On October 27, 2026, I delivered a presentation at the Almaty Museum of Arts during the international UNESCO × CIMEA conference “Sustainable Central Asia: Silk Roads of Education, Arts, and AI.”
Read more about this Conference on UNESCO website.
Official Programme (PDF)
Download the official UNESCO / CIMEA conference programme (PDF)
In the official program, my topic was titled “Museums and Cultural Institutions as Spaces for Connection and Exchange.” However, in preparing for this discussion with representatives of universities, cultural institutions, and international organizations, I decided to demonstrate a broader sequence of connections — spanning from civilizational development and the creative economy to museum memory and digital immortality.
Typically, these questions reside in isolated professional disciplines: economists discuss innovation and productivity; artists explore creativity and freedom of expression; universities focus on educational quality; museums concentrate on heritage preservation; and tech companies design digital system architectures. Yet the transformations we face increasingly unfold precisely at the intersection of these domains.
This document serves as an expanded edition of my presentation’s key points, preserving the logical structure while unpacking concepts that time constraints required summarizing during the event.
All Models Are Wrong, But Some Are Useful
I opened the presentation with a quote by statistician George Box: “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” (Box, George E. P.; Draper, Norman Richard. 1987. Empirical model-building and response surfaces. Wiley series in probability and mathematical statistics. New York: Wiley. Р. 424) This serves as an essential caveat before any attempt to present complex societal development in diagrammatic form. A model is never identical to reality — it simplifies, highlights specific connections, and thereby helps articulate questions that would otherwise remain difficult to formulate.
The value of a model lies not in a claim to absolute truth, but in whether it enables systemic thinking — especially at a time when the speed of technological change often leaves little room to contemplate cultural, social, and ethical consequences.
Three Revolutions Occurring Simultaneously
I propose examining three interconnected vectors of civilizational development:
technological revolutions (production capabilities and tools); information revolutions (transmission, accumulation, and governance of knowledge); socio-economic shifts (the structure of human relations, property, labor, and institutions).
Historically, major shifts in these domains were separated by long intervals. Today, we experience a convergence where the development of artificial intelligence, digital platforms, production modes, and social practices occurs almost simultaneously. These changes do not merely succeed one another; they mutually reinforce each other.
Consequently, viewing digitalization merely as the automation of existing workflows is insufficient. We are witnessing a fundamental transformation of the environment in which knowledge emerges, products are built, and relationships are formed. Digital platforms are evolving from standalone tools into public infrastructure, making the question of who designs and governs this infrastructure a defining question for societal futures.
The Creative Society and the Knowledge Economy
As intellectual activity increasingly drives value creation, the significance of the creative economy naturally expands. This encompasses far more than artistic professions and cultural industries; it represents a systemic process wherein knowledge, ideas, research, design, and software become primary engines of development.
For resource-dependent economies, expanding intellectual and creative components is essential. Growth driven by knowledge generation operates under different dynamics than growth dependent on physical resource consumption.
However, methodological clarity is vital: definitions of ‘creative industries’ vary globally. Prior to assessing economic share, clear alignment on measurement criteria is required.
However, regardless of definition, one fundamental question remains: how is new knowledge created, and in what way is it transformed into a socially and economically significant outcome?
Artist, Visionary, Researcher, Innovator
To illustrate knowledge creation, I presented a conceptual “Circle of Knowledge.” Inside lies current human knowledge; outside lies the unexplored. As knowledge expands, the boundary of contact with the unknown expands as well, creating new inquiries.
I place the artist at this boundary — defined broadly as a creative thinker capable of perceiving what does not yet exist in established models. The artist may not possess implementation tools, but can reframe questions and identify opportunities overlooked by system insiders.
The continuum moves from artistic discovery to visionary hypothesis, research inquiry, innovative solution, product development, mass adoption, and ultimately cultural heritage. In my model, this is neither a rigid sequence nor a universal history of every work; rather, it is a framework for movement between imagination, knowledge, production, culture, and memory.
This makes visible the connection between seemingly distant fields. The root of a future economic sector often originates in artistic experimentation. Technologies that later appear routine were, at their inception, radical departures from conventional ways of understanding the world.
Why Universities Need Art: The STEAM Framework
This underscores the true value of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics). Treating the letter ‘A’ as an optional ornament for hard sciences is a mistake. Art is essential as a distinct mode of inquiry and problem formulation.
Artists are often among the first to experiment with emerging tools because their goals are not restricted by intended technological functions. They experiment with using them differently, sometimes making mistakes, and sometimes creating something that does not yet have a name. Interdisciplinary education must move beyond teaching correct usage of existing tools to cultivating spaces for risk, experimentation, and intellectual autonomy.
Echoing speaker Francesco Monico, art serves as a connective discipline that amplifies scientific inquiry. For me, what is particularly important here is not contrasting art with science, but the potential for their mutual reinforcement. New forms of knowledge emerge when different methods do not replace one another, but engage in interaction.
The Creative Economy Requires Responsibility
The next step in my argument addresses corporate social responsibility. Discussions on sustainable culture, science, and education are incomplete without considering the role of resource-bearing organizations.
Grounded in Howard Bowen’s CSR history, Archie Carroll’s pyramid, and modern ESG standards, social responsibility is not about separating profit from public good, but accounting for decision impacts on society, environment, and future generations.
ISO 26000 guidelines demonstrate that responsible operation is becoming a universal language of collaboration. For museums, modern infrastructure and research programs rely on long-term partnerships with socially responsible corporate partners who share long-term societal goals.
For a museum, this is not an abstract concept. The development of modern cultural institutions, the accessibility of their programs, research projects, and technological infrastructure are often made possible through long-term engagement with socially responsible partners. And the quality of such collaboration depends on whether both parties share a common understanding of their goals and societal impact.
Evaluating the Social Impact of Art
There is another related topic that is crucial not to lose sight of in discussions about the creative economy: how we understand the social impact of art. I presented a study dedicated to mapping scientific literature in this field, which reveals three major areas: the connection of art with culture and society, the connection of art with education, and the connection of art with human well-being.
This is a useful distinction. We often attempt to prove the significance of culture using a single metric: attendance figures, market size, artwork valuations, or financial output. However, the social impact of art is multidimensional. It can manifest through community building, knowledge acquisition, changing attitudes toward heritage, or deeply personal human experiences.
Museums and universities must develop methodologies to assess these multi-dimensional impacts without reducing outcomes solely to economic metrics or superficial declarations.
From Preserving Objects to Preserving Cultural Memory
Now let us return to the museum. In my presentation, I examine museums as institutions of memory. As memory institutions, museums select, study, preserve, and interpret heritage. This responsibility extends beyond physical artifacts to data and born-digital objects.
As early as 2003, UNESCO adopted the Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage. The very existence of such a charter demonstrates that this issue did not originate with today’s generative AI systems. Today, however, it is taking on a whole new scale. Humanity creates vast amounts of digital material, yet by no means is everything created preserved, verified, and kept accessible.
Traditional museum practice has developed around the physical object and its context. New forms of digital heritage require broadening this perspective. How do we select digital materials? What will be considered an original? How do we preserve data, software environments, and reproducibility? Who will be responsible for long-term accessibility and interpretation? Without answers to these questions, we risk losing a significant portion of our own era’s memory.
Digitization vs. Digital Twins: Distinct Tasks
I describe the next technological phase as a transition from digitization to digital twins. A critical distinction must be drawn between simple 2D/3D digitization and digital twins. While a digital image reproduces visual surface, a digital twin encapsulates comprehensive structural, material, historical, and physical metadata, as well as changes and interconnections with other objects.
This gives rise to interest in digital restoration and the reproduction of objects. 3D printing, spatial technologies, and research fields related to materials and bioprinting allow us to raise questions that were, until recently, largely in the realm of science fiction. However, I deliberately distinguish between what is technologically accessible today, laboratory experiments, and long-term hypotheses. Creating an accurate digital twin does not, in itself, guarantee the complete reproduction of the original.
For a museum, it is especially important not to lose the provenance and interpretation of an object in the process of technological reproduction. The more convincing a reconstruction becomes, the clearer it must be to the visitor where documentary evidence ends and research hypothesis begins.
Beyond Images: Preserving Multisensory Human Experience
The question regarding forms of human experience is even more complex. Today, the museum primarily works with objects, images, texts, sound, and documents. But how will our mission change if technology enables us to record and reproduce additional dimensions of perception: tactile sensations, scents, spatial environments, emotional responses, or first-person subjective memory?
Neural interfaces, immersive environments, and multisensory systems are already being explored and applied in specific contexts. This does not mean that we possess a technology capable of reliably recording and transmitting the full scope of human experience. However, the very horizon of this research is vital for museum philosophy. We are obligated to ask in advance what might become an object of preservation, what new human rights will emerge, and what competencies specialists will require.
In parallel, the visitor themselves will evolve. Physical, virtual, and mixed experiences will increasingly intersect. As a result, the museum will cease to be confined strictly to its physical space, yet it will not lose its responsibility for the authenticity of its sources and the meaningfulness of the interaction.
The “Digital Soul” of the Museum and Multidimensional Space
To describe the future integrated environment, I use the term the “Digital Soul of the Museum.” This is not an attempt to attribute consciousness to technology. I introduce the concept of the “Digital Soul of the Museum” to describe an integrated ecosystem uniting collection data, scholarly expertise, institutional philosophy, AI, digital twins, and immersive VR/AR technologies.
Technology must not exist in isolation from the museum’s core mission. They must continue its research and public function, make knowledge more accessible, and create new forms of engagement with the visitor. Authenticity, openness, and cultural responsibility must be embedded into system architecture rather than added as post-hoc visual embellishments.
I am also interested in the interoperability of virtual museum spaces. If each institution creates its own walled garden, we will merely replicate old barriers to access in the digital world. Therefore, data standards, interfaces, and cross-platform interaction protocols are no less important than the quality of individual digital projects.
Digital Development Begins with Integrity
I made a point of emphasizing during my presentation: Digital transformation is fundamentally about transparency, data integrity, and verification rather than hardware or software. Any digital system inherits the data quality and the culture of the people who create it.
One can construct a beautiful 3D model of a historical object, but if the underlying data is unreliable, we merely make the error more convincing. One can train an algorithm to speak on behalf of a historical figure, but without documented sources and constraints, such a persona will quickly devolve into a fantasy that the user takes for evidence.
That is why I connect the digital development of museums not only with technological competencies, but also with organizational culture, research ethics, professional responsibility, and information verification standards. It is precisely these issues that define the boundary between digital cultural heritage and its imitation.
Digital Immortality: New Cultural Asset or New Illusion?
The most complex part of my presentation was dedicated to digital immortality. The question of what remains of a person after their death has existed for as long as human culture itself. Our attitude toward the finitude of life shapes how we live, what we consider meaningful, and what legacy we wish to leave behind.
Technology offers a new perspective on this issue. We can now preserve letters, images, voices, professional knowledge, memories, and other records of a person’s life. Based on such data, it becomes possible to create digital models that answer questions or replicate specific nuances of their communication style. However, such a model is not identical to the individual, nor does it prove the continuation of human consciousness. This distinction is fundamental from both a philosophical and an ethical standpoint.
For museums, a completely new question arises: can an interactive digital twin of a person become a distinct object of cultural heritage? If so, who has the right to create it, what data is permissible to use, who defines the boundaries of the model’s behavior, and how should its degree of authenticity be indicated?
On the eve of my talk, I asked Michelangelo Pistoletto about digital immortality during his remote conversation with conference attendees. He suggested viewing the problem through the lens of a person’s contribution to the shared cultural realm: artistic images and connections can continue to exercise their agency long after the author is gone. For me, this marks a vital distinction between the technological dream of infinite existence and the authentic cultural continuation of human endeavor.
Authenticity, Rights, and Digital Identity
If a person’s digital twin begins to participate in public communication, the standard technical question "Does the model work?" will no longer be sufficient. It will become necessary to verify data provenance, consent for use, accuracy of representation, limits of permissible alterations, developer accountability, and the ability to revoke access.
I view blockchain and other traceability mechanisms as potential tools for recording the origin of digital objects and their revision histories. However, an entry in a distributed ledger does not turn false information into truth: it can confirm that a specific record existed or was modified in a certain order, but it cannot guarantee the validity of its original content.
Therefore, the authenticity of digital heritage cannot be delegated to technology alone. It must be ensured through a system of methodologies: rigorous documentation, expert verification, a clear distinction between facts and reconstructions, a sound legal foundation, ethical stewardship, and transparency for users.
Priority Research Agenda
I do not suggest waiting for the moment when perfected digital personalities or a universal museum metaverse emerge. On the contrary, methodological work must begin before the technology becomes widespread.
I outline five multidisciplinary research priorities for academic and cultural institutions: metadata matrix for digital twins of cultural objects; reconstruction methodologies for historical personae; lifetime Digital Twin models for human subjects; human-avatar Interaction ethical frameworks; autonomous agent dynamics between digital entities. This is a research agenda, not a description of an already existing and fully operational system.
It must involve not only engineers and developers. Museum professionals, historians, archivists, philosophers, psychologists, legal scholars, ethicists, artists, and educators are all required. The subject is far too complex for a single discipline. And that is precisely why it holds value for universities seeking to teach not only the use of existing technologies, but also the formulation of new research questions.
Museum, University, and Artist: An Invitation to Collaboration
In concluding my presentation, I returned to the idea of the museum as a space for dialogue. For me, it is essential that the museum does not exist in isolation from education, science, and technological progress. Joint lectures, research, educational programs, experimental projects, and professional communities allow us to test complex ideas in practice and cultivate new competencies.
One such format for us is the Museum Visual Club at the Almaty Museum of Arts: an open platform for engagement among specialists in photography, visual technologies, digital cultural heritage, and modern methods of image creation and analysis. Yet the significance of this initiative extends beyond an individual club: the museum can serve as a meeting point for disciplines that often lack a shared space within traditional institutional structures.
Ultimately, the question is not merely what museums will look like in a hundred or a thousand years. Far more important are the decisions we make today: what we deem worthy of preservation, what knowledge we consider reliable, whom we invite to collaborate, and to whom we remain accountable.
If we wish to preserve cultural heritage for the future, we will have to learn to think about the future itself far more deeply. And perhaps it is precisely the union of artistic imagination, research discipline, and technological responsibility that will help us achieve this.
Source: Vladimir Opredelenov’s personal archive.