Following years of effort by all the units participating in TELDAP the line between information and culture was crossed quite a long time ago and cross-boundary mutual borrowing and application of resources has allowed a large amount of precious culture to be repositioned and given new importance. This year the National Palace Museum (NPM) participated in IT month, the aim being to display the various results of the merging of age-old Chinese culture with various digital technologies and life aesthetics to the general public.

A beautiful woman playing on a PC

By using the latest technology the cultural relics previously displayed in lifeless, cold display cases suddenly come to life before our very eyes, totally overturning the stereotypical impression of a museum. For example, the beautiful women in an old painting are seen using various modern 3C products self-assuredly. When a visitor walks in and steps on the sensor pedal on the floor they quickly put away their PCs and cell phones, acting as if nothing is amiss, and go back to normal, playing the instruments that they are playing in the original painting. This humorous design doesn’t just make people laugh, it also closes the gap between historical culture and people.

NPM’s magic crystal ball has a low key but attractive appearance and interesting digital contents.

Another technology development worthy of mention are the intelligent man-machine interactive devices developed by NPM and National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of Networking and Multimedia. An example is the “Magic crystal ball” that allows you not only have a detailed 360 degree view of a 3D image of various  cultural relics, you can, like an emperor of old, play with and rotate the objects. The “must see interactive table” combines cultural relics  and advanced multiple point touch control technology, allowing you to freely enlarge the details of traditional Chinese scenery paintings;it also comes with complete appreciation of the painting, so you don’t just look at the painting you understand what you are looking at.

The Emperor Yongzheng dolls released by NPM were also well received by visitors

In support of the government policy of making culture the foundation for building the country and in step with creative industry trends, the NPM has actively engaged in various display, research, development and marketing work and has achieved rich results to date. As technology continues to progress rapidly NPM is, combining the latest cultural and technological results, establishing various intelligent display mechanisms. Whether taking a trip to the NPM in person, in IT month venues, in the MRT’s Taipei Main Station, in Taoyuan International Airport or at home you access the NPM’s various e-learning and archives data banks via the Internet, immersing yourself in an ocean of knowledge and culture. In the future it can be expected that more and more of Taiwan’s diverse and fascinating culture will be digitized in line with the trend and, through the Internet, become accessible people all over the world, a joint cultural asset to be enjoyed by the people of the world.