Museology and research of new materiality

The expansion and diversification of the museum space prompts researchers to return to the concept of «museum object», which is fundamental for all museum activities and theoretical museology. The interdisciplinary character of modern humanitarian knowledge gives way to the integration of the concepts of a museum object with new areas of material studies. These studies directly interact with museum practice and influence the construction of new museological theories. The dynamism of the new methodology of material research correlates with the performative nature of modern museum practices, therefore accentuating the mercurial relationship between material, intangible and digital heritage, the museum object itself and the museum collection. The developments and conceptual positions of material studies, transferred to museology, make it possible to substantiate the modes of soft musealization as a hybrid existence of an artifact in the museum and non-museum space, the legitimacy of creative research and interpretations of artifacts and collections, the relevance of their inclusion in museum practice. The considered methods can be fundamental not only for the fixation and representation of intangible heritage in the museum, but for creation and development of collections of digitized and digital heritage as well.