Technology is Driving Museums To Innovate New Experiences for Visitors

Technology is increasingly being integrated into museums across the globe as a way to breathe life into the past, consider alternative futures and allow visitors to step into famous works. 

According to a new report by Trip.com, museums are increasingly utilizing technology in all its forms, such as 3D displays, augmented reality and even artificial intelligence to engage visitors like never before. 

While it’s likely we’ve noticed some of these new experiences and exhibits in our own towns and cities, it’s happening everywhere. Paris’s Guimet Museum, for example, is hosting a new exhibit sponsored by Trip.com, focusing on the China-France Year of Cultural Tourism. One such special feature is the 12 mythological creatures standing guard outside the museum, which were conceptualized with the use of AI and were created by Chinese artist Jiang Qiong Er. 

The museum is also offering a unique rooftop installation called Her Voice – Bravery, in which a net is suspended above the roof with stories collection from 60 women from the Chinese diaspora using a new “women’s script” inspired by the extinct secret script developed by peasant women in Hunan, China over 3,000 years ago. 

Another such example of technology breathing new life into museums is the National Museum of Singapore’s half-year exhibit: “Plastic: Remaking Our World.” Focusing on how the material has been made incredibly popular and its environmental impact on the world thus far, it offers a film installation, an interactive space for visitors to feel how plastic has pervaded our lives and more. 

The museum also offers a permanent 3D exhibit entitled, “Story of the Forest,” which focuses on telling Singaporean history as inspired by the William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings. 

Additionally, Trip.com partnered with Emperor Qinshihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum in Xi’an, China to offer a platform for integrated overseas service, in which future visitors can enjoy a mini digital museum of the site and to provide an easier online booking experience. 

Visitors physically inside the museum can also enjoy a virtual reality film in which the terracotta warriors come to life and fight in the battle to found the first centralized Chinese dynasty. 

What sort of technology is your local museum employing? How will this new focus continue attracting visitors—and will it encourage a greater depth of learning and appreciation? 

Whatever the future of museums may hold, it is clear that technology is now an integral part of their future. 

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