The virtual gallery experience
Where to start when creating a Virtual Gallery Space to exhibit your photography online.
In June 2020 we had the opportunity to participate to the London Festival of Architecture with a group exhibition. Due to the limitations imposed by the pandemic, the whole festival program moved online and we decided to host our exhibition on a virtual platform called Hubs by Mozilla. Hubs allows multiple users to meet in 3D virtual spaces where avatars can hang around and interact with each other. While it is mostly used for office meetings, we gave it a try to host our virtual exhibition and with the help of the super patient Mozilla Hubs team, we managed to put together a nice and functional gallery featuring 8 photographers during the course of a month.
Now, before starting, keep in mind that we are not computer geeks. Sure, we know our way around editing programs but that’s a long shot from claiming to be experts in 3D rendering and virtual reality. Explaining the technical process step by step would take way longer than a blog post so we will rather focus on some pros and cons about this experience.
Mass Virtual Gallery @ London Festival of Architecture Digital 2020. From the left, featured images by Stefania Miravalle, Henry Woide, Francesco Russo and Polly Tootal.
So, where to start? Hubs offers a range of pre-made virtual spaces, but not much in terms of art galleries or spaces that are suitable for an exhibition, as most of them can be quite distracting, while our focus was still to show the artworks rather than the virtual space. An in-built rendering program called Spoke can be used to build and customise a virtual space - follow this link for a step by step manual on how to use Spoke. That said, even though it’s meant for beginners, getting our head around Spoke seemed a rather daunting task and we opted for uploading an existing 3D model which can be found for as cheap as a tenner from websites like Sketchfab or Turbosquid. Once you have your gallery space, it is possible to customise it in Spoke and after hanging the pictures on the wall you just need to share a link through which visitors can access the exhibition. A nice aspect of Hubs is that it is a public space, and up to 25 people can access at the same time.
During the month of June 2020 we had one exhibition a week, featuring two different artists at the same time. Similarly to what would happen in a real gallery we had an opening night with the photographers guiding the public through their work and taking questions. Unlike a real gallery, there was no booze to be shared (although I am pretty sure someone popped a few cans of beers at home).
Spoke interface, the Mozilla Hubs editor.
At this point, one could argue that limiting the launch of an exhibition to 25 people may not work for everyone. There are two partial solutions to this:
Before accessing the gallery, each user waits in a lobby where it is possible to see and hear what is happening in the actual exhibition space. If the room is full, the extra users can simply follow what is going on from the lobby.
If you want to reach a wider audience and get the chance to show the space to that part of the public who is not prone to new technologies and virtual spaces the event can be streamed to youtube in real-time using a free program called OBS. We opted for this solution which proved quite difficult from a technical point of view especially because it relies on fast and steady internet – in general, don’t try to host a virtual gallery event on Hubs with a slow broadband, it’s a nightmare. Both solutions allow users to follow the event live although a big downside is that they lack the possibility to interact with other visitors or the photographers. Both solutions allow users to follow the event live even though they lose the chance to interact with the hosts and the other participants.
Finally, a note about some extra features that can be added to the virtual gallery. We found it really useful to add a link to each image redirecting to our print shop. That way, if visitors are interested in knowing more about a specific image or body of work, they can explore more in a dedicated page. Furthermore, when introducing their work, each speaker can share a webcam screen above the avatar in order to make the virtual experience…a bit less virtual (it’s always nice to see an actual face).
Mass Virtual Gallery @ London Festival of Architecture during the live streaming of one of the opening events.
Let’s face it, it’s hard to replicate the great feeling of seeing a printed photo on a real gallery wall; and it’s hard, after almost a year of online interactions not to miss socialising with real people. But, if promoted properly, anyone can access them from all around the world, potentially increasing the visibility of a project, and they are fairly cheap if you are willing to put the hours to understand how they work. In conclusion, instead of seeing them as a viable substitute of physical exhibition, virtual galleries can complement more traditional settings, offering a glimpse of “the real deal” to the multitude of people interested in photography all around the world.