When technology comes to the museum

The relationship between museums and technology is often seen as a gimmick or an element of amusement that risks undermining the cultural dimension of a place. The restrictions associated with the Covid-19 pandemic have certainly changed this relationship. Most museums today offer an integration of displays and experiences between the physical and the digital.

A distinction must be made between technological tools that enrich the on-site visit experience and those that replace the visit experience.

Enrichment of the visit to the site

Historically, the first approach was through digital audio guides, a real revolution and an alternative to visiting with a guide. The gain was in particular in terms of the languages ​​offered and the freedom to roam the premises, and the loss was associated with the lack of interaction and necessarily partial presentation of the groups.

From a marketing point of view, it is an entry-level offering that meets the majority of requests while providing freedom of use. The evolution of these audio guides is the use of mobile applications that can be downloaded directly to visitors’ smartphones. This simple transfer from a device loaned to the museum to use his smartphone Paving the way for a huge range of complementary services.

For museums, the fact that the user uses their own phone eliminates the problem of renting and managing digital audio guides while enhancing visitor interaction with the business.

In addition to the audio tour, several technologies coexist. A QR code allows you to provide text or direct access to a website containing download documents or a video. This reduces the number of billboards in front of the business while introducing add-ons. A single QR code allows everyone to access resources available in different languages.

Measures necessary When scanning the QR code, it enhances the interaction between the visitor and the businessit also makes it possible to measure the adherence of visitors to the various items displayed, a counter that can be easily integrated into a QR code.

Finally, the information downloaded via the QR code remains in the smartphone’s memory, which allows the visitor to keep track of the sites visited or the things that they particularly value. This is an important element in measuring the feeling after the visit to the museum.

Easier to use than QR Codes, Beacons They are very common systems in museums. Particularly thanks to these tools, the museum’s audio guides can automatically place the correct annotation as the visitor moves from room to room.

Thus, these signals can send ultra-accurate geolocation data (less than 5 cm) and provide a new audio or video recording, send a message on a smartphone, open online content, etc. Their main concern is not requiring any action from the user. Thus the latter can move from room to room while always having the right information at the right time. However, the information provided is not stored on the smartphone and therefore cannot be kept as a souvenir of the visit.

Enriching the Experience with Augmented Reality (AR) Belongs to a higher level of interaction. By using a mobile application that captures highly accurate geolocation data and gyroscope data from a smartphone, the screenwriter for a visit can thus present a virtual overlay in a real world.

All the visitor has to do is enter a room where the augmented reality solution has been implemented so that they can, through the camera of their attached smartphone or tablet, “see” the real room with a virtual image overlay. This makes it possible, for example, to present furniture of different eras.

Thus, augmented reality is mixed with physical reality by combining two images. While the immersion and participation of the visitor is greater, the main limitation remains the impossibility of tracking this reality on their smartphone. Augmented reality, by definition, can only be used on-site in front of the work for which it was designed.

However, it makes it possible to provide particularly lively traffic by contextualizing the works and links without actually touching the exhibits. Thus, the creativity of the exhibition scriptwriters has no limits. A very fun app was born in 2016, “Pokémon Go! Offered to include virtual characters in the real world, the goal of the game was to “catch” Pokémon by following a series of clues.

So the museums had the idea of ​​offering a very playful visit to the little ones (in age or spirit) by ‘hide’ Pokémon in the building, in the paintings or behind the works. Some cities also offer puzzle tours that highlight Architectural heritage by hunting pokemon.

An alternative to actually visiting the site

Virtual Reality (VR) allows you to replace a virtual experience with a real visit to a place. Two approaches stand out, virtual reality as an alternative to the real visit and virtual reality as a complement to the real visit view.

The case of total substitution of a real visit with a virtual visit finds its origin in the work of archaeologists. The latter has long used 3D modeling to recreate a site from an archaeological site. Thus it is possible to visit the ancient villas of Pompeii or the wreck of a boat more than 60 meters deep.

The transition from 3D (on-screen) modeling generated by topographic surveys to the use of VR requires additional processing to render images via a VR headset.

Thus the archaeologist or visitor has the possibility to immerse himself in the site as if he were moving in the real places that were reconstructed. It is easy to understand the usefulness of such a technique for preemptive site exploration (digitization via laser, computer reconstruction and virtual exploration do not risk damaging a sensitive environment), speaks the case of Lascaux Cave.

The cave, which was closed due to the very high sensitivity of the environment, first gave rise to very high-quality images from Lascaux I through Lascaux IV, and the cave can now be visited via a virtual twin that allows a faithful reconstruction without the physical limitations of transporting visitors. Thus one could imagine a tourist at the other end of the world who would never go to Montignac but would visit the cave from his home, with a human guide. Connected in this virtual world of Dordogne!

By extension, it is possible to apply this technique to truly accessible works: who has never dreamed of spending time in front of the Mona Lisa? Or watch Calder’s phone “disassemble” to understand its exact balance! The applications are numerous, democratizing access to culture, removing queues and on-site logistical restrictions, visits accessible 24 hours a day, enhancing the visiting experience via thematic filters or interactions with businesses, etc.

But this virtual simulation of the visit opens up a reflection on the management of the museum’s display. If preventive archeology is easily accepted as the only way to take advantage of a destructive or sensitive site, what about virtualization of existing and easily accessible businesses? Museums today face the challenge of managing their product range. Visit virtualization can be a purely alternative product of a physical visit. During the pandemic, the Louvre offered a virtual tour of the museum’s most beautiful works.

This virtual Louvre received 14 million visits in two months (compared to 10 million actual visits per year at the Louvre). How do you manage this virtual visit when physical visits are possible again? The virtual tour can either be seen as a loss leader that encourages the visitor to take the initiative to really discover the business?

This is a way of communicating about a selection of works, and thus of working on the museum’s bad reputation. But it can also be a way to offer an alternative visit to some visitors who won’t actually visit the museum. Whether this choice is due to distance, cost or time constraints, a virtual visit can add a new dimension to spreading culture.

Thus a large virtual museum has appeared on the Internet that collects the most beautiful pieces of physical museums, and it allows you to roam the business world for a visit that would not be possible in reality.

Finally, virtualization of visits is a convenient way to track and distribute temporary exhibitions. Capturing these exhibitions in 360-degree video in high definition makes it possible to track them and provide a large catalog of visits. While rebooting is a normal practice for TV and radio broadcasts, with platforms providing access to the option to watch and review a huge catalog of content, we can think that some visitors are ready to visit as well.

Stephane Borliatox Laguine, lecturer (HDR) in digital marketing. MiM2 Director of E-Business and Digital Marketing, National Institute of Arts and Crafts (CNAM)

This article has been republished from Conversation Under Creative Commons License. Read theoriginal article.