French Museums in the Digital Era — my thoughts in a nutshell. [PART 1]
This article is the retranscription of an interview by Elisa GRAVIL from Museovation for her upcoming thesis about the “IRL Museum VS the URL Museum”. I had the chance the get a glimpse from her thoughts and theories, and I highly advice you to follow her Twitter and stay tuned for her publications.
A fast adoption but a slow transformation.
[Elisabeth Gravil] You have been among the firsts to promote digital technology in museums in France. You have a vision now international. What is your point of view on the digitisation of French museums compared to other countries?
[Diane Drubay] I started working with museums in 2007 trying to inspire them with the new digital dynamics: developing new tools, deploying the museum on non-proprietary platforms, being agile in the decision-making process. At the same time, the Ministry of Culture has itself taken this change with a real mission to support the transformation of museums by the implementation of innovative calls for projects, allowing the adoption of digital tools. Ten years later, I can say that the stage of adoption of these tools and social networks went very quickly.
However, unlike the Anglo-Saxon museums, this digital revolution has not been accompanied by a change in attitudes inspired by the culture of Web 2.0 (end of silos, customer-centric vision). The French scene had taken the lead but she did not show enough agility to move to the second stage. The vast majority of museums not only remain very collection-centred, very top-down in the transmission of knowledge, but they claim it. For me, this is an obstacle to their modernisation, given the initiatives that I can observe in northern Europe or the rest of the world.
There is a lack of integration of the digital strategy within the PSC (Scientific and Cultural Project) because the digital transformation is not limited to the adoption of tools, often done in a specific way, but to a process of change of the very organisation of the museum. Adopting 2.0 values requires a horizontal sharing of collections, thinking about exhibits with visitors, opening up to new forms of co-creativity, a diversity of points of view, interaction, having a personality who embodies this change, if possible at the top of the hierarchy, to be a source of inspiration for the ecosystem in which we are implanted. This is the only way to consider a museum that will benefit both its staff and its visitors, in a long-term balanced budgetary context.
Where to look for inspiration?
[EG] What would be for you the country that best embodies this digital transformation in museums?
[DD] I am very attentive to all the initiatives coming from the Netherlands. Their museums have taken a step which for me has helped them to think differently about the future of the museum: the recruitment of “digital champions” who are not from the museum community. For instance, Laure Pressac (Laure Pressac is Head of strategy, prospective and digital at the French centre for national heritage. She graduated from ESSEC and worked at Cap Gemini as Senior Manager, Customer experience and digital transformation) at the Centre des Monuments Nationaux has this type of profile in France.
Dutch museums both integrate the benefits of digital into the museum itself (the collections and exhibitions), but also the benefits and repercussions for the audiences it is intended for, all in a long-term vision that constantly interweaves both, in all their projects. They have both a very business side (sometimes misunderstood), but also very social and innovative, all embodied in a very transparent strategic vision that everyone can appropriate. For some of them, it is even clearly written on their website.
Open Innovation in France
[EG] Open innovation has become very important over the last three years in France between the hackathons of the Museomix and the BnF, the creation of private or public cultural incubators like the Centre des Monuments Nationaux. What is your view of these initiatives?
[DD] I think they are going in the right direction to open up to the 2.0 culture mentioned earlier. Open innovation events are are very useful steps to make museums question their process and mindset. They allow them to get close to other ways of thinking and bring them a cross-sectoral vision.
But this must not be an end in itself. This type of initiative must not remain a dead letter once the hackathon weekend has passed. After such an individual and group experience, the experience should make an impact on the teams, bing a change of mindset. This must provoke questions within the teams so that it really brings modernization of the museum. Looking back at Museomix, that I co-founded, I am very optimistic about the evolution of these co-creation opportunities which now seem to be useful for everyone, to be more and more collaborative, and spread an opening mentality. It is no longer “us and you” or “us and the others” but “together we will see what we can do”.
These are also the words that I find in the mouth of Laure Pressac when talking about the incubator CMN. She always mentions co-creation, co-design, co-production of projects with their different startups. The same message is found on the other side in the mouths of startups like Marion Carré of Ask Mona, which proves the real pooling of resources in the service of a common vision.
The difficult relationship between the GAFA and the museums
[EG] What is your view on the arrival of external actors in the museum world, be it Google Arts & Culture, Microsoft or the gaming industry with Ubisoft? What are the institutions most likely to defeat the value of the IRL museum?
[DD] The museum must agree to get off his pedestal, which he still has a lot of trouble doing in France. It must accept that what is not cultural (commercial i.e) is necessary and non-degrading, accept that the initiatives of external actors can bear fruit in the museum, that asking for help is good. If museums persist in staying in their ivory tower, all these external actors will slowly take their place and their missions without associating them. Either museums collaborate, or they will have to reinvent themselves to have another role in society, than that of transmitter of knowledge (what is personally also very inspiring me!).
There are some very positive initiatives of collaboration with the big companies from Internet. I have in mind the tripartite IBM collaboration through Watson their artificial intelligence, the Mauritshuis Museum and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. They have been working in co-creation for two years in order to develop an artificial intelligence capable of answering the different questions that a visitor faces in front of an artwork. IBM initiated this project at the Pinacoteca of Sao Paulo in Brazil. They are now pursuing it very closely with the Mauritshuis, from a research and experimentation perspective, in order to test the different cases of use of artificial intelligence at the museum. This kind of collaboration is interesting for both the product that will be developed and the acquisition of the co-creation process that allows the museum to rethink and transform itself.
It is very important that such initiatives are put in place, because at the same time, other actors such as Google Arts & Culture, advance according to their own agendas without really taking into account the imperatives of the museum.
