Beyond the Exhibition: Exploring Other Options for VR Experience Accessibility, Dissemination and Preservation

Beyond the Exhibition: Exploring Other Options for VR Experience Accessibility, Dissemination and Preservation

For the typical new media artist in the 21st century thus far, the most prestigious methods for showing work is still in an exhibition venue. This may include a gallery, museum or an academic conference. When it comes to an virtual reality (VR) work, however, this exhibition model limits the potential audience reach as well as putting the onus of preservation on the creator. Using the "Lithium Hindsight 360" VR experience as a case study, this presentation proposes a multi-pronged approach: a real-time rendered version for exhibition, a webVR version for increased accessibility, an online platform for sharing the experience, and a creation framework for others to make a similar experience. Although each individual option by itself is not novel, this bundling of options is still not commonly available for ER experiences. Furthermore, there is a redefinition of "preservation" in the context of generating awareness and crowdsourcing the storage of content.