ISSUE
by CHANG EUNJEONG Curator of the Digital Museum Division, National Museum of Korea
DIGITAL STRATEGY 2025: Transforming the Museum into a Place for Emotional Healing
How Can Technology Change the Museum Experience? The museum is fundamentally a vessel that holds the material culture reflecting the art and technology of each era. As such, it is a place where visitors encounter the culture of the past in the midst of today’s civilization and is therefore interrelated with the technology of the times. We are living in an era where things change at a breathless pace and today’s technology makes yesterday’s technology obsolete. As reflected in newly coined terms such as “work-life balance” and “small but certain happiness,” it is a time when importance is placed on individual values and happiness. Services based on advanced digital infrastructure are rapidly spreading through our everyday lives and the demand for new cultural 06
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF KOREA
experiences is on the rise. The proportion of online meetings is increasing daily in the contact-free environment arising from COVID-19. We are heading toward the “new normal” era and a completely different way of living. In response to the rapidly changing socio-cultural environment, the National Museum of Korea has established “Digital Strategy 2025” in preparation for the digital transformation under its vision MUSEUM FOR YOU. We believe that the latest technology can facilitate close and accurate communication with visitors, enabling them to discover the meaning and value of the cultural heritage at the museum. In that sense, the Immersive Digital Galleries that opened at the NMK last year represent the museum’s first moves in that direction.
Expanding the Museum Experience into the Immersive Digital Galleries The hyperconnectivity of digital technology can bring together past and present, people of different ages and background knowledge, and take us to regions and places that we cannot visit in person. With the development of mobile devices and communications technology, anyone can easily produce and show their own videos. Moreover, with a growing generation of people who understand the world through video rather than text, video is no longer a language used just to view materials but is the core of communication. Indeed, the use of digital content in museums is nothing new. However, digital content has simply been used as an aid to effectively convey information or the atmosphere of exhibits;
