Screengrab from the Destroyed Art exhibit, currently in progress at the Economist.

The Museum of Stolen Art from ziv schneider on Vimeo.

The Museum of Stolen Art is a virtual reality space displaying pieces reported stolen in FBI and Interpol art crime databases. The museum is an oculus rift experience where the viewer goes on an audio visual tour to see art whose location is unknown. Through that , the museum aims to grant these pieces visibility and perhaps even assist in their recovery.
Created at ITP for Cabinet of Wonder class guided by Nancy Hechinger.
Made with Unity.

In my cabinet of wonder, I wish to create a virtual space that will function as a museum.
There is much value to having a physical object’s presence. But not all content has or should have physicality.

 

One of my favorite things to do on the web, is to find databases that bring light to important issues in our society.
Recently, I discovered a database with images of stolen works of art from around the world.
Some of the works have no artist name and it is really interesting to see what types of work is stolen.

 

This type of content is suitable for a virtual museum because it has no physical existence that we can access and the only representation of it is in a low res jpeg file.
I want to create a gallery space in which the user can walk through, using the oculus rift. Finally, a museum where you can be alone! And there will be audio everywhere,
triggered  by proximity. Maybe there should even be a guard there, to keep the stolen art from being harmed or stolen again.

 

This is my diorama, presenting the structure of a typical tourist photo.  I am very curious about tourism and souvenirs and have been thinking about the concept  I call “Museum of Tourism” .
In this diorama, I chose to use relatively old technologies – an analogue point&shoot and something called ShowBox photo viewer to change the background images.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Your impressions of the look and feel of the whole place.
  The museum has a permanent exhibit about the history of Chinese community in the US.
  There is also a temporary exhibit space, that is currently devoted to oil and ink paintings by contemporary Chinese artists that moved to the US.
  There is a clear difference between the white clear walls of the temporary exhibition and the busy dark walls of the permanent exhibition.
• Do you feel welcomed, is the place intimidating or comfortable, what’s the atmosphere?Although the lobby is not small, the initial feeling when coming into the museum was pretty cosy and warm.
  The museum felt welcoming. We were the only ones there on Sunday 4pm.
  The people at the front desk were very nice and gave us restaurant tips.
• A word (or two)for its personality?
  subdued and well intentioned but slightly scattered.
• A memorable object, exhibit, hall or interaction (person-to-person)
• Hospitality: how hard to find the bathrooms, how nice are the guards, can you find your way around.
  The guard was very nice and directed us without we asked. The museum is fairly small and they pointed us to the bathrooms as well. If we were trying to find it from further inside the museum, it might be a little more difficult but wouldn’t take long.
• Who’s there? No one was at the museum except for us, the people at the front desk and the security guard.
• Notice if there are any interactive technology exhibits. Are they working? How do people interact with them?
• Spend a few minutes of the museum’s website.

 

The website is a bit too generic and has a different vibe than the museum itself. Before getting to the museum, a man on the street offered me an “Art Reading”. He felt my pulse with his eyes closed and told me I was short on Yin. The Yin is the bright and positive in Yin Yang. Yang is the dark colored, passive. Although his “reading” was mostly just influenced by the fact that I am a female and there for traditionally considered as “Yang”, where the male is the “Yin”, I would like to use this as a metaphor for the museum. The museum feels very Yang, but the website feels very Yin but not in a good way. The layout is also very old fashioned in web terms and could use a makeover. I would go back to the website only for visiting hours.

• Does the website ‘feel” like its specific museum? The website doesn’t
• Would you ever go back to the website? Why?
• How many clicks to find out the address and hours of operation? one
• Missed Opportunities… think about what you would change or improve