Digital Heritage Conference Opens at National Gongju Museum

The first session of the 2026 Digital Heritage Festa industry conference was held on October 18 in the auditorium of the National Gongju Museum under the theme "New Boundaries of Digital Heritage," according to ZDNet Korea.

Pansori performer Choi Han-i presented planning examples that use pansori to let audiences choose the perspective of characters such as Bangja or Hyangdan in Chunhyangga. Choi also introduced the pansori learning app Soriro and the Korean rhythm practice app Hanbae as cases where digital records lead to actual learning.

Cho Joon-dong, professor emeritus at Sungkyunkwan University, presented an engineering analysis of the bronze artifact Danyuseomungyeong, detailing its roughly 0.3mm-spaced lines and triangle patterns. He also discussed a tactile and AI exhibition case.

Shin Hyo-jung, founder of the K-CULTURE AI International Film Festival, screened an AI-produced video about Baekje's move of its capital to Ungjin and stressed that people, not AI, must lead creation. The exhibition "Silent Resonance" linked a Bangasayusang with Rodin's "The Thinker" and allowed visitors to touch replicas and converse with AI.

In background remarks, Choi said he learned pansori as a child by recording his teacher's voice on a small recorder and blank tapes and repeating it, and noted that during the COVID-19 period, moving performances to digital revealed the limits of simply transferring the existing stage to video.