“Two strong partners” are culture and digitization, according to Bernd Sibler, former Minister of Art since Wednesday, and even before Corona. With the “digital.kultur.vermittlung” funding, 1.4 million euros have already been awarded to nine state cultural institutions in 2021 to support them in developing a digital strategy. On Tuesday, Sibler presented three of the supported projects at his last press conference as arts minister.
One of them is “Resi very close” by the Bavarian State Theater. According to the deputy director Ingrid Trobitz, in digital test balloons during the lockdown, a closeness between audience and actor became possible, which is now to be further expanded through the programming of digital meeting rooms. For example, the Marstallcafé should be accessible as a virtual space and become a digital meeting place for spectators and actors after a theater performance.
Virtually accessible cultural spaces also play an important role in the digital structure of the Bavarian State Archives. In the “Interior Views” project, which is being expanded with the funding, a virtual visit to the rooms of the state archives should be possible. Such a tour has already been put online for the Bavarian Main State Archives, and all state archives should be accessible in this way by 2023. Interested parties could even see more on this virtual visit than on analogue tours and explore the magazine, which is closed to the public.
It will soon be possible to travel online to the ancient site near Naga in Sudan
In the State Museum of Egyptian Art in Munich, thanks to state funding, museum visitors can travel virtually and audibly to the excavation of an ancient site near Naga in Sudan. In “Operation Naga” they could then walk through a photo panorama and perceive different sounds in the immersive sound landscape depending on their location and viewing direction. The project is currently still in the test phase, but “Enterprise Naga” is to be presented in the museum’s special exhibition room as early as 2023.
Now another 1.2 million euros are to be distributed in a second round of tenders. While steps towards digital cultural mediation had already been taken before the corona crisis, the importance of such projects now seems even clearer. “These digital offerings are helping us through the pandemic,” says Sibler.