Electronic Museum and Interaction "Visitor-Computer"

Alexander Drikker

State Russian Museum, S.-Petersburg

To attract a wide circle of the visitors and to support a cultural level are difficultly compatible tasks of an electronic museum. The decision of this problem is connected to a lot of basic questions missed at the first stage of admiration by surprising opportunities, which have brought the digital technologies:
· Should whether a virtual museum be an electronic copy real one?
· Whether it is necessary to search for a certain unification for representation of a museum, gallery, exhibitions in Internet?
· What are optimum ways to creation " networks of a cultural heritage "?
To solve the put problem the it is necessary to find the active contact with the visitor, to define the distinct representation about his cultural base and emotional structure. It is possible to establish contact with the visitor, to reach his real effective perception, to support the spectator interest by correctly constructed procedure of interaction " the visitor - computer ". The principle of construction of similar procedure is considered in the report. There are the observation of behaviour and reactions of the spectator, his personal features in focus of this procedure.

A museum is a cultural institute of classical order (curators, keepers, visitors, …), hard hierarchy (great artists, famous artists, more or less known artists), severe discipline (guards, guides). The electronic version of a museum or exhibition is the democratic one because of change of time, its own nature, freedom of the manipulation and behaviour of the electronic museum visitor.
The advantages of an electronic museum are obvious (we shall not discuss technical complexities believing that the quality of a reproduced work of art is rather high), but a back of that freedom, which is found by the spectator in virtual space, freedom, which came on a place the didactics, is the danger of contact loss, of the mass visitor confusion.

The similar problems are characteristic too for a real art museum: on the one hand, the museum can not stays constant, as the Сheops' pyramid, on the another hand, attempt to transform a museum in "MacDonalds" with pictures or "Disneyland" are also little perspective. The alive process is a process of adaptation, a search of the compromise.

The aspiration to adapt a virtual museum for conditions of modern mass, democratic culture, probably, is that basic direction, on which it is possible to find the decision of basic problems of popularization of fine art in electronic formats. These problems were not considered at the first stage of the prompt progress and admiration of surprising achievement, which have brought digital technologies. There are only some of them.

• "What purpose, priorities has the electronic edition?
• "What should a virtual museum represent: an electronic copy of a real museum or free transformation?
• " Who has the right, who can, owes to create the electronic version: the official owner, the expert in the given area of art or anyone, who has the wish?
• "Is it necessary to search a certain unification for representation of a museum, gallery, exhibition by Internet, to aspire to the centralized presentation of a national art heritage? Or is creative freedom and independent "self-expression" of the smallest museum more preferable?
• "When is fashionable modern portal more effective: when it is constructed as global site or as the specialized search system offering fast access to a allocated information resource?
• "At last, are the numerous state and private plans of the creation of "cultural heritage networks" a step into the information century or the obvious architectural extravagances?

The mass culture is based on availability, habitualness and advertising. Major result, on which all mechanisms work, is the attraction of attention, interest of a maximum wide range of the spectators. Then the development direction of an electronic museum should be probably defined by the decision, in what variant and format it is capable to popularize the "classical" fine art in the democratic audience more effectively.

Museum for all

The main advantage of electronic space is its variability, which gives possibility to adjust a virtual museum according to the widespread tastes, private preferences and moods. It is necessary, probably to aspire to the realization of this unique feature at any transformations of a virtual museum for achievement of the strategic purpose - to attract and to keep the mass spectator.

The steady, successful perception is achieved only at presence of the emotional support. The concrete condition of interest, without which the sensation of the spectator pass quickly from the initial elation to the attenuation and are finished by the switching-off of the attention, is the optimum balance - the proportion of new and habitual, banal impressions known from the cultural experience.

The similar optimum is defined, mainly, by cultural luggage of the spectator and his emotional structure, habits and preferences. It is necessary to find out their to establish a contact with the visitor. To attract attention of the spectator it is necessary to understand, to feel him. Usual for the social-psychological researches differentiation of the visitors on the degree of sympathy to fine art and social-demographic parameters (educational level, profession, residence, gender, age) hardly promotes the revealing of individuality from behind rigidity and hierarchy of such system.

It is possible to learn the spectator, to catch his interest probably by the correctly constructed program of the "visitor - computer" interaction. There is constant observation of behaviour and reactions of the spectator, continuous specification of personal features in focus of similar procedure.

The process of recognition of an image is based on its consecutive reconstruction: at first from large modules, which become then complicated, being transformed in structure of more and more private modules (2). This process is known in psychology as a concrete definition of perception: " Each previous step represents a mental condition of more common character, and every following step - more private and differentiated condition " (1, 1).

The described principle can be used as a basis for recognition cultural-emotional portrait of the typical spectator. The process is realized in periodic procedure, where each block includes regularly two types of the "visitor - computer" interaction.

First type is a choice in the reply for the precisely put question (it reveals general emotional installations, flavouring preferences of individual).

Second one is carried out at movement of the user on the certain control site of excursion and assumes an estimation, specification of the made choice. The psychological portrait of the spectator is corrected depending on frequency of the address to the help texts, on the quantity of the open images, on the spent time for each information block etc. The interest of the visitor to battle genre or autumn landscape, animal painting or portrait will show his temperament and aesthetic orientation brighter than biographical data (education, profession, residence etc). The correction results define alternatives, which the spectator will find out at the following stage.

The third - irregular - type of interaction is made active in the critical moments, when it can fix the attenuation of the visitor attention. Such interaction aimed at elimination of loss danger of contact to the spectator by means of amplification interactivity, is started by the special program reaction to the spectator behaviour (by approval, surprise, question, invitation to the dialogue, exchange of opinions which stimulate of the visitor activity.

The opportunity to help the spectator in navigation by means of maintenance of one more optimum grows in process of the data accumulation about him. It should be necessary to supply the spectator with the comfortable variability at each stage. On the other hand, it is necessary to minimize quantity of steps (which brake of the spectator: a pause for the decision, click, waiting time). For this purpose it is necessary to offer to the visitor the long videolines keeping chosen (for example, by emotional criteria) version of excursion instead of a series of steps.

The success of concrete transformation of a virtual museum will be defined by a measure of its ability for adaptation, of the opportunity to foresee, to predict the spectator mood. Just on this way it is possible to find that balance of the visitor freedom and management by him, the balance which will ensure the steady contact by means of correct communication procedures, will allow to find an individual rhythm of perception (textual, visual, musical...), to get in a certain resonance to keep spectator interest and to strengthen efficiency of perception.

Cultural selection

After discussion of the concrete problems of "the visitor - computer" interaction let's address to general questions put in the beginning of the text. First of all we ascertain, that the fine art on today's disks and sites is kitsch (although mass excursion in a classical museum is also, probably, phenomenon that sorts). However as Mole marked: "The system of kitsch should be considered as democratic art, which actually makes 95 % of common aesthetic influence in a society." (3, 280).

Therefore the presentation form of art electronic images also should be guided on the mass spectator, on the creation of the "classical" inoculation on a tree of "democratic" culture.
The today's reality of not settled, chaotic set of sites in a global network does not give an opportunity to predict the concrete forms of the future virtual museum. Only the real current of art, public, scientific life will carry out a selection of the optimum forms. According to evolutionary representations, the order and the beauty of morte and live nature is born and crystallize from prototypal chaos. The same principles are true, probably, for the culture.

Proceeding from general evolutionary preconditions, it is possible to conclude that the selection will be most effective with a maximum wide initial spectrum of electronic compositions and virtual representations, on which it proceeds. Therefore it is possible to welcome both small format projects, and global portals under a unique condition - they should not constrain freedom of creativity, prevent the development of alternative directions.

1. Lange N. Psychological researches. - Odessa, 1903.
2. Marr A. the Information approach to study of representation and processing of visual images. - Moscow, 1987.
3. Mole A. Socio-dynamics of culture. - Moscow, 1973.

About Author

Alexander Drikker - DSc (Theory of Culture), PhD (Philosophy),
Head of Data Bases Department of State Russian Museum.
Presidium member of Association for Documentation and New Information Technologies.

Tel.: 7 (812) 311-1889, fax: (812) 552-1740
e-mail: drikker@rusmuseum.ru

Author works in area of Phisical Information Theory, Information Aesthetics, Information Methods and Evolution of Culture, Culture in Information Space, Museum's Data Bases.

The state Russian museum represents the largest in Russia and in the world assembly of national fine art. The collection consists of more than 400 thousand exhibits: old Russian icons, paintings (from parsuna to Malevich's pictures), drawings, engravings, sculptures, products of the national and decorative - applied art.

State Russian Museum, Computer Department
Address: Russia, 191011,Saint-Petersburg, Ingenernaya str., 4