KUSHAL DAVE/YH

Artistic Virutal-osity

Gazing at the shimmering, life-like waters of J.M.W. Turner's "Dort or Dordrecht: The Dort Packet-Boat from Rotterdam," contemplating the peaceful harmony between ocean, cityscape, and cloud-spotted firmament Turner's skillful brushstrokes create, one cannot help but marvel that the wonders of technology now allow one to view the world's greatest works of art from the comfort and privacy of a bedroom.

The Yale Center for British Art, in conjunction with the Digital Media Center for the Arts (DMCA) and the Yale School of Art, has taken the next step in the expansion of virtual culture. Now, a net surfer wanting a glimpse at the largest collection of British art outside the United Kingdom can, in just a few clicks, be immersed in famous works by George Stubbs, Johann Joseph Zoffany, and James McNeill Whistler, among others. The online exhibition Pieces of Eden allows visitors to view world-renowned works of art housed in stunningly-rendered virtual rooms.

Art for what sake?

"The website was not meant to be a replacement for the actual experience of visiting the Center [for British Art]," said Project Manager David Lavorgna. "[The site] is meant to be a tease, to draw someone in who is maybe planning a trip to New England and might be interested in visiting the actual museum." According to Lavorgna, one of the goals of the interactive online gallery was to increase attendance at the Center for British Art by providing a taste of what the museum has to offer.

In addition, according to Lavorgna, the value of an online art gallery lies mostly in its accessibility. Lavorgna stressed the fact that Pieces of Eden would be targeted at the "up-and-coming" generation, that is, students still in elementary or middle school. "We wanted to kindle the feeling of wonder and creativity that we all felt at our first [fine-arts] experience," Lavorgna said. With the online gallery, it is possible for classrooms everywhere to peruse the collection through the Internet. Web access to the gallery makes it possible for people the world over to enjoy the Center for British Art's pieces.

The online gallery project was intended to fulfill several other important goals, as well. According to the website, the primary objectives were to "promote interdisciplinary teamwork, showcase the talents and technical abilities found in the University's Arts, and highlight the value [of] the DMCA at Yale." Thus, in a sense, the online exhibit was created to explore technological possibilities, and the gallery itself served as the unifying theme for the project.

The long trip to Quicktime

Pieces of Eden began in January with the team of David Lavorgna, Chris Larsen, and Randall E. Hoyt under a grant from the DMCA. The project began with a two-dimensional AutoCAD drawing of the second floor of the Center for British Art. It had already been decided that the online gallery would feature the Center's permanent collection, some 26 paintings. Larsen, who was in charge of the 3D Modeling aspect of the project, used a program called 3-D Studio Vis to render the z-axis into the two-dimensional image. Textures derived from scanned photographs of the museum—panels, walls, ceiling, floors, and even individual rugs in the different rooms—made up the backdrop to the virtual museum. Thus, its basic structure is completely artificial, allowing the project team greater flexibility in arranging the works of art on the "walls."

Once the three-dimensional frames had been rendered, a panoramic view was configured to run in Apple's Quicktime Internet plug-in. Visitors to the gallery make use of a small Quicktime virtual reality "movie," which appears as a moderately-sized graphic within the Internet browser's window, to navigate through the different rooms.

A museum with a view

A simple click-and-drag interface allows the viewer to have a complete 360-degree perspective of each room. A long image is looped back on itself gives this illusion of a complete view of the room. When asked why the team did not merely string together a group of overlapping photographs of the room itself to form the one long image, Larsen explained, "Our model allows much greater flexibility. With the artificial walls, we can move paintings around easily."

Each painting on the walls is linked to a separate page containing information about the artist, the circumstances of the painting, and sometimes even a short Quicktime movie featuring a brief analysis by a member of the YCBA staff. As Lavorgna put it, this setup allows viewers to interact with "elements of the British Art Center that wouldn't be there normally." He added that the virtual gallery allows visitors to have a very "personal experience" with the art.

Although visitors can navigate from room to room by clicking on doorways or hallways in the Quicktime version of the museum, there are a clickable map and a catalogue of all the pieces online that allow users to quickly travel from room to room.

One concern about the online gallery is that it might not work for all users. In addition to requiring a plug-in, download time can be extensive for the graphics-rich site. "The virtual gallery is meant to be an interactive experience, and as with any advanced project like this one, technology is of course the limiting factor," Lavorgna said. "Our hope is that the younger generation that we are targeting is more likely to have access to and interest in the necessary technology." He added that one doesn't even necessarily have to have access to a network like Yale's to be able to enjoy the site, noting that his own 56K dialup connection was sufficient.

"Grow and create"

The project team stressed that the online gallery is "a demonstration of technology, and was not meant to be a comprehensive view of art at Yale," acknowledging that there are indeed many aspects of the YCBA that are not expressed in the site. However, the DMCA's online gallery is just a taste of what is yet to come. "The future is undefined," Lavorgna said. "We have no concrete definition for what this project means. We will continue to grow and create new technologies." He added, "Feedback from the community is very important."

As for the implications of Pieces of Eden for art museums in general, Lavorgna said that online art galleries could become of increasing importance in the future, perhaps even for some of the major metropolitan galleries. He commented that the Yale University Art Gallery already has some of its works online, and other galleries might be quick to follow. He said, "The sky's the limit."

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