The first time I tried VR – an original Oculus headset for developers at a developer conference – I thought it could be a great learning tool that could offer everyone a slice of the real world. Yes, it can be fun to beat things with virtual sabers, but it’s also important to use technology as a tool that makes the world a better place.
This is exactly what The Stolen Art Gallery does, and it does it very well.
The stolen art gallery: what is it?
Since this isn’t a shooter or any other kind of ordinary VR game, it’s worth talking about what The Stolen Art Gallery is.
Hundreds of paintings have been stolen over the years and artists like Rembrandt and Manet have created beautiful work that the world will probably never see again.
The folks at Compass UOL have recreated these works in digital form and built a small interactive gallery to showcase them. Thoughtful additions such as being able to watch with friends or share your experience via social media make it all that little bit more fun.
Of course, any gallery exhibition should also teach us more about the work on display. At The Stolen Art Gallery, each painting comes with an information panel that tells who the artist was, the medium, the year it was made, and a description of the work itself.
In addition, you will hear even more about the artist and the work via a virtual tour guide. This is very similar to what you would find in a physical art gallery.
The Stolen Art Gallery: What I Loved
Admittedly, I’m not the world’s biggest fan when it comes to fine art. I appreciate them, and a trip to the National Gallery or the Freer Gallery of Art is a great way to spend a summer Saturday, but I don’t live and breathe the fine arts like many others. That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate and enjoy a beautiful work or the excellent way it is presented.
And that, in a nutshell, is exactly what I love about The Stolen Gallery. I had no idea that great works had been stolen and not recovered, and I was eager to learn more about them. The Android app is great and just as informative as the Quest version, but the extra immersion that VR adds made this app an instant favorite.
The controls add to the experience in a big way. Because it’s VR, you literally touch things with a virtual finger, and learning more about a painting is as easy as tapping the info button or the button to hear the presenter tell you all about the work.
Additional features, such as sky drawing or social sharing, are easily accessible by tapping your virtual wristwatch and a corresponding icon. There is no user manual or tutorial, because you really don’t need them. Everything is presented in a way that is easy to understand and use, which I think is the hallmark of a great app.
The Stolen Art Gallery: An Excellent Accessibility Tool
I am very lucky with my disability. Yes, I would love to walk and run and play softball like I used to, but being in a wheelchair doesn’t stop me from living a good life because I have wonderful people who help me. Not everyone is that lucky.
Some people are forced to be left alone because they don’t have such a large network of support, and for them VR can be a way to live a little. It’s hard for anyone to imagine what being stuck at home can be like; Taking six months to avert a global pandemic brought out the worst in many of us, because no one likes to be left out.
This is the very best thing about The Stolen Art Gallery: it can give someone who would never be able to see the fine arts in a gallery environment a means to do it. The fact that these are the rarest works as they have been removed from the art world is also a bonus.
I challenge any tech company to build something like The Stolen Art Gallery. Compass UOL is small compared to giants like Google, Facebook or Apple, but they have done an incredible job here. We need more of it.
The Stolen Art Gallery: What I Didn’t Like
There are two things I didn’t like about the app, but one of them is completely out of the developer’s hands.
We’ll start there – Meta’s Quest “room” setup is bad for anyone without a full range of motion. Defining the boundaries is almost impossible if you can’t rotate 360 ​​degrees; the headset seems to constantly forget the floor height you set, and even if everything works and you set it up, you’ll probably run into cases where apps just get confused and ignore everything until you launch them again.
It would be easy to blame this on every app I’ve tried, but Occam’s razor tells me that the only point of failure – the Quest 2’s operating system and configuration – is the likely culprit .
Anyway, I came across parts of The Stolen Gallery app where I wish I could just get up and tap on something that only out of range.
The second is that I want Lake! The Stolen Art Gallery has five lost works rendered in great detail, and it’s the first time I’ve really thought of a Metaverse. The way the app piqued my interest, I discovered that there are hundreds of other paintings that have been stolen or lost, and I would definitely like to see as many of them as I can.
The Stolen Art Gallery: Should You Install It?
Yes!
The Stolen Art Gallery is free to install and use from Google Play, The Oculus Store (although it’s still an early open beta right now), and Apple’s App Store. Sure, the VR version offers the best experience, but you don’t need a VR headset to take a look.
Unless you’re an art historian, you shall learn something. Even then, you’ll be able to enjoy masterpieces you’d never see otherwise, and they’re all in high definition right before your eyes.
If you are unable to go out and see a “real” art gallery, believe me when I tell you this is almost as good. In addition to everything I said above, you should know that an hour at The Stolen Gallery is a great way to spend your next free Saturday.