The Forbidden City is the top IP in China's cultural and expo industry.
Whether it is the Palace Museum, Shenyang Palace Museum, which has been established for nearly a century, or the Hong Kong Palace Museum Culture Museum, which has recently opened, they are nourishing the cultural hearts of Chinese people through the nourishment of Chinese civilization carried by the Palace Museum.
Museums have become an indispensable element in the lives of more and more Chinese people.
With the blessing of digital technology, how does Yifang Exhibition Hall vividly integrate the past and the present?
How can practitioners better shorten the distance between cultural relics and ordinary people?
How should "Wang Xietang Qianyan" fly into more "ordinary people's homes"?
China News Network's "Coordinates of Civilization" special program "Forbidden City Culture Cloud Dialogue" recently invited Yu Zhuang, Deputy Director of the Digital and Information Department of the Palace Museum, Li Li, Deputy Director of the Shenyang Palace Museum, and Jiao Tianlong, Chief Researcher of the Hong Kong Palace Museum, to discuss " Talk on the cloud on topics such as the development direction of the cultural and expo industry in the digital age”.
An excerpt from the conversation follows:
Beijing Palace Museum.
Photo by Chen NianYian Photo source: CTPphoto
Digital transformation helps museums "transcend time and space"
Yu Zhuang:
If you use the most concise language to summarize the characteristics of the "Digital Forbidden City", in my opinion, it is four words: "transcend time and space".
It is both tangible and intangible. It can be presented in a variety of ways that everyone can see and touch, and it has broken the boundaries and limitations of the physical world and has become broad and vast; it not only carries the tradition of museums, but also has the ability to be visited at any time and space. sense of the future.
The ancients had an aesthetic taste called "recumbent travel" - as the name suggests, you can travel all over the mountains and rivers without leaving home by appreciating landscape paintings.
This coincides with the "Wandering in the Forbidden City" that we experience now.
It's just that those scrolls and atlases have become digital devices in the hands of people today.
Calligraphy and painting enthusiasts can see the ultra-high-definition picture of Shanghe River during the Qingming Festival through the "Famous Paintings of the Forbidden City"; architecture enthusiasts can log in to the "Panoramic Forbidden City" and enter the virtual world alone to enjoy the tour.
The fusion of ancient and modern is to establish a connection between the essence of ancient culture and modern cultural concepts.
Zhang Zeduan's "Across the River During Qingming Festival".
Image source: Palace Museum website
The Palace Museum officially proposed the goal of building a digital Palace Museum in 1999. Looking back today, this is the inevitable requirement of the times and the only way for the development of the Palace Museum.
From collecting and mining digital resources to transforming them into digital content that the general public can understand, the construction process of the Digital Forbidden City is three-dimensional, and there is a lot of work behind it.
In the future, the Palace Museum will be down-to-earth from the perspective of its own actual needs, and make full and appropriate use of digital technology to empower its career development.
Li Li:
The Shenyang Imperial Palace was built by the local government of the ethnic minorities in the early Qing Dynasty.
As a famous world cultural heritage, we will pay attention to the characteristics when researching IP.
For example, the tent-style architectural pattern of the building on the East Road of the Forbidden City in Shenyang reflects the Eight Banners system of the minority regime, and also has the cultural characteristics of the early Manchu fishing and hunting nations.
Another example is the robes of Huang Taiji, the printing plates and letter plates carved from pine wood in the early Qing Dynasty, and the Manchu cheongsam culture, all of which are cultural characteristics of the Shenyang Imperial Palace.
We promote these as special IPs as much as possible, just like "Dazhengdian Ice Cream", which is integrated into the research and development of cultural and creative products.
A close-up of the Dazheng Hall of the Imperial Palace in Shenyang.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Yu Haiyang
Today, the culture of the Shenyang Palace Museum will also be promoted and popularized through digital means, especially when many audiences are unable to come to the museum due to the impact of the epidemic.
Many physical exhibitions in the Shenyang Imperial Palace will be digitally promoted through platforms such as WeChat; other digital constructions will also serve the public in a new way.
Live streaming is very popular with young people.
We will invite experts to interpret cultural relics exhibitions and historical and cultural aspects, and conduct live broadcasts.
This is very popular, often with hundreds of thousands or even millions of viewers.
Through this form, we can better present traditional museums to audiences, especially young people.
Jiao Tianlong:
The mission and positioning of the Hong Kong Palace Museum is very clear - to promote the excellent Chinese culture, connect ancient and modern, connect China and foreign countries, and promote the dialogue between world civilization and Chinese civilization.
Modern museum exhibitions are not only about placing things, writing labels, and writing instructions, but also to enhance interactivity and give the audience an immersive experience.
We use digital technology to make relevant designs according to the theme of each exhibition.
The exterior of the Hong Kong Palace Museum.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Li Zhihua
There are nine exhibition halls in this opening. The first exhibition hall is used to introduce the identity change of the Forbidden City and even the changes of the Palace Museum. This is a huge theme.
Therefore, the curatorial team and the Beijing team jointly produced a digital distribution map of the Forbidden City, creating a macroscopic and highly interactive exhibition in a node-like manner. The entire evolution history of the Forbidden City can be interpreted in less than ten minutes.
Although the Forbidden City cannot be moved to Hong Kong, it can be immersed in a digital way.
On the other hand is the dialogue between ancient and modern. We have an exhibition hall dedicated to inviting Hong Kong contemporary artists to talk about ancient artworks, reflecting how the younger generation thinks and displays traditional Chinese culture; there is also an exhibition hall that displays ancient Chinese artifacts from a design perspective, and invites Hong Kong craftsmen and Designers explain how they inherit and innovate traditional crafts.
This surprised colleagues who came from the Palace Museum to set up the exhibition, saying that they had never seen such an exhibition of cultural relics.
It works very well and is one of the most popular showrooms right now.
"Luo Shen Fu".
Photo by China News Agency reporter Li Zhihua
National treasure-level cultural relics, so "flying into ordinary people's homes"
Yu Zhuang:
The data analysis of online operations shows that among the digital Forbidden City users, the proportion of young people is increasing, and this change is very obvious.
In the promotion and service of the Digital Forbidden City, we have also captured the desire of audiences, especially young audiences, to pursue beauty, as well as their cultural demands for aesthetics.
Recently, the Palace Museum has launched a new digital product "Forbidden City 365", which presents the beautiful pictures of the Forbidden City accumulated for many years, including the phenological changes of the Forbidden City during the four seasons of the year and the twenty-four solar terms, etc., to the majority of netizens.
After reading it, many netizens felt that "the Forbidden City is so beautiful".
Through the transmission of aesthetics, more audiences will be attracted to the Forbidden City to discover this beauty.
In the Forbidden City, there is a bronze sword of the Spring and Autumn Period, "Shaoyu Sword". There are 20 characters on the ridge of the sword: "Auspicious day, Renwu, at first for Yuan Yong, Xuanlipu Lu. I have a name for it, Shaoyu of the stomach".
It probably means: "Renwu is a good day. I made a useful sword. The materials are mainly tin and copper. I want to give it a name, it's called Shaojiao." Our Weibo The copy wrote a sentence very aptly: "This is a circle of friends engraved on the sword by the ancients", and received a lot of likes.
Some netizens said: "Good guy, this circle of friends has been posted for 2,500 years."
An example that is common to both ancient and modern times, it has shortened the distance with young people at once.
Screenshot of the official Weibo of the Palace Museum
Most of the young people playing stalks are looking for a sense of identity and belonging, and they need to constantly strengthen their social attributes.
Therefore, the content, products and services of the Digital Forbidden City must be integrated with the lifestyles of modern people, and more in line with the needs of young people, showing that the cultural and blog industry keeps pace with the times.
Li Li:
In recent years, the Shenyang Imperial Palace has focused on being close to and serving the audience in the process of digital construction.
As other guests said, now more young people want to come to museums, we need to use digital achievements to help young people better understand ancient buildings and cultural relics.
We will launch a WeChat mini-program in the future to help audiences visit Shenyang Imperial Palace "immersively".
For example, during the tour, when everyone takes out their mobile phones to take pictures, a popular science introduction will pop up in real time.
Including our Dazheng Hall, Chongzheng Hall, Phoenix Building, Five Palaces on the Stage, Wensu Pavilion, and important cultural relics in the exhibition hall.
Thanks to the digital construction in the early stage, the audience can use their mobile phones to visit the Shenyang Imperial Palace and learn about important buildings and cultural relics at the same time.
Shenyang Palace Museum, Qianlong's royal pen "Purple Qi is coming from the East" plaque.
Photo by Yu Haiyang
Today, the architectural structure of the Shenyang Imperial Palace and many cultural relics have been collected digitally or even 3D in high-definition form, and these data will serve the public better.
Thanks to this, the public who did not come to the museum site can also watch the virtual display.
In the future, after the foundation of digital services is completed, we will focus on the word "service" to better allow traditional culture to enter the hearts of audiences through digital forms and go home with them.
Jiao Tianlong:
How to allow modern audiences to appreciate and experience traditional art from life, and to get closer to cultural relics, is a challenge for the Hong Kong Palace Museum.
In the design of the exhibition, we will use the excellent national treasures of the Palace Museum to design some story lines to meet the needs of Hong Kong audiences.
Hong Kong people like to drink tea, so the second exhibition hall describes a day of life in the Forbidden City in the Qing Dynasty. The audience will find that the emperor also drank tea, especially Qianlong's Sanqing tea. furnace".
They were very interested and said that the emperor also ate hot pot. He not only ate hot pot, but also ate it very delicately, and he was very particular about the utensils.
Citizens visit the Hong Kong Palace Museum.
Photo by Li Zhihua
Hong Kong people understand horses, which is a very important social phenomenon in Hong Kong.
We designed a special exhibition with the theme of horses, and brought some amazing collections of the Forbidden City, including the masterpieces of Castiglione, to the exhibition, bringing the distance between Hong Kong audiences and Hong Kong audiences in every aspect.
So far these attempts have been relatively successful.
The scene of the "Forbidden City Cultural Cloud Dialogue" program.
Photo by reporter Zhai Lu
They are all "people of the Forbidden City", and the three places join hands with "the end of the world at this time"
Li Li:
"State-owned auspiciousness, endless life" is an exhibition planned by the Shenyang Palace Museum some time ago, and it has achieved great success.
The exhibition tells stories to the audience through our collection of auspicious auspicious animals - such as how these dragon patterns and phoenix patterns are formed, and how to support the Chinese culture from generation to generation.
In the cultural heritage of China for thousands of years, many auspicious auspicious animals have played an important role. Through the exhibition, the audience can better understand the history.
During the curatorial process, we will focus on how to tell good stories, how to integrate traditional culture into the exhibition, and how to win the favor of the audience.
Therefore, whether it is the name of the exhibition, content design, form design, or digital display, we pay more attention to providing this kind of service for the audience, especially for young people.
Museum exhibitions are also more and more popular among young people.
Li Li, deputy director of the Shenyang Palace Museum.
Photo by reporter Yu Ruizhai
Jiao Tianlong:
Hong Kong is an important window for the integration of China and the West. The integration of traditional culture and overseas culture creates its uniqueness. We must be based in Hong Kong and give full play to Hong Kong's advantages.
Most of the nine exhibition halls opened this time are jointly curated with the Palace Museum, and the treasures of the museum are also from Beijing.
At the same time, we have also reached a cooperation with the Louvre Museum in Paris to put together the cultural relics of the Louvre and the Forbidden City to display horse culture from a global perspective.
In the future, we will continue in this direction, make more efforts to display the collection of the Forbidden City and traditional Chinese culture, and strengthen cooperation with other museums.
We have a long-term strategic partnership with the big brother of the Palace Museum, and they can't get rid of us (audience laughs); we also hope to cooperate more with the Shenyang Palace Museum in the future (Li Li: Very welcome).
In addition, we are establishing contacts with major museums around the world, and there will be a series of project promotions in the future.
Jiao Tianlong, chief researcher of the Hong Kong Palace Museum.
Photo by reporter Fan Siyi
Yu Zhuang:
The wave of digitalization is sweeping, and the trend is irresistible.
We must actively embrace it, resonate with social development and national strategies at the same frequency, and at the same time achieve integrity and innovation, and achieve stability and long-term progress.
We must make good use of digital technology to better provide positive cultural services to the public while maintaining our cultural roots.
I remember there was an astronomical spectacle on January 31, 2018, commonly known as the "Super Blue Blood Moon Eclipse".
It is said that it only happens once every 150 years, and the last time was in the fifth year of Tongzhi.
All the photography teams of the Forbidden City went into battle collectively, from 7:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. that night, shooting astronomical wonders from all angles in the Forbidden City.
Yu Zhuang, Deputy Director of the Digital and Information Department of the Palace Museum.
Photo by reporter Zhai Lu
Thinking back to the ancient times, viewing the moon in the forbidden palace was a grand scene that only belonged to a few people; today, through digital technology and the Internet, we truly share the astronomical wonders with the world and bring all netizens a cultural experience that transcends time and space - this is exactly the "The end of the world is at this time" for people around the world.
(Liu Yue)