6 February 2021 | New Scientist | 31Don’t miss
Watch
Earth, But Not As
We Know It is a free
online event by London’s
Science Museum on
13 February, bringing
James Lovelock and his
peers into a conversation
about his controversial
idea that Earth acts like
a living organism.Explore
Manchester Science
Festival returns from
12 February with an
online programme on
our changing climate and
ideas for a better future.
There are photography
exhibitions and talks
on everything from
improving air quality
to eco-anxiety.Read
The Genes That
Make Us by Edwin
Kirk combines his
experiences from lab
work and clinical practice
to present stories from a
revolution in medicine —
one that may ultimately
change what it means
to be human.
NASA
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CIENCE^ MUSEU
M^ GROUPCOLLECT
IONExhibitions
IN NOVEMBER, the International
Council of Museums estimated that
6.1 per cent of museums globally
were resigned to permanent closure
due to the pandemic. The figure was
welcomed with enthusiasm: in May,
it had reported nearly 13 per cent
faced demise.
Something is changing for the
better. This isn’t a story about how
galleries and museums have used
technology to save themselves
during lockdowns (many didn’t try;
many couldn’t afford to try; many
tried and failed). But it is a story of
how they weathered lockdowns and
ongoing restrictions by using tech to
future-proof themselves.
One key tool turned out to be
virtual tours. Before 2020, they
were under-resourced novelties;
quickly, they became one of the few
ways for galleries and museums to
engage with the public. The best is
arguably one through the Tomb of
Pharaoh Ramses VI, by the Egyptian
Tourism Authority and Cairo-based
studio VRTEEK.
And while interfaces remain
clunky, they improved throughout
the year, as exhibition-goers can
see in the 360-degree virtual tour
created by the Museum of Fine Arts
Ghent in Belgium to draw people
through its otherwise-mothballed
Van Eyck exhibition.
The past year has also forced
the hands of curators, pushing them
into uncharted territory where the
distinctions between the real and
the virtual become progressively
more ambiguous.
With uncanny timing, the V&A in
London had chosen Lewis Carroll’s
Alice books for its 2020 summer
show. Forced into the virtual realm
by covid-19 restrictions, the V&A,
working with HTC Vive Arts, created
a VR game based in Wonderland,
where people can follow their own
White Rabbit, solve the caterpillar’s
mind-bending riddles, visit the
Queen of Hearts’ croquet garden
and more. Curious Alice is available
through Viveport; the real-world
show is slated to open on 27 March.
Will museums grow their online
experiences into commercial
offerings? Almost all such tours are
free at the moment, or are used to
build community. If this format is
really going to make an impact, it
will probably have to develop a
consolidated subscription service –
a sort of arts Netflix or Spotify.
What the price point should be
is anyone’s guess. It doesn’t help
for institutions to muddy the
waters by calling their video
tours virtual tours.
But the advantages are obvious.
The crowded conditions in galleries
and museums have been miserable
for years – witness the Mona Lisa,
imprisoned behind bulletproof glass
under low-level diffuse lighting andprotected by barricades. Art isn’t
“available” in any real sense when
you can only spend 10 seconds with
a piece. I can’t be alone in having
staggered out of some exhibitions
with no clear idea of what I had seen
or why. Imagine if that was your
first experience of fine art.
Why do we go to museums and
galleries expecting to see originals?
The Victorians didn’t. They knew the
value of copies and reproductions.
In the US in particular, museums
lacked “real” antiquities, and plaster
casts were highly valued. The casts
aren’t indistinguishable from the
original, but what if we produced
copies that were exact in
information as well as appearance?
As British art critic Jonathan Jones
says: “This is not a new age of
fakery. It’s a new era of knowledge.”
With lidar, photogrammetry and
new printing techniques, great
statues, frescoes and chapels can be
recreated anywhere. This promises
to spread the crowds and give local
museums and galleries a new lease
of life. At last, they can become
places where we think about art –
not merely gawp at it. ❚Curious Alice is a VR
experience created by
the V&A and HTC Vive Arts VIC
TORIAAND^ ALB
ER
T^ MUSEU
M,
LONDON/HTC^ VIVEARTSNew ways to love art
Museums and galleries are finding more personal ways
to wow audiences during the pandemic, writes Simon Ings