An exhibition called “The seeing glass” is available at the Delaware Art Museum up to the 14th of January. With the help of virtual reality, a Victorian painting called “La Bella Mano” is transformed into a three-dimensional waking dream with lavish décor and decaying displays of flowers, fruit, insects, and skulls. The visitors of the museum put on an Oculus Rift headset, in order to dive into this Virtual world.
As the visitors move in the virtual world, the objects start becoming blurred and the time speeds up. This virtual experience allows viewers the opportunity to become absorbed in a virtual reality of historical painting and witness the artificial passage of time.
This could be useful in Thematic Area 4 of the ViMM project, because it is a nice and innovative application of Virtual Reality to an art museum. With the help of Virtual Reality, the visitors of the museum have the opportunity to explore a virtual room, which is connected to the specific painting. There is no narrative experience. Instead, the viewer is absorbed in the virtual world with the possibility of finding meaning in the symbolism of its objects. That means, that for the storytelling field, the story in this specific experience is told through the objects of the virtual room. Also, the visitors move their body in order to move inside the room, giving them the feeling of presence that they are actually inside the room. Finally, the fact that they can explore the room and its objects and that the time passes and the blurriness are elements of the gamification field.
Source: http://www.delart.org/press-room/museum-unveils-first-virtual-reality-experience/
