HTC Bringing Vives to a Museum Near You

Last fall HTC unveiled a multimillion dollar global VR program to get more virtual reality into museums. This investment program is flooded with partnerships with content creators and cultural institutions hoping to get involved with the initiative. HTC is driving the VR arts market in hopes of it catching on further and becoming more mainstream. Not only are they pushing for this to make more VR in museums, but HTC started Viveport, which is an art subsection of the Vive app store. The purpose of these two moves is to increase the popularity of VR art and designing as well as expanding the VR learning in schools and museums. This is one of those situations where private companies are causing digital disruption for an altruistic purpose that will theoretically enhance their own market size in the future as a result. The push by companies like HTC to get VR into museums should be welcomed as museums should be making this amazing push themselves.

notable links:

https://vrscout.com/news/vive-arts-vr-museums/

Playing in theBlue Ocean while staying dry.

Next on the list of recent VR exhibition experiences in museums is theBlue. Created by tech company Wevr, theBlue went on display in the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County last year. You can have this experience for an extra $10 on top of the $12 entrance fee into the museum. The visitor gets to experience this exhibit through a headset, which displays a 360 view ocean floor. You get to see whales swim over you as well as schools of fish whizzing by. To add to the experience, the viewer controls a flashlight they need to use in order to further explore the ocean floor. The museum knew that the experience catered heavily to younger, tech savvy people. However, they never expected to get a lot of older adults paying for the exhibition for themselves and having a phenomenal time. This exhibition was made possible through a close collaboration with Wevr, who donated the headsets and the PCs for the exhibition. This is a testament to how museums who may not have the capital to jump into VR exhibitions, can find ways to have meaningful partnerships with tech companies willing to help out. The museum aims to continue pressing on with the new tech in their museum.

 

(we can say the exhibition caused a digital disruption among the older visitors)

notable links

Museums embrace virtual reality

 

Border Crossing in the Safety of a Museum.

Mexican director Alejandro Iñárritu created an interactive virtual reality exhibit last fall title “Flesh and Sand” for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The experience puts the viewer into the shoes of an illegal immigrant through a sensory experience of three separate rooms. First, the participant gets walked into a holding cell and is instructed to remove their socks and shoes. They sometimes wait as long as 15 minutes by themselves in the room before being sent into the next room with the sound of a siren. In this room, the floor is covered in sand and you begin your virtual reality experience. There are two people in the room to keep you from walking into the walls, but outside of that they do not interfere with your experience. The experience puts you in a dessert space where you are with a group that gets caught trying to cross the border by a helicopter and as a border agent demands you get on the ground. After your VR experience, you get to collect your shoes and socks and then you get to walk around the next room where there are portholes that illuminate videos of the face of illegal immigrants whose experiences influenced the exhibition. Under the portholes are their stories which you can read while they stare at you. Ultimately the exhibition is another in a string of multisensory art exhibitions that museums are moving towards with the rise of technologies like VR to give the visitor a unique experience not seen before. As many museums continue to experiment with these technologies, the question remains on where it will go and if there’s longevity in the technology.

 

Notable Links:

https://www.kqed.org/news/11610230/new-vr-exhibit-lets-viewers-experience-mexican-migrants-harrowing-journey

Cedar Rapids Museum Contracts High School Students to Make a Virtual Reality Exhibition

In Cedar Rapids, IA the National Czech and Slovak Museum had unveiled a WWI virtual reality exhibit chronicling the what it was like as a soldier in a bakery rail car for the 100th anniversary of the formation of former Czechoslovakia. High School students from two different area schools worked on separate parts of the exhibition. Metro High designed the replica train skulls, while Iowa BIG designed the virtual reality program. Collaboration between museums and the public are more common now than they have been in the past, but even more so trusting high school students with developing a high tech exhibition for your museum is even less heard of. The embrace of newer technologies and even a large community outreach is something other museums should take from Cedar Rapids’ National Czech and Slovak Museum.

 

(much of this was covered in our Manual on digital strategies)

Notable Links:

http://www.kwtx.com/content/news/479779603.html

Virtual Reality Dali Experience Arrives on Steam.

Back in 2016 The Dali Museum in Florida unveiled a virtual reality exhibit that is on indefinite display called the “Dreams of Dali”. The program takes you through Dali’s painting, Archaeological Reminiscence of Millet’s “Angelus”. You can visit the museum and view it there and have been given a 360 video of the experience on YouTube upon release. Designed for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, the experience requires a VR headset to gain the full experience. the experience came out in 2016, but recently in February of 2018 the experience launched on Steam, the Oculus Store, and the Vive store for free. Now the experience is available to the world to see without ever having to step foot into the museum itself. This is the type of open sourcing many museums are moving towards with their collections and events (something I read in my digital strategies manual). Something like this is nothing but beneficial for not only the museum, but also the public they serve.

Notable links:

http://thedali.org/exhibit/dreams-vr/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/591360/Dreams_of_Dali/

https://www.viveport.com/apps/5c4dd1a3-3f37-4bc9-aa44-d588e553e376

https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/1873099679429920/

Can Holograms Have a Place in Museums?

A big question museums struggle with designing exhibitions is how much technology is too much technology. Holograms are a neat little mixed reality technology that has a certain wow factor to it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they should be used in museum exhibitions. With any technology used in a museum, the museum should go through a series of questions regarding its implementation. This would revolve around whether or not it’s distracting to the exhibit, does it enhance the experience for the visitor, or what does it require to function properly/is there a learning curve, among other questions. In my new media in museums class we had a fun little case study where a history museum implemented a hologram into an old general store exhibition because the son of a major donor came up with the idea. They had a lot of glaring issues with this use, despite people liking it being there since that was just about the only positive it yielded. Now there are two companies that have very recently emerged with ideas to bring this wonderful MR feature into more museums. These companies are called Cortina Productions and ColliderCase, and they have recently been producing MR products for museums in the last couple years. Cortina Productions is working with HoloLense technology and in 2017 partnered with the LBJ Presidential Library and the Bullock Texas State History Museum to create hologram experiences in their museums. ColliderCase on the other hand works with projecting holograms on glass surfaces, with an example of how their made an informative sextant display that simulated someone using it so that visitors could see how this works without a museum professional risk damaging the object to show how it functions. another example used was an embroidery piece they created a hologram for. In these instances the use of holograms work without being intrusive and they heavily improve the experience while even giving an extra layer of protection of the original objects themselves. Maybe holograms can be used more frequently as they improve.

 

Notable Links:

http://www.cortinaproductions.com/holograms-in-museums/

https://gizmodo.com/holographic-display-cases-could-help-museums-bring-arti-1774657559

 

 

Open Sourcing the Heritage of Canada

“Ingenium is leading the way in participatory engagement, becoming the first national museum in Canada to release its collection data as open data, and also the first to engage in national hackathons.”

After a three year renovation of the entire museum, the Canada Science and Technology Museum opened not only its physical doors, but also its virtual doors to the public last winter with a slew of open sourced data of all of their collection. Being closed for these years to overhaul their in museum exhibitions to make them more interactive and use newer technological tools to boost that interaction is one thing, but they completely overhauled what is accessible on their site as well. Their online collections are still in beta currently and they are constantly updating the site since it is currently being developed while it is open to the public, but this shows an agile type strategy that focuses more on development through testing than simply releasing a product nd leaving it as is.

(In terms of my class on new media, this relates to the Manual we read and concepts like Omnichannel)

Notable Links:

https://blogs.opentext.com/modernizing-canada-science-technology-museum-open-heritage/

https://ingeniumcanada.org/scitech/newsroom/news-introducting-the-new-world-class-canada-science-and-technology-museum.php

https://ingeniumcanada.org/scitech/newsroom/news-our-new-museum.php

https://ingeniumcanada.org/ingenium/collection-research/open-data.php

Creating a Mockumentary to Promote a Solo Exhibition 10 Years in the Making

Love him or hate him Damien Hirst is a constant figure in the Contemporary Art scene, both in museums and the secondary market. Last year, Hirst opened a massive solo exhibition in Venice titled Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable, which filled the galleries of two separate museums of work that was a decade in the making. Ultimately it was displayed across 54,000 square feet of gallery space, the exhibition was shown at both the Palazzo Grassi, on the Grand Canal, and the city’s old customs house, Punta della Dogan in Venice. The exhibition was a narrative based on a fake story of how Hirst funded an excavation of a shipwreck allegedly found off the coast of North Africa in 2008. The artwork subsequently displayed was what was found during the excavation.

To supplement this exhibition, Hirst produced a mockumentary of the objects being dug out of the sea. This high production movie was used to further his narrative and promote the exhibition while it was on show. This film is still currently streaming on Netflix as well, which speaks for how far reaching something like this went. Making videos for exhibitions to promote them isn’t new, but there aren’t really any other videos put straight onto Netflix like this or even at the budget scope. In a sense, this marketing gimmick even elongates the actual exhibition to a visual audience that will never see the exhibition in person in Venice. The exhibition even has a their exhibition and audio guides free to download on the exhibition’s page. Damien Hirst pulled out a lot of stops to implement media into his exhibition and to promote it, which is something admirable for a museum professional.

 

Notable links:

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/apr/06/damien-hirst-treasures-from-the-wreck-of-the-unbelievable-review-titanic-return

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/what-to-see/damien-hirst-treasures-wreck-unbelievable-review-spectacular/

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/damien-hirst-shipwreck_us_58ece936e4b0ca64d91959c0

Damien Hirst’s Shipwreck Fantasy Sinks in Venice

https://www.palazzograssi.it/en/exhibitions/past/damien-hirst-at-palazzo-grassi-and-punta-della-dogana-in-2017-1/

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/apr/16/damien-hirst-treasures-from-the-wreck-of-the-unbelievable-review-venice

Livestreaming Cannibalism? What???

When talking about how museums can integrate technology into museums to increase their quality, livestreaming sounds like a good idea for some things. This is exactly what the Grata JJ cultural center in Riga, Latvia did on March 6 when they went live on Facebook and streamed a performance art piece by artist Arthur Berzinsh. Now this wasn’t just any performance art piece, this involved performance artists Olga Kuļikova, Jānis Mihejevs, Suura Nettle, and the collective PainProTest partaking in and watching cannibalism, while the artist acted as the MC to the performance. Berzinsh is much more known for his paintings, particularly the album art he created for the band Cradle of Filth, but his work is versatile stretching from traditional painting to creating his own music. This stunt garnered particular attention on the 22nd of March when British news agency, The Sun, accused the artist of normalizing cannibalism through livestreaming his piece over Facebook, even stating that the police were called on him over it (there are no laws that he could be charged with so the arrival of the police might have been a lie). The piece itself consisted of two performers, a male and a female, walking into a space that is divided from the audience with a single Plexiglas wall and burying a children’s toy in a box of dirt. They then sat done on a bench and another performer walks in wearing a medical suit. The performer proceeds to cut off a small part of the two performer’s backs with tweezers and a scalpel, puts them in a bed pan, grills the pieces on a Bunsen Burner, seasons them, and then feeds each piece back to the person it was taken from. The performers sat still on the bench until it was instructed to stand and receive their own flesh, despite blood dripping down their backs. Police, if they showed up, didn’t do anything about it, since there isn’t a crime for eating your own skin and Berzinsh had this to say about the performance;

“Art cannot always be beautiful and comfortable, ” he says. “This performance has a very clear metaphor – even too clear for neo-conceptual art, and if you wish to comprehend the idea, it is up to you. And if you avoid the comprehension, you will see everything literally.” And regarding cannibalism: “Maybe fingernail gnawing or snot devouring also can be considered as a crime?”

Regardless the content of the piece, the real purpose of this post is to talk about how they used Facebook’s live function to bring the performance art to those outside of the museum goers of Rigga, Latvia that night. This engaged what was happening in the museum with people from around the world. The museum’s Facebook page is an active place with photos and videos of the artists they represent, including livestreams of poetry readings and performance art pieces. A lot of museums are moving towards this trend of being more open and publishing the events that happen in their museums online. This brings credence to the visitor as on online entity to the museum, where now museums are catering not only to those who go to the museum physically, but also those who follow it online. Chances are if this performance was not livestreamed and then posted onto YouTube by Berzinsh himself, there wouldn’t have been these dozens of articles written about it from art news and mainstream media sources around the world. This event gave exposure to the museum as well as the artist himself who has been given multiple interviews about the piece because of how The Sun portrayed the work in their article attacking him and the museum. The use of this available technology has given international exposure to Latvian Contemporary Art that the museum promotes nd can potentially give not only the artists possible dealers who want their work now, but also can generate more tourism to their museum and country from people who now want to go to Latvia to see their museums and culture.

 

 

Notable Links:

http://www.berzinsh.lv/ -Berzinsh’s website

https://www.antheamissy.com/latvian-artist-is-accused-of-promoting-cannibalism-after-facebook-live-stream-of-controversial-performance/

Latvian Artist Is Accused of Promoting Cannibalism After Facebook Live Stream of Controversial Performance

http://allthatsinteresting.com/artists-cannibalism

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5872051/facebook-cannibal-artist-feeds-people-flesh-no-worse-chewing-fingernails/ -The Sun article

http://museumlv.com/en/about_us/ -The museum’s website

https://www.facebook.com/galerijamuseumlv/ -The museum’s Facebook page

https://www.instagram.com/museumlvgratajj/ -The museum’s Instagram page

https://www.youtube.com/user/ArthurBerzinsh/videos -Berzinsh’s YouTube page

How Can You Market Contemporary Art to a General Populous?

Art museums have always had an issue with getting visitors to understand the dozens of art movements being born on a regular basis, and often times there can be a public backlash when an exhibition leaves many scratching their heads. Since a lot of museums are publicly funded, if the general populous reacts badly to what the museum is displaying, they can lose that funding. Which is why museums need to find new and clever ways to bring understanding to those that don’t necessarily have much knowledge of what’s being displayed. Even though short films and TV ads are not new technologies, this short film by the Hammer Museum is using old technologies in a new way to present vital information about their current exhibition, “Stories of Almost Everyone”. The film is directed by the CEO of video game giant Activision, Eric Hirschberg, with special guests Will Ferrell and Joel McHale, who all did this for free as a show of support for the museum. The short film shows curator Arm Moshayedi giving the two actors a tour of the exhibition as he explains each piece in between the commentary of the actors giving their honest opinion of the works. By using available resources the museum has at their disposal, the museum was able to produce a professionally done advertisement for the museum on a very cheap budget. This advert tries to break that elitist stigma that museums give off, by poking fun at themselves and making an experience that gives potential visitors this idea that they shouldn’t feel weird if they do not completely understand everything in the museum. This puts people off edge and they feel less uncomfortable in the space knowing that having issues not understanding is normal and sometimes even part of the experience of the art. This kind of video gives the Hammer museum a different brand to the visitor, and can potentially break down some barriers they have with reaching out to less educated or outlier communities that may not have been inclined to visit the museum due to pre-conceived notions. More museums should look to a promotional video like this when thinking about their public brand, especially ones struggling with visitors not understanding the content or feeling uncomfortable in the space.

 

Follow either link to watch the video. It’s really great.

http://creativity-online.com/work/hammer-museum-will-ferrell-and-joel-mchale-visit-the-hammer-museum/54202

http://www.adweek.com/creativity/baffled-by-conceptual-art-so-are-will-ferrell-and-joel-mchale-in-this-museums-short-film/