ex-votos and bronzes in a space constructed to resemble the Etruscan necropolis of Cerveteri, some 18th century interior furnishings and modern art pieces are also in the overall collection.

However, this being a lucrative world for those unconnected to reality, the museum’s visitors are subjected to being guided to “content based on the user’s profile.” i.e. the experience is that of immersive curation dictated by the tech firm brought into the project.

Until now, various different programming packages have been adopted by cultural ventures, operating booking, admissions, audio docenting, management, etc., but they were not all run by a monolithic system. The software did not gossip or coordinate intentions. Once you enter il Museo d’Arte della Fondazione Luigi Rovati, you and they become one. The “user experience” is software working off hardware beacons sparking a location-based “Experience Guide” which detects one’s presence in a given space.

This is all a witches brew that takes effect once an app has been downloaded and the user/museum-goer fills in their personal profile, at which point all personal data and institutional content manifest into personalized content for that user (“in modo personalizzato i contenuti”). Via the ubiquitous smartphone. The smartphone actually communicates with the digital architecture beacon by beacon, step by step.

As the system grows, it will select the physical path for the visitor and what information will be voiced by the audio guide, based on the personal data and preferences each user has entered into the system, which can be ‘personalized’, modified, and endlessly produced by the tech team and museum administrators who created this hellish platform.