by Jon Lackman | 6 June 2007 | Museums
The Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden has created a digital facsimile of its Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister. The copy resides in Second Life, which is a popular “3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents.” More from the press release:
… all 750 masterpieces in the exhibition are on display. The doors are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Visitors can view the art, chat with each other, access information about the works of art, participate in art education events, note their impressions in the guestbook or browse in the shop – all in real time … It took six designers three weeks to reproduce this unique architectural ensemble in cyberspace. The whole of the gallery building is on view: the foyer, the staircases, all 54 halls and cabinets, and every one of the paintings, pastels and tapestries. No previous reproductive medium has so far succeeded in providing such an effective spatial impression of a museum visit in real time, even though the history of museums has always been intimately bound up with the history of reproductive media … but that doesn’t make a virtual visit a substitute for the real thing. The virtual Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister is intended to arouse curiosity and encourage people to visit the museum in real life.
