Singapore’s museums get a digital makeover

“Hello, Stefania,” says a voice as I enter the museum after facial recognition technology has identified me. My digital visitor profile then offers me artwork-related information it thinks I will enjoy based on my previous visits, while my phone guides me around the building, where sensors control lighting, temperature and music.

This is what officials hope a visit to Singapore’s Founders’ Memorial, a museum devoted to the city-state’s pioneers, could look like when completed by 2027. The project encapsulates the speed at which technology is being incorporated into the cultural sector here, hastened by Covid-19 restrictions, in an effort to expand access to Singapore’s artefacts and attract visitors.

But in a carefully planned country such as Singapore, digitally savvy museums are also part of the drive to build a smart city — a process that has raised privacy concerns in this quasi-authoritarian state.

I recently visited “Story of the Forest” at the National Museum of Singapore. The immersive installation presents drawings of wildlife commissioned by William Farquhar, a 19th-century British imperial official in colonised Singapore, as digital animations. As the creatures move across walls, you can take photos of a strolling Malayan tapir, or a swaying palm via an app to access more information, in a gallery filled with botanical scents.

“Technology has further enabled us . . . to respond rapidly to the public’s needs amid the pandemic,” says Chung May Khuen, the director of the museum, which launched online programmes for children and digital exhibitions at the height of Covid last year. “[A] blend [of] digital and physical experiences will therefore likely be a trend that carries on post-pandemic in response to changing consumer behaviours.”

The National Gallery Singapore, which last year launched #GalleryAnywhere, a collection of online programmes, also has an app including audio tours and the chance to “adopt” part of an artwork starting from S$50 (US$40).

The National Heritage Board, which launched a five-year digital plan in 2020, wants museums to explore ways of using facial recognition technology to track what visitors see. Data would remain anonymous when captured, with visitors choosing whether to link it to their online profiles, the NHB has said. 

“Once you leave the museum and you go back home . . . we maintain that stickiness with the visitor by providing messaging, sending you content, giving you reminders . . . that keeps you coming back,” says Mohamed Hardi of the NHB.

GovTech, a dedicated agency that develops technology ranging from parking and Covid tracing apps to national cybersecurity frameworks, is among the public institutions helping the NHB implement its plan. 

Private-sector tech players are also becoming embedded in modernising museum systems — not just in Singapore but around the world — with data stored on Amazon cloud products or with exhibitions using Microsoft HoloLens “mixed reality” smart glasses. 

In 2015 NGS launched its app with consultancy Accenture, which said it also analysed data on visitor behaviour for crowd management. As of May, NGS is working with a new technology provider that will refresh the app.

The expansion of visitor data collection inevitably raises questions around privacy, a topic that came into sharp focus this year when it emerged that police had used data generated by a GovTech Covid tracing app for a criminal investigation, even after authorities assured the public it would be used only for contact tracing. The NHB says it maintains data privacy and does not collect visitors’ private information.

Hardi argues the NHB’s success is measured by expanding tech adoption as well as increasing the number of visitors coming to Singapore’s museums in person. With the city state’s space limitations, the digital world “is like a second life . . . that allows us to expand our borders”.

After returning to a semblance of normal life for months, thanks to a drop in daily infections, Singapore last Sunday again tightened measures, including reducing museums’ capacity to 25 per cent, following a jump in Covid cases.

With coronavirus restrictions still squeezing visits, such a second life might be a vital route for museums to maintain and increase their reach, perhaps even beyond this small island nation. 

Stefania Palma is the FT’s Singapore correspondent

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