Shaping the Connected Museum II
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Nottingham
Department Name: School of Computer Science
Abstract
Museums and galleries are increasingly receptive to using digital technology and participatory methods to grow and diversify their audiences. International partnership is a further attractive route to achieving these aims, bringing the additional benefits of cross-cultural understanding and so demonstrating global relevance. This project brings digital technologies, participatory methods and international partnership together through the vision of the 'connected museum' in which visitors, artefacts and also stories move and project themselves between museums - both physically and virtually.
Our aims are to cement our existing network of UK and Chinese partners into a long-term strategic partnership; refine our vision of the connected museum by identifying target audiences, opportunities and challenges; demonstrate this to others through production projects that showcase the value and feasibility of our approach; while also establishing the theoretical, methodological and technical research agendas that to underpin or vision.
The project will enable a partnership of Universities (Nottingham, including its Ningbo Campus in China, Exeter, Shanghai Jiao Tong, Hangzhou Normal and Zhejiang Science and Technology), cultural institutions (Tate, Shanghai Museum, Shanghai Science and Technology Museum) and industry partners (Factory42, Alibaba) to explore technical, methodological and theoretical challenges, driven by the shared practice of making, deploying and studying our two 'production projects' that run across networked UK and Chinese museums. This will be supported by a series of workshops, including a design workshop using the Visitor Box method that has emerged from previous AHRC projects, and staff and PhD exchanges.
Our aims are to cement our existing network of UK and Chinese partners into a long-term strategic partnership; refine our vision of the connected museum by identifying target audiences, opportunities and challenges; demonstrate this to others through production projects that showcase the value and feasibility of our approach; while also establishing the theoretical, methodological and technical research agendas that to underpin or vision.
The project will enable a partnership of Universities (Nottingham, including its Ningbo Campus in China, Exeter, Shanghai Jiao Tong, Hangzhou Normal and Zhejiang Science and Technology), cultural institutions (Tate, Shanghai Museum, Shanghai Science and Technology Museum) and industry partners (Factory42, Alibaba) to explore technical, methodological and theoretical challenges, driven by the shared practice of making, deploying and studying our two 'production projects' that run across networked UK and Chinese museums. This will be supported by a series of workshops, including a design workshop using the Visitor Box method that has emerged from previous AHRC projects, and staff and PhD exchanges.
Planned Impact
As a project with extensive industry and international collaboration, we will have a wide ranging impact.
Creative industries will be enabled to deliver future interactive visiting experiences that connect museums across the UK and China. They will benefit from: conceptual and practical knowhow; early access to technologies emerging from research; and a shop window in China to showcase examples of their work. These will help open up a potentially vast market for their work overseas while strengthing their position in the home market. Our creative industry partner Factory 42 brings the following pathways to impact: business expansion and exporting; establishing a Shanghai office; preparing the company to raise Series A round of investment in late 2020; employment/staff development; and dissemination at industry conferences such as Beyond, Museum Next, Remix and many BAFTA events.
Cultural institutions will gain greater access to international audiences and new ways of engaging existing audiences. They will benefit from: growth of audiences; overcoming barriers to touring; enhanced international reputations; and experience of new participatory methods. Collectively our three cultural partners in the UK and China bring the following pathways to impact: public presentation of our production projects; international partnership development; international audience development; and Tate Exchange as a unique meeting ground between audiences and research.
Universities and IROs will grow their capability to carry out practice-led creative research in China and benefit from increased impact of their research with new stakeholders. Specific benefits will be: increased relevance of their research; revenue from consultancy, services rendered development, licensing of IP and KTPs; and career development for researchers and PhD students. Our university partners will deliver impact through the Visitor Box tookit of museum ideation cards; delivering industry training; policy impact through briefings and internships at DCMS; PhD internships through our doctoral training programmes; and the release of open source platforms.
Finally, audiences will be the ultimate beneficiaries of our research through novel engaging and interactive experiences; appreciation of other cultural perspectives; and being able to experience previously inaccessible artefacts.
Creative industries will be enabled to deliver future interactive visiting experiences that connect museums across the UK and China. They will benefit from: conceptual and practical knowhow; early access to technologies emerging from research; and a shop window in China to showcase examples of their work. These will help open up a potentially vast market for their work overseas while strengthing their position in the home market. Our creative industry partner Factory 42 brings the following pathways to impact: business expansion and exporting; establishing a Shanghai office; preparing the company to raise Series A round of investment in late 2020; employment/staff development; and dissemination at industry conferences such as Beyond, Museum Next, Remix and many BAFTA events.
Cultural institutions will gain greater access to international audiences and new ways of engaging existing audiences. They will benefit from: growth of audiences; overcoming barriers to touring; enhanced international reputations; and experience of new participatory methods. Collectively our three cultural partners in the UK and China bring the following pathways to impact: public presentation of our production projects; international partnership development; international audience development; and Tate Exchange as a unique meeting ground between audiences and research.
Universities and IROs will grow their capability to carry out practice-led creative research in China and benefit from increased impact of their research with new stakeholders. Specific benefits will be: increased relevance of their research; revenue from consultancy, services rendered development, licensing of IP and KTPs; and career development for researchers and PhD students. Our university partners will deliver impact through the Visitor Box tookit of museum ideation cards; delivering industry training; policy impact through briefings and internships at DCMS; PhD internships through our doctoral training programmes; and the release of open source platforms.
Finally, audiences will be the ultimate beneficiaries of our research through novel engaging and interactive experiences; appreciation of other cultural perspectives; and being able to experience previously inaccessible artefacts.
Organisations
- University of Nottingham (Lead Research Organisation)
- University of Nottingham Ningbo China (Collaboration)
- Shanghai Jiao Tong University (Collaboration)
- Shanghai Museum (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- Alibaba Cloud (Project Partner)
- Factory 42 (Project Partner)
- Shanghai Science & Technology Museum (Project Partner)
- HTC VIVE Arts (Project Partner)
Publications

Ch'ng E
(2023)
Social Augmented Reality: Communicating via Cultural Heritage
in Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage

Cheng D
(2022)
Harnessing Collective Differences in Crowdsourcing Behaviour for Mass Photogrammetry of 3D Cultural Heritage
in Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage


Huang Y
(2024)
Exploring Effects of a Nostalgic Storytelling Virtual Reality Experience Beyond Hedonism.
in Cyberpsychology, behavior and social networking
Title | Landscapes Reimagined |
Description | An app that employs augmented reality to enable visitors to explore paintings from Tate's and Shanghai Museum's collections, appear to place them in their homes, and combine elements of them to create new works. |
Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
Year Produced | 2022 |
Impact | Joint collaboration between the two museums and industry parter Factory 42. |
URL | https://www.tate.org.uk/about-us/projects/landscapes-reimagined-app |
Title | The Gift app (Mandarin Translation) |
Description | An app that enables visitors to choose exhibits from a museum, take photos of them, add personal messages, and wrap the whole package up as a digital gift to be shared with someone else. The project has created a Mandarin translation of the app (the English version existed before the project) so that it can be sued by Chinese as well as UK (and other) visitors. |
Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
Year Produced | 2022 |
Impact | The app supported a Masters project at the University of Nottingham to deliver an initial user study. |
URL | https://www.blasttheory.co.uk/projects/gift/ |
Description | The challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic led us to explore new ways of stimulating collaborations between UK and Chinese universities, museums and industry. These included hosting a 10 week long virtual intern scheme and summer school for students from both China and the UK. We have implemented four demonstrator experiences of how digital technologies can connect UK and Chinese museums and their visitors. The Landscapes Reimagined app uses augmented reality to enable visitors to select and compare paintings from the Tate and Shanghai Museum collections, display them in their own homes and mash them up to create new works. The Gift app (Mandarin and English versions) enables visitors to create personal museum tours as gifts for others. The Ningbo City museum created a pubic exhibition that compared life in the cities of Ningbo and Nottingham. The VRtefacts virtual reality experience enables visitors to record and experience personal stories when viewing recreations of artefacts in virtual reality while simultaneously manipulating physical props that add to the tactile experience. |
Exploitation Route | The students undertook audience studies and prototyping of immersive experiences, the results of which are now shaping discussions between the partners for our demonstrator projects. The demonstrators cod be further developed by the partners or on some cases other s(The Gift app is open source). |
Sectors | Culture Heritage Museums and Collections |
Description | Our project established a network of UK and Chinese academic, cultural and industry partners to collaborate on hybrid museum experiences. We were significantly impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic that prevented travel for the visits and face-to-face events that were core to our original proposal. In mitigation, we turned to online means of working together and shifted our focus more to creating experiences for remote museum visiting. Our partners jointly created four prototype remote visiting experiences. Tate, Factory 42, and the Shanghai Museum, along with the University of Nottingham (UK and Ningbo campuses) and University of Exeter, collaborated on the Landscapes Reimagined app for mobile phones which utilised augmented reality to enable visitors to select, explore and compare paintings from the Tate's and Shanghai Museum's collections, display them om the walls of their own homes, and mash them up to create new works. Blast Theory in partnership with the University of Nottingham (UK and Ningbo campuses) and University of Exeter collaborated on a Chinese translation of the Gift app that allows visitors to a museum to create personalised tours for other remote visitors. The Ningbo City museum in partnership with the University of Nottingham (UK and Ningbo campuses) created a public exhibition that compared life in the cities of Ningbo and Nottingham. Shanghai Jiaotong University in partnership with the University of Nottingham created the VRtefacts virtual reality experience that enables visitors to record and experience personal stories when viewing recreations of artefacts in virtual reality while simultaneously manipulating physical props that add to the tactile experience. The project also supported student internships as a way of connecting partners, extending and evaluating our four demonstrators, including running an online summer school. We innovated mechanisms for working together online including online versions of ideation cards (e.g., our Visitor Box deck for designing museum experiences) and the prototype Bubbles social virtual environment platform (which has been carried forward into a subsequent EU funded XTREME project that is engaging involving various European cultural institutions to explore online virtual performance). |
Sector | Creative Economy,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
Impact Types | Cultural |
Description | Mixed Reality Environment for Immersive Experience of Art and Culture |
Amount | £62,450,000 (GBP) |
Funding ID | 10106874 |
Organisation | European Union |
Sector | Public |
Country | European Union (EU) |
Start | 01/2024 |
End | 12/2026 |
Description | SHJT |
Organisation | Shanghai Jiao Tong University |
Country | China |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Partnership on co-designing museum experiences that connect UK and Chinese museums and their audiences |
Collaborator Contribution | Partnership on co-designing museum experiences that connect UK and Chinese museums and their audiences |
Impact | Co-design of connected museum experience |
Start Year | 2021 |
Description | Shangai Museum |
Organisation | Shanghai Museum |
Country | China |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Partnership on co-designing museum experiences that connect UK and Chinese museums and their audiences |
Collaborator Contribution | Partnership on co-designing museum experiences that connect UK and Chinese museums and their audiences |
Impact | Design workshops and initial concept |
Start Year | 2021 |
Description | UNNC |
Organisation | University of Nottingham Ningbo China |
Country | China |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Partnership on co-designing museum experiences that connect UK and Chinese museums and their audiences |
Collaborator Contribution | Partnership on co-designing museum experiences that connect UK and Chinese museums and their audiences |
Impact | Co-design of connected museum experiences |
Start Year | 2021 |
Description | Summer School and intern Programme |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | A ten week long Summer School to engage over ten student interns from our partner universities with industry partners and museums exploring specific development and study ideas and reporting results in a final workshop. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |