Museums in the Metaverse: How Web3 Technologies Can Help Historic Monuments

Historic Metaverse events may soon be another future of tourism.

Owners of brick-and-mortar castles and villas have drawn up augmented-reality blueprints of their properties, betting that their grand plans to lure tourists in the metaverse will succeed because virtual events can help them pay for huge repair bills on aging properties and provide An opportunity to change the narrative of history.

The travel downturn caused by the new crown epidemic has accelerated the development of the metaverse tourism model, but the industry may already be moving in this direction.

Right now, the major Metaverse platforms are clunky, difficult to use, and more "real estate" development awaiting, but companies are focused on what might come up. Brands have flocked to the metaverse, seemingly just for PR bragging rights.

Therefore, the possibility of learning existing, new and modified histories through the metaverse does not seem so remote.

Non-homogeneous castles, villas and palaces

Michelle Choi, founder of Web3 venture capital studio 3.O Labs, turned to digital opportunities to fund the maintenance of physical paintings, such as selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as a fundraiser to preserve illiquid assets.

Choi is a product manager at Google, and when she noticed a downturn in museum tourism due to the pandemic, she saw it as an opportunity for the future Metaverse. She then quit her job to start her own Metaverse experiment.

She first worked with a team to hold the NFT exhibition and auction event Non-Fungible Castle in Prague's real castle Lobkowicz Palace in October 2021. The event, which will feature NFTs alongside the 500-year-old painting, aims to "expand accessibility to cultural heritage."

The campaign raised enough money to cover the repair costs of all emergency projects. Motivated by this proof of concept, Choi and 3.O Labs are now busy curating Metaverse travel experiences across the globe.

3. O Labs shoulders the greater mission of making Web3 available to all users, and has been incubating a series of Web3 projects, from NFT to decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO). In its metaverse vertical, the VC studio is creating a project in a castle in Germany, followed by a villa in India, and possibly a museum in Ghana.

Lobkowicz Palace Source: Prague Morning

Choi spoke to Cointelegraph about her long-term vision for Metaverse tourism:

"Tourism will be enhanced as a teaching tool. In the past, tourism meant visiting a place. Photos were in 2D, but 3D travel came with the advent of virtual headsets. Now it is possible to experiment with time in 4D. Now, we can Combining different time periods. It's a teaching angle."

This raises a series of questions about what kind of new history will be created in the metaverse.

Will history be rewritten in the metaverse?

For better or worse, tourism businesses, educational platforms, and museums can all reimagine history in the Metaverse.

Priyadarshini Raje Scindia's family owns Jai Vilas Palace, a 200-year-old palace in Madhya Pradesh, India, which has since been turned into a museum. She's planning an NFT series made by local artists to fund a metaverse experience. The COVID-19 pandemic closed her museum for two years, giving her time to carry out some necessary but expensive restoration work.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Scindia said that NFTs should be embraced as art because “every generation has its own art and interpretation of art. It’s a new medium and a new platform for emerging Indian artists who aspire to success. ’” She added, “There should be no barriers to making art.”

Scindia believes that the metaverse is the future, since "a person usually only visits the museum once", but they can visit it many times in the metaverse. In India especially, museums are not the number one destination for people's entertainment, she said. Private museums in small towns are taken for granted, especially compared to shopping malls and movie theaters. So, she's working with 3.O Labs "to create immersive experiences—for example, animations that put you in the middle of a short historical documentary." That's opening more doors for conversation and education.

Scindia has one more story to tell the world through the Metaverse:

"I disagree with my family history. We have rooms in the palace for research papers. It's the right time to correct the history and have the right platform."

She told Cointelegraph that the historical narrative she wanted to portray with her immersive experience was “to tell the true story of my family — the Maharatas.” Retelling the story told by the British, it sounds like Game of Thrones — Dark and brutal. We fought for independence from all outside influences yet were said to be fighting Indians in India. The historical fact is that after the Mughals, the Maharatas were the rulers of India. Their narratives and value systems are more in need of research and understanding today. I want to use this platform to change that narrative through art, culture and history. "

"I don't agree with the way the history of Maratha is being portrayed. However, perhaps because of the fascination of the movies, there is a renewed interest these days, but there is also a new world out there. There is a strong interest in history these days, and it is being rediscovered Art and History. The Metaverse might be the right platform to educate and inspire people about history so they can start their own journeys through this amazing world and delve deeper into history, art and culture. "

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Jai Vilas Palace Source: Mohitkjain123

DAO for the restoration of castles, villas and palaces

Prince Heinrich Donatus of the Schaumburg-Lippe family owns Bueckeburg Castle in northern Germany, 45 minutes from Hanover. Before 1918, the Schaumburg-Lippe was one of the 16 ruling families of the German Reich. Later, between 1948 and 1953, the British Army on the Rhine confiscated the castle to serve as its headquarters. After the end of World War II in 1945, the castle remained under U.S. control until the German occupation zone was established.

Bullet holes in the outbuildings are a reminder of the castle's recent history. During the war, the Americans were the first to reach Bueckeburg, and their tank shells pierced the castle's dome, which can still be seen in the castle's museum.

Donatus has the same idea as Scindia: to create a metaverse that preserves history.

Bueckeberg Castle Source: Trip Advisor

Donatus, who co-founded 3.O Labs with Choi, will soon be running an NFT exhibit and a DAO-focused hackhouse out of the castle. He told Cointelegraph: “The metaverse is not a virtual reality world. It is a new economy. For example, the incentive to enter the metaverse could be to protect the castle”.

But why support an aristocratic family in 2022?

For illiquid assets such as real estate, maintenance costs can exceed a family's cash flow. Therefore, protecting privately owned historic sites presents a major challenge to owners and national or global public interests.

Donatus' grandfather sold a castle for 1 euro in 2001, and the new owner has tried twice to sell it for 1 euro, but has been unable to find a buyer. Donatus added:

"Foreigners who buy European castles abandon their purchases a year later when they realize the problems."

"Bueckeburg Castle is no longer used to live in, it is primarily a cultural site," Donatus said, "Our only responsibility is to preserve this history with limited resources, and suddenly resources can be greatly enhanced and Crowdsourcing."

"Virtual travel could be lucrative, although the metaverse idea may take a few years to pay off," Choi noted. "But in the long run, the Metaverse doesn't need maintenance or air conditioning costs."

Donatus said he expected to launch a DAO treasury for renovations, akin to a "people's Unesco" — a reference to the U.N. agency tasked with preserving cultural and historic sites.

DAO is not bound by boundaries and can create network effects for new travel models. "It's a kind of PleasrDAO of castles," Donatus said. “They will include decentralized access/management of castles, and castle hackathons — because castles are a cool hangout.”

Enhanced 4D Metaverse Activities

Historical stories and experiences can also be enhanced to create surreal and impossible scenarios.

"Under no circumstances would I want to experience what I could experience in the real world," Donatus said. “The metaverse can reconstruct and preserve the past,” he said, and one could “throw a tennis match in the ballroom of the Palace of Versailles to attract tourists.”

"In the metaverse, we can upload guns and recreate battles for history teaching," Choi said. Reenactments with reconstructed weapons have taken place around the world, including in the U.S., Germany, Russia, the U.K., and Italy. There may still be plenty of teachable moments in the future in the Metaverse.

If metaverses are indeed the future, planning their rules and composition starts now. That's why, for example, a group of Aboriginal Australians plans to build an embassy in the Metaverse. Mixing old and new seems flimsy, but it all depends on how bullish people are on the importance of cultural totems in the future metaverse.

As metaverses become the new model for tourism, they may also rewrite history in the process.

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