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M.U.S.EU.M. final conference

From the MU.S.EU.M. project to the MU.S.EU.M. Net

Marco Merlini

M U. S. EU. M. co-ordinator

Rome, 24 February 2006

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Museums and the Internet revolutionThe Information and Communication Technology finds many applications within the walls of museums: development of inventories, cataloguing exhibitions, digital techniques, etc.

Nowadays, Internet and the progress of digital imagery offer museums a useful tool to develop new modalities for supplying their cultural heritage also to a mass audience.

This transformation has created new opportunities due to the global dimension of potential audience, but new problems have also emerged:

inadequacy of skills in this field copyright free access to museum resources

3Lucas Faydherbe, Malines

Reaction of museums to the gust of Information and Communication Technology?

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The on-line virtual museum: a strong approach for sharing cultural heritage

Main factors of success of on-line virtual museums:

Increasing added value compared to their actual counterparts (i.e. physical museums) thanks to a strong attitude towards increased information and culture Computer graphics and virtual reality enchantments

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Over time, museums’ web sites are becoming not only more sophisticated but also independent from physical museums, being less and less digital replicas of them.

Potentialities

Physical museums are no longer the only repository for gathering and exhibiting cultural heritage.

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…often, virtual museums are:

A mere replica of actual collections that have been reproduced through HTML pages

A mix of static images and text

Displaying contents that are only a subset of the real exhibition within the museum

Developed with scarce financial and organisational resources, sometimes managed on voluntary basis

With low added value in terms of additional information or increased culture compared to the original museum.

Sloping down from the heaven of potentialities to actual web sites …

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M.U.S.EU.M. tries to “think different” MU.S.EU.M. stands for “Multimedia

System for a European Museum”.

It is an EU co-funded project within the framework of the Leonardo da Vinci program.

MU.S.EU.M. has created the “Virtual museum of European roots”, considered as an e-service and taken as a pilot collection held in trust by partner museums.

It is a prototype provided on the Web and developed without any expensive software nor muscular hardware

The address: www.europeanvirtualmuseum.it/virtuale.htm

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Homepage of the Virtual museum of European roots

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Athens - National Archaeological MuseumBerlin - Museum für Vor- und FrühgeschichteBucharest - Muzeul National de istorie a RomanieiBudapest - Historical Museum Rome - Museo Nazionale Pigorini Sofia - National Museum of HistoryVienna - Natürhistorisches Museum - Prähistorische Abteilung

The “Virtual museum of European roots” as a museum of museums

Some of the most important European museums are part of the MU.S.EU.M. virtual museum:

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EURO INNOVANET, research institute, main contractorAlba Iulia University - Centrul de Cercetari Pre- si Protoistorice, with price experience in archaeologyComital, software house EIL, research institute from EdinburghUIL Confederale - Servizio Politiche del Lavoro e Formazione Professionale

Cultural and technical partnership

The M.U.S.EU.M. partnership is also composed of other partners providing cultural and technical support:

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The “Virtual museum of European roots” displays prehistoric artefacts from partner museums. These exceptional pieces indicate how the European identity was built over millennia and how Europe is founded upon a common ancient matrix, which is the fruit of the absence of rigid boundaries, continuous migrations and interactions and a plurality of cultural roots and imprints.

Several millennia ago, this continuous mix was already a source of conflicts, compromises and stratifications between different populations and languages, divergent cultures and economies. But at the same time, it formed the basis of its present originality: the cultural wealth and age depth of the "Old Continent".

Dealing with a common ancient European matrix

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The “Virtual museum of European roots” displays and explores extraordinary artifacts showing:

The Palaeolithic networks and itineraries of tribes, shamans and artists

The common Southern, Eastern and Central European koiné in Neo-Eneolithic times

The Bronze Age as first period of cultural unity in the whole Europe.

Three European ages in one museum

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The historical focus of the “Virtual museum of the European roots” is the Neo-Eneolithic period

Its geographical framework is Southern, Eastern and Central Europe, articulated around the Danube basin

The selection criterion for artefacts is communication in prehistory

MU.S.EU.M. intends to disseminate to a wide audience the acknowledgment that a major civilisation flourished in Neo-Eneolithic times in Southern, Eastern and Central Europe and that it created a common background - extending from Turkey to France, from Ukraine to Cyprus - which is partly still alive and goes beyond the current borders, political disputes and ethnic conflicts.

Typical features of our virtual museum

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In accordance with the European Union which is investing in the "information and knowledge society", MU.S.EU.M. gives weight to communication within the prehistoric societies and to the presence in those ancient times of a stock of information and communicative channels able to support complex messages.

In the "Virtual Museum of European roots" one can explore:maps of the firmament, sun or moon motions, constellations; calendar systems; religious-magic symbols; plots of mythical stories; seasonal, annual and cosmic time; accountancy annotations; musical instruments; writing systems; tattoos; human figures; animal imago; amulets; divinities… and many other issues connected to communications.

Prehistoric societies were communication-oriented

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Unfortunately, prehistoric collections - especially those with communication goals - are little known outside the circle of experts and comprise incised or painted signs and symbols which are highly subject to damage, erosion or destruction.

Therefore, MU.S.EU.M. decided to make a strong investment displaying and valorising them in an effective and user-friendly way: 3-D technology not only preserves these peculiar ancient treasures in the virtual world, but also facilitates the pleasure of their view and their study.

A user-friendly 3-D approach

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The sets with Damiano Rosa, MU.S.EU.M. photographer

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In a physical museum, preservation purposes create a distance between collections and users, which could be seen as a barrier to cognitive interactions.

The “Virtual museum of European roots” wants to be a cognitive space able to make artefacts accessible, in a dynamic way, according to their links with their original background and to establish logical and chronological links between objects.

Therefore, it offers visitors the opportunity to surf on and across several different waves of information:

A deep cognitive impact

20 Collections of each of the 7 partner museums

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Timelines

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26 thematic routes connected to communication in the Prehistory (magic symbols, masks, calendars…)

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Categories of objects (statuettes, amulets, jewellery…)

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Establishing logical and chronological links between objects

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Museums are protagonists in the progression of the virtual museum via password and restricted area

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The “Virtual museum of European roots” aspires to deliver new services that actual museums do not offer, in a place where visitors can learn, study, play and "live through" a wide range of experiences.

It is evolving into an organised collection of electronic artefacts: not only 3-D representations but also any information which can be digitalised and displayed through multimedia (paintings, drawings, photographs, diagrams, graphs, recordings, video segments, newspapers or magazine articles, interviews, electronic databases and everything that may be saved on the virtual museum's server).

A multimedia via internet in progress

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The “Virtual museum of European roots” worked on accessibility as a tool allowing users to be assessed as interpreters of the goods and services supplied through interactivity, virtual reconstruction and organisation of contents.

For this reason, we are working on translating the texts from English into the different languages of partners: Bulgarian, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian and Romanian.

Seven languages for one museum

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M.U.S.EU.M. is much more…

www.europeanvirtualmuseum.it

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MU.S.EU.M. has 12 founding members, and new partners have expressed interest in joining our project:• the historical national museum of Slovenia• the national historical museum of the Czech Republic• the Brukental museum• the museum of prehistory of Bolzano• the Sibiu University

Due to the strong trans-national development of the project and the decision to widen the boundaries of the existing partnership, MU.S.EU.M. is considering moving from the “MU.S.EU.M. project” to the “MU.S.EU.M. Net”, the “European Network of museums of History”, aimed at implementing an innovative environment in terms of ideas, proposals and solutions to increase quality in cultural heritage e-services.

From the MU.S.EU.M. project to

the MU.S.EU.M. Net