Project
Accelerator

3 July 2023

Immersive digital exhibitions: towards new collaborations between heritage and creative industries?

Table of contents

The reopening of cultural venues on May 19 has given a new perspective to promising digital exhibition formats, which are likely to be legion this autumn. Using sound devices and large-format projections, they immerse visitors in a 360-degree fictional and narrative universe, combining aesthetics, emotions and education. The growing interest in such projects on the part of the museum sector(as evidenced by the cultural programs announced), the appetite of audiovisual players to contribute to these proposals, and the promise of increased attendance, all augur well for a revival of this type of exhibition in the coming months. At a time when national museums are seeing their own resources melt away like snow in the sun, they are becoming a kind of safe haven for attracting and developing new audiences, offering new experiences and fostering cross-sector collaborations to generate new revenues. Following in the footsteps of relatively old immersive processes such as dioramas or period rooms used in “analog museology“, more than fifteen immersive digital exhibitions were being deployed in Europe in 2019. This article takes a closer look at this phenomenon, analyzing the various forms of collaboration between the heritage sector and the cultural and creative industries.

1. Immersive digital exhibitions and museums: the impossible encounter?

In France, with a few exceptions such as Cités millénaires atInstitut du monde arabe, few museums have hosted large-scale immersive digital exhibitions.

The Cités Millénaires exhibition atInstitut du monde arabe.

While some museums have set up individual virtual reality experiences within their temporary exhibitions, such as Claude Monet, l’obsession des Nymphéas at the Musée de l’Orangerie or “En tête-à-tête avec la Joconde” (One-on-one with the Mona Lisa) at Musée du Louvre, very few have decided to integrate this type of device into their permanent exhibitions. The Muséum national d’histoire naturelle was a pioneer with its virtual reality cabinet in 2017, while the Château de Clos-Lucé has just launched a permanent immersive space on Leonardo da Vinci this spring.

The immersive space dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci launched in the spring at the Château de Clos Lucé.

The integration of large-format digital exhibits or immersive experiences in museums would therefore seem to be particularly slow and gradual. In the face of increasing competition from other exhibition venues, how might this be explained?

The most obvious reason would seem to be, first and foremost, the physical presence of collections in museums. Faced with objects that bear witness to history, know-how and an aesthetic aura, wouldn’t such virtual experiences undermine museums’ historic missions of preservation, documentation and exhibition?

These considerations may come up against other, more prosaic reasons: lack of space. While the Atelier des Lumières boasts “3,300 m2 of floor-to-ceiling space, with walls up to 10 meters high”, most museums, despite their often monumental dimensions, are paradoxically faced with the impossibility of accommodating 360° projections in spaces that have become screens. As the materialization of an expographic discourse, museum spaces are often compartmentalized and divided into thematic areas according to the collections on display. In addition, the numerous natural light openings required to showcase the collections are not conducive to such projections.

L’Atelier des Lumières, 3,300 m2 of floor-to-ceiling space, with neutral walls and formidable screens for 360° projections.

In addition to the space, the time lag between physical and digital temporary exhibitions is not conducive to integrating digital formats into a cultural program that is sometimes decided 2 or 3 years in advance. Unlike a physical format, a digital exhibition can easily be produced in less than 6 months (the technologies used have an average life cycle of 18 months). The research and negotiation involved in loaning works are replaced by the production of audiovisual content and negotiation of broadcasting rights, scenographic design by the technological equipment of a venue, and media and mediation actions by a “self-supporting” exhibition where the emotion and environment thus recreated serve as a learning experience.

Implementing this type of project therefore requires skills that are often external to the heritage sector. These know-how from the digital and audiovisual sectors come up against museum expertise in exhibition design, and the high standards and scientific rigor that prevail there. The legal and organizational frameworks for these new alliances with players from the cultural and creative industries are, however, complex for museums to integrate. They are still ill-equipped to deal with proposals that are very similar to the legal and economic models that prevail in the audiovisual sector.

Faced with these different constraints, creators, producers and distributors of immersive exhibits have turned to a wide variety of venues that more easily meet their technical specifications: heritage sites, shopping malls, convention centers, exhibition halls, art centers, industrial wastelands, and so on. Faced with sometimes demanding artistic proposals, but also with the promise of high visitor numbers (between 100,000 and 200,000 visitors per exhibition venue for an average running time of between 3 and 6 months), some museums have decided to open up their cultural programming to immersive exhibitions.

2. Towards a manifest craze in exhibition venues and museums?

Before the relatively recent attraction of museums, it was first and foremost exhibition venues and art centers that began to welcome, develop and promote these new forms of artistic creation. These venues have committed themselves to this dynamic by hosting exhibitions or setting up particularly innovative support programs for a professional sector that is in the process of consolidation.

On the exhibition side, in the pioneering tradition (it must be stressed) of the Carrières de Lumières in Baux-de-Provence, managed by Culturespaces since 2012, the Grande Halle de la Villette and the Grand Palais have hosted some particularly emblematic exhibitions in recent years. In 2017, the Grande Halle welcomed Imagine Van Gogh or Team Lab: beyond limits (in 2018), while the Grand Palais offered its visitors Sites éternelsthen, Pompeii in 2020.

The Pompeii exhibition installed from July to November 2020 at the Grand Palais.

On the support side, the 104 Factory welcomes and supports numerous creators and producers of immersive experiences as varied as Genghis Khan, Timescope, Onyo, Digital Rise, Diversion Cinéma and Tamanoir. These project leaders regularly enrich Le Centquatre’s programming, and deploy their know-how in fields as diverse as live performance, digital arts, heritage and tourism. By way of illustration, Le 104, in collaboration with Diversion Cinéma, recently set up a system for renting virtual reality helmets to broadcast and promote various immersive creations: VR TO GO (a project initially imagined by Montreal’s Centre Phi).

One of the works created by the agency Les produits frais, accessible via VR TO GO, based on Arnold Bocklin’s painting Isle of the Dead.

The RMN-Grand Palais’ track record in digital exhibitions recently prompted the public institution to announce the creation of a subsidiary dedicated to programming immersive exhibitions and experiences. From June 16, the Museum national d’histoire naturelle will host an augmented reality experience to bring extinct species back to life (name of experience: ReVivre) and a polysensory exhibition in the autumn brought to you by Expédition Spectacles: Sensory Odyssey.

Sensory Oddyssey, one of the most eagerly awaited immersive exhibitions of the autumn.

The Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, the Centre des Monuments Nationaux, Paris Musées,Institut du monde arabe and many other museums have already hosted or are preparing major exhibitions in close collaboration with a particularly rich and diverse ecosystem of digital producers and creators.

3. Towards co-design logics between the heritage sector and the cultural and creative industries?

Museum partners working on immersive exhibitions include exhibition designers, start-ups and audiovisual producers.

Often long-established in the field of museum support, exhibition designers are opening up their activities to these new immersive formats. This is the case, for example, of French and Belgian companies such asEncoreExpo, Tempora and Exhibition Hub, which have developed various exhibitions on Picasso, Pompeii and Brueghel, respectively.

Other companies in the urban scenography and events sector, such as Moment Factory or ATELIERS ATHEM & JAM were also able to adapt their proposals for videoprojection or videomapping projects, either indoors or on the façades of monuments. Outside, many monuments have been the subject of spectacular projections, such as Reims Cathedral (for Moment Factory), Musée du Louvre or Fondation Louis Vuitton (for ATHEM&JAM). Indoors, by way of illustration, the Grande Halle de la Villette hosted the Jam Capsule project during summer 2020 (various films on Japan, Maria Callas, mystical gardens or Yann Artus-Bertrand’s Legacy were projected there at 360°).

The Jam Capsule project at La Villette

A number of start-ups offer their expertise in 3D modeling and virtual reality, such as the Montreal-based studio Félix&Paul (to discover other Canadian design studios, see the map launched by the cultural services ofFrench Embassy in Canada and Xn Québec) or Iconem. The latter have contributed to the creation of high-quality immersive exhibitions atInstitut du monde arabe (Cités Millénaires) and the Musée de la Romanité in Nîmes(Bâtir un empire).

The Building an Empire exhibition at the Musée de la Romanité created with Iconem

Finally, in order to diversify the distribution of their productions, players from the audiovisual and video game worlds have quite naturally become involved in this type of exhibition. Lucid Realities or Gédéon Programmes helped produceThe Enemy atInstitut du monde arabe and Pompeii at the Grand Palais. On the video game side, Ubisoft regularly supports players in the audiovisual and museum sectors in the implementation of their exhibition projects. Based on images from the Far Cry Primal video game, Ubisoft, France TV, Lucid Realities and Little Big Stories have created an immersive experience that lets you step into the shoes of a Paleolithic woman: Lady Sapiens.

An immersive experience co-produced by a group of partners: Ubisoft, France TV, Lucid Realities, Little Big Stories

Faced with the richness of this ecosystem and the abundance of such projects, collaboration models are asserting themselves and diversifying. Encouraged by the creation of dedicated funds by the CNC, and by investments made by public and private players, museums are increasingly welcoming and contributing to the production of these exhibitions, providing both scientific and expographic expertise. They can also invest financially in these productions by sharing ticket sales with their partners, promoting the touring of these exhibitions or seeking sponsors.

As hosts, (co)producers and even (co)financiers of immersive experiences and exhibitions, some museums seem to want to make their mark in this field, with dedicated permanent or temporary programming, and a willingness to devote part of their museum spaces to it. In the face of this craze, many questions remain unanswered: To what extent can these alliances between heritage and audiovisual media be balanced to develop sustainable, virtuous models? How can these exhibitions be better linked to the museum’s physical collections? Can these exhibitions contribute to developing, diversifying and enriching public relations?

Antoine Roland