The theme of the 2019 ICOM General Conference in Kyoto, “Museums as Cultural Hubs: The Future of Tradition”, assigns a new cultural role to museums. National Palace Museum is renowned for its vast collection of the finest Chinese art. On the cusp of celebrating its centenary, this is a great time for the museum to reflect on its past while looking forwards to the future. The National Palace Museum Pavilion hosts the Reinterpreting Tradition: National Palace Museum New Media Art Exhibition, which showcases the achievements by the museum in recent years, using digital technologies to present art in a new light. By transforming the traditional cultural heritage embodied in ancient artifacts, the museum is opening up an inter-disciplinary dialogue between these artifacts and contemporary craft, music, dance, technology, environment, and ecology. The result is an innovative museum experience built upon a foundation of traditional culture but relevant to the present time.
The exhibition design takes inspiration from a curio box originally in the Qing imperial collection, using many hidden chests and drawers to lead visitors on an exploratory adventure. Digital technology creates a live visual feast: while seeing the artifacts themselves has an immediacy, their digital interpretation unlocks the imagination and brings forth a National Palace Museum for the present and the future.
This AR installation is modeled after The Golden Calf, the pioneering 1995 virtual art installation by Professor Jeffrey Shaw of the City University of Hong Kong. The installation brings to life Giuseppe Castiglione’s still-life masterpieces Gathering of Auspicious Signs and Vase of Flowers as life-size virtual 3D illusions. Viewers use a digital tablet to explore the virtual vases and their flowers, which appear atop two pedestals. Pick up the vase with your hand and see how delicately Castiglione renders the auspicious Chinese symbols and exquisite flowers!
Filmed in collaboration with SHARP Taiwan, the 8K Ultra HD video presents in minute detail the exquisite beauty of the Revolving Vase with Swimming Fish in Cobalt Blue Glaze from the National Palace Museum collection. The revolving vase is a composite piece, and the external section covered with light green glaze and painted with plants in gold ink contrasts beautifully with the inner vase painted with goldfish and water plants. The 8K resolution and digital technologies are important tools for artifact conservation. National Palace Museum plans to continue producing 8K videos featuring artifacts from its collection as part of its educational outreach efforts.
As part of the museum’s efforts to make its collections more accessible to the audience, technological tools have been used to produce a variety of films, some highlighting the exquisite beauty of artifacts, others presenting 3D fantasy animation. Among the films shown at the exhibition, Betwixt Reality and Illusion—Dialogue between the Perceived World and the Physical World is a cutting-edge short film shot in 4K resolution. Moving through different eras and disciplines, it is a groundbreaking attempt to apply scientific theory to ancient Chinese art. Traveling Through Brush and Ink presents the heritage and innovation of traditional craftsmanship, opening a dialogue between tradition and the contemporary and providing viewers with a multi-faceted way to appreciate the museum collection. To reach out to a younger audience, the museum has turned the artifacts in its rich collection into a group of lively characters, and has launched a series of animated adventure stories. Adventures in the NPM: The Formosa Odyssey, Adventure of the Mythical Creatures at the National Palace Museum, and Galaxy Adventure of NPM Guardians are testimony to the museum’s innovation in education and outreach.
Since 2015, National Palace Museum has teamed up with the leading VR technology provider HTC VIVE to produce many outstanding VR installations. Several VR titles are presented in this exhibition, including Up the River During Qingming VR, based on the eponymous Qing dynasty masterpiece, which enables viewers to examine the painting in great detail and features interactive games of iconic scenes depicted in the scroll. The Spirit of Autobiography VR, inspired by Autobiography, the cursive script masterpiece produced by Tang dynasty monk Huaisu, is the world’s very first calligraphy VR experience. Roaming through Fantasy Land is a VR adaptation of the late Song and early Yuan dynasty painter Zhao Mengfu’s Autumn Colors on the Qiao and Hua Mountains. The immersive VR experience whisks the audience into a virtual fantasy land to roam through the autumn scenery of Shandong as depicted by Zhao. National Palace Museum’s VR art experience is the consummate interaction of culture, history, and cutting-edge technology.
