MCN 2026

As museum professionals, we all deeply understand the benefits and challenges of relying on third party technology to help us get stuff done—especially when it comes to bringing the collection online. This often means that: we don’t own our infrastructure, solutions aren’t built for purpose, and new feature requests may never get built. With the rise of vibe coding and agentic development, we are now entering an era where it’s faster and easier than ever to build what we need ourselves. What if the future of museum technology could be owned, light weight, and flexible? In this session, hear from the Menil Collection, the Whitney Museum, the Lucas Museum, museum consultant Chad Weinard, and agency partner AREA 17 on experiments in DIY application development, open source, and the future of the museum tech stack.