At the International Forum they discussed artificial intelligence and declared their love for the Northern capital

The International Cultural Forum, held at the General Staff of the Hermitage, has come to an end. Its last day began with the firing of a cannon in the Peter and Paul Fortress, which announced that at noon a new prize established by the forum’s organizing committee would be awarded in the Hermitage.

A military band is playing in the St. George’s Hall, government officials are making speeches, fortunately for those present, they are not lengthy. Thus, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova kept it to 2.5 minutes, saying that the Throne Room for the First Hermitage Prize was chosen not only on the basis of the historicity of the location, but to once again emphasize that “for us, culture is history, continuity. And that, despite the sanctions, it knows no boundaries.”

The first laureates were the artistic director and general director of the Mariinsky Theater Valery Gergiev and the artistic director of the ballet troupe of the Mikhailovsky Theater Nacho Duato. The first, as soon as he appeared on the forum, journalists tormented him with questions about the Bolshoi Theater, but the maestro, with the dignity of an experienced player, avoided answering. And when receiving the prize from the hands of Mikhail Piotrovsky (a fragment of a copy of the Kolyvan vase made of jasper that decorates the Hermitage hall), he quoted Dostoevsky: “Beauty will save the world” and added: “The time has come.” And Nacho Juan Ignacio Duato Barcia, firstly, dedicated his award to the entire staff of the Mikhailovsky Theater and its audience. And secondly, he asked to be considered a kind of adopted son of St. Petersburg. “I will never leave this city,” the famous dancer and choreographer promised.

Vladimir Putin at the forum is the most important story. In his answers to questions, it seems, all the “i”s are dotted (about cultural figures who spoke out about the SVO, LGBT and the transgender agenda in art). The emotional coloring is given by the relevant quotes from the poetry of Omar Khayyam.

16 agreements were signed at the forum. Thus, the ministers of culture of seven countries left their signatures on cooperation documents. The Hermitage has an agreement with the National Museum of the Sultanate of Oman, the State Library of Foreign Literature named after. M.I. Rudomino – with the National Library. Al-Assad of the Syrian Arab Republic. Thanks to the concluded donation agreement, collections of watercolors by Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna and memorial items from the family of Emperor Alexander III will return to Russia. The Vakhtangov Theater signed a memorandum of intent to develop educational and academic exchanges between Russia and China.

At a discussion on theater education, it turned out that in Turkey, until recently, Stanislavsky’s system was studied from books published in English, which led to errors in the learning process. Now the works of the founding father of the Moscow Art Theater will be translated into Turkish only from Russian. But on the eve of the forum, GITIS signed a copyright agreement with the International Theater Education Alliance (WTEA) to create a library of books by great teachers, and the works of Knebel, Heifetz, and Kudryashov will be the first to be translated into Chinese.

A heated discussion took place about the relationship between media and culture; the editor-in-chief of Moskovsky Komsomolets, Pavel Gusev, cheered everyone up with his speech.

The new head of the Department of Culture, Alexey Fursin, spoke about the world-class film cluster METMASH, which is being built in the southeast of Moscow, and there is hope that it will solve many of the problems of those who really think about the development of domestic cinema. Vladimir Kekhman, who was in charge of holding the forum for the first time, rushed through the corridors of the General Headquarters like Figaro: now he is here, now there, and at fifth speed – he controls everything, emotions sometimes go off scale, but there is a result – everything is clear.

“For me, the main result of the forum is the following,” summed up Vladimir Kekhman. — The President very clearly outlined the strategy: culture as an industry becomes the main driving force, it receives carte blanche to go on the attack in all directions. A clear signal that we follow the middle-royal path and we are not any closed system, but are completely open.

But the most spectacular location of the Hermitage General Staff building is the small Atrium with a waterfall, which aroused everyone’s keen interest. Artificial intelligence (AI) is driving the agenda here: it is talked about on almost all panels. The waterfall on the forum falls directly from the open window. Precisely natural, blue-white-gray, all splashed, symbolizing Russian culture as a powerful stream, and the decorative window emphasizes its openness to the world, innovation and modern technology. Under it, without fear of getting wet to the skin, theorists and practitioners of museum and theater business, artists, musicians, librarians gather to discuss this very artificial intelligence, with which we will now have to live, as with a close relative. Is AI an enemy of the subtle and man-made world of art, or is it still a friend? What can we expect more from it – benefit or harm? What potential threats exist in the use of AI in the cultural sphere and others?

The lower part of the waterfall structure, made of floor modules-screens with a protective coating, became the stage, and the upper, vertical part, made up of 14-meter-high screens, formed the natural geometry of the waterfall. Who would have thought, looking at this airy-looking thing, that it weighs more than five tons! By the way, the waterfall lived in real time: it reacted to the movements of speakers and artists with a hum or acceleration.

Here, the “Digital Opera” project by Nadezhda Abramova, dedicated to digital opera scenography, was clearly presented. But in the neo-ethnic show “Sound of Eurasia”, AI for the first time collected the music of key groups of the peoples of Russia and also created a scenography from animated patterns of its indigenous peoples. Director of the National Library of the Republic of Belarus Vadim Gigin first warns about AI ambushes – deepfakes (for example, Lukashenko, who in his unique voice in clear French advises not to eat meat), about the danger of products without authorship, when it is impossible to detect plagiarism in dissertations written by AI.

“But at the same time, AI is also a help,” says Gigin. – At least it’s fashionable. We want to attract young people to the library. But through what? AI performs this function, the main thing is to make it meaningful.

According to a speaker from friendly Belarus, the modern user does not know how to choose what to read – he simply does not know how to do it. AI is indispensable here: with its help you can create a convenient interface, that is, a road map. He will also help voice the excursions, and all this in the name of popularizing the library institution.

The director of the Russian State Library, Vladimir Duda, gives figures: Leninka has approximately 300 million documents (a little more only in the Library of the US Congress), but only 15% (!) of documents have ever been in demand by the reader. And artificial intelligence is one way to unlock greater depth in funds.