ART HISTORY is a virtual reality experience that brings museums into people’s living rooms.
Before I changed my career focus to UX/UI, I worked in galleries and museums for over five years in various capacities. It was my interest in the intersection of art and technology that originally inspired me to look into grad school. It became apparent to me that art and tech were slowly becoming more and more intertwined, but most museums were slow to respond to this. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it became clear that in order for museums and nonprofits to survive, they would have to innovate and find new ways of interacting with audiences.
Starting out
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What Do I Want to Know?
I began by determining what I wanted to ask with this project. Ultimately, I wanted to know how might VR effect how users perceive and interact with museum collections. I hypothesized that by utilizing VR technology, users would be able to better connect with museum collections.
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Survey & Findings
I created a brief, ten question survey on SurveyMonkey, with hopes of learning more about people’s relationship with museums, virtual reality and augmented reality (VR/AR), and how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed or impacted their relationship with art and/or technology. Above, I have highlighted the results from three of the 10 questions. Overall there was a desire to engage with VR/AR technology, particularly among Millennials. Nearly 62% of participants said they do not visit museums as much as they used to before the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants' relationship and experience with VR/AR has slightly increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
All participants (ages ranging 18-64) agreed that VR/AR could be utilized as an educational tool.
Personas
I started sketching what a gallery experience might look like. My objective was to explore how this could be done realistically. I envisioned that museums would partner with Art History to translate an in-person exhibition into a VR experience for a global audience. The participant would be able to navigate through a gallery space and get as close to a work of art as possible, without fear of damaging it. I realize, of course, that there is no substitution for how art impacts viewers in-person, however, I still believe that a virtual museum has value for those who yearn to travel, but may have various limitations to doing so. I would also love to create a mobile app that incorporates AR into the experience, as well (i.e. social media filters, AR renditions of art objects, etc.).
Going forward
Impact:
I believe that there will be even greater crossover between art and technology in the future. During my research, I discovered several related museum and VR collaborations, i.e. Cuseum, The Kremer Collection VR Museum on Oculus (Meta Quest), Getty Museum virtual campus tours on Xplorit.
What I’m learning:
This is an incredibly eye-opening project for me! I have had the opportunity to learn about 3D art and also dive deeper into understanding virtual reality and augmented reality. I find it encouraging that there are institutions currently embracing opportunities to engage with audience virtually, especially since there is an interest to engage with art in this way.
Next steps:
ART HISTORY is an on-going project and very much in its infant stages. The logical next steps would be to design gallery layouts and mockups in Unreal or Unity.