Art

Visual art has been around since the dawn of humankind but will be transformed by VR and AR, and all immersive technologies. Virtual reality (VR) will open new avenues to creativity giving artists the ability to create experiences instead of objects. With augmented reality (AR), artists will have new opportunities to create site-specific indoor and outdoor artworks that circumvent the traditional gatekeepers in the museum and gallery system. We will see new forms of collaboration between artists, designers, media specialists, and scientists as in the remarkable Spheres VR experience. And AR will remake all of our public spaces into potential exhibition space as in the work of Nancy Baker Cahill. In general, XR technologies will bring about a fundamental shift in the way we access and experience art.

These technologies will have a far greater impact than the 19th-century developments of pre-mixed paint in a tube (which allowed Impressionism to flourish) or the invention of the camera (which freed artists from the need to faithfully reproduce reality). And they will undermine – for better or worse – the traditional curatorial system as in the example of the MOMAR app and the Museum of Modern Art’s Jackson Pollock exhibit. Art and immersive storytelling will converge into new forms of virtual experiences, creating environments where art is no longer bound by location or time.