In keeping with its commitment to easy access, Semple installed the first version of VOMA, whose team had been building for several months. They describe it as “amazing,” but it requires a powerful computer and gigabytes of download and plug-ins to work. “The geeks loved it,” he says, “But if you were in a developed country with a small device, you wouldn’t be lucky.”
Giving people the opportunity is the point. It is still too early to determine the number of museums that could change the technology, if not – VOMA still has about 500 visitors a day. But it does provide a blueprint for sharing tasks that people may not otherwise see, even if they do not change what they have saved. Proper preferences, Duong’s notes, make it easy to deal with demonstrations. “At the moment, there is a lot of flexibility in choosing different rooms,” he says. “You can move the artwork, you can edit it the same way.” The method works well, Duong used the platform to prepare for recent demonstrations. “The day of crucifixion,” he says, “was not without a seam.”
While many in the art world argue about the pros and cons of scenic space, one group-groupLab-It creates marine experiences that are more diverse. A global team of artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians, and architects, teamLab believes the boundaries between personal, real, and world never existed. To prove this, they use augmented reality with other marine technologies to remove what they see as fixed barriers.
Their exhibition at the Asia Art Museum in San Francisco, teamLab: Continuing, and a series of pieces that are displayed on multiple chambers. Without writing anything, the presence and movement of the visitors unleash and transform each piece to constantly change. Because it requires in-person connections, anyone who wants to see Continuing must meet the IRL. In one room, a stand is simply making pictures of flowers blooming in the air. They trample the flowers, they wither and die. Crows scurry into other rooms, abandon brilliant paths, and scatter what once flies, but they melt larger flowers when they fall on people. “Through the interaction between visitors and the artwork, people become an integral part of the art,”” the group said.
Fascinated by vivid images, but still skeptical of the idea of eliminating barriers between artists and spectators using technology, I walk around the room where a group of butterflies start at my feet and fly to connect with people walking around. The woman tries to catch the butterfly on display and begins to look better after falling to the ground. Seeing him respond as if he were an obedient man, and I hear, for just a moment, the wall is falling down, the boundaries missing.
Reflecting on the connection of technology and human experience, my mind wanders back to the 8-year-old Semple and the sunflower that shook his country. Can the experience be done in a museum? “Sadly, I don’t think it will,”” he says. “I believe that expertise exists, but the vision of using those skills in beauty and art has not yet worked.” Then he searches. “But it is coming.”
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