Deep integration of digitalization and museums: everyone can own a museum Cultural relics can be as long as they want

[Dahe Newspaper, Dahe Cai Cube] (Reporter Yang Xiao) Exhibits, physical objects, and explanatory plaques can be said to be the "old three pieces" of the museum, and field visits to the exhibition were once the only channels to understand the exhibits. However, with the rise of artificial intelligence, cloud computing and 5G communication technology in the field of museums, it provides unlimited possibilities for the upgrading and transformation of museum knowledge production and cultural dissemination, and injects new impetus into its social value and social influence. Through short videos, virtual exhibitions and other digital methods, the Henan Museum explores new expressions, plays with new technologies, launches new cultural creations, and tries to integrate and innovate tourism.

On December 15th, the second "Culture + Technology" International Forum opened in Shenzhen, the theme of this forum is "Impact and Enlightenment - A New Leap forward in digital culture services", more than 50 experts and scholars from many well-known cultural institutions, universities and science and technology enterprises at home and abroad gathered in Shenzhen to discuss the future road of the Museum in the Digital Age.

At the opening ceremony of the forum, Wang Xudong, president of the Palace Museum, said that in the digital age and the epidemic, the positioning and mission of the museum should be re-examined with a longer-term perspective, and the diversified value of cultural heritage should be deeply excavated and explained, giving new vitality to cultural heritage.

With the support of the "Forbidden City-Tencent Joint Innovation Laboratory", the experts of the Palace Museum explored digital collection through "digitalization + cloudification + AI", used scientific and technological means to completely record the physical style of cultural relics, and helped digitize 100,000 collections of the Forbidden City through two-dimensional and three-dimensional image collection and refinement. At the same time, we will use Tencent Cloud and AI capabilities to create a cloud solution for cultural relics image archives to make digital cultural relics more secure and long-term preservation. In terms of cultural relics restoration and academic research, Tencent Cloud assists experts in restoring ancient documents through intelligent audio and video processing solutions, and the construction of cultural relics big data knowledge graph based on Tencent Cloud knowledge graph technology will also provide digital tools for academic research.

Through digitization to make cultural relics come alive, the Henan Museum has also explored many explorations in recent years. Zhai Hongzhi, vice president of Henan Museum, shared at the sub-forum of "Digital Transformation of Traditional Culture", Henan Museum was founded in 1927, is one of the earliest museums established in China, the first batch of central and local governments to build a national museum, the existing collection of cultural relics more than 170,000 sets, but only 60,000 or 7,000 sets of perennial exhibitions, a large number of cultural relics hidden in the deep boudoir. Through short videos of cultural relics, virtual exhibitions, etc., we will try to integrate and innovate the development of culture and tourism.

The Red Memory Series of the Henan Museum launched this year tells the historical connotation, cultural spirit and contemporary value of cultural relics such as large knives, oilcloth tickets, and martyrs' family letters used in the peasant uprising through an original video of only two or three minutes, so that people can roam the long river of history and culture without leaving home. At the same time, the Henan Museum makes cultural relics into three-dimensional digital exhibits through high-definition cameras, which are not only used in short videos, but also allow the audience to fully interact with the exhibits, and truly let the audience disk how they want, and even more enjoyable than watching the physical objects in the exhibition hall.

"Let's be sure that when virtual exhibitions are very mature, each of us can have our own virtual museum: put our own exhibits in it." Zhai Hongzhi said.

From a global perspective, the trend of close integration between museums and digital applications is also very obvious. An Laishun, vice president of the International Association of Museums, mentioned in his speech that the association has done three rounds of research on the global museum response to the challenge of the epidemic, and the allocation of human resources for museums engaged in digital activities has been increasing, in the spring of 2020, the proportion of digital talents in museums was 26.1%, and by the spring of 2021, it increased to 21.9%, if you count part-time digital employees, then 55.7% in the spring of 2020 and 61.0% in the spring of 2021.

However, he mentioned that although digitalization brings a rich viewing and interactive experience to the audience, the economic benefits it brings to the operation of the museum are not very obvious. Nearly 60% of museums have not yet taken digital applications as a new means of revenue generation, but at the same time, nearly 40% of museums have begun to try to monetize digital applications, and 14.1% of them choose online sales, 11.3% of them develop new cultural and creative products, 14.1% of them open online stores, and 5.6% of them launch digital members.

At the same time, An Laishun also mentioned that in the context of epidemic prevention and control becoming the new normal, it is expected that digital technology will continue to make great strides into the field of museums, and experts in the field of museums and digital technology also need to think about how digital technology and museums can form a benign and sustainable development after more deep integration of digital technology and museums.

Editor-in-charge: Liu Anqi | Review: Li Zhen | Director: Wan Junwei