Jumping into Art in Second Life

When people talk about museum projects in Second Life and other virtual worlds, I'm often disappointed by the short-sightedness of the vision. Virtual worlds are a new, emerging technology, and like any new technology, overlaying old techniques onto new platforms is disappointing at best. So much energy is put into recreating physical spaces and their real-world limitations rather than experimenting with ways that virtual worlds create opportunity to do things that are impossible in real museums. These opportunities can be social--engaging with museum content with other visitors at their computers all over the world--as well as experiential--allowing visitors to jump into, smash, and manipulate content in ways that physics and conservators forbid in real space.

This week, a quick example of how each is possible.

1. VAN GOGH GOES EXPERIENTIAL

The video below is a gorgeous example of the possibility of substantive, emotional experiences with museum content via virtual world representations.

It's a machinima (video) by Robbie Dingo, a 3D recreation of Van Gogh's Starry Night.

As one YouTube visitor commented:

A masterpiece recreated. I watched the beauty unfolding in front of me. Maybe someone once watched Vincent creating the original and felt the same way.
I hope so.

Sadly, Robbie's goal was to use Second Life as a platform to create a 2D representation of the painting--so the 3D space of the painting is not available for visitors to explore. But imagine the possibilities for a museum to take an iconic painting or artifact and create a 3D version of it for visitors to wander. Narrative information could be embedded throughout the landscape, or an entire exhibition's worth of content could be embedded metaphorically in the space. The result is one solution to the "problem" of viewing 2D art--that it's hard to figure out how to focus and be attentive to the piece if you don't have a strong art background. Creating a 3D space to explore encourages visitors to spend more time with the piece, literally getting inside it.

2. GALLERY OPENINGS, SOCIAL OPENING

There have been many art events and openings in Second Life, perhaps most significantly Brian Eno's 77 Million Paintings, which was recreated in four Second Life locations for a weekend event earlier this month. Giff Constable of the Electric Sheep Company had some interesting observations about the unique social aspect of this event:

Was it real (a question perpetually asked by the perplexed)? Well, I ran into some people I knew, met some interesting new folks, got into the vibe of the art, and even ended up in an art conversation chatting about interesting artists like Stephen Hendee and Joshua Davis. But was I with those people in Second Life? We were certainly making mental connections, and frankly, I probably spoke to more people than I would at a real-life art opening. It is easy to feel lonely at a real art show surrounded by people who are strangers, but I bet very few people logged into that event in Second Life last night felt that way.

I've written before about the ways that adding a layer of technological barrier can open up people to more comfortable interaction with strangers. In the same way, virtual worlds may be a more natural venue to encourage discourse about museum content among strangers than real-world physical galleries, where social norms override desire to communicate.