The State Hermitage is again delving deeper into the digital – the museum has long been offering the opportunity to take a virtual tour on its website, while in 2021 it even had a digital double, the “Celestial Hermitage”, working. This time the museum is presenting in Nizhny Novgorod, at the Tseh Art Space, a multimedia project entitled “The Magic Hermitage”. In some ways it resembles a virtual tour of the museum, but it does nevertheless differ from previous experiments with virtual and augmented reality. Now it offers the chance of total immersion in works that have not left the walls of the Hermitage. The head of the museum, Mikhail Piotrovsky, told [the Russian magazine] Snob how they managed to achieve the effect of being there in the new project, whether it will be going to other cities in Russia and abroad, and also about the subtleties and problems of digitizing works of art.
– The Magic Hermitage project is happening for the first time. How did it come about?
– The Magic Hermitage is a part of our major programme that is called the “Greater Hermitage”. It already had, so to speak, an earthly part when we created a new display space, the Gallery of Graphic Art in the Winter Palace. That has existed since summer 2023. The next is the celestial, when we have used the latest technologies to produce a digital copy of the Hermitage. We also have such a thing as a virtual visit – that is the opportunity to go around all the halls online on our museum’s official website, even to zoom in on a painting and examine the brushstrokes. In general, the programme is intended to make our collections more accessible for people across the country and around the world. And right now we are launching the next stage of the project – the Magic Hermitage.
– But won’t people stop “voting with their feet”, so to speak, actually going to the museum, if the Hermitage goes so far along the digital road?
– You see, for the Hermitage, as a very large museum with a rich history, it is very important that people familiarize themselves with it ahead of time. We started to do this back in the pandemic, when museums were closed to the public and began working online. Today, visitors know where they have come to – you can see it in their faces and eyes. They are not stunned by the scale of what they’ve seen, although the admiration remains the same. Visitors are prepared in advance to interact with the museum. That is a real pleasure to witness.
– In any event, this isn’t digitization just for the sake of it, is it?
– Of course not. It’s not an attempt to represent the Hermitage digitally for no particular reason – it’s a carefully thought-out narrative. The visitors are met by a copy of the façade of the Hermitage made on a scale of 1:30. Each year we put on mapping shows [Editor's note – mapping is a method within audio-visual art that takes the form of 3D projection onto a physical object.] on the façade of the Winter Palace or General Staff building for the Hermitage Day, and the viewers of the Magic Hermitage will be able to see those on a reduced scale. Then, once they get inside, an empty hall will await the visitors. Thanks to mapping technology in symbiosis with VR projections onto the ceiling, walls and floor, the décor of a hall will “emerge”, so to speak. Since these are 3D projections, everything will appear to have depth and volume. The halls themselves come to you, while you stand still – the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth… Each hall is allotted a few minutes, then the next switches in. In other words, you do not travel around the Hermitage, but rather it itself “emerges” around you. That’s an entirely different focus and a different experience of interacting with a virtualized museum.
It is indeed similar to an ordinary virtual visit, when visitors are shown paintings that they may never be able to view so closely. Awaiting the guests of the Magic Hermitage there will be holograms of ancient sculptures. It will be possible to go round them, to turn them through 360 degrees. Thanks to this project we can tell and show things that are difficult to tell and show in the museum, where there are restrictions in the form of walls.
– People thought up something similar during the pandemic. Museums themselves “came” into our homes through a computer or some other gadget. What is the key difference between the Magic Hermitage and previous experiments?
– Here we achieve the deepest sense of being there. When you have an exhibition, a tour or a hall, that is merely an image or a video on a screen – you get the impression that your are leafing through an album. In the case of the Magic Hermitage, though, the viewers find themselves in the centre of the image, literally in the very heart of things. It can in part be compared with VR technologies.
All in all, it is even to some extent in competition with VR (laughing). So far things are more interesting when wearing goggles. You can “fly” in them, for instance. Our overall task, though, lay of course in devising something that will replace goggles. I think we are on the right road – a lot is already working out, and soon we will be throwing the goggles away. For example, we have a virtual recreation of the Hermitage’s siege-time air-raid shelters – both using goggles and on the screen – and the effect is practically with same with googles and on the screen, in terms of the quality and sensations.
– Generally speaking, the Hermitage can probably be numbered among the most technological museums in Russia. Are you doing groundwork for the next experiments?
– We try out everything. Right now we are developing the Magic Hermitage format and at the same time thinking about how to implement other ideas as well. Conducting a virtual stroll through all the floors of the museum, for example. Or else we also have a project for a frame in which it will be possible to show paintings in greater detail – the artists’ brushstrokes, how they worked on the canvas in the studio…
As for being ahead of everyone else – I believe it is important to do something technological not for the sake of being first. Still, we do of course acknowledge that we are among the leaders, not only in Russia, but around the world. We simply want to tell people more and are seeking ways of doing that, based upon what modern technologies can offer us. You don’t want to shun them when you know that they can be channelled along useful, enlightening lines.
– What about the option of showing paintings as part of multimedia projects? Will that be like the popular “pictures come to life”?
– That is a very serious question. People now are indeed very fond of “bringing to life” Vincent van Gogh, Leonardo da Vinci and so on. That is for entertainment, though, while with us it’s for thoughtful contemplation. We have introduced a theatrical element – on the way out a whole art-play comes about. Engineers, trained specialists, handle that.
Let me give an example – there is a very well-known artist Bill Viola, a master of video art. He created a whole series of pieces taking classic works as a basis. Those begin to move, slowly, and make the viewer get up closer to them, evoking an urge to penetrate into the depths, to the other side of the frame. That kind of format for “pictures come to life” definitely implies contemplation and not entertainment.
I think that “living” pictures of that sort can exist, but their creation requires good, self-sufficient artists, so we will be experimenting with that. Incidentally, there will be some attempts within the framework of the Magic Hermitage too. Let’s see how it turns out. I haven’t seen them myself yet, and we are open to criticism.
– The paintings featured in the Magic Hermitage are digital copies. How does the process of creating them happen, and what about copyright issues?
– All the copyrights belong to us – the Hermitage. Anyone who makes a digital copy outside of the Hermitage is supposed to obtain permission from us. We keep up with the times, work with artificial intelligence, draw up and think through all the details from a legal viewpoint, because we have already been through it many times, of course. Still, I never tire of saying that a digital copy is not the best copy. It’s attractive, sure enough, pleasing. Yet we all know that a vinyl record is always better than a song on an mp3 player.
– What do you think – does it make sense to digitize works of art considering that even well-managed climate control and competent storage in repositories is no guarantee that they will live to be seen by future generations?
– I believe that we should make digital copies. Generally speaking, it is a boon that today, with the latest technologies, we do have that opportunity. Still, one has to bear in mind that this is not the ultimate solution and not a panacea, unfortunately. Already at this point we have nowhere to keep even the digital data – we are always looking for new storage facilities and signing contracts so as to have a bit more space. Although you might think, “These aren’t physical objects; what is there to store?” Another problem, no less significant, lies in the fact that the tools for reproducing digitized copies are rapidly changing and getting outdated.
– As far as I’m aware, there aren’t even any rules for digitized reproductions.
– How to store them is clear, but actual rules about how to record and store them don’t exist. And we regularly encounter this dreadful state of affairs. A certain artist recently presented us with a video, and we now need to come up with a mechanism for preserving it. There is another aspect too, though, which concerns, for example, customs regulations, which are also not defined when it comes to digitized works.
For example, a work of art comes under one category when crossing the borders, one tariff, while the tape-recorder used to reproduce comes under another. Then let’s not forget the artist who recommends using this specific device to reproduce his creation. But what if that is already outdated? Then a copyright issue arises: you have to get the artist’s permission to use a different gadget. Plus the change has to be documented in museum records as well. Otherwise a commission will come along and say, “Aha, the papers say this device, while in fact it’s another one. Who’s been pilfering?” (laughing).
– It’s good that you mentioned customs, because I happen to have a question about your colleagues abroad. The Magic Hermitage is having its debut now in Nizhny Novgorod. If everything works out, where will the project be going afterwards? Only around Russia?
– Of course, we will be expanding as opportunities permit. But “abroad” means different things, too. We do have “well-trodden paths” – to Serbia and China, for example. With Europe, though, matters are difficult. It’s the USSR there right now – nothing is possible (laughing). Perhaps we‘ll consider collaboration with the Middle East. We do have a fair few connections, but it is of course too early to talk of specific negotiations and proposals. We shall see. It’s something experimental, all the same. I myself can’t wait to see how it has turned out. Still, I don’t doubt that it will be splendid and interesting.
Interviewer” Tamara Lorka
