The Future Museum Studio hosted Future Museum Symposiums 2023 at the Institute for Cultural and Creative Industry (ICCI), Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The Symposium is a series of writings and public discussions that invite a select group of leading thinkers and practitioners in design, curation, technology, art, and museum administration from around the world to bring their ideas, projects, critiques, questions, and help us gauge the state of the museum as it is being actively transformed into the museum of the future. Almost 50,000 global participants joined the seminar virtually.
What Will the Future Museum Be Like?
Technology is transforming the museum experience! Holographic projection and augmented and virtual reality are widely applied in various exhibitions to meet audiences' new expectations. How to adopt and adapt is a shared topic for all industry insiders at all times. Though digitization has enriched the modes of exhibiting collections, it also posed challenges. The experts from different countries, including Britain, America, and Italy, joined virtually to get a deep dive into the new paradigm of the future museum.
Dr. Frances Liddell, Research fellow, Art & Antiquities, Blockchain Consortium, UK / Lecturer in Cultural Practices, University of Manchester.
Frances Liddell regards immersive experience as the key to virtual exhibition. She stated that immersion should be not only for sensory organs but also for emotion.
Kate Haley Goldman, Director of HG&Co., Exhibition planning and evaluation.
Kate Haley Goldman, who focuses on exhibition planning and evaluation, proposed that the critical mission is to attract audiences outside the museum through technology.
Liz Neely, Curator of Digital Experience, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
Liz Neely believes content is central to museums, and technology is the vehicle for that.
Nikhil Trivedi, Director of Engineering, Art Institute of Chicago.
Nikhil Trivedi added that museums should also jump out of the box of technology while utilizing them.
Kan HANG is a professor from the School of Archaeology and Museology at Peking University. He shared the domestic development of the Museum Industry and China's attempt to apply digitization in Yungang Grottoes, which sparked an in-depth discussion on digitization among global participants.
Link the Bridge between Industry and Classroom
Museums have innovated by using new technologies to display historical media and interactive exhibits. With the advent of Virtual Reality (VR) and Metaverse, technology keeps enriching museum's content. What will the future museum be like? How to use technology in Future Museum? The students from ICCI brought their questions to the leading experts. The online seminar with global industry insiders gathering together is another effort for ICCI to cultivate Interdisciplinary and industry-oriented talents with a global vision.
"Whether the digital exhibits should be selective to adapt to the new form when compared with its brick-and-mortar presence?" proposed by Yiwei CHEN, a postgraduate student majoring in Fine Arts (MFA). Professor Robert Bickers holds that although museums in each country may differ in their practices, digitization is an undeniable trend in the global context.
Prof. Geoffrey Alan Rhodes, ICCI, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Geoffrey holds students will benefit from the insights from the leading practitioners and professionals in the global museums and institutions. The knowledge is a guidance for their art practice. He said: Technology has imbued great possibilities to the future museum. The seminar served as an excellent platform for global interaction, which provides invaluable opportunies to learn outside the classroom and keep pace with the latest trend in the global industry. The interaction and collaboration between students and experts will definitely empower the development of the future museum.
Conference Snapshots
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