Activating the networked object for a complex world

The 'networked object' is a concept that resonates with the notion of the operation of virtual collections within mobile fluids and flows of culture outside and beyond the specific museum context concerns of traditional documentation systems. It acts as a mediator between the museum world and public culture, as it circulates between these spaces, and in various cultural, social, political and technological formations, consumed in many different and unexpected ways. The context in which the networked object now circulates and interacts is what cultural theorist Mike Featherstone (2000, pp.166-67) described as 'global variability, global connectivity and global intercommunication'. This chapter interrogates what happens when the networked object re-connects with public culture in an uncertain, complex and globalising world and how this process intersects with, challenges and re-works the 'authoritative' position of heritage institutions.