An Ancient, Avant-Garde Palace

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An Ancient, Avant-Garde Palace

The Forbidden City stands on the shoulders of tech giants to spread its cultural heritage By Pan Xiaoqiao

A video featuring a Chinese emperor dancing, rapping, taking selfies and texting imperial concubines via instant messaging services WeChat and QQ recently went viral on the mobile platforms. The commotion was a result of a partnership between Chinese Internet giant Tencent and Beijing’s Palace Museum, otherwise known as the Forbidden City, announced in early July.

Emperor Yongle (1360-1424), the third ruler of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and the video’s protagonist, could never have imagined that today’s youth would become so obsessed with the Forbidden City, which was constructed under his reign during the 15th century.

“It’s a bit surprising to see Emperor Yongle singing and dancing and using WeChat. It’s funny and impressive,” said Wang Xinyi, a graduate from Beijing Foreign Studies University. “Historical and cultural figures in the Palace Museum are static and silent, but this video brings them to life in a modern way. Here, history is no longer dull and text-based.”

A collection of creative works based on classical paintings from the Palace Museum was also released, in which imperial concubines play computer games and use virtual reality (VR) headsets.

Mary Lincoln, a senior at the College of Education at Michigan State University in the United States, said that she was thrown off by the mix of styles and that she liked the design and artistic motifs. “It is mixing the old with a new style. The more I look at it, the more I like it. I would like to visit the palace based on these images, and I’d be interested in playing a game based on it,” she said after watching the video several times.

Her schoolmate, Jackson Falkowskand, also expressed interest in the video, adding that he wants to visit the museum after experiencing the virtual version.

These new takes on the traditional image of the ancient palace, usually seen as solemn and awe-inspiring by the Chinese, are actually an invitation for game developers and students to enter the Next Idea Tencent Creativity Competition organized by the company.

Participants are required to design WeChat and QQ emoticons and mobile games based on classical paintings, such as emperors’ portraits, whose intellectual property (IP) rights have been shared with Tencent. Come October, mobile platform users will be able to see palace-themed emoticons created by the competition’s winners.

The Duanmen Digital Gallery at the Palace Museum in Beijing

Reaching out

“Last September, the Palace Museum held an exhibition [of works from] Shiqu Baoji (a precious archive of paintings and works of calligraphy housed in the Forbidden City). There was a long queue of people waiting outside, and some of them even waited until midnight,” said Shan Jixiang, Director of the Palace Museum at a conference announcing the partnership with Tencent. “I found that 70 percent of those in the queue were young people from all over the world. We hope to make it easier for the young to know about the Forbidden City through new technologies.”

The 600-year-old palace, eager to share its cultural heritage in new and creative ways, particularly with younger generations, has been known to engage in new Internet trends.

In 2008, the palace’s Taobao store began to operate under a deal with Alibaba, Jack Ma’s e-commerce giant, selling goods and souvenirswith designs based on the museum’s cultural relics.

The palace also has its own social media team, a group of people born in the 1980s and 1990s, who combine current hot topics with traditional culture in an attempt to attract a younger audience.

In 2014, the Palace Museum developed an interactive application for the iPad named “A Day in the Life of a Chinese Emperor,” which simulates the work and leisure activities of a monarch through a cartoon avatar.

Tencent’s latest competition is by no means the first time it has joined hands with the Palace Museum. Since early 2014, the palace’s ticket booking service has been available through Tencent’s WeChat. Meanwhile, the museum has registered a public WeChat account to publicize information related to the Forbidden City.

While the collaboration previously centered on technical services, the Next Idea competition is pushing the two partners further into the cultural sphere.

The Palace Museum, a former royal residence that boasts numerous cultural and historical treasures, is tantamount to an IP warehouse in the eyes of companies seeking to take advantage of the burgeoning IP economy. Also, given Tencent’s user base of around 877 million registered accounts—60 percent of them born during the 1990s—its potential to broaden the museum’s reach is enormous.

“It’s important to hand down this magnificent palace intact to future generations,” said Shan, who stressed his hope that young people will carry forward the palace’s cultural legacy and that more will become interested in traditional culture.

Pony Ma, CEO of Tencent, talked about his decision to work with the palace. “While culture provides the soil for social media to grow up and thrive, social networking platforms like WeChat and QQ can also help to push it forward.” He said that Tencent would like to act as a bridge between traditional culture and the young. “We hope to work together with the Palace Museum to introduce Chinese culture to the world,” said Ma.

In order to highlight the cooperation between the two, Tencent released in July a special version of its classic mobile game, Craz3 Match, with the Forbidden City as its theme. The two partners’ cooperation will extend from emoticons and mobile games to animation and literature and even VR and augmented reality in the coming years.

As Ma has said, the competition means to bring into play the concept of “Internet plus traditional culture.” According to Ma, “the great ideas provided by the young are to be realized through the Internet.”

Emperor Yongle’s fictitious online social network featured in a promotional video

An imperial concubine wearing a VR headset

Digitizing the palace

The Palace Museum is home to more than 1.8 million precious historical and cultural works. It receives 15 million visitors annually and expects a steady increase of 1 million each year.

For the sake of cultural heritage protection, there are a lot of limitations on the extent to which the palace can be opened to the public.

For instance, famous for its collection of calligraphy works, a room in the palace called Sanxi Studio attracts large numbers of visitors. However, since the studio is only 8 square meters in size, spectators can only look into the studio through its windows.

It was not until December 2015, when the Duanmen Digital Gallery of the Palace Museum opened, that visitors were able to “enter” the studio. Thanks to a computergenerated virtual environment displaying the works of art on screens in a digital gallery, visitors can feel as though they are inside the actual studio. This hi-tech system will be extended for use in similar cases as well as to showcase delicate or fragile items not suitable for display in normal exhibitions.

While more and more visitors come to the palace to appreciate its unique cultural heritage, the museum struggles to protect itself from damage, resulting from natural erosion and intentional tampering. Tackling this conflict has long been a concern for various curators throughout the museum’s history.

Digital technology now seems to provide the answer. The successful launch of the palace’s official website in July 2001 marked the start of its journey into the digital era. Following that, in October 2003, the Forbidden City saw the birth of an advanced digital application research institute focused on the palace’s cultural assets, which was jointly set up with Japan’s Toppan Printing Co. Ltd. The institute aims to preserve and display cultural relics through the application of digital technologies.

The first result from the research institute’s efforts is the VR work The Forbidden City, Emperor’s Palace. By means of VR technology, visitors can move freely in a three-dimensional computer-created space.

According to Shan, the Palace Museum will complete the “digital palace” program by the end of this year. So far, it has already produced seven VR films on the Forbidden City, five of which have been released to the public.

By digging deep into its cultural resources, the Palace Museum is attempting to showcase itself through various channels. Recreating the entire museum in virtual space may not be far off from becoming a reality.

Copyedited by Bryan Michael Galvan

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