Moravian Museum: AI Avatar of Professor Karel Absolon

What we deployed

The Challenge

Moravske zemske muzeum (the Moravian Museum) at the Dietrichstein Palace in Brno wanted to make a historical exhibition more attractive for younger generations and the modern visitor: a faithful replica of the study of professor Karel Absolon, the Moravian researcher, archaeologist and speleologist known for discovering the Venus of Dolni Vestonice.

A static memorial room, however true to the original, struggles to hold the attention of a school group. The museum was looking for a way to let visitors meet the figure himself, not just read about him.

The Solution

aReception built an interactive AI avatar of professor Karel Absolon, running on large language models with knowledge drawn primarily from the expert publication Karel Absolon: Discoverer, Manager, Scientist. Visitors simply speak to him and he answers in character about his research, his finds and his life.

To make the avatar feel real in a physical museum space, aReception delivered the complete hardware set-up as a turnkey solution: a reliable always-on IPC, clean audio capture in a busy hall and smooth audiovisual playback, with a black-and-white animation that faithfully matches the historical look of the Master.

The Results

The installation was an immediate hit and drew significant media and public attention. Cesky rozhlas Brno covered it under the headline that the revived discoverer of the Venus of Dolni Vestonice shows what modern museum exhibitions could look like in the future, and the project featured in the main regional news of Czech Television.

High-school students, the primary audience, were captivated by the detailed, factually accurate answers, and the museum management sees the installation as a major step forward, already considering extending the technology to further pavilions. It is a working example of how reliable hardware and innovative AI turn a historical exhibition into an immersive, educational experience.