Time, Culture and Identity
Time, Culture and Identity
Time, Culture and Identity
The project Time, Culture and Identity took place from 1 December 2018 to 30 April 2020, run by the Science Museum Group and collections partner, The Palace Museum. It fostered creative and commercial collaboration between cultural partners and businesses in the UK and China by exploring the history of cultural and economic exchanges between the two nations through the lens of timekeeping.
The project brought together exquisite but rarely-seen clocks from the collection of The Palace Museum in Beijing via new digital experiences, which were co-designed by UK and Chinese creative businesses. By stimulating knowledge exchange and brokering commercial relationships between the UK and China, the project developed methods for cross-cultural approaches to connecting audiences with their scientific heritage.
The research outputs from the project are available here to view and download. Despite the museum’s best efforts, we are unable to make these PDF documents fully screen reader accessible
Collection Details
Language
English
7 results
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Item type:Journal article, Time, Culture and Identity: A Digital and Creative Professional’s Perspective on Interpreting Historical Clocks in Museum Environments(2021-04-06)Robson, DominicDigital media offer unique opportunities for museums to bring to life the secrets and stories of their historical collections. To bring insight into the process of developing digital media exhibits, this paper presents the perspective of a creative practitioner in approaching technology- and media-based interpretation for collection objects. It follows the Time, Culture and Identity digital workshop held in Beijing in October 2019, which explored and shared ideas about collaborative research and interdisciplinary practice in digital interpretation between academics, institutions, creative practitioners, and developers. Following the direction of the workshop, the paper takes as its focus the clocks and automatons of the imperial collection at the Palace Museum in Beijing. Observations are based on the author’s practice-led experience in running a design studio, Harmonic Kinetic, developing new media exhibits using digital technology and audiovisual media for museums, galleries, and exhibitions in the UK, including the Science Museum, V&A, Barbican, Tate, and the Tower of London. Taking a broad interaction-design-led outlook, the paper explores a personal design perspective for developing interpretive content and considers the particular opportunities and approaches these historical devices suggest. The paper concludes with a final section that reviews the process and reflects on outcomes from the Time, Culture and Identity digital workshop. This explored possibilities for an interpretive exhibit on the Country Scene clock from the Palace Museum collection. - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Video, Blackbow Exhibit: Left screen(2024)Science Museum GroupThis digital exhibit (film) builds on knowledge about the Imperial clock collection and cultivates interpretation techniques for cultural heritage in different contexts. It was created as part of the Zimingzhong exhibition. This film captures the left screen of the exhibit. - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Video, Blackbow Exhibit: Inside film(2024)Science Museum GroupThis digital exhibit (film) builds on knowledge about the Imperial clock collection and cultivates interpretation techniques for cultural heritage in different contexts. It was created as part of the Zimingzhong exhibition. This film captures the inside of the exhibit. - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Video, Blackbow Exhibit(2024)Science Museum GroupThis digital exhibit (film) builds on knowledge about the Imperial clock collection and cultivates interpretation techniques for cultural heritage in different contexts. It was created as part of the Zimingzhong exhibition. This film captures the whole the exhibit.1 2 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Video, Blackbow Exhibit: Middle screen(2024)Science Museum GroupThis digital exhibit (film) builds on knowledge about the Imperial clock collection and cultivates interpretation techniques for cultural heritage in different contexts. It was created as part of the Zimingzhong exhibition. This film captures the middle screen of the exhibit.1 1 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Journal article, Time, Culture and Identity: Exploring Horological Collections with UK-China Museum Audiences(2021-03-23)Chung, CarolThis paper discusses cross-cultural understanding of museum collections by looking into transnational audience engagement with the imperial clock collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing. The audience research took place in three sites: the Hong Kong Science Museum, the Palace Museum in Beijing, and the Science Museum in London. Audience data were collected using qualitative methods, such as intercept interviews, focus groups, and informal group discussions with non-specialist and specialist audiences across the three locations. The qualitative samples suggest that UK-China audiences draw from different cultural references when they engage with the unique “singsongs” in the imperial clock collection. Despite the divergence of cultural connections made across audiences in the UK and China, it is consistent in the audience data that the appeal of the clocks is reinforced by seeing their movement. The data also indicate a desire to connect with human stories behind the creation, trade, and conservation of singsongs, and expectations for a digital resource that is visually captivating and offers additional insights into the singsongs, such as the demonstration, mechanism, and backstory of the automatons. This paper concludes with a reflection on the implications of audience data for the interpretation strategy of a London-based exhibition featuring the singsongs, and considerations for the development of a digital experience about the imperial horological collections that speaks to audiences across the UK and China.1 3 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Video, Blackbow Exhibit: Right screen(2024)Science Museum GroupThis digital exhibit (film) builds on knowledge about the Imperial clock collection and cultivates interpretation techniques for cultural heritage in different contexts. It was created as part of the Zimingzhong exhibition. This film captures the right screen of the exhibit.