The virtual museum is a remediation of the physical museum. The physical museum is a remediation of the books, documentaries and letters on exposition within it (cf. Bolter & Grusin, 1999). They are both ‘built’ to commemorate the victims of the Armenian genocide. And even though the physical and virtual museum are so much alike and inseparable, the messages they convey differ considerably. McLuhan’s (2001) statement clearly applies to our comparison too; to a large extent the ‘medium is the message’.

On this weblog you have had the opportunity to be an eyewitness of our discussions on the specific qualities of either the physical or virtual museum. We have been discussing ‘remembering’ as social sharing within both kinds of museums. The virtual museum might not seem  like a social environment, but in reality it can be. The accessibilityof both ‘spaces’ and the sensation of ‘being there’ are the aspects that we have addressed as the second quality. The virtual museum might be accessible for a wider audience, it misses the feeling of ‘being there’ completely. Or does it? Maybe even the most important quality we have been arguing about is whether the physical museum feels more authentic and ‘real’ than the virtual museum or whether it is more real. We found out that ‘reality’ isn’t that easy to define, and we could even ask ourselves the question whether it exists at all (cf. Grosz, 2001). The fourth and final quality we discussed is that of the extent to which a visitor can control his/her visit, and how far (s)he has the freedom to manipulate the environment. Whereas the virtual museum seems to be more ‘designed’ by the visitor him/herself than is the case in the physical museum, the question is whether this is true. Virtually, you are not even able to visit the toilet or to stroll down the hill.

All these different qualities make that  the memories mediated by the physical museum are mainly grounded in emotions; its memories are experienced as real, entangled with the everyday life of the user and historically – and thus inextricably - linked with its place. When people remember the Armenian genocide within the physical museum, they experience this mnemonic power. Conversely, the virtual museum isn’t able to count on such assumptions of exposing ‘the real’; they simply lack the quality of authenticity and historicity. That is probably why the virtual museum emphasizes different aspects of the remediation that the physical museum; mainly by showing ‘factual’ numbers (which bear the assumption of being ‘facts’) and impressive pictures (which bear the assumption that the camera does not lie). Because of their different qualities, the physical and virtual museum convey different kinds of memories, but all in order to reach the same; to be ‘politically’ convincing. And so it is that the medium shapes not only the message, but also that interested parties choose a specific medium in order to convey a particular message.

We interpret different media based on our preconceptions on what these media can show us. We assume that camera’s don’t lie. We assume that statistics are real. We trust the cold stone of a ‘physical’ place more easily than a ‘video-game’ representation of it on the internet. These preconceptions are not individual assumptions; they stem from our socio-cultural frameworks (Plate & Smelik, 2006). That is why investigating the medium as the message should not stop here. Try to reflect upon the question why you use the mediums you use to convey a certain message, and which implications this has. The emerging new media are just now beginning to reach puberty. They offer remediations of older media, and they enable new forms of communication. Think for example of writing a scientific paper in the form of a blog, and the changes in its form and message this brings about. Such changes urge us to rethink our messages, our ways of communicating, and ultimately, ourselves.

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