I think I’m a little churlish about this whole “skeuomorphic museum exhibition” angle. I’ve worked in and with museum technology for 30 years, and run two businesses working with hundreds of cultural heritage / museum clients.
Although this is technically impressive, I’m just not entirely sure why. Like - I just don’t want to dwell here…
The whole idea that you have to be in some kind of virtual 3D space just seems a little bit 1998 for me. When I worked at the Science Museum in the early 2000’s for example we were thinking about VRML and I was out on gallery shooting 3D pans and knitting them together for the web. Back then it did feel like there was a “if you can’t visit, here’s the next best thing” and that this should be “a virtual reality space online”.
But I think we’ve moved on. Museums have been making online exhibitions that are much more than just “a recreation of the real space online” for 20+ years - many of them are now really good at this. Take a look at someone like the Wellcome Collection [0] stories for example. They’re using the medium really well, they’re writing brilliantly, they’re knitting together fascinating relationships between items. The editorial is brilliant. The insights are brilliant. The linkages are brilliant. And as a consequence of all this, you end up wanting to stay.
Not to knock the OP, it’s nice - I like it, it’s slick, it’s well done, and anyone who gets anything out the door deserves a pat on the back - but I’m not sure it works as an engaging mechanism. Not for me, anyway.
[0] https://wellcomecollection.org/stories
Although this is technically impressive, I’m just not entirely sure why. Like - I just don’t want to dwell here…
The whole idea that you have to be in some kind of virtual 3D space just seems a little bit 1998 for me. When I worked at the Science Museum in the early 2000’s for example we were thinking about VRML and I was out on gallery shooting 3D pans and knitting them together for the web. Back then it did feel like there was a “if you can’t visit, here’s the next best thing” and that this should be “a virtual reality space online”.
But I think we’ve moved on. Museums have been making online exhibitions that are much more than just “a recreation of the real space online” for 20+ years - many of them are now really good at this. Take a look at someone like the Wellcome Collection [0] stories for example. They’re using the medium really well, they’re writing brilliantly, they’re knitting together fascinating relationships between items. The editorial is brilliant. The insights are brilliant. The linkages are brilliant. And as a consequence of all this, you end up wanting to stay.
Not to knock the OP, it’s nice - I like it, it’s slick, it’s well done, and anyone who gets anything out the door deserves a pat on the back - but I’m not sure it works as an engaging mechanism. Not for me, anyway.
[0] https://wellcomecollection.org/stories