What if I can't get tickets to the Forbidden City and Shanghai Planetarium during the summer vacation? Dialogue between the President of the Palace Museum and the Director of the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum | Culture | Tickets
Last night, the signing ceremony and cross-border dialogue activity between the Palace Museum and the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum were held at the Shanghai Museum of Nature. The President of the Palace Museum, Wang Xudong, and the Director of the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, Ni Minjing, signed a strategic cooperation agreement on behalf of both parties and had a wonderful conversation. During the summer vacation, online ticket reservations for the Palace Museum and Shanghai Planetarium are particularly popular, and many children and parents cannot get tickets. What should they do? Dean Wang Xudong recommended the WeChat mini program "The Palace Museum" to the public, which contains over 100000 digital cultural relics that are worth savoring. Director Ni Minjing introduced the development progress of the digital twin platform at the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory.
The Palace Museum and the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum are committed to providing high-quality services for primary and secondary school students by integrating rich venue resources with school education. In 2021, 16 science and technology cultural venues, as well as social organizations and research institutions in the field of science and culture, including the Palace Museum and the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, initiated the establishment of the "China Science and Technology Cultural Venue Consortium", hoping to provide the public with cross-border integration of science and technology cultural resources and public service products.
Dean Wang Xudong and Director Ni Minjing had a conversation.
The strategic cooperation agreement signed between the Palace Museum and the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum aims to deepen the cooperative relationship and promote the deep integration of science and technology with Chinese culture through collaborative innovation. Both sides plan to cooperate comprehensively in personnel exchange, academic exchange, and exhibition education, such as jointly organizing a series of seminars, lectures, and academic conferences on science and culture, communicating and exchanging research information and the latest academic achievements, and establishing a resource sharing mechanism to focus on promoting science popularization education to young people nationwide.
During last night's cross-border conversation, Wang Xudong talked about the origin and progress of China's digital museum construction. In the late 1980s, Fan Jinshi, the daughter of Dunhuang and former director of the Dunhuang Research Institute, received Japanese cultural and museum experts in Beijing. The Japanese experts displayed many photos of cultural relics to Fan Jinshi through a small computer and told her that these digital photos still exist after the computer was turned off, and can be seen when the computer is turned on. After being exposed to the new technology, Fan Jinshi had a bold idea: can the murals and painted sculptures in the Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang also be digitized, so that they will always exist in the virtual world? Shortly thereafter, this idea received project support from the national science and technology, cultural relics departments, and the Gansu Provincial Government.
In the early 1990s, Wang Xudong joined the Dunhuang Research Institute and fully participated in the "Digital Dunhuang" project. Now, as the director of the Palace Museum, Wang Xudong is vigorously promoting the construction of the "Digital Palace Museum". He told the audience of the cross-border conversation that nearly 900000 pieces of the Palace Museum collection have been digitized. The project team not only collected high-definition flat images of these cultural relics, but also collected 360 degree stereoscopic images, allowing for a comprehensive display of cultural relics.
The digital cultural relics library of the "Palace Museum" mini program
Among these digital cultural relics, more than 100000 have been announced to the public, and the public can appreciate them through the WeChat mini program "The Palace Museum". Click on the "Digital Cultural Relics Library" in the "Palace Museum", and high-definition cultural relics images will be presented before your eyes: "Song Dynasty Banana Shadow Hitting Ball Picture Page", holly glazed rabbit shaped fragrance, green satin embroidered Gui rabbit gold ball pattern flower god clothing... It is a feast for the eyes. "There aren't many people watching 'digital cultural relics' yet, and I hope more people can come and see them in this way to get closer to traditional Chinese culture," said Wang Xudong.
During the summer vacation, tickets to the Palace Museum are hard to come by. If more viewers pay attention to the "Digital Cultural Relics Library", it can achieve the effect of offline staggered visits. Wang Xudong stated that about 10 million people visit the Forbidden City every year, but there are still many who are unable to visit or have not booked tickets. Therefore, the construction of digital museums is of great significance and is a way to achieve "common prosperity" in the cultural field.
Similar to the situation at the Palace Museum, summer ticket reservations for the Shanghai Planetarium are also very tight. Building a digital observatory is an important way to meet the public's demand for popular science and culture. Ni Minjing introduced that at the 2023 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, the Shanghai Planetarium Digital Twin Platform, jointly created by the Lingang Management Committee, Shanghai Planetarium, and Shanghai Unicom, was unveiled in the main exhibition area of the conference. This platform utilizes technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence, big data, digital twins, and digital humans to present innovative scenarios, and constructs a parallel world of digital twins based on the concept of the metaverse "time machine". It has created the first national demonstration case of astronomical science popularization in the metaverse.
Shanghai Planetarium Digital Twin Platform
"The cultivation of top-notch innovative talents requires an educational approach that combines technology and culture." Ni Minjing said that museums and science popularization venues are indispensable in the process of cultivating innovative talents. Let children enter museums and science popularization venues, and through digital museums and science popularization venues, get close to traditional culture and learn cutting-edge technology. This will continuously improve their comprehensive quality and lay a solid foundation for future success.
