Museology and Communication Within the Virtual Museum

For several years now the concept of virtual museum has had an important role among the means being used for the diffusion of cultural information, as it offers an important extension to the traditional museum. In this paper we briefly discuss the concepts of the applications of virtual museums, by studying the transformation of a real museum into a virtual museum. We also introduce the two new concepts of “the museum of museums” and that of “the imaginary museum”. We define the portal functions and the virtual functions of a real museum, and then the functions of the “museum of museums” and of the “imaginary museum”. We also breafly summarize the technical Internet context implied in the realization of a virtual museum and its main operating principles.

The Museum in the Digital Age. New media & novel methods of mediation, Bonnefoit Régine and Rérat Melissa, eds, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing Ltd, 2017

The current "digital revolution" or "digital era" has affected most of the realms of today's world, particularly the domains of communication and the creation, safeguarding and transmission of knowledge. Museums, whose mission is to be open to the public and to acquire, conserve, research, communicate and exhibit the heritage of humanity, are thus directly concerned by this revolution. This collection highlights the manner in which museums and curators tackle the challenges of digital technology. The contributions are divided into four groups that illustrate the extent of the impact of digital technologies on museums: namely, exhibitions devoted to new media or mounted with the use of new media; the hidden face of the museum and the conservation of digital works of art; cultural mediation and the communication and promotion of museums using digital tools; and the legal aspects of the digitalisation of content, whether for creative purposes or preservation. Hardback and e-book: 2017 Paperback: 2021

History of the Homeland

In the article, the authors consider issues related to the study of the virtual museum,the definition of the virtual museum is revealed, its varieties and characteristic features are highlighted. Current trends and promising directions for further development are outlined. The classification of virtual museums from the point of view of cultural studies is given.The Virtual Museum of the History of communication has always been relevant in modern society. Worldwide, the demand for a digital museum is growing. The collections of virtual museums are represented by various sources – written, graphic (including 3D), audio and video sources. Most virtual museums display original images of text sources, but not in a machine-readable format. This approach significantly narrows the search capabilities of virtual museum information systems (the source cannot be found by the system itself). Similar problems arise with audio and video sources, because they do not have their own description or i...

As technology evolves it does not only affect everyday aspects of our lives, but it also affects many cultural institutions. The tremendous impact of applying new technologies is obvious when it comes to museums. From using new technologies in the actual buildings and their structure to their presence online and their new form, their nonmaterial, intangible digital representation. Internet is nowadays a basic part of our lives as it has progressed from an expensive commodity to a daily necessity. This paper will demonstrate the reasons why and the ways internet has transformed museum from its presence in the world to its evolution into an unsubstantial cultural institution.

The use of cognitive metaphors for the transmission of historical and cultural content is now an indispensable condition in the process of revamping the forms of museum communication. In this project for setting up the new Museo Egizio in Turin, the cultural message has been entrusted to three specific filmed segments in 3D computer graphics, aimed at introducing the subjects dealt with in the rooms dedicated to queen Nefertari, the chapel of the painter Maya, and the tomb of Kha. These are archaeological settings of extraordinary importance for studying and learning about the art and culture of ancient Egypt. In these filmed segments, passive viewing is offset by an emotional approach that engages visitors in an information path where, despite the inactive mode of fruition, they are in some way participants, because they are emotionally involved. The film itself is conceived as a showcase of changeable, heterogeneous digital content, capable of offering a concise, preparatory overview of the finds present in the museum spaces. This passive and " self-explanatory " approach will allow the visitor to understand the relationships between various objects – some not directly visible – like the mummy of Kha and of his consort Merit; to reconstruct the tombs virtually in their original context; but above all, thanks to the techniques of virtual archaeology, to visit these settings as they appeared at the moment they were unearthed. All this was made possible thanks to the use of integrated technologies for rendering and representation, capable of bringing virtualization to a level of verisimilitude that can foster a hyper-realistic " participatory " vision. The high degree of realism of the virtual reconstructions, the visual effects, and the techniques of cinematographic representation add emotion to the scientific content, making a positive contribution towards the visitors " losing themselves " between the real and the virtual dimension. Active or passive communication? Based on dynamic narration and multimodal information, new forms of museum communication have strongly changed the very ways in which cultural content is enjoyed by the public, and the logic with which it is displayed. At the same time, the impulse of new technologies has overarchingly imposed new forms of communication, based above all on digital content and languages. Recent studies clearly show that all those museums that characterized their own cultural offering through the use of digital technologies and the public's active participation have been most successful in terms of attendance figures and also, in all likelihood, have achieved better understanding of the cultural information being communicated. In this context, Turin's Museo Egizio has seen a communication proposal come into being that, through the use of 3D restitution technologies, virtual reconstruction, and computer animation, can accelerate and enhance the visitor's cognitive abilities, becoming a medium capable of effectively generating " virtuous " learning

Proceedings, 2017

The challenge of contemporary museums is to make content accessible to a wider audience; in this way information related to the good becomes more communicative and usable in order to enhance its uniqueness. Accessibility goes through an innovative communication of content: the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) that are increasingly part of people's daily lives. Communication in most cases occurs visually, so ICTs are increasingly focusing on a rethinking of this expressive form; images become a better support for high-quality data transfer.

Journal of Museum Education, 1999

Communication technologies are changing the ways we use actual spaces -including museums. In this article, I look at some of the most common aspects of adding "virtual" components to traditional museum activities. Through some examples and observations, I conclude that while virtual resources do not necessarily undermine the social experience of the museum, at the same time, that they should be used with care.

2020

Many thousands of virtual museums exist on the Internet, demonstrating very diverse and significant museum resources, showcasing the treasury of humankind. These resources have come a long way in their evolution over past decades. The history of virtual museums began long before they appeared on the Internet, and the concept of virtual museums needed to be established in order to become an essential and effective means of accomplishing new museum functions in the digital age. Through the designing of such a concept, the creation and development of museums' information resources, websites and various digital initiatives have become the keys to the success of museums in the digital environment today. This article considers the concept of a virtual museum , traces the transition of virtual museums from analog and interim multime-dia formats to the online environment. The author surveys the crucial moments in the history of virtual museums and the stages of their development from the digital turn to their appearance on the Internet and subsequent transformation after this transition. In this article examples of museum information resources from North America and Europe, Japan and Australia are traced back to the first virtual museums online in the 1990s. Based on the analysis of materials from web archives, strategies for creating the first virtual museum resources on the WWW are identified.

The spreading of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in exhibitions is, among other reasons, due to the wish of curators to find new ways to improve visitors’ experiences in museums. This has lead to an interest to understand if and how they really work as a museological and museographical element and assess their effectiveness. However, systematic studies in this field remain very limited or are not of sufficient depth. Although the technological field has a long tradition of assessment, this usually concentrates on technological, attitudinal or cognitive issues and does not take into account the specific features of the visit in a museum or cultural heritage site and the importance of the social context. This paper stresses the need to carry out and take into account the results of a systematic body of analyses dealing with how technological displays are really used. It also discusses the need to concentrate on the social dimension of the visit and use of ICT and to develop the methodological aspects. Based on previous studies and on our own research, the contribution of this paper is twofold: firstly, it provides an overview of empirical results concerning the use of different kinds of ICT exhibits and secondly, it discusses some preliminary ideas aimed at the construction of a methodology for evaluation. The aim is to establish the basic guidelines for the effective integration of ICT applications in museums and cultural heritage.

Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 2020

The inclusion-exclusion of visitors in museum spaces since the introduction of digital devices has its correlation with the narratives that give origin to the Mexican museums, which are institutions with roots so deep that perceive the changes as a prosthetic element that is added to the already proven formula of making and understanding the (traditional) museum. In that sense, this text seeks to identify the narratives and the political, social, economic and communicative implications that the introduction of digital devices as interpretative tools in museum spaces has. The results obtained from a job carried out at the International Baroque Museum in the summer of 2019, in which a series of interviews were applied to the visitors and museum staff, as well as participating in observation exercises which will serve as a reference to illustrate the statement that museums are institutions that try to maintain the traditional relationship between visitors and museums despite the introduction of digital devices, reinforcing the exclusion by maintaining the forms of expression inherited by the colonial past of the museum.