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Examining the Design of
Virtual Reality Art Galleries

boulvard.jpg

A scene from Boulvard Art VR that I examined and discussed in the paper.

Project Overview

Role:

Research Assistant and First Author 

Year:

Jan 2024- Oct 2024

Tools:

Quest 2, Steam and Meta Store, Zotero, Overleaf, Microsoft 360 and Google Workspace, Canva, CapCut​​​​

Link:

https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3665463.3678815

Team Size:

My co-author is Daniel Harley, Assistant Professor at Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business, University of Waterloo.

Objective:

Identifying how reproductions of art galleries utilize the capabilities of the medium of VR

Introduction:

Galleries, museums, and designers have been adopting virtual reality (VR) technologies to display paintings and create novel experiences with artwork. An analysis of 20 examples of these applications was done to examine the design of VR reproductions of existing paintings, raising questions about how art is mediated by VR applications.

Background:

What does VR offer to the reproduction of paintings, and how might it be used to communicate the experience of viewing paintings that are traditionally housed in galleries or museums?

Key Contributions:

  • Initial Research & Search Process: Led the broad exploratory searches across multiple VR platforms (Steam, Meta games library, Oculus App Lab) to identify VR applications related to reproductions of paintings, filtering results with keywords such as "art," "gallery," and "painting."

  • Criteria Development for Filtering: Played a central role in developing iterative filtering criteria to narrow down the applications, ensuring only VR experiences that explicitly focused on reproductions of paintings were included. Excluded applications focused on 3D painting tools, cultural heritage without paintings, or unrelated digital art forms.

  • Application Review: Conducted thorough reviews of application descriptions, removing entries that didn’t fit the research focus. Verified the inclusion of contemporary paintings and museum-produced VR remediations of well-known paintings.

  • Final Application Selection: Refined the selection process to only include free applications, resulting in a curated list of 20 VR experiences related to the research focus on painting reproduction.

  • Data Collection (Playthrough Documentation): Downloaded and played through each of the 20 selected applications using Meta Quest 2. Recorded detailed documentation of each experience to prepare for further analysis.​

Challenges & Solutions:

  • Challenge: Frequent PC crashes and disconnections during VR sessions
    Solution: Ensure proper cable connections to minimize interruptions and follow a workflow instruction that is working to experience these VR ART galleries.  

  • Challenge: Physical discomfort from poorly designed VR experiences and extended headset use
    Solution: Implement short VR sessions with breaks to minimize the effects of motion sickness and physical strain. 

  • Challenge: Difficulty in sharing videos and managing time for thorough research
    Solution: Explore various methods for video capture and sharing, such as using Whats App in Meta to share long walkthrough videos that it was impossible to share from the Quest app. Allocate specific time blocks for recording and analysis to improve workflow and balance the demands of the study.

Takeaways:

  • Each of the thematic areas that we identify–Space, Interaction, Narrative–presents questions about how current work does or does not leverage VR’s experiential capabilities. This includes considerations about how virtual space enables or constrains particular forms of movement, and what kinds of spaces and social relationships are reproduced.

  • The analysis also raises questions about how, when, and why the interactions in VR either reproduce or challenge the distanced viewership of a traditional gallery or museum. These kinds of questions can also have broader significance in terms of the ways that art is shared and experienced.

  • Despite the interactive affordances of the medium of VR, the few examples that deliberately create playful, experiential, or narrative interactions suggest opportunities to more directly examine the effect of VR experiences that challenge the sensory paradigm that is the norm within traditional galleries or museums.

Future Work:

I am excited to pursue research projects that investigate ways to improve the user experience of VR art galleries, focusing on the key thematic areas identified in this study: Space, Interaction, Narrative, and Artwork.

Contact Information: 

Please contact me at samira.soltani@torontomu.ca

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