Perhaps a useful tool in the future of museums, virtual reality allows for curations that are impossible in real life. This is a screenshot video of a first-person virtual reality experience using an HTC Vive to explore a virtual museum.

 

One of the great collections of impressionism is in the Art Institute of Chicago. They have six of Monet's haystack paintings, which affords a visitor a rare side-by-side comparison. What if you could be in a room with all 25 of Monet's Haystack series? Get close and view the brush strokes without an alarm going off and no one in front of you taking a selfie.

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I would love to see a VR headset in a museum that could provide additional information to the work on display. Maybe visit Monet's studio where he created his last works, then go the Musee l'Orangerie in Paris and see them in the museum specifically designed to house them.

 

For this demonstration, I am grateful for Google Arts and Culture for the high-resolution scans. I also used WalkAboutWorlds to turn 360 photographs into walkable virtual reality places.

 

Software: Walk About Worlds, Blender, Adobe Photoshop, Quixel, Unity3D