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Fenenko Andrey Olegovich, postgraduate student, Kharkiv State Academy of Culture, Kharkiv E-mail: [email protected]
VIRTUAL MUSEALISATION AS A PHENOMENON OF CULTURE
Abstract: This paper presents the phenomenon of virtual musealisation as an instrument of actualization of cultural heritage in the information society. The author has considered the role of the virtual musealisation in institutional and non-institutional communication musealisation practice and the axiological aspect of virtual objects in the preservation system of cultural heritage.
Keywords: museality, musealias, virtual musealisation, digital heritage.
Actuality of Research. The active development tion and interactivity) between them [2, 403-404],
of information and communication technologies has led to the expansion of the space of human activity to the cyberspace (or the space of virtual reality) that was created by computer means. The cyberspace is gradually acquiring a global character in recent decades and covering the main spheres of human activity due to the spread of Internet technologies. Under these conditions and within the UN Millennium Declaration's direction to ensure that the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communication technologies, are available to all [12], becomes possible to manifest the museality (or museum demand) as a specific attitude of a person to the objective side of reality, that manifests in an effort to acquire, preserve and use the true values which is a means of preserving the cultural memory [4, 10] in the cyberspace. This phenomenon can be one of the means for renewed dialogue among cultures and civilizations that is caused by the process of globalization facilitated by the rapid development of the new information and communication technologies that was described by the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity [11]. Due to the fact that activities in cyberspace provide for the organization of a specific type of interaction between heterogeneous objects that operate at different hierarchical levels: objects of a constant level (objective reality) and derived objects of a virtual level (virtual reality), and the establishment of specific relations (genera-
traditional means of realizing museality acquire a specificity in such conditions. Therefore, research in this area is topical.
Analysis of Researches. The process of musealisation as a means of actualizing the cultural heritage in a globalized world was considered by O. S. Sa-panza [3; 4] and A. A. Soshnikov [6], however these scientists did not investigate the virtual aspect of the development of that phenomenon.
The purpose of the paper is to define the role of the phenomenon of virtual musealisation in the system of communicative activity of museum institutions and non-institutional museum activities in the information society.
The statement ofbasic materials. The museality is realized in the process of musealisation through the actualization, the purpose of which is the preservation of the cultural and natural heritage and its inclusion in the space of modern culture as a result of the activation of the socio-cultural role of its objects and their interpretation [5, 49], in particular the specific interpretation of "musealias" (information carriers that have documentary and other value [4, 11]). It includes the "museum production" (activity in the field of creation of different organizational forms of extragenetic information preservation through the disclosure of the potential value of musealias) and "museum consumption" (the next level of actualization of the revealed value of musealias that includes
activity in the field of perception of these information by the subject) [3, 42]. Due to the spread of information and communication technologies and growth of its role it became necessary to expand the musealisation process to the cyberspace, which provides an additional means of preservation and transmission of the information about material musealias during the implementation of the main stages of the musealisation process ("museum production" and "museum consumption"), and to redefining the definition "musealias" in particularly as a result of the acquisition of a new meaning by the term "cultural heritage" [1]. Traditionally, material objects and intangible objects of cultural heritage, which have a potential or realized museum value and which are the object of a specific (museum) attitude to reality, are classified as musealias [3, 52]. Objects of cyberspace need axiological definition of their inherent value characteristics, in particular museal and, accordingly, the inclusion ofvirtual objects in the process of musealisation.
The specificity of museality as a person's relation to the objective side of reality and the way in which the subject (man, society) perceives and gives musealias special properties in the process of musealisation in order to preserve the historical potential and creative reserve of mankind's experience [3, 41], determines that it is concentrated, above all, in the relevant institutions (museums and institutions of the museum type) which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment [8]. But this activity is not limited only to proper institutional forms, it can also have a non-institutional nature, which is realized in the form of private collectibles and in other activities, one of the results of which is the preservation of cultural memory.
Cyberspace provides a wide range of means for preserving and transmitting information about musealias. It makes available for museum institutions effective means for preserving information
about musealias (databases, multimedia information banks) and the means for transferring information that was synthesized into various virtual objects and realized in virtual expositions and exhibitions (from a simple electronic analogue of a real exposition to a complex interactive system), electronic publications, various electronic communicative practices, the object ofwhich is the musealias, and participants is the museum staff and various categories of museum audience for which can be provided the target adaptation of information (according to age, professional distribution, physical capabilities, etc.). Also, cyberspace provides the means for the development of musealisation in a non-institutional form that is more chaotic and unsystematic.
In addition, the problem of determining the value ofvirtual objects is actual. Partially this issue was considered in the UNESCO Memory of the World program, aimed at preserving of the documentary heritage (the documented collective memory of the peoples of the world, which constitutes a significant part of the world's cultural heritage). "Memory of the World: General Guidelines" [9] defines that a document is everything that captures or registers any information through a purposeful intellectual action. It has two components (the information content and the carrier on which it resides) that are equally important as parts of the memory. UNESCO Memory of the World program refers electronic audiovisual materials and virtual documents to the documents.
That issue was considered also in the Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage, which was adopted at the 32nd General Conference of UNESCO (Paris, France, October 2003) [7]. The Charter defines the Digital Heritage as a new legacy that embraces resources and information that created digitally (resources that exist only in the form of a digital original), or converted into digital form from existing analogue resources. The document states that many of these resources have lasting value and significance, and therefore constitute a heritage that should be protected and preserved for current
and future generations. It may exist in any language, in any part of the world, and in any area of human knowledge or expression and include texts, databases, still and moving images, audio, graphics, software and web pages, among a wide and growing range of formats. Mean of its preservation is the deposition of digital materials in archives, libraries, museums and other public repositories, ensuring the authenticity of the relevant documents. Thus, the relevant documents determine the possibility to attribute various virtual objects to the musealias, since they can have documentary and other value and should be preserved in museums. The document provides for the possibility of museumification of individual digital materials according to their significance and lasting cultural, scientific, evidential or other value with priority given to "born digital" materials. Thus, the relevant objects of the virtual space can acquire an independent value within its hierarchical level, and the value that arises from interaction with real-world objects.
The relevant materials are determined by the specificity of the documentary heritage, the attributes of which are its reproducibility and the ability to transfer from one carrier to another. However, according to
the definition of the museum in the ICOM Statute [8], the museum's focus is on preserving not only the heritage but also the environment, and the continued growth of the role of cyberspace (in particular the various virtual communities) in the life of modern man, universal access to which can be a determining factor in the development of a knowledge-based society, in accordance with the Recommendations UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace [10], actualizes the process ofmuseumifica-tion of the virtual environment.
Conclusions. The active development of information and communication technologies has led to the expansion of the range of human activity on computer-generated virtual reality space. Communicative properties of the space ofvirtual reality and facilities offered by cyberspace, create a basis for the formation of virtual musealisation that is a specific form of musealisation process where virtual reality can be seen also as a communication space, and as a specific field of human activity, which may be itself the subject to the musealisation process. Appropriate processes contribute to the definition of the new role of museum institutions in the information society.
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