Following the extraordinary success of last year’s New waves of NPM (National Palace Museum)- Song Shan Traveling Exhibition with over 100,000 visitors, the Songshan Feng Tian Temple has once again teamed up with the National Palace Museum to present the Children’s NPM Digital Playground exhibition. A selection of classical digital works, calligraphy and painting reproductions, 3D animation, and family activities from the NPM are presented through seven main exhibition areas: Spring Blossoms, Painting and Calligraphy Magnifier, Chinese Character Cauldron, Painting Animation: Activities of the Twelve Months, Adventure around the Universe, Theater of Fun Treasures, and Holding Hands Together (family interactive section), We cordially invite friends young and old to this NPM digital treasure paradise, to interact with digital treasures through technology, and to experience artifacts in various forms through multiple senses, and hear the resonance and dialog between technology and culture. Let us begin our exploration, hand-in-hand, to enjoy endless family fun.
Organizers: National Palace Museum, Songshan Feng Tian Temple
Supporting Institutions: Taipei City Government Department of Civil Affairs, Taipei City Government Department of Educaiton, Taipei City Government Department of Cultural Affairs, Taipei City Xinyi District Office
Venue: Heavenly Lord Gallery, Level B1, Xiangke Building
Tour Map: 下載
Exhibition Content:
Spring Blossom
Spring Blossom was inspired by the paintings “Crab apple and Magnolia blossoms,” “Peonies,” “Dianthus,” and “Peach Blossom” from Immortal Blossoms in an Everlasting Spring by the Qing Dynasty Western missionary painter Giuseppe Castiglione. The finely detailed realistic flowers, birds and scenery under the artist’s brush are showcased using sound control, interactivity, and animation technology, vividly conveying flowers blooming in the warmth of spring, and the season when all life reawakens. We invite friends old and new to awaken the glow of vibrant spring with wafting song.
Learn about Giuseppe Castiglione
Europeans began active outward expansion in the 16th century, and contact between the East and West increased due to commercial, trade, and religious fervor. Catholic Jesuit missionaries who came to China to promote Christianity brought Western works of art as tools for the mission, which opened up new horizons on Western trends for traditional Chinese painting. Among the many Western missionary painters, Giuseppe Castiglione (1688─1766) remained in China the longest, and was the most influential painter in the tide of Western trends in the Qing dynasty court.
Painting and Calligraphy Magnifier
Painting and Calligraphy Magnifier utilizes multilayered analysis and touch-screen technology, combining the results of high-definition photography of artifacts to present some 15 masterpieces of calligraphy and painting from the NPM’s collection before the visitor’s eyes to compensate for the not being able to exhibit the works for prolonged periods. Visitors young and old can choose their favorite works at the interactive table, and use their fingertips to magnify or minimize the images on the screen at will, and fully enjoy classical paintings and calligraphy masterpieces.
Chinese Character Cauldron
The Chinese Character Cauldron is an interactive video featuring 70 of the 500 Chinese characters inscribed inside the bronze vessel Mao Gong Ding, which dates to the late Western Zhou period (1046-771 B.C.), which showcases the cultural and historical connotations of Chinese characters. After enjoying the animated inscriptions, we can see how the calligraphy styles of Chinese characters have evolved to-date by moving the cursor. After selecting a character, it will light up and morph from oracle bone inscriptions, to inscriptions in bronze, seal script, official script, cursive script, running script and regular script – revealing millennia of changes in Chinese script.
Painting Animation: Activities of the Twelve Months
Using high-resolution seamless projection technology, the painting animation area creates full-scale animation wall projections that immerse visitors young and old within an all new panoramic technological painting realm.
Theater of Fun Treasures
"National Treasures in NPM" (5’ 40”)
The inquisitive Child Pillow inadvertently enters the painting, Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, where he meets the little white horse from One Hundred Horses who has lost its shadow. While searching for the little white horse's shadow, the Child Pillow meets Pixie and Jade Duck (both sent out in search of national treasure) and accidentally knocks over the Scent of Flowers Wafting calligraphy on the exhibition cabinet. This time, the Child Pillow is really in deep trouble…
"National Treasures in NPM 2: Shanshui Paintings" (7’ 44”)
In the still of the night, a shout is heard from inside the NPM, stirring Child Pillow from slumber. Following the sound, the sleepy child comes to the Ming dynasty painting Fishermen in Reclusion among Mountains and Streams by Tang Yin and finds a scholar’s attendant from the painting looking distressed. Out of curiosity, Child Pillow asks what has happened, and gets a big surprise. The young attendant’s master “Scholar Tang” fell on his head and lost his memory, and was now no where to be found. Can Child Pillow and his buddies Jade Pixie and Jade Duck successfully help Little Attendant find his master and help him regain his memory before the museum opens?
The Formosa Odyssey (11'45")
With his pumpkin-shaped head, almond eyes, and sickle tail, an unexpected visitor in the form of a Qing-era Formosan Mountain Dog named Blackie arrives at the NPM's Multimedia Display Room 210, He encounters a trio of constant traveling companions: Child Pillow, Jade Duck, and Jade Pixie (talisman) who follow Blackie’s on a thrilling adventure across raging waves to exciting Qing dynasty Taiwan, the island formosa. Riding on the Qing Navy’s most technologically advanced vessel, Tong-An, Child Pillow sets foot on Taiwan from centuries ago. The beautiful island offers beautiful scenery, herds of sika deer, and indigenous people each with their unique cultures, as well as unknown dangers…
Adventure around the Universe
In Adventure around the Universe, images from the “Kunyu Quantu” map are projected so that when visitors young and old feel as though they are travelling around the world as they move freely within the exhibition space. The theater-style interactivity enables visitors to be immersed in the stars as soon as they enter the exhibition space, while they learn about the unique characteristics of the “Kunyu Quantu” through a simulated dialog between Kangxi Emperor and Ferdinand Verbiest. Experience how ancient peoples studied astronomy and mapped the geography under the simulated cosmic constellations. For the finale is a theater of fantastic beasts. Everyone is invited to join in the hunt for these fantastic beasts in this interactive floor game.
Holding Hands Together
After viewing the exhibition, we invite visitors young and old to the family interactive area to unleash their imagination, joining hands to complete the “Immortal Blossoms in an Everlasting Spring Sticker Mania,” or the “Puzzle Masterpieces,” where parents and children can interact and bond. Remember to visit the “Animal Forest Photo Area” to snap a happy picture, and to leave your comments on the “Family Bulletin Board.”