DIGITAL STRATEGY 2025: Transforming the Museum into a Place for Emotional Healing

by CHANG EUNJEONG Curator of the Digital Museum Division, National Museum of Korea

The museum is fundamentally a vessel thatholds the material culture reflecting theart and technology of each era. As such,it is a place where visitors encounter theculture of the past in the midst of today’scivilization and is therefore interrelatedwith the technology of the times.

We are living in an era where thingschange at a breathless pace and today’stechnology makes yesterday’s technologyobsolete. As reflected in newly coinedterms such as “work-life balance” and“small but certain happiness,” it is a timewhen importance is placed on individualvalues and happiness. Services based onadvanced digital infrastructure are rapidlyspreading through our everyday livesand the demand for new cultural

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.

The hyperconnectivity of digitaltechnology can bring together past andpresent, people of different ages andbackground knowledge, and take us toregions and places that we cannot visit inperson. With the development of mobiledevices and communications technology,anyone can easily produce and show theirown videos. Moreover, with a growinggeneration of people who understandthe world through video rather thantext, video is no longer a language usedjust to view materials but is the coreof communication. Indeed, the use ofdigital content in museums is nothingnew. However, digital content has simplybeen used as an aid to effectively conveyinformation or the atmosphere of exhibits rarely has it been presented to the public independently. In contrast, the Immersive Digital Galleries present “immersive contents,” created by applying cuttingedge technology to the museum’s cultural artifacts, as independent works.

The biggest feature that distinguishes immersive digital content from existing digital content is the experience of an immersive space. The sense of space that comes from using the five senses is a key element of immersive content. In this experiential space, storytelling and interaction are used to communicate with the visitor. The first things we considered when planning immersive content were the context of the museum as a venue, people’s experience of the space, and the relationship between the space and the museum exhibits. Three separate dedicated experience spaces, or Immersive Digital Galleries, were prepared, connected to the visitor’s path of movement but separated from the exhibition artifacts. Such spatial separation was intended to help visitors focus better both on the immersive experience and viewing of the exhibitions. This is because visitors inevitably experience the exhibition galleries and the Digital Immersive Galleries in different ways.

That is, in an exhibition room where visitors must maintain an appropriate distance from the items on display, to communicate with the artifacts they need to take a step forward. Conversely, as soon as they step into the Digital Immersive Galleries, they are totally surrounded and feel as if they were walking directly into a painting or through a historical scene. The sense of space created by the three-dimensional image of a traditional painting on a gigantic three-sided screen surrounding the body and the strong sound trick you into thinking that you are the center of the painting. The stereoscopic videos and camera work projected on the walls and ceiling take you into an ancient stone-chamber tomb to see the murals painted on the walls. While the movements of visitors in the exhibition room tend to be static, immersive content that responds to each participant makes people move more actively. Wearing a VR head mounted display, you will be teleported to places that are inaccessible to the general public such as the museum storage and conservation science room as well as various historic sites. This exhilarating experience puts the items from the display cabinets in their original context and makes the whole museum experience much more stimulating.

If the exhibition galleries show you only as much as you know, the Immersive Digital Galleries can be enjoyed without any special knowledge. While the exhibition galleries give visitors the pleasure of taking the initiative to learn about and appreciate the artifacts, the Immersive Digital Galleries give the pleasure of trying things firsthand and immersing yourself in the content. In that sense, the Immersive Digital Galleries are experimental places where the museum and the public test just how much the museum experience using digital content can be expanded. Here, new content technologies can be applied to increase the sense of immersion and encourage interaction and active participation, thereby enhancing emotional communication and empathy. Along with the NMK, 13 affiliated national museums are currently conducting such experiments together. The NMK’s immersive content is recognized for its special value not only in applying the latest digital technology to provide new experiences but also as a creative work based on the authenticity ofcultural heritage prototypes. It has beenexhibited not only at the museum but alsovarious institutions at home and abroad toenthusiastic response.

In the expanding non-contactenvironment in response to COVID-19,the distribution and consumption ofcontent through online platforms israpidly increasing. As such decentralizedcommunication strengthensindividualized cultural consumption,customized services that employ artificialintelligence algorithms to meet individualtastes are also quickly spreading. Artificialintelligence has been an important issuefor museums, which face the challenge ofdiversifying experience of the museumand making a qualitative shift to cater notjust to “visitors” who see the exhibitions firsthand but “users” who consume content online. The application of artificial intelligence technology to the museum’s archive data and user data will make it easier to understand the correlation and meaning of the complex data, thereby helping to strengthen storytelling and expand services tailored to different tastes. This is the reason behind the NMK’s moves to make use of artificial intelligence technology.

Last year the NMK began research with the goal of increasing the quality and utilization of museum-owned data with the use of artificial intelligence and building a platform capable of intelligent curation. Based on the NMK’s own cultural heritage and archive data, the museum aims to develop artificial intelligence technology and utilization models for application in specialized fields such as Korean cultural heritage.

However, the use of artificial intelligence can only be effective when technology development, field application, and optimization form a virtuous cycle based on a large amount of reliable learning datasets. Accumulating results that will enable the long process to continue is of paramount importance. A good example of such efforts is the exhibition docent robot QI, based on artificial intelligence and autonomous driving technologies, which has been in operation since 2019. In four languages, QI serves as a docent and guide to the exhibits and facilities. It is steadily improving through continuous expansion of linked databases and addition of conversation learning data based on field operation and is now a well-loved feature of the museum.

The NMK is making these digital endeavors not just to convey cultural information but to transform the museum into a place for relaxation and social communication. The ultimate goal of “Digital Strategy 2025” is transformation of the museum into a place of emotional healing that brings people together.