See you tonight – Link in bio
-by Barbora Horská (Curator / Editor-in-chief of Improper Dose)
As it has been months since we last saw each other in real life, at the end of last year we started to explore and experiment with different kinds of approaches and possibilities of the VR world in order to bring you an alternative experience of our projects. After some research and honest evaluation of our technical skills, we decided on THIS:
For the last exhibition of 2020, “White reflects Sunlight. Fuck you, Albedo!” we chose the virtual platform Kunstmatrix. It is an online, not entirely free 3D tool where you can upload, organize, showcase and sell your art. If you are looking for a clean white cube kind of style with a very traditional approach to exhibit art, this might be your go to place.
Trying to be a good fit for galleries, collectors and artists alike, the platform has four different features that can be used separately or combined, depending on the specific needs of a user. For price plans ranging between 10€ to 50€ per month you will get a considerate amount of exhibition spaces with additional options to combine the rooms, but no possibility to upload your own floor plan or any other advanced adjustment to the architecture itself.
The prices depend solely on the number of artworks in your collection and number of published 3D exhibitions. If you are kind of a rich bitch, you can also order a premium plan with other options including custom environments and enterprise solutions. However, custom features - custom price.
Bonus points for nice description options and interface with ability to link everything to social media.
White reflects Sunlight. Fuck you, Albedo! is still on, so dive into Kunstmatrix universe right here:
HUBS BY MOZILLA
Personally, I have kind of a love and hate relationship with this one. Don’t take me wrong, I am super grateful that this platform exists. Truly. On top of it being a great idea, it is also completely free and very playful. As a visitor, I love it. As a creator, not so much. But my self-awareness is telling me that my impatience and brave but considerably old laptop causing delays with every click might be the issue, so I will try to be as unbiased as possible.
First of all, primarily it is not an exhibition space but a chatting room. It was built to allow people to meet in VR as they would in real life. Almost. That means you can create private rooms to just hangout with friends, watch movies, talk or interact in any other way. It can be a nice alternative for online classes or live events, especially if you have a VR headset on. The main issue for me is the design. Among pros, there is no need for additional software to create or make adjustments in the environment as Hubs have the built in Spoke, where you can very easily import or link media and customize the room with either included set of architecture elements or upload your own 3d objects. The problem comes with the number of polygons that for the system to function needs to be very low which is the reason why almost everything in this platform looks like the Sims 1. Another thing that makes my inner perfectionist bite its imaginary nails is that it is quite hard to be precise here in terms of alignment of objects and positioning. But as always, I’ve managed ;)
Anyway, it was a perfect match for our current exhibition EMBRACE ME by Lena Kuzmich that you can still access here where you can also find basic guidelines to make your experience as smooth as possible.
Bonus points: fancy robot avatars and live interaction that made our last opening fun again :)
Final conclusion (and piece of recommendation) - there are many options to immerse yourself or your audience in this physically distant time and these two just happened to be our choice. We are learning along the way and hopefully were able to bring you interesting alternatives to our live events so far.
If you are a creator, just choose a platform based on the character of your project and especially the experience you want to create. Because that is all the VR is about.
And most importantly, big thanks to the creators and coders behind all of this! (I can bitch all the time but still, mad respect!)