November 24, 2020

Now You Can View Paintings Without Going to an Art Gallery

An NTT-affiliated company is planning digital streaming of paintings and other cultural assets as high-resolution digital images

NTT East Corporation will establish a new company to distribute paintings and other cultural assets as high-resolution digital images. It will digitize the cultural assets of art museums and other museums, which have seen their visitor numbers plummet because of the novel coronavirus, so that they can be viewed remotely.

Until now, digitization of cultural assets has only been for the purpose of preservation, but NTT expects demand for digital paintings and the like to rise as the coronavirus crisis drags on. NTT East Corporation will establish a new wholly-owned subsidiary in December. The company will use a giant scanner to digitize paintings and other works stored in art museums, and distribute the digital images to digital signage in places like airports and hospitals.

The fee will be around JPY50,000 a month for digitization and online distribution of 10 pictures. The company will also provide digital signage, and contract to obtain distribution locations. The new company aims for sales of JPY1 billion after five years. After that, it will consider expanding into overseas exhibiting of Japanese digital pictures, distribution of works from overseas museums in Japan, and networking of museums.