Just over 20 years ago, digital museums seemed to be a “patent” for large art institutions in developed countries in Europe and the United States. Many developing countries have also established digital museums with their own characteristics.
After more than three years of preparation, the Shanghai Chinese Painting Academy Digital Museum was officially launched recently. In today's digital age, the virtual digitization of museums and art galleries is no longer news. The Digital Museum of the Shanghai Chinese Painting Academy not only uses special high-tech means to display its own series and a large number of the academy's collections through high-definition pictures, but also allows users to upload their own works through the "registration" function and invite experts from the Shanghai Chinese Painting Academy to conduct research. Comments and interactive communication really make people’s eyes shine.
The development of digital museums, from initially just digitizing collections to now adding interactive communication functions, has also undergone significant changes in its significance to human society.
Digital exhibition halls are blooming all over the world
Just over 20 years ago, digital museums seemed to be a "patent" for large art institutions in developed countries in Europe and the United States. Today, digital museums are popping up all over the world. Many developing countries have also established digital museums with their own characteristics.
The United States leads the world in digital museum construction. Relevant information shows that in 1990, the U.S. Library of Congress launched the "American Memory" project to systematically digitize and store the documents, manuscripts, photos, audio recordings, videos and other collections in the library, and edit and produce them. series of topics. In 1995, the United States officially established a museum Internet system, integrating the collection information databases of many domestic museums into the network dissemination system, allowing the information on museum collections to break through the limitations of time and space.
European digital museum technology basically began to originate at the same time. It is known from the disclosed public information that as early as 1994, the British Museum had begun to establish a multimedia collection database. By 1997, it launched a multimedia collection review system. Starting from June 2000, viewers can access it through the British Museum website. , obtain relevant information about the 5,000 important collections in the collection. The Louvre, another major museum in Europe, started preparing to open its official website in 1995. By 2004, visitors could see 35,000 publicly displayed collections and 130,000 paintings in the museum's collection. The level of digital museums in Asian countries and regions such as Japan, India, Hong Kong, and Taiwan is also very high.
Judging from the situation in mainland China, in August 1998, the Henan Museum website appeared on the Internet for the first time. In May 1999, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage held a seminar on the standardization of museum cultural relics information at the Henan Museum. Since then, the construction of digital museums in China has begun to accelerate. More and more museums such as the Palace Museum in Beijing, the National Museum, the Shanghai Museum, and the Chengdu Museum have opened online museums, and audiences can visit the museums through the Internet.
Museum digitization is one thing, but digital museum is another thing
Museum digitization is one thing, but digital museum is another thing. As more and more museums have their own websites, how can we make digital museums more attractive? Let more people learn about the museum's collections through the website, and then be able to step into the physical museum. This has become an important issue for major museums. One of the focuses of attention.
The development of digital museums is actually inseparable from the development of digital technology. In particular, the emergence of virtual 3D technology has allowed the way of visiting museums to move from traditional on-site viewing to the stage of virtual user experience. The combination of online and offline browsing methods and high-tech interactive applications make it more convenient for people to visit the museum. The QR code WeChat navigation function allows viewers to have an experienced "navigator" through their mobile phones. For example, the official WeChat public platform of the National Museum was launched on December 21, 2012. In less than a year, the number of official WeChat subscribers of the National Museum exceeded 13,000, and the number of WeChat audio guide information inquiries exceeded 163,000.
Currently, there are 4,165 museums in our country, with a collection of approximately 35.05 million cultural relics, more than 20,000 exhibitions held every year, and 600 million visitors received. If you look at the current situation of domestic museums, this is already very impressive. But if you look at it from a global perspective, this number still has considerable development potential. When digitalization leads to the interconnection of museums around the world, and understanding of similar works of art in different museums, it will bring revolutionary changes to the audience's visit. For museums, it will bring about epoch-making changes in their operations and exhibition layout.
This kind of change has actually begun to appear in some overseas museums. For example, with the help of digital means, the National Museum of Wales has begun experimenting with "guerrilla exhibitions" to prove that they do not need to spend so long preparing a special display. Digitization provides a two-way multiple information interaction channel between "things, people, and data". With the help of the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and big data, a human-centered information transmission model is realized, thereby realizing intelligent museum services, protection, and management. Automated control and optimization.
Physical museums cannot be replaced by digital museums
As for the development of digital museums, many people are worried whether this will lead to the replacement of physical museums? In this regard, the director of a domestic museum He said that physical museums cannot be replaced by digital museums. First, physical museums contain both personal and collective memories. Secondly, physical museums provide a source of creativity and motivation for people to explore unknown things. From the perspective of memory, museums are a kind of "material evidence" that contain many humanistic experiences, feelings, and human beings' desire to be close to nature. From another level, museums have creative functions, and some scientific research institutions and educational institutions using museums as carriers assume this function. These are irreplaceable by digital museums.
It should be said that the public learns about collections through digital museums and is further attracted to experience physical museums. The interaction between the two has become an unstoppable trend. From this perspective, digital museums are not just about simply “copying” physical objects into the virtual world, but should also be an important source that can arouse excitement, inspire audience inspiration, and promote innovation. Through the digital museum, people can not only learn about the rich collections, but more importantly, they can have a deeper understanding of their daily lives, interests and hobbies. From this perspective, the interactive communication function designed by the Shanghai Chinese Painting Academy Digital Museum allows viewers to upload their own works and ask experts from the Shanghai Chinese Painting Academy to comment, which is quite creative.
From this, we can boldly imagine whether the digital museum in the future will have a virtual host who can fully respond to and communicate with various questions raised by the audience. A digital museum that cannot provide multi-faceted and multi-level information to the audience will not be able to satisfy the audience. If a digital museum can provide viewers with various experiences such as “visual, sensory, entertainment, social, and learning”, the information it wants to express will be transmitted subtly in various educational methods.
With the advent of the mobile era, digital museums are moving from the original computer screen to the "pocket". The emergence of various APPs has gradually moved the original browser-based applications to the palm of your hand. The APP of the Museum of Modern Art in New York not only comes with voice services in various languages, but also can share collections and edit related thoughts and send them to social networks. This is undoubtedly the biggest highlight of this APP. Because on social networks, it is easy to form hot spots on a topic, and opinion leaders can be formed through interaction.
On the Internet, people will no longer pay attention to which institution these artworks come from
Now, more and more overseas institutions and scholars are paying attention to the survival of digital museums, and more and more Monographs also began to appear. For example, G. Wynn Clough, Secretary General of the Smithsonian Institution in the United States, published an electronic book titled "The Best of Two Worlds: Museums, Libraries, and Archives in the Digital Age", which serves as a guide for the Smithsonian Institution in the United States. Developments in the digitization of collections, the crowdsourcing of research, and how to engage broadly in public interpretation of collections point the way.
One of the points is very interesting: What is the difference between artworks from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution in cloud storage? People will no longer care about which institution these artworks come from.
This point of view undoubtedly reminds more and more institutions that are digitizing now. If you digitize just for the sake of digitization, the result will be that you spend a lot of manpower, material and financial resources to put your collection in Online, you may be shutting out your potential audience. The competition between digital museums must be a competition of soft power, which is the interaction with the audience and the guidance of the audience. This is definitely not something that machines can do, and requires mutual communication. From this perspective, the development of digital museums in the future must return to the "human" perspective, especially relying on human beings' unique way of thinking to communicate, in order to win more people's attention.
"Digital" Smile
If you want to appreciate the "Treasure of the Louvre Museum", the oil painting "Mona Lisa" created by Leonardo da Vinci, you don't have to go through layers of The crowd and the thick bulletproof glass stand on tiptoe to look around. You only need to browse the official website of the Louvre to view every part of this masterpiece in digital high-definition format, and even the textures on the surface of the picture are clearly visible.
In recent years, digital museums have become popular around the world. Through special high-tech means, countless viewers can see high-definition images of artworks through the Internet. (Source: Internet)