Case Study 18: Virtually Real Museums: Challenges and opportunities of virtual reality in the Art Museum Context

by MONSERRAT PIS MARCOS
Source: Interartive (Interartive is an open platform for dialogue that seeks to link various fields of investigation related to contemporary art and thought. Our coming from different parts of the world (Greece, Spain, Italy, Brazil, etc.) moves us into creating a project that promotes the interrelation between different cultures and the exchange of opinions and visions between them.
The intercultural dialogue is the basis to construct, through different languages and forms of expressions, identities and societies, open and conscious of the different aspects of reality.
The InterArtive web is a useful tool where investigators, students, onlookers and various types of users can locate information and reflections upon the multiple aspects of contemporary art. A meeting place, in form of a magazine, dynamic and accessible from any part of the world.)

Part 1

[New technologies/the Internet] is the communications medium of the new generations. And we are forced to communicate with them in their language. They do not read newspapers, they read screens. With these words Philippe de Montebello, ex-director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, acknowledged the growing importance of new technologies for the museum. In his own words, “Internet will force us to reinvent museums“. However, is this really the case? What is the impact that new technologies – particularly virtual reality – are having on the institution?

This essay will look into the relationship between virtual reality (VR) and the museum and will analyze the positive and negative effects that could derive from this interaction, in particular regarding the presence of the latter in VR environments such as Second Life. However, in order to explore this interaction it is necessary first to define what is understood as a museum and, more importantly, what is intended by VR.

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Part 2

Second Life (SL), also known as metaverse after the 1992 novel Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson, is a virtual totally-immersive world where people socialize, live and trade¹. It is a three-dimensional environment characterised by its interactivity², corporeity³ and persistency⁴. With more than eight million registered users, it was first launched in 2003 by Linden Research Inc. and it has been running and expanding since then although, as other virtual worlds before, its future is very hard to predict⁵. It is mainly a place for business and socialization, but the users – known as “residents” -, have also started to develop their own cultural life, be it inspired on the real world or created completely ex-novo.

There is also room for museums in SL. Anyone can buy land on one of the islands⁶ and build⁷ and display their own collection, but what is striking is the amount of serious professional initiatives for developing and promoting cultural institutions in-world⁸. There are mainly two kinds of museums in the metaverse: SL versions of real-life museums, and museums completely designed and conceived for SL. These two categories can nonetheless overlap slightly, as some examples will show.

Moreover, SL also offers historical reconstructions such as the Sistine Chapel (Fig. 9) or Ancient Rome, where avatars are invited to experience what it would have been like to live in those periods, even if sometimes designers struggle with technology to invest their reconstructions with historical accuracy⁹. That is the case of Ancient Rome, where four partners share the responsibility of building and the costs of renting the land where the sim¹⁰ is hosted. In this particular example, once inaugurated the visitor avatars will be mainly allowed to watch the role play as observers while being invited to attend special events such as talks on Latin literature in the theatre¹¹.

Fig. 9

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