Museum of Modern Art Taps Digital Chief - WSJ.com

The Museum of Modern Art has plucked a former game designer from London to fill a newly created position aimed at defining and energizing its digital strategy.

The appointment of Fiona Romeo as director of digital content and strategy, announced Friday, is MoMA's latest move in a broader effort to engage audiences in the digital sphere. In 2012, MoMA created a position called director of research and development, in which Paola Antonelli has been experimenting with technology to reach audiences beyond the confines of the museum's physical space.

"The digital world is an essential part of the analog world—you can't even divide them," said Glenn Lowry, MoMA's director. "We realized there were dozens of digital projects we were developing, most often independently of each other. We need to start thinking seriously about pulling all these different strands together."

Ms. Romeo, 40 years old, comes to MoMA from Royal Museums Greenwich, where she was head of design and digital media for four science and history museums, including the National Maritime Museum and Royal Observatory Greenwich. There, she commissioned "High Arctic," an immersive digital installation by United Visual Artists that imagined an abstract, future Arctic landscape.

Seeking to bring the museums' collections to a broader audience, she collaborated with partners including the BBC, Ancestry.com and Flickr. Working with Britain's National Archives, she launched a crowdsourcing project to digitize archival documents from the maritime museum, including crew lists, which are popular with genealogists.

Ms. Romeo, who is originally from Australia, said she was impressed by MoMA's decision in 2012 to acquire 14 videogames, including "Pac-Man" and "Tetris." She said: "Here is a museum of art that really understands and grasps digital."

Starting in April, she said she will work on linking museum visitors' physical and digital experiences, and look for collaborators, as she did in London, to expand the museum's reach. She said she would also look to plug into New York's tech scene, help develop young design talent and find new ways to share the work of contemporary digital artists harnessing platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr.

"How does MoMA join the conversation?" Ms. Romeo said. "It might require entirely new formats, rather than acquisitions or exhibitions."

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