Monday 2 February, 2009

Virtual Museum

Every time I visit an historical site, I remember the idea of a Virtual Museum. This will have photographs, virtual tours, plans and reconstructions. 

For example, many of the buildings in the Red Fort were originally painted white in a technique that made the walls resemble marble. That effect can be recreated in pictures. Similarly, Lucknow's Residency and Rumi Darwaja can be recreated. And so can thousands of other monuments, sculptors, paintings, commentaries, etc. Perhaps a whole city can be rebuilt, perhaps in a tiny fraction of the cost and time needed to archaeologically excavate, restore and maintain a site. I'm quite sure such museums will only increase tourist traffic to the real sites, just as photography and video have. 

Such electronic reconstruction will be especially attractive and instructive for fossils and skeletons. 

Brick & mortar museums should have electronic counterparts anyways, more so in India where the former are criminally neglected.

I'm sure these exist in the West, but I know of no such thing in India. I hope some young entrepreneur takes this up and reap millions. 

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