Museums are gradually beginning to realize what can be done with new, increasingly sophisticated digital technology. The so-called ‘ubiquitous’ museum, which can be visited everywhere and at all times, is steadily drawing closer.

A museum potentially has the possibility and the means to be a place of critical comparison and discourse, but apparently not in the Netherlands, where museums are in the thrall of an all-consuming market mentality. Take the recent policy statement of the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum. Instead of stepping back from gratuitous conformity to market forces, the museum is following with narry a whisper, with the top of the international museum hierarchy as their ultimate objective. Fundamental changes in society are meanwhile ignored.