Art Gallery as a first-time VR experience

There are many people who have not tried any form of Virtual Reality; specially in places that are not close to big, tech cities like Seattle, New York or Hong Kong. At the present, I find myself in a binational region (in the border of Calexico, CA and Mexicali, B.C.) that loves tech and art but lacks gigs that promotes these two together. For this reason I decided to develop a first-time VR experience that could attract almost anyone interested in art or technology in a format which would be easy to take anywhere, making it simple to share the experience with more people: an Art Gallery for Mobile VR.

3D sculptures, paintings and drawings from different local artists are exposed throughout this virtual city.

A first-time VR experience’s design should be simple, intuitive yet provocative and alluring. An art gallery is something most people today are familiar with, so I teamed up with a very innovative entrepreneur and a local artist to create Urbanidad, a cyberpunk themed city that showcases abstract art, continuous-line drawings, posters and 3D paintings from various local artists.

First glance at Urbanidad, an introduction to virtual art appreciation.

The experience’s design allows players to move around the city through a Way-points system, a much recommended locomotion function for mobile VR. The user begins the experience in a small hall at the end of an alley. As they learn how to move around and contemplate art, the user comes out to the alley where one can realize that the entire gallery is situated within a city.

Deval, co-designer of Urbanidad, drew faces on Tilt Brush and wrote meaningful poetry for the experience.

The path from start to end is an easy-to-follow set of floating spheres that bring the user closer to a different perspective, allowing the player to look for art anywhere around. This is where art appreciation in VR becomes very interesting. All users will go through the same path, but not all will dedicate the same amount of time to each artwork. On December 16, 2018 Urbanidad was first showcased at Musa Cafe + Arte, a coffee shop that serves as an art gallery. As Abstrakt Awareness (my indie VR developer company), I created Espacio Experimental (Experimental Space), a recurring event where people can share Art, Technology and Science. In this first session we showcased Urbanidad and invited other local artists to experiment with the Tilt Brush and Oculus Medium using the Oculus Rift.

A first-time VR user experimenting Urbanidad.

More than 25 people tried Urbanidad at Espacio Experimental, some of them had to tour the gallery with the Head-Mounted Display (HMD was a Samsung Galaxy S5) plugged to a power outlet; yet people did not want to come out of the experience. Some mentioned that the gallery was too long, others said that they wish they could see more of some specific art works. Overall, people enjoyed the experience, I learned plenty from everyone’s feedback and praises, and the only moments the HMD was put to rest were short breaks meant for the phone to cool down and charge more battery.

Greta is a local 3D artist that loved experimenting with Oculus Medium

people also enjoyed taking a look at the various books brought for entertainment

Costa and Moett C created a minimal yet magestic ambient for all of us at the gallery

A Jazzy writer and painter creating exquisite 3d paintings

Some of the content created at this gig has been exported and a second scene is already being built. The gallery will keep expanding by adding more artwork and levels, providing constantly a different and better experience to the users. Other bars and coffee shops have already invited us to showcase the virtual gallery, and it will keep rolling through out the cities. This gallery’s main job is to have more people try VR even at such a simple level as contemplating art.

Captures of artwork created in Tilt Brush at Espacio Experimental

People had a lot of fun. They enjoyed exploring a virtual world while looking at other artist create more art through a live performance in 6DoF VR. They were thankful for the experience, for us sharing this content and offering a different look towards art and technology. I loved walking around and constantly listening to people whisper to each other “the possibilities are endless!” A single person got dizzy through VR, someone who kept spinning while inside the experience… yet all of them want more content and are waiting for whatever 2019 will bring to their eyes.

Thank you, Melanie, for all your help, support, encouragement and creative insights! Thanks for capturing this night ❤ (images by her)

First-Time VR experiences are very important for the industry. They allow people to get a glance of all the possibilities that VR has to offer while avoiding hefty cognitive load on users.

For more information visit Abstrakt Awareness Facebook page or e-mail me at abstraktawareness@gmail.com

Abstrakt Awareness