VIMM: Virtual Multimodal Museum, Conference Berlin

Conference in Berlin, 12–13 April 2018

On 12–13 April 2018, a conference was hosted in Berlin as part of the EU project Virtual Multimodal Museum, with over 100 experts from the field of digital cultural heritage have provided guidelines and recommendations for European museums for the next five years.

Virtual museums, as defined, and Digital Cultural Heritage in general should be positioned and described to benefit from well-structured investment at EU, national and local level in order to maximize their value to the economy and society. This conference represents the state of progress towards the ViMM Manifesto, Roadmap and Action Plan, which are the key intellectual outputs of its work, following the joint consensus-building workshop of all Thematic Areas (TA) held in Berlin. As such, it represents the culmination of the stage in the work of ViMM which arises from its 21 Working Groups, divided among 7 Thematic Areas: Definitions, Directions, Documentation, Dimension, Demand, Discovery and Decisions.

The main inputs on the first day were the fruits of the 9-month operation of the Working Groups up until the end of 2017, represented in Seven TA Working Group Composite Reports and subsequently transformed by each TA Leader into a set of ‘Propositions’ for consideration at this event. These drafts were discussed and refined by each TA Group in Berlin and the drafts in this document are the result. Each TA was requested, if possible, to restrict the number of Propositions taken forward to Day 2 to six. Each individual Proposition was subsequently ‘pitched’ to the plenary audience by and individual member of the group on Day 2 and an advisory ‘polling’ exercise conducted, the results of which are annexed.

The next immediate stage in the process will be to synthesize the Propositions further. There are inevitably overlaps, duplications and minor conflicts between some Propositions which will now be resolved to produce a coherent whole. Further supporting evidence will be gathered to support Manifesto and Roadmap statements where necessary. The Thematic Area structure (the ‘7Ds’) created by ViMM in order to gather evidence and ideas and to generate expert discussion, will now be transformed into a more holistic approach.

https://www.vi-mm.eu/