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A critical reflection on the online exhibition system and a direction toward building advanced cyber exhibitions (A focus on survey and pilot theory)

Abstract

With the arrival of COVID-19 in 2019, the global pandemic situation is continuing. This global catastrophe has had a major impact on industrial groups in almost all occupations. In many ways, online non-face-to-face systems are now in place and we are familiar with telecommunications and a lifestyle at home. So how did these trends affect the arts and cultural industries? Even before the Pandemic, New Technology was deeply involved in the art world.

Nowadays, AR / VR virtual reality systems and digital platforms, led by spacious galleries and museums, have given almost all classes the right to have advanced culture, which is widespread in galleries and museums in their homes without restrictions.

Now we have perfectly declared the destruction of art = bourgeois culture, which continued from the Renaissance. Of course, the change in the cultural industry is expected through technological advances. However, due to rapid social change, the arrival of this phenomenon has reached our side too quickly. So through this research project, I want to explore changes in digital exhibition techniques before and after the pandemic with some theories and analysing how they were applied in real market.

Furthermore, in this paper aim to present a reasonable prototype model that can satisfy and complement feedback in terms of consumer satisfaction through the survey. (This essay contains a survey of preferences for virtual exhibitions in 2020-2021, which will be presented to unspecified audiences.)


produced by: Jaikwon Myung

Introduction

Online is an endless unknown world. It consists only of digitised communities without primary and normal human contact. This means that the values used in the real world can become meaningless and shorten time. There is no doubt that this development of digital communication in many respects has had innovative effects.

As I experienced London's Lock-Down time, I had a personal question. This is because I felt that the agora for culture and art disappeared when many art galleries and museums were closed. To what extent this was affected, it seemed more serious than expected. From a macroscopic point of view, problems seem to be economic losses, the disconnection of opportunities, and stagnation of the art market, but the biggest problem is that there is confusion about how they and audiences will accept the new technology and advanced form chosen during the pandemic.

Currently, new forms of exhibition are being sought that integrate digital technology beyond the limitations of field-oriented white cube exhibition forms, such as many art galleries and galleries. Through the creation of a digital archive, a large number of materials and information is digitized, and various online exhibitions are mass-produced.

Consumer satisfaction, however, is cynical, because they simply list the text or photos of offline exhibitions or change existing offline exhibitions into VR forms, but do not deviate much from existing exhibition methods. Therefore, it is very important to examine the satisfaction of the audience and to take into account the forms of exhibition that artists and institutions will be satisfied with.

 

New Normal

“New normal has been a common word for new economic orders such as low growth and low interest rates since the 2008 global economic crisis, but now it is a word for new standards that arise in the changing times “

According to UNESCO, 128 countries around the world have shut down cultural facilities to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Performances in London, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Broadway, and the Metropolitan Opera House in New York were suspended, and most cultural facilities, including Tate Modern, the Louvre Museum, and the New York Museum of Modern Art, were closed. World-class festivals and events like Art Basel Hong Kong, Edinburgh Festival, Venice Biennale and Ars Electronica have also been cancelled or postponed indefinitely.

To overcome this restricted situation, the world's largest museums and art galleries use Google's Arts & Culture platform and institutional website to conduct an online museum program to view museums collections and ongoing exhibitions over the Internet, and they are also building their own software system. Then by expanding to art education, for example, the Lincoln Center in New York created a platform for online performances and educational videos. In particular, "Google Arts & Culture" is a creative project that can allow people to appreciate a wide range of art genres, including painting, photography, music and literature, online through artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.

In collaboration with more than 1,200 museums in 70 countries around the world, a total of 6 million artworks and photos, including more than 200,000 artworks, are displayed, and non-linear access to exhibition information is possible through search. Individual collections of viewers can be organized when logging in, and educational and participatory experiences can also be made through machine learning , artificial intelligence that oversees artwork data, and tilt brushes through ‘Google Cultural Institute Lab’. Then, what does online virtual exhibition mean and what specialties does it have? To know this, we need to look at the structure and methods of this system.

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Pilot Study

Bart Marable and Terra Incognita have proposed a model that can be a framework for online exhibitions. It consists of three layers: Research, Exhibit, and Experience. Their level theory established a phased structure by stratifying the exhibition.

Bart Marable and Terra Incognita's Integrated Online Exhibition Model is a sample of virtual exhibitions that we now have access to. It offers a wide range of information to everyone at any time, anywhere, and through the creation of a digital archive, anyone can organize a digital archive. In addition, the provider has the advantage of providing appropriate information by identifying interests and interests based on behaviours such as movements and reactions of online visitors.

Survey

Next, from 12 to 16 April 2021, I conducted a five-day survey of 134 people around the world. The survey had a response rate of 96 percent and was surveyed by Google Survey.

This infographic contains answers and diagrams of 13 questions, and the subjective questions are shown in the comment terms below.

 

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Analysis & Ideation

Through the above investigation, we were able to examine the audience's intentions on virtual exhibitions. Basically, the audience saw fewer exhibitions than before the pandemic on average.

This may be attributed to the lockdown of art galleries and museums during the Lockdown period, but it means that it was difficult to access alternatives. We also see that there are critical views and concerns about virtual exhibitions. On average, participants were less than 50% aware of the virtual exhibition and had difficulty identifying routes for use. In addition, a majority of participants were able to know about the exhibition through SNS promotion and advertising, and thought it would be difficult to appreciate art genres in certain fields. In addition, in most online exhibition experiences, only offline exhibitions are replaced by VR-type ones. Most of them are available for selective viewing according to the theme or theme of the exhibition, but they remained in moving offline exhibitions and lacked unique content unique to online exhibitions. Finally, various ideas could be collected from questions of personal opinion and generally agreed that virtual exhibition programs still had unstable systems and marketability.

Not only appreciation programs, but also the development of practical exhibition programs using online technology is very important in establishing a wide virtual museum market in the future. For example, Google Arts & Culture's Experiments and TATE Modern Online's TATE KIDS program offer experience exhibitions using digital technology that can increase the number of visitors worldwide. Furthermore, the development of various programs and the creation of digital archives through online interaction will enable visitors to offer a wide range of services. Moreover, the development of an online docent system with Chatbot will also help, just as work automation with artificial intelligence (AI) and robots is spreading in the service sector.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the effective method of building an online exhibition model proposed in this essay is as follows. First of all, the construction of a digital archive should be accompanied to provide various needs of visitors in a customized form. It is very important to create a system that can accommodate practical and broad classes. For instance, there are linked education programs, virtual experiences, and online academic systems.

Secondly, need to build a nonlinear accessible system through search using online characteristics with low physical and spatial constraints. This can be the greatest advantage over offline exhibitions, and the collection can be structured according to the individual interests and interests of visitors. Furthermore, in addition to simple online exhibitions to provide information on works, appropriate digital technology should be used to attract the exciting and interest of visitors and to provide the user experience (UX) through customized exhibitions. Through this effective interaction, online exhibition design for user experience will be able to become a unique cultural content that is distinctly different from current website virtual exhibitions.

 

References

Page, B., 1999. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. Modern fiction studies, 45(2), pp.553–556.

Meehan, E.R., 2007. Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide ‐ by Henry Jenkins and How to think about information ‐ by Dan Schiller. Journal of Communication, 57(3), pp.602–604.

Experience, Learning, And Research: Coordinating The Multiple Roles Of On-Line Exhibitions Bart Marable, Terra Incognita, USA

McLean, K. (2001). Planning for People in Museum Exhibitions. Washington, D.C.: Association of Science-Technology Centers.

Vergo, J., et.al. (2001). Less Clicking, More Watching: Results from the User-Centered Design of a Multi-Institutional Web Site for Art and Culture. In D. Bearman and J. Trant (Eds.) Museums and the Web, Selected papers from Museums and the Web 2001. Pittsburg: Archives and Museum Informatics. 23-31. available http://www.archimuse.com/mw2001/papers/vergo/vergo.html