Museums in cognitive capitalism: beyond cultural consumption?

Abstract

A paradigm shift in terms of production brings out a set of concepts that put into question the ways we consider the role of museums nowadays. The hegemony of the immaterial dimensions of work, the core of this paradigm shift, promotes the displacement of the centrality of the “object-signifier”, imposing analytical challenges in relation to the museum as a phenomenon. Cultural consumption, activity of which museums are an important part, is not limited, nowadays, to the consumption of cultural goods, but relates to their own life forms, i.e., consumption of becomings. Thus, when cities become spectacles themselves due to urban revitalization projects, museums become the new factories – situation discussed in this article.