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How will the climate crisis and technology shape the future of museums?

The National Gallery‘s Chris Michaels talks digitisation, NFTs and sustainability

Chris Michaels National Gallery Dir. Digital, Comms and Tech

Chris Michaels is director of digital, communications and technology at the National Gallery, London. Here he discusses sustainability, NFTs and why technology will be crucial for museums and the climate crisis.

Michaels is also a visiting senior research fellow at King’s College, London. At the National Gallery, his directorate has responsibilities for digital services, membership and ticketing, creative, IT and marketing, press and public affairs.

Before he joined the National Gallery, he was head of digital & publishing at the British Museum, where he founded the museum’s digital department and created its digital strategy. In addition, he acts as an advisor to the Humboldt Forum in Berlin and has acted as an advisor to museums in Qatar and Singapore. Before entering the world of Museums, he was CEO of educational start-up Mindshapes. He has a PhD from the University of Bristol.

Technology can help us find solutions to the climate crisis. It can help us, as museums, to find ways to communicate with the world, and new ways to solve our own challenges. This is a journey for us all, in the years ahead

Museums, the climate crisis and digitisation

Michaels spoke at greenloop 2022 about the rewards and risks of the new technologies for museums and art galleries, specifically the relationship between sustainability and technology.

 “The way I’m going to frame this is about the way that both digital and the climate crisis are coming together to help us think about what museums can be in the years ahead,” he explains. “Museums are adapting to the climate crisis. We’re at the beginning of a long journey. Alongside that adaptation, we’re also in a continuing adaptation to a digitising world. The way I want to explore this is in terms of the way these two things are happening together.”

national gallery london
© The National Gallery, London

As those things happen together, he says, it is creating new opportunities and new risks.

“What I really want to do is describe the environment in which museums like the National Gallery must approach this new world,” he says.

“The National Gallery is the best place in the world to see the best paintings in the world. We’ve been connecting people with paintings since 1824. The first piece I want to talk about is about museums and sustainability, and how we are adapting to the challenges of the climate crisis.”

The role of national museums

Here, he clarifies, he is speaking predominantly of the national museums, those large-scale institutions that have a very particular role:

“We are really best described as hybrid organisations, positioned at this very specific point between the government, the private sector, and the public. We are charities and we’re businesses, and we have to serve those different needs in different ways.”

National Gallery Top London Museums
© The National Gallery, London

The way these museums work as institutions is at multiple levels:

“We work very locally outside our front door on Trafalgar Square. We work at a national level, at an international level. What this combination of roles does is give us a very particular and unique perspective. It also gives us some special responsibilities around what sustainability might mean. Critically, alongside all those things, we have very multilevel relationships with audiences.”

A critical moment

 When someone comes to the National Gallery, he explains, they are wearing different identities:

“You come as a citizen of the United Kingdom, or of the country that you come from, to join us. You come as a visitor, as part of a visitor experience, and you come as a customer, sometimes a paying one, to our exhibitions, to go to our shops, our food and beverage outlets. But you also come as our owners. You own the museum on behalf of the country, and we own that. We all own that together.”

National Portrait Gallery London
© The National Gallery, London

Accordingly:

“Our responsibility, really, is to work with audiences, with government, with the private sector and beyond, both on sustainability and on the uses of technology. When it comes to the climate crisis we are, at the National Gallery and at other museums, in a very critical moment of trying to work out what it really means to become sustainable for the long term.”

Adapting to the challenges ahead

It is not, he points out, an obvious or an easy journey for those who sit in 200-year-old buildings which leak air, and around which there are very specific environmental and conservation constraints:

“We have hard journeys to go on to work out what sustainability really means for us, and how we can become as sustainable as we possibly can.

“If you look across the wider sector, there is an amazing body of work being carried out, both collectively and individually, to put policy and practice into place. A body of thought is emerging, driven by a way of thinking about some of these questions, that is taking sustainability as a concept, and as practice, and moving it ever closer to the strategic centre of what we do.”

National_Gallery
© The National Gallery, London

“We are, I think, in a moment of positive momentum about how the museum sector is adapting to the challenges of the climate crisis.”

However, he adds:

“The question is, as for all of us around questions of sustainability, are we going fast enough? Is what we are doing going to have sufficient impact, and can we lead, or do we follow here? Those are difficult, complex questions. Sometimes, quite honestly,  I don’t think I know the answer.”

The climate crisis and the digital transformation of museums

But there is, he maintains, a perceptible act of trying that is emerging:

“That trying really has to be the core of everything we do in the months and years ahead.”

Digital change is happening separately, but in parallel to the cultural sector’s response to the climate crisis.

“We are really seeing a strong digital transformation of museums. It’s really about the culmination of a decade of progressive digital change, building on 25 years of effort that means we are starting to see the digitisation of museums move very strongly to the centre of what they are.”

Virtual tour of Birmingham Museum VR experiences
Virtual tour of Birmingham Museum

Michaels did a piece of work at the British Museum in 2015  digitising the whole of the British Museum as a physical space, and putting it on Google Street View. He comments:

“It was that kind of mad project that is, if you like, a sign of change happening. Over the last ten years, a lot of progressive digital change has happened through museums. You can look across the National Gallery, the V&A, the Tate, Liverpool Museums and beyond, and see maturing digital organisations able to embrace both the risks and the opportunities of a digital world.”

The impact of the pandemic

Before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, change was accelerating;

“That was often felt as digital projects came into the museums themselves,” he says. “At the National Gallery, we ran a fantastic immersive exhibition called Leonardo: Experience a Masterpiece. This looked at how digitisation and digital technologies could express and help us think about one of Leonardo’s works in different ways.

“There were phenomenal, immersive exhibitions at museums around the world. We started to see how digitisation, the storytelling, the process, the practice that it represents, was coming into the heart of museum life.”

national gallery artemesia online tour
© The National Gallery, London

Then COVID hit:

“In a way, everything has gone to another level since then. What I think has really happened in the last two years is that COVID has changed our audiences.”

There has been a step-change as audiences have adopted digital methods, partly as a result of the constraints of COVID. In terms of pre-booking, there has been an interesting shift from audiences accepting the necessity to pre-book as part of the COVID protocol, to actively preferring to pre-book in the post-COVID landscape.

New things are coming

“People now want pre-booking as part of their experience of museums,” Michaels says. “COVID has changed our audiences. And what has happened as a result of this period of progressive, accelerated change, is that now digital change is moving very fast in multiple directions at the same time.

“We launched a digital education business in the last couple of years. There has been a phenomenal demand – ten times what we ever saw when we could only offer them in lecture theatres. A virtual reality show that we’ve been staging at the gallery for the last month and a half has completely sold out.”

@nationalgallerylondon From ‘Bridgerton’ to ‘The Great’, our paintings have inspired some of the biggest productions in film and TV 🪡🎨🎥 #nationalgallery ♬ original sound – National Gallery

“We are seeing a huge audience takeup in our TikTok account, which we launched last year. These things are happening very fast in real time. We’re seeing progressive digitisation that has been slowly growing over the last 15 years, massively accelerating in many directions.

“And, of course, new things are coming, [in the shape of] the metaverse, in all its ridiculousness and hopeful potential. A whole next generation of technologies is coming to maturity now. Whether that’s virtual reality, augmented reality, virtual worlds, or online blockchain; all this stuff that has been brewing, in some cases for decades. There is suddenly a whole world of opportunity for museums in terms of embracing new kinds of digitisation.”

Data growth and carbon growth

Everything that we are currently seeing concerning digitisation, he contends, brings together complex issues that will increasingly need addressing:

“I want to touch on the relationship between data growth and carbon growth,” says Michaels. “This is the big ‘but’ in this dialogue. Because whilst progressive digital change has been hugely important, it comes with a cost. Digital change risks becoming a key contributor to carbon emissions. ICT is not one of the major drivers of carbon emissions. It represents somewhere between under 1% to 1.5%.”

Whilst progressive digital change has been hugely important, it comes with a cost. Digital change risks becoming a key contributor to carbon emissions.

“Of course, that is significant. Let’s not suggest that it isn’t. But, unlike transport, manufacturing, and agriculture, digital technology has not been a significant driver to this point of what has made climate change a reality for us all. But as we now go through this intense growth in digitisation, not just in museums, but in the wider world around us, there is a risk that digital change now becomes a significant driver of carbon change.”

Museum digitisation and the climate crisis

museums climate crisis, metaverse

Over the next few years, as carbon begins to level out in other sectors, the digital share of emissions being driven by different sources may reach around 7% to 8%:

“That starts to become a big problem,” Michaels comments. “In simple terms, the more we depend on digital, the more data we create. The more data we create, the more carbon we burn. That is the hard part at the heart of this, because that data matters.

“Data is all that the Internet, that digital, is. So, without data, there is no TikTok, no CRM, no virtual reality. There are no websites. In a very simple, trade-off way, without that data, what a museum can be in the 21st century significantly diminishes.”

As digitisation grows, carbon grows; the damage from that carbon also grows alongside it.

Michaels says:

 “The trade-off against that is what museums could be because digitisation might have to decrease, as a result. These are hard decisions. New technology has unquestionably begun to bring that data/carbon trade-off into focus in a way that no previous generation of technology seems to have done.”

Museum NFTs and the climate crisis

He adds:

“What NFTs have done is to open a Pandora’s box on the relationship between digital and the climate crisis.”

There has never been as much scrutiny around the amount of carbon generated by digital activity as there has been over the last year, in terms of what blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and, very specifically, NFTs mean from a carbon emissions point of view. The Whitworth created a “green” “Robin Hood” NFT on proof-of-stake blockchain Tezos, as part of the Economics the Blockbuster research project and exhibition.

Ancient of Days green NFT Whitworth greenloop
Ancient of Days “green” NFT by The Whitworth

“The idea of NFTs, to me, goes hand in hand with the environmental question that sits alongside it. My old employer and our sister institution, the British Museum, has seen this and has effectively stepped into the fire. Its project has received criticism for its carbon costs. To me, those carbon costs, any carbon costs around things like NFTs, are a small part of the problem.”

However:

“As the growth of that avalanche of digital data continues to increase in the next couple of years, the risks of digital, and the relationship between museum digital and the climate crisis, is very plain to us. Suddenly, the cultural sector finds itself in the middle of this argument in a place it hasn’t been before.”

Looking more closely at environmental footprints

This is something, he believes, that will keep on sharpening in focus as we embrace next-generation technologies.

“There are things that people are starting to realise about the emerging space of technology that will all come closer to the centre of our lives in the next ten years.”

chris michaels national gallery at greenloop - the carbon cost of next gen tech

This could mean exploring the amount of carbon emissions produced by the process of training an AI model, or the computational power – and therefore carbon use – of the Metaverse, which it is estimated could require a huge step change in resources.

“And then there is the environmental footprint of the apps,” he adds. “We are now, of course, all using Zoom every day. We are emitting a huge amount of carbon as a result of this incredible volume of usage.”

“Netflix, of course, is sitting at the top of that. Every time now we see a next-generation technology opportunity for us, we’re also going to get a much deeper understanding of the risk and ambiguity of what that means from a carbon point of view. We can’t step away from this now. It’s in the middle of what we mean about digital change. And it will help us shape and reshape what it will mean in the years ahead.”

Museums help to change behaviours in a time of climate crisis

What is there to be done?

“These are tough times, with tough thinking and tough decisions to be made,” Michaels says:

“But I am positive because I can see it happening in the National Gallery; I see it happening elsewhere, that we can and will change behaviours. There are practical things that we can do, from the electricity suppliers we choose to the policies we make that will help us respond as best as we can to the climate crisis, in practical operational terms.”

Chris Michaels, National Gallery director of digital, communications and technology speaking at greenloop - Monet. museums climate crisis

The real opportunity, however, he says, goes back to the point he made about understanding the unique position of such institutions at the intersection between society, state and market

Art finds new relevance in this time of crisis

“It concerns thinking about how we, as storytelling institutions, can start to think about the future and make sure that the stories we tell live in that future the right way. To me, very simply, art finds new relevance in this time of crisis.”

Art history and storytelling

Chris Michaels, National Gallery director of digital, communications and technology speaking at greenloop - Canaletto. museums climate crisis

He references the Venice depicted by the great 18th-century artist, Canaletto:

“If you look at Canaletto now, if climate change progresses at the speed it is now, and if we don’t make things better, this Venice will disappear beneath the waters for good.”

“If we think about artists even as recent as Monet, painting in the late 19th century, there is a picture he famously painted from when he was staying at the Savoy in London. The hazy skies in the picture were also products of climate change, even at that time. This landscape, too, will vanish as London potentially disappears beneath the waters.”

Climate change and the climate crisis, for museums, becomes a storytelling frame to understand the new relationship between art history and our futures.

“Climate change and the climate crisis, for museums, becomes a storytelling frame to understand the new relationship between art history and our futures. Those hazy skies and their meaning are something I keep coming back to in terms of the way they change our understanding of the past and of the future.”

A critical focus

 Britain’s favourite painting, The Fighting Temeraire, by Turner, is one of the great masterworks in the National Gallery:

“It is by far one of our most popular pictures,” Michaels says. “The skies he can see have this burning iridescence unique to the artist. Why do they have that iridescence­­­? “

Chris Michaels, National Gallery director of digital, communications and technology speaking at greenloop - Turner

“Painting at a time of early industrialization, the sky is starting to fill with carbon particulates. Things were starting to happen in the sky that have both shaped our sense of beauty in the way that Turner depicted them, and have also become living documents of a past and how the climate change was starting to happen in places like the UK, 100 to 200 years ago, starting to reshape and redefine what beauty means.

“We, as museums, can help present that to the public, in a world of the climate crisis.

“To me, building new frames for our stories has to be a critical focus. Doing that at the intersection of sustainability and technology is the way we have to go about doing it.”

National Gallery X

This, he contends, will need ongoing collective experimentation:

“At the National Gallery, we’ve taken an approach to how we engage in ongoing collective experimentation through the Innovation Lab I founded in 2019. This is called National Gallery X.”

National Gallery X is a place to think about what the future looks like for museums in a digitising world. A partnership run with King’s College, London, the studio provides a space for residencies and events where artists and creatives can explore experimental technologies as well as critical arts, humanities and social science research on culture and the (digital) creative industries, at King’s.

kima-colour-national gallery x museums and climate crisis
KIMA: Colour Van Gogh’ © Analema Group, 2020. Commissioned by National Gallery X

This exploration into current King’s research, combined with the art and audiences of the Gallery, forms a unique vision of the museum of the future. He explains:

“At National Gallery X, we started to think about what this combination of sustainability and technology might look like. This led to a project that is just about to reach its conclusion, called Home Zero. In September 2020, we put out an open call to artists to bring together arguments, data and research about climate change.”

Home Zero

This creative research project is a partnership between National Gallery X and NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. It aims to help ignite a public conversation about the relationship between household emissions and climate change.

“We asked the artists to tell the public what sustainability might need to look like for the future. We’ve been delighted to work with two different groups. Love Ssega is a musician and climate activist and Makers of Imaginary Worlds is a Nottingham-based arts installation studio.

“Love Ssega is an astonishing guy, a South London-based rapper, musician and climate activist. I think he is one of the most optimistic, positive voices for change I’ve ever encountered. He is bringing his arguments to the National Gallery in a series of performances.

“These will, through music and through public engagement, help us think out loud about what a climate-changing world looks like. They will help us very positively share with the public what we can do about it.”

The future role of museums in the climate crisis

So what, in short, do we have to think about for the future?

“This is a time, frankly, to be scared on lots of levels,” Michaels concedes. “However there are positive voices for change. And I think museums can be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Amidst all these existential threats, change is happening. Digitisation can help us on the way if we bring it together with sustainability in the right way. But only if we act with hope, and act together.”

Chris Michaels, National Gallery director of digital, communications and technology speaking at greenloop - museums climate crisis

He concludes with a reference to one last painting:

“It is by the great Renaissance artist Giovanni Bellini and is called the Agony in the Garden. This is a great Christian masterwork from the gallery. To me, it is a picture about hope. It has to be through hopefulness and optimism as well as real positive action that we approach this difficult space that we sit in now together.

“Technology can help us find solutions to the climate crisis. It can help us, as museums, to find ways to communicate with the world, and new ways to solve our own challenges. This is a journey for us all, in the years ahead.”

Header image Sensing the Unseen, Step into Gossaert’s ‘Adoration’ – The National Gallery, London

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Lalla Merlin

Lalla Merlin

Lead features writer Lalla studied English at St. Hugh’s College, Oxford University, and Law with the Open University. A writer, film-maker, and aspiring lawyer, she lives in rural Devon with an assortment of badly behaved animals, including a friendly wolf

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