At The EconomistWorld in 2013 Festival in December, Paola Antonelli, senior curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, sat down with Steve Crossan, director of the Google Cultural Institute, and discussed the challenges, trends, and opportunities awaiting the intersection of arts and technology this year. Antonelli emphasized the need for policy makers and politicians to view culture as a foundation for our nation’s development, not as a political and economic football. She then addressed the topic of curating culture in the digital age. Crossan described the opportunities the Internet provides in connecting answers to storytellers. In this high-profile conversation between the art world and the information technology world, Antonelli and Crossan essentially represent their very message: to build a bridge between those seeking answers in the deluge of cultural data online with those who have the story or answer to tell, and to give greater meaning to culture and art in the physical world by creating a life for them in the digital world.

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