On 20 November 2020, the State Hermitage and the Institut Français in Saint Petersburg conducted a live online round table about the use of virtual and augmented reality in museums.
At the event, specialists from Russia and France held a discussion about what kind of public an immersive environment in a museum is developed for, to what extent it is capable of overcoming the gap between generations, and how to organize things in such a way that new technologies like augmented or virtual reality do not replace, but rather supplement the masterpieces kept in a museum. The participants spoke about their own projects in the realm of VR and AR, and they shared their views of the prospects for the evolution of new technologies in working with an audience in a museum environment.
The moderator of the event was Ksenia Pushnitskaya, editor of the “Digital Collection” section on the State Hermitage’s website, a member of staff in the Computer Technology Sector. Greetings were sent to the participants by Pascal Slivanski, French Consul General in Saint Petersburg and Deputy Director of the Institut Français in Russia.
The participants in the round table were:
- Dominique de Font-Reaulx, General Curator and Director of Mediation and Cultural Programmes at the Louvre; Editor-in-Chief of the magazine Histoire de l’art; curator of exhibitions at the Musée de la musique, Musée d'Orsay, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Musée Fabre; lecturer and scientific consultant at the Institute of Political Science in Paris
- Kay Meseberg, Director for innovation at the Franco-German channel ARTE, Innovation ambassador at the International Music + Media Centre
- Roman Sarychev, Director for relations with cultural institutions at the international IT company CROC, one of the curators of the joint project between the State Hermitage and CROC’s Virtual Reality Centre to produce a VR model of the Gallery of the History of Ancient Painting
- Sergei Zakharov, producer of the project “Hermitage VR. Immersion in History”; founder, creative producer and director of the video production studio Super 8
- Axel Scoffier, Deputy Director General of Unifrance, the largest French organization responsible for promoting French cinema around the world
- Fabien Barati. co-founder of StudioEmissive, which specializes in VR and AR projects; works with museums and other cultural institutions (the Louvre, Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine).
- François Serre, Director of the Courant 3D festival of immersive and interactive technologies based in Angoulême
At the end of the discussion, Olga Sviblova, Director of the Multimedia Art Museum, shared her thinking on the topic.
A recording of the live broadcast of the round table is available for viewing on the State Hermitage’s official social media – VKontakte, Odnoklassniki and Facebook, and also on its YouTube channel. A recording in French can be viewed on the social network pages of the Institut Français de Saint-Pétersbourg.
