In this week’s blog post, I want to share the Title, Synopsis, Reserch Question, and more about the proposal.
Title
Virtual reality exhibitions under the impact of COVID-19
Synopsis
In the process of the development of contemporary art, museums, as one of the main institutions holding exhibitions, have held many offline exhibitions. On the other hand, though, exhibition is one of many industries that has entered the metaverse under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic. “The Metaverse is an interconnected web of social, networked immersive environments in persistent multiuser platforms.” (Mystakidis, S.,2022) In the wake of COVID-19, How can museums enter the metaverse? What is a virtual reality exhibition? These are the hot topics right now and the questions that this proposal is going to explore.
Research Question
This project explores virtual reality exhibition programs in museums with experience in hosting virtual reality exhibitions. Therefore, this study will include the following specific research questions:
- Did the museum go it alone in creating virtual reality exhibitions?
- Where is the museum’s virtual reality exhibition mainly held?
- What are the benefits of museums hosting virtual reality exhibitions amid the pandemic?
Literature/Practice Review
As for the Review part, it is mainly divided into four parts.
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Introduction
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Museum and COVID- 19
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Museum and Virtual reality exhibition
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Conclusion
Research Design and Research Methods
During the pandemic, it is an undeniable fact that many museums around the world have held virtual reality exhibitions, and it is a new trend of museum activities, which is constantly being promoted and implemented. This project is an exploratory study, and I decided to take The British Museum and National Museum of Scotland as the main case studies to explore how these two British famous museums have responded to the COVID-19 challenge and their major virtual reality projects under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Official website inquiry
Visit the official websites of the three museums to explore their VR exhibitions during the pandemic period (2019 to present).
National Museum of Scotland: https://www.nms.ac.uk/
The British Museum: https://www.britishmuseum.org/
Expert interviews
Sit down with the museum’s current curators in person and online. The interviewees were Dr Hartwig Fischer( Director of the British Museum), Dr Chris Breward (Director of National Museums Scotland). The interview contents mainly covers the museum’s attitude towards virtual reality exhibitions, the measures taken by the museum due to the epidemic, and the museum’s attitude and activities towards virtual reality exhibitions in the future.
Online visitor questionnaire
The online questionnaire plan mainly consists of three questions.
The first question is how do you feel about virtual reality exhibitions in these two museums?
Second, is the virtual reality of these two museums easy to operate?
The third question is what are the advantages of virtual reality exhibitions?
Participant observation
As participants of the project, participants themselves will also view various exhibitions held by the two museums online as visitors during the pandemic. Observe the theme of the exhibition, the exhibits, and the technology used in the exhibition. Through these three points, visitors can quickly know the content and form of virtual reality exhibition. For example, whether VR goggles are required for virtual reality exhibitions.
References
Mystakidis, S. (2022) Metaverse. Encyclopedia. [Online] 2 (1), 486–497.
