{"id":371942,"date":"2025-11-11T16:55:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T16:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/371942\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T16:55:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T16:55:15","slug":"cant-make-it-to-the-met-take-a-vr-tour-instead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/371942\/","title":{"rendered":"Can\u2019t Make It to The Met? Take a VR Tour Instead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever wanted to touch the artwork at the Metropolitan Museum of Art? You\u2019re in luck. Today, November 10, the museum launched two digital exhibitions that allow visitors to walk through its galleries using a virtual reality headset or a standard computer via a link<\/a> on the institution\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

The Met selected one of its most iconic exhibits, the 1st-century BCE Egyptian Temple of Dendur, and a selection of Oceanic artworks<\/a> displayed in its newly renovated Michael C. Rockefeller Wing for the institution\u2019s first forays into virtual reality. Based on three-dimensional scans conducted within the museum, Dendur Decoded<\/a> and Oceania: A New Horizon of Space and Time<\/a> include realistic, if embellished, renderings and video-game-style missions. Both programs were designed by Met staff and Atopia, a culture-focused virtual reality platform.<\/p>\n

\"\"A virtual rendering of the Temple of Dendur as seen in Dendur Decoded. <\/p>\n

In the Temple of Dendur virtual reality tour, created in consultation with The Met\u2019s Curator of Egyptian Art Isabel St\u00fcnkel, users are led through a series of modules recounting the history of the Nubian structure, which was gifted to the museum in 1967. One Minecraft-esque activity simulates the institution\u2019s conservation work in the \u201970s that involved reconstructing the site brick by brick. Visitors of the digital temple are prompted to leave a voice note with reflections when they complete the virtual tour. In today\u2019s press release, The Met said that the virtual walkthrough presents more than 150 new images and videos culled from UNESCO and the museum archives.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in the simulation of the Oceanic art galleries, developed in collaboration with The Met\u2019s Curator for Arts of Oceania Maia Nuku, virtual visitors are greeted by a floating rendering of \u201cFemale Ancestor Figure<\/a>,\u201d dated to the 16th to the 19th century by an unrecorded Inyai-Ewa artist.<\/p>\n

\"\"A view from Oceania: A New Horizon of Space and Time<\/p>\n

Above the artifact hangs <\/strong>the \u201cCeremonial House Ceiling<\/a>\u201d (1970\u201373), <\/strong>launching a slideshow of images and a narration <\/strong>describing the more than 270 painted bark panels comprising the work. Users are tasked to roam the galleries and successfully \u201cdiscover\u201d 16 artworks, a badge earned by clicking on each object, sometimes concealed by thick vegetation.<\/p>\n

According to the press release, The Met\u2019s Emerging Technology and Digital department created a platform with Atopia, intended to <\/strong>allow other cultural institutions to design similar virtual programs in-house and without using code.<\/p>\n

The Met\u2019s Director and CEO Max Hollein said in a press statement that virtual programs provide \u201cunparalleled cultural experiences to audiences no matter where they are located.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ever wanted to touch the artwork at the Metropolitan Museum of Art? You\u2019re in luck. Today, November 10,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":371943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[50558,158,67,132,68,729,730],"class_list":{"0":"post-371942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-virtual-reality","8":"tag-metropolitan-museum-of-art","9":"tag-technology","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us","13":"tag-virtual-reality","14":"tag-vr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115532118766381036","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}