Markus Hilgert

A Ding

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Markus Hilgert, director of the Pergamon Museum in Germany, said the biggest challenge today for museums and companies is the digital transformation.

“Technology has changed our ways of recording information and documentation. And the digital transformation here I mean is that technology should engage in a museum’s operation and management,” said Hilgert, who is in Shenzhen for the first time.

The director was impressed by Shenzhen and said that Shenzhen has a huge potential for digital transformation because people in this city are young and open to new technologies. “I know that the most population in Shenzhen is about 35 years old. As I am from Germany and the aging population is growing fast in my country, I do envy the vitality of this city. I think Shenzhen as a young city is full of potential.”

Hilgert and his museum in Germany are now embarking on the technological journey. He said, “Right now in my museum, we are now experimenting on 3-D technology because we are trying to establish standard for 3-D digitized archaeological objects. Once you have a 3-D model of an object, you can do all kinds of wonderful things. You can design interactive applications through which users can virtually play with or touch the objects.”

The director values those interactive and participative applications because he thinks those apps can allow young people and more children to have access to the museum’s objects.

“Usually one cannot touch museum objects, but when you have a 3-D model, you can have a 3-D print. Therefore, virtually you can touch the objects. These tools help us to create a different way of museum management, because if you got a 3-D model of an archaeological object and use your smartphone with an app, you can actually point the phone to the object so that the app can help you to recognize the object. All data of the object can thus be gained by users,” Hilgert said.

However, the implementation of new technologies is still being developed because Hilgert and his colleagues actually don’t know how audiences will react to it.

Hilgert said, “We need to find the right way between vitalizing the museum completely on the one hand, and still enabling visitors to come to the museums.”

Speaking of museums’ role in preserving and retelling the history of human beings, Hilgert said that promoting cultural diversity in today’s world was one of the most important missions of museums.

Editor: Jane Chen