What does it mean culture today? Where, how, why the younger generations are producing and consuming "culture"? Instagram, Wattpad, videogames are models and rivals of museums and theaters today? Slides from the Fabio Viola's talk at the European Commission meeting in Prague about the Future of Heritage.

1. 23/02/2013
The Playable Culture FabioViola info@tuomuseo.it
THE PLAYABLE CULTURE Fabio Viola info@tuomuseo.it

2. Inthe last 20years morecontenthasbeen
produced,more photostakenandmoreplaces
visited thanintheentire humanage
I strongly believe we are extremely lucky to populate the earth in this
historical period because we are witnesses of a social, economic,
technological but, above all human, and scientific revolution.

3. Master Sole 24 Ore 23/02/2013
ENGAGEMENT REVOLUTION
Noneof these experiences existed until 20years ago,today
they represent momentsofour dailylife andmoregenerally
ofour wayofthinking, actingandinteracting with products
andpeople.
And Time is the real limited good of modern society and the most important indicator to
which every institution should look at.

4. Allofusinthisroomwerebornandcreatedcognitiveandemotionalmapsina pre-internetera.Itis
normaltobeafraidofwhatisnotsettledinourgeneticmemoryandevenmoreofwhatreplaces
products,processesandexperienceswithwhichwehavegrown.
Socialchangesshift themeaning ofCulture and
resistance generates short circuit

5. “Physicalvs digital“ ???
Thedistinction, typicalofourwayofthinking,ismuchmorenuanced,ifnotnon-existent,inthefirst
generationbornafter2000.

6. They were born in a world in which many more digital flowers are gifted than real ones. Millions
of individuals who in the first months of their lives already have their own official internet
domain purchased by their parents as a birth gift and every moment of their lives is shared
through pictures and short videos, in the form of 24h lifelong stories, on some social networks.
Millions of people bornafter 2000,theso-called GenZ,havenever
knownthedichotomyphysicalvs digital oratomsvs bits.

7. 23/02/2013
They will be theones to guideournations,companiesandculturalinstitutions
within10 years
and we have the deep responsibility to make the world habitable for them and don’t push them to adapt to a world
designed by and for people who are profoundly different from them. The average attention span is around 8 seconds,
even less of a goldfish. But the problem is mainly related to the way we design the experiences at school at the
theater or at the job place.

8. There havenever been generations like Y andZ
whoproduced and consumedso muchculture.
The official data tell us exactly the opposite, so where is the truth?
What does Culture mean today and who, how and where is it created
and consumed?

9. Themuseumrisks elaborating a doubleexclusion bothof th
less sensitive classes to thereproduction ofthe codesand
languagesinherited fromthe previous generations (the
youngestandthe least cultured) and- aboveall- of thelivin
artists.

10. Theartwork from«object»to «process».
The artwork in the twenty-first century loses its sacredness. Experience
comes from an EQUAL relationship established between the work, the
visitor and the environment in which it is located.

11. Scientists bynature havethefuture intheir
blood;humanistshavetheir eyes on thepast.
How manyof youknowthatthenovelsofthe
AmericanAnnaToddhavebeen read over 2
billion times?
At the age of 30 years old, her novels were read much more than Kafka
and Murakami put together. Hundreds of millions of under-20s daily
publish novels, write on smartphones, and read on social storytelling
platforms like Wattpad, but they are out of the official data

12. Immersivetheater’s Punchdrunkbring together
tradition, escape roomandgamedesign
Since years they have been sold out every day in London as well as in
New York, the audience is made by under 35 who pay even $200
tickets to be active part in the performance and on average they
come back (replayability) 3 times to attend the same show.

13. How manyof youknowthat100million photosare
uploadedtoInstagramevery day,viewed by 500
million monthlyactivepeople? Isn't there also an authorial
production made of the perfect shot, right filters, the appropriate sentences
such as descriptions and hashtags?
This egg has been viewed more than 50 million times, just imagine an
entire country like Italy converged on this “cultural” content (rising
awareness about menthal diseases).

14. Father andSon is the first video gamepublished
bya museumfor a wordlwide audience
How many of you know that a video game like Father and Son has been downloaded almost 5 million and the players have spent about 1000years of life playing? From India to
China they experienced stories and aesthetics of Naples and the museum, crying taking meaningful decisions on the last day Pompeii’s scene and laughing in front of the Hercules
Farnese.

15. *2yearsafterthelaunch:
 The gamecrossed the4
milliondownloads
milestone.
 Inthesametimethemuseum
hasbeen visitedby
1.000.000.
 The averageageof gamersis
33y.o.with35%of gamers
arefemale.
 Only7%of gamerscome
fromItaly.We havea large
userbase incountries like
Russia, China,India, US-
 ~1000yearshavebeen
spent collectivelyintothe
game.Consider thevaluein
terms of education and
marketing.
 The gamereceived over
40.000reviewswithan
averageratingof 4.7out of 5.
X4compared to themuseum’s
tripadvisor page

16. Ifwe are able to create a$100 billion
industry in 40years, wherepeople spend
real moneyto buyvirtual items and
experience real feelings interacting with
virtual worlds…

17. …whyshould aculturalinstitution thathas
extremely tangibleassets, powerfulstories,
recognizablebrand,and established audience
not be able to design engaging and sustainable experiences in
partnership with the creative industries?

18. How manyof youknowthatthere is amuseumin
whichthe averageageof250000annualvisitors is
under 35?
This happens at ZKM in Karlsruhe where art and technology come together
creating what I like to call augmented stratigraphy. The cultural heritage, left in
dowry by man and nature, coexists with new languages capable of
reinterpreting and updating the synaesthetic vision of the existing places.

19. Let’s start to create new culturalandtourist
imaginaries.
Les Carrieres de Lumieres in France shows us how an
abandoned marble quarry can become a 600k visitors tourist
destination.

20. Let’s start to create new culturalandtourist
imaginaries.
Les Carrieres de Lumieres in France shows us how an
abandoned marble quarry can become a 600k visitors tourist
destination.
Thedistancebetween thosewho produce andthose
whoconsumeculture is shortened.
At the same time we produce videos and consume videos produced by others on
Youtube. We create and watch photos on Instagram, we buy video games in
which we play an active role in shaping stories and altering endings. The same
person writes and reads on Wattpad as well as on Wikipedia.

21. Whatdoes audiencedevelopment really mean?
Audience development is not about bringing new people closer to the cultural
fruition, but rather about encouraging the active creation of content, the
sense of protagonism and the passage from the third to the first person in
the sharing of the experience. This is the magic behind video games, players
are used to say “I killed the dragon” or “I saved the princess”.

22. Theculture produced bymanyfor many
I think that this passage from the culture produced by a few for many to one
produced by many for many is the mirror of the passage from storytelling to
storydoing. From a passive way of consuming a message to an active fruition
in which ideas, actions and individual choices influence the message itself.

23. Scientists bynature havethefuture intheir blood;
humanistshavetheir eyes on thepast.
It is essential to over pass this sentence and overcome the dichotomy
between what Snow defined as the Two Cultures that still pervade our
universities, institutions and many cultural operators today.

24. Since theRenaissance we have inherited the
segmentationof themediaandthe subsequent
compartmentalizationof culturalplaces..
Do libraries, theaters, museums, gypsoteque and art galleries still have a
meaning in the horizontal and post-visual society of the 21st century? Is it not
better focus on the experiences, devoid of their supports, and put them at the
center of cultural transmission?

25. 25
Public andculturalinstitutions should start tolook at Instagram,
CandyCrashandWattpadasmodels (and rivals) intheability to
reach,engageandtransfer culturalexperiences.
More than a technological emulation, it is fundamental to understand the way in which these
experiences are designed to be relevant to the single person more than to an undefined audience

26. Museums have to be the house for those who can imagine, design and execute
the Future. A premier destination for creative and entrepreneurs from all around
the world, a privileged gate between the Past and the Future.
Whycan'tourmuseums theatres libraries become
activeplacesof culturalproductionandnot only of
consumption?

27. Asecular tension pervades the culturalworld.
The mere idea of ​​the audience centrality and the shift from the conservation
to the production is seen as a threat to the credibility of the institution.
Several papers talks about the “Disneyfication” effect, but it often hides the
fear of directors and curators to lose power

28. I’mworried aboutthelegacyof techbased cultural
institution projects.
If these projects are just outsourced and emulate what we have seen ten
years before in others sectors (virtual reality, augmented reality, big data,
machine learning…) , they will stay a short term solution with no real
knowledge transfer. Every cultural institutions should handle by itself the
vision and mission of applying technologies or, being provocative, the best
solution is to adopt a tech start up and be constantly stimulated by it with
mutual benefits.

29. IwishtherewereplentyofSirHenryLyons(formerdirector)outofthere.HeopenedtheChildren’s
GalleryattheScienceMuseumofLondoninthe1931 andhegottwodifferentreactions.Great
reviewfromthenewaudience(forthefirsttimea worldwidemuseumopenedits spacetonon
specialistsandevenworstchildren)andthegeneralistpressandcriticsevenfromthemuseum
officialnewspaper.
“Wecould nothelp fearing thatallthis maybe
goingtoo far andnot quitein theright direction”