Paintings in the Age of VR Reproductions: Examining the Design of Virtual Reality Galleries

Abstract

Galleries, museums, and designers have been adopting virtual reality (VR) technologies to display paintings and create novel experiences with artwork. We contribute an analysis of 20 examples of these applications to examine the design of VR reproductions of existing paintings, raising questions about how art is mediated by VR applications. Our findings show that current design strategies dominantly reproduce many of the relatively passive characteristics of a traditional museum experience, signalling opportunities for design that leverages the affordances of VR to offer additional spatial, embodied, and playful experiences with paintings.