Some of the highest profile museum virtual-reality experiences are provided by large institutions. But smaller museums are also experimenting with how they can use the technology.
Kelham Island Museum, part of the Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust, created an interactive 360-degree video experience last December in partnership with Convrts, a Sheffield-based company specialising in virtual-reality tours.
The content, which can be viewed with Google Cardboard or Samsung Gear headsets using an app, is available on the Convrts website. It allows users to virtually explore part of the museum’s stores, which can normally only be viewed from a balcony or on occasional open days.
The content can also be viewed online without a virtual-reality headset. This format offers the additional feature of interactive tabs, allowing people to zoom in on objects and read text about them.
The project was an experiment intended as a preliminary exploration of the possibilities of virtual reality.
“From our point of view, it was very much a pilot project with a local company – a toe in the water,” says John Hamshere, the chief executive of the Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust. “As a smaller museum, it’s the sort of technology that we wouldn’t very often have the chance to explore outside a lottery project, so this pilot was a good opportunity to have a look at what could be done.”
The content was viewed by about 400 people since going live in February. It was taken down temporarily in April this year while the institution mulled where to take the project next.
“I think the potential has been revealed,” Hamshere says. “What we need to do now is work out how we can best use it, and what needs to be done to improve it, in terms of its contextualisation within what we do at the museum.”
Convrts founder Jimmy Thwaite says that while smaller museums often perceive virtual reality as being time-consuming and expensive, this doesn’t have to be the case.
“We can often do something for less than £2,000 and put the content online within a fortnight,” he adds.
The company captures material using a combination of 360-degree cameras and laser scanning, in a process that can be completed in about five hours. The flexibility of the technology means it can be used by museums to highlight fragile or stored objects; attract younger audiences interested in new technology; and cater for people with limited mobility.
Creating a record of buildings before they are demolished or converted to other uses is another area where virtual reality offers a wealth of potential. Convrts volunteered its services to create a virtual reality tour of the Red House Museum in Gomersal before it closed at the end of last year. “It’s not only a teleportation device, but also a time machine,” Thwaite says.
Maria Flude, the community participation officer at Kelham Island Museum, believes that virtual reality also has a lot of potential for use in outreach work.
Last November, the museum used launched a pilot project involving local people living with dementia. Working with staff from Convrts, the Alzheimer’s Society and Sheffield Hallam University, Flude ran a workshop enabling about 10 people to try out virtual reality using Google Street View.
“We gave people a Cardboard headset and asked them where they would like to go,” she says. “Most people wanted to stay in Sheffield – to go back to where they went to school, or grew up, or worked, or their local football ground.
“It was empowering for people with dementia to say ‘I remember that’ rather than focusing on what they don’t remember.”
The museum is now looking at the possibility of using its new virtual-reality resource for this kind of work.
“I’ve done reminiscence sessions using museum objects which have been fantastic,” Flude says. “But I think it can only add to it if I use the virtual-reality resource as well, so that people can actually look around.
“If I was to go into a care home, I think there would be a high proportion of men and women who have worked in an industrial environment at some point. People are proud of Sheffield’s industrial heritage, so I think it will really spur on a lot of conversation.”
Virtual reality will be discussed at Museum Tech 2017: A Digital Festival for Museums on 29 June at the Museum of London
Link
Museum Tech 2017: A Digital Festival for Museums