Overview
The Amsterdam Van Gogh Museum was the first in the world to feature paintings brought to life through Virtual Reality. During the 2015 Museum Night, visitors were invited to Van Gogh’s and Munch’s bedrooms by the painters themselves. For this production, Veejays.com’s Ivo and Hunter joined up with several partners, including the Van Gogh Museum and Shosho.
Download the app from Google Play or the App Store
More on this technology
Imagine you’re looking at a beautiful painting, like Vincent van Gogh’s De Slaapkamer (The Bedroom). What would it be like to step into the painting itself and walk around? Virtual Bedrooms allowed people to experience just that. Visitors enter into virtual reality using 3D glasses (Google Cardboard) and a specially developed smartphone app.
How does Virtual Reality work?
A VR Viewer turns your smartphone into your personal 3D world. The app turns your movement and viewpoint into 3D imagery, allowing you to look around in a virtual space through VR glasses. In developing Google Cardboard, project sponsor Google was the first to make VR available to the general public. It turns out their quirky cardboard glasses, combined with a regular smartphone and the right app, make for an unexpectedly solid VR experience. Since then, other companies like Samsumg and LG have released similar types of VR glasses.
Whose idea was it?
Museums like the Van Gogh Museum love collaborating with artists who are in turn inspired by classical masterpieces. Vincent Van Gogh was a pioneer in his time, so it makes sense to work with today’s visual pioneers. Video artists using screens and projectors are the obvious choice, and Veejays.com is the leading video artist collective nationwide. If you put it that way, it should come as no surprise that they were the ones to provide the Museum Night with a virtual reality experience that truly pushed the envelope. And there’s so much more left to discover!
