Accessing the artwork in covid-19: loss, recovery and reimagination

Abstract

Being ‘there’ and present within a physical space has been a long-accepted part of any art museum visitor experience. Once the sole access route, the emergence of digitisation and the Internet has since offered a new flexibility for visitors. Such online provision is often considered supplementary, ancillary, yet the year 2020 was witness to a seismic shift, when museums were compelled to unilaterally close their physical doors in response to Covid-19. This paper explores the sense of loss engendered by the abrupt removal of a direct interaction with physical artworks and examines the online initiatives that took its place. The theme of loss is explored through phenomenological experience of artworks/objects, an experience which cannot be recaptured virtually, in relation to the interchange between the physical and the virtual at both an individual artwork level and within a curated museum space. Advances in digital access, exciting new realities and future possibilities are examined, considering how this sense of loss might be accommodated in lieu, mitigated online. It is argued that a multiplicity of approaches that seek to redefine rather than replicate will engage new audiences experientially and offer a refreshed look at access between the physical and virtual art museum space.

Keywords:

• Artworks
• phenomenology
• digitisation
• online archives
• augmented reality
• virtual reality
• covid-19

1. Introduction

Art museums offer the physical experience of interacting with artworks first hand. For visitors, it is the perhaps the ‘taken for granted’ tradition and richness of being present, being there within this physical space to fully engage, appreciate and experience these artworks on show, often as a collective experience. Predicated therefore on the value of the physical experience, art museums faced an abrupt and stark reality when, in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic was declared (World Health Organization, 2020) and institutions were forced to close their doors en masse, across the globe. With unparalleled forbidden access to art museums and their physical collections, virtual access was now at the unprecedented forefront, in a position to take centre stage (Christiansen, 2020; King et al., 2021; Samaroudi et al., 2020).

Although perhaps originally conceived as a secondary resource, since the emergence of the Internet and digitisation in the late 1990s, the majority of museums had already developed virtual windows on their physical worlds (for example, The Museum of Modern Art, 2024; National Galleries Scotland, 2022; The National Gallery, 2022; National Portrait Gallery, 2024a; Tate, 2022). This, once emergent, channel for artwork access led to museums approaching their online, virtual provision in various ways, yet essentially the physical experience remained paramount. At a basic level, such virtual presence might typically take the form of a website detailing how to make the visit, yet also digital surrogates of what will be seen, by virtue of collection highlights and, for the more serious, searchable archives. Such archival databases, in particular, allow for more detailed information about particular artworks, multiple access points when searching (in contrast to a single physical museum location) and can be an invaluable resource for those who have never been to the art museum nor even intend or are unable to visit. Arguably, therefore, the volume and flexibility of access afforded by the virtual, in comparison to the physical, domain could be seen as increased via virtual proxy. However, in the context of Covid-19 and restricted access, would this promise of searchability compensate for the prescribed inability to view the artwork physically? Yet with that said, such restricted access might be of even greater detriment for certain types of artefacts, for example, installation, new media and digital artworks, which may only be fully realised when a viewer is physically present to access the artwork as a potentially social and immersive experience. Alternative online resources and spaces were created with a secondary intention, to supplement their original and primary source—the physical collection—yet they may now be garnering a new prominence, as a physical connection with the works themselves became more restricted or even lost. Is this therefore a new dawn for the digital surrogate; is its secondary ‘substitute’ status still justifiable; or is accessing the physical artefact as a felt, phenomenological experience still as important as ever?

Prompted by the Covid-19 global pandemic, this paper examines challenges and changes in the accessibility of the artwork artefact, considering the interface between physical and virtual worlds. To provide an initial context and premise, the paper will consider the changing conceptualisation of the artwork artefact, arguing that the importance of the physical presence of the viewer in contemporary art posed an extraordinary threat to museums. Adopting a phenomenological perspective by integrating relevant first-person examples from the author’s personal perspective, it will explore in more detail what fundamental experiences (at both individual artwork and exhibition space levels) were in a sense ‘lost’ to an absence of the expected physical space, involvement and interaction and how this has been accommodated in lieu: mitigated online. Such online, digital initiatives will be explored, as museums moved from abrupt loss towards managed recovery and reimagination.

2. The diversity of art forms

The forms of art have developed, diversified and expanded considerably over the last two centuries, from, for example, the two-dimensional painting or drawing, through to exploring three-dimensional sculpture, mixed media installation, digital, performance and participatory art. Such increasing variety and range have afforded multiple potential vantage points and opportunities for viewer participation yet led to more potential complexity in terms of physical display within a museum space. Such museum spaces - conceived as institutions for collecting, conservation, public display and, more recently, interaction and immersive experience - have wholeheartedly embraced this greater imagination and diversity within the artwork world, recognising the rich experience provided for any art museum visitor. However, the challenge for the art museum curator is how best to make this increasing range of diverse artworks accessible within physical and online domains whilst maintaining a true sense of the artwork from such different perspectives. Whilst two-dimensional artworks can be displayed on a wall and smaller, conventional sculptures on a plinth, newer mixed-media installations are more challenging to experience, typically necessitating a larger space, even a whole room, to be fully appreciated. Having such multiple potential vantage points, the museum visitor is invited to explore three-dimensionally and interact in an active, meaningful way. This increasing role and importance of viewer presence, participation and interaction in actively creating meaning for artworks as a sensory experience is well documented in recent literature (Brinck, 2018; Hjorth & Sharp, 2014; Morrison et al., 2011; Szubielska et al., 2021; Wilder, 2020), although Hopkins (2018, p. 38) interestingly offers an early articulation of this by Duchamp during his 1958 lecture on ‘The Creative Act’ and his concept of the “spectator’s share”. Here the artist is not the sole purveyor of an artwork; it requires interaction and interpretation by a viewer or audience for a full realisation. This opportunity to actively make meaning by physically engaging with an artwork contained within a building is a central tradition and expectation of the art museum experience. In his seminal early twentieth century writings, Benjamin (1936/2002, p. 103) recognised “the here and now of the work of art—its unique existence in a particular place”, its “authenticity” and, ultimately, its “aura”. When 90% of museum doors worldwide dramatically closed and access was suddenly denied (UNESCO, 2020), there was therefore a profound cultural loss.

The perpetual desire to experience such diverse artworks now required replacement with an online version; a version that was perhaps considered as secondary, if available at all. As art museums upturned their preferred and primary means of access from the physical to the virtual, there was overwhelming concern and a palpable sense of loss (Art Fund and Wafer Hadley, 2020; International Council of Museums, 2020; UNESCO, 2020). Although the majority of art museums had some form of online presence, to a greater or lesser degree, could such ‘virtual versions’ compensate sufficiently? Do certain artworks deserve to be viewed and experienced physically, in context; what is to be gained? And, accordingly, what is lost?

3. Experience and loss in artwork access

The expansion of mixed media installation artworks creates a more challenging, yet exciting, environment for access; different forms of artwork contend and manifest in different ways and spaces, offering increasing levels of sensory information for a viewer to negotiate. In particular, the overwhelming surprise of the size, scale, sound and visual spectacle of certain artworks is difficult to translate, other than through a true and direct bodily experience. To explore the value of this from a first person, phenomenological perspective, the striking Spider (1994, 2743 × 4572 × 3785 mm) installation of Louise Bourgeois (Tate, n.d.; observation, January 15, 2008) is worthy of description to help articulate the impact of such direct experience, yet impending loss, underpinned by a growing sense of fear:

As I creep into the room, my childhood apprehension around spiders suddenly surfaces and becomes overwhelmingly present. Incy, Wincy, Spider. It is unimaginably huge, filling this cathedral of a space. I sneak around the outer edges of the room, trying not to wake it, yet still wanting to admire its sheer scale. In trepidation, I circle around the spider to gain the full visual effect, experiencing its menacing stance from diverse angles and perspectives. I count eight, spindly legs, each different and seemingly harmless, yet teetering together in a predatory claw. Gaining confidence, I move in closer to inspect, not yet daring to stand underneath, let alone look up. What is this mammoth arachnid made of? I can observe but not touch. Although seeming precariously fragile in posture with needle point legs, its surface material looks shiny and strong. All at once, I move forward, facing my fears and walking between the legs into the spider’s grasp. Enveloped, I actually feel surprisingly safe. Dare I elevate my gaze and look up? Eventually, yes, but not to some beady eyes but to a basket-like cage of white, shiny spheres. Protector not predator, as my unfounded fears are allayed.

This ability to move close, walk-around (and even, under, in this case) a three-dimensional artwork can evoke a profound sensory experience, which is difficult to achieve online. Although a digital surrogate of the same artwork may attempt to indicate scale by strategic placing of people or familiar objects and have scope to magnify the now two-dimensional artwork to gain a closer view, the physical immediacy of being ‘there’ and the feelings that this can generate is the experience that was essentially lost to Covid-19.

Entering a physical exhibition space to achieve an immediate, sensory experience of a specific artwork can therefore be powerfully captured and made visible by this phenomenological approach. Having its origins with Edmund Husserl in the late nineteenth century, its key focus is the description of conscious, lived experiences of ‘things’ or ‘objects’ from a first-person perspective (Finlay, 1999; Smith, 2018), which, within an art context, has translated into providing rich descriptions of how an individual physically encounters and experiences the essence of an artwork. For this to be authentic, in an early exposition and following Husserl, Ladislas Segy (1965, p. 293) calls for this conscious phenomenological experience to be unbounded by preconceived conceptions and art museum interpretation:

But when we talk about experiencing life or a work of art, we enter an entirely different category of thought which has nothing to do with “appreciation”. In this process, the viewer “abandons” himself in order to allow the work to reveal itself with no concern for its importance, its place in the history or art, the artist who created it, or why he created it. What is experienced here is the sensing, grasping, apprehending of the work, rather than what one knows of it.

Although perhaps ambitious when art museums typically aim to help viewers contextualise and make meaning, the abrupt inability to have such a visceral experience of an artwork that Segy (1965) acutely articulates and isolates may have constituted the greatest sense of loss, within an art context, for many during the global pandemic. A loss that may have been even more pronounced for digital artwork installations that encode and engender an even greater sense of immersion, as experienced and exemplified by another direct, first-person encounter with the work of artist, Michael Coates, at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (observation, March 10, 2007):

Entering the darkened space, I am met by a series of television screens, positioned at varying heights, some intriguingly beyond comfortable eye level. People sit in the screens, moving little, if at all; other chairs are empty. Some are at home, others at work but all seemingly waiting but I am not sure what for. I carefully explore the quiet museum space, walking around to glimpse and glean a closer look at each screen whilst trying not to disturb this unnerving sense of calm. It feels intrusive. Each are preoccupied, in their own worlds – the car, the office desk, the doctor’s surgery, the front room, the bedroom, the bed and even the bath. Alone in their private yet now public spaces, unaware of me and of each other. I wait. Then suddenly breaking the silence, I hear a sharp, shrill sound. A bird? My eyes scan the screens, hoping to ascertain from where. I cannot quite tell but I listen, as, what sounds like bird song, lilts, elevates and repeats. From behind me, another bird then chirrups in response, quicker and lighter this time. I turn around to view its source, but it sits comfortably at a desk – human not bird - although making this remarkable sound. I stand initially spellbound but then start to move my head around the space. More and more screens activate around me, talking to each other through a new pitch, tempo and rhythm. These previously sedate people, occupying their everyday places, move their mouths quickly to reach an overwhelming, musical crescendo that engulfs the space. Mundane with extraordinary. Is this sound reproduction or reality? I am not sure, but I do not care.

The above, phenomenological description relates to a direct, first-person experience by the author of the fourteen screen, video installation Dawn Chorus (2007, 18 min) (Arts Council Collection, n.d.). The capacity to move around the exhibition space, absorbing the simultaneous sound, light and vision, is extremely powerful and difficult to recreate beyond the physical art museum. Although the installation sequence has been recorded and individual screens of each person captured for posterity as potential digital surrogates, this cannot fully replace (nor should it) the feeling of being there, in the present. The ability to engage in a direct experience of such integral sensory information is powerful for many installation artworks on an individual basis, in their own right. However, the art museum and its curators typically seek to provide much more than this by also offering an extra contextual layer.

The physical, ideological and conceptual positioning and sequencing of a series of artworks to create a context constituted a further source of loss. This additional, organised layer of the physical museum experience can transform what might potentially be a disparate collection of objects into a creative, informative and often educational even contemplative journey, orchestrated by museum curators and with visitors invited to interact and make meaning. Physical museum spaces therefore set the stage and atmosphere, with appropriate placing, framing and lighting of artworks to explore, entice and engage. Indeed, in the case of many installation artworks, space is not a vessel to be filled but the artwork is purposefully made for the particular space. Permanent collections combine with live exhibitions, engendering alternative views, narratives, cultural and thematic perspectives.

Such perspectives are facilitated through sequencing and physical arrangement to illustrate artwork relatedness (from one to the next) whilst also prompting viewer exploration and discovery. Like libraries, arguably constrained by the vagaries of a single physical access point, art museums have experimented with both traditional and more innovative classificatory sequences for display, journeying and navigation. Although serving to organise collections and exhibits for viewers, specific intentions may vary, ranging from those that may seek to conform with expectations to others that subvert and prompt serendipitous exploration. For example, Tate Britain infamously reverted to a more traditional chronology, following a shift from a contentious thematic sequence after much reported confusion and press critique (Brown, 2013; Curtis, 2013; Januszczak, 2013; Wroe, 2013), and Tate Liverpool (Tate, 2013–2021) challenged viewers through physical arrangement by “constellation” (perhaps inspired by the non-linear key word graphics seen in the manuscripts of Walter Benjamin 2007), with significant “trigger artworks” presented alongside works relating to it and each other, innovatively defying typical boundaries of time and space, with conceptual “word clouds” replacing traditional textual information displays. Although often a topic for debate in terms of an art museum’s chosen sequence, the pleasure of browsing a collected physical arrangement of artworks is an integral part of the viewer experience, an access route that was essentially denied when museums closed their doors. However, with digital artwork collections offering the potential for multiple access points and searchability, there is arguably opportunity beyond this physical realm. Yet, as will be explored in the following section, how is this sense of journey experienced online?

The physical art museum and its curators therefore have a significant role and tradition in taking a viewer beyond the first layer of an immediate sensory experience of an individual artwork towards a second contextual layer of art appreciation and understanding, which Christopher Whitehead (2005, p.xii) terms the “production of art interpretation”. Here, the physical space forms a key part (termed “Environment”), alongside “Text”, such as labels, informative panels, audio-visual guides etc., and “Circumstance”, for example, accounting for a viewer’s reason to visit, with whom and their own personal predisposition and knowledge. Furthermore, within the physical space, an extra layer of socially situated activity can also take place in groups, where art museum visitors interact verbally and through gesture and touch to interpret and make meaning (Christidou & Pierroux, 2019; Løvlie et al., 2022; Steier et al., 2015). The complexity and immense challenge therefore for art museums and curators was how to pivot this complex multi-layered and multi-sensory experience fully online, particularly for contemporary artworks, when faced with such sudden closure and loss.

4. Recovery and Reimagination in the access of artworks

The previous discussion has sought to emphasise the inherent value and richness of a direct, sensory experience in accessing and engaging with both individual artworks and their placing within a curated, physical museum space. Although the majority of art museums had a virtual space, pre-closure, this was most likely viewed by many curators and visitors as supplementary, or even secondary, yet now a transposition presented a necessity, even a timely opportunity. The traditional intention of online access has typically been to preview, showcase or create a memory, often in the form of a website of highlights or searchable archival repository of thumbnails, zoomable images and catalogue records. Although important, this visual documentary ‘before and after’ or ‘never at all’ visitor approach has perhaps predominated, since the preferred and primary means of access was always to experience the artworks in person, first hand. However, an abrupt deficit of the direct ‘here and now’ prompted a rethink, a reimagination, having a focus on recreating the lost, lived experience in real time through various digital strategies.

To supplement the ubiquitous staple of the searchable catalogue and collection highlights for artefact access, the predominant digital approach appears to be through the aforementioned curatorship, functioning at the informative, contextual layer of enhancing art appreciation and understanding. Xiao and Deling (2020, p. 5) perceive art museums primarily in this explanatory capacity, arguing that multiple reproductions, representations and reinterpretations of artworks within a rich, multimedia and socially networked online domain creates “narratives of phenomena”, serving to increase viewer understanding and knowledge. For example, UK national art museums, including the Tate, have for some time been engaging with various, digital initiatives on their websites to supplement the physical artwork artefacts, including embedded online videos and, in some cases, audio podcasts of artist interviews and profiles, curator perspectives on artworks and exhibitions, and former live talks and events becoming virtual webinars during the pandemic. The museum website is therefore the core, collection content delivery platform, complemented by social media channels offering ‘tasters’, news and promotional activities. However, in a UK survey by Art Fund and Wafer Hadley (2020) of 427 national and local museum directors and professionals, “less than half” reported increased usage of their institutional websites during the early stages of the pandemic yet observed a “significant increases with engagement in social media content” (p. 19). The survey report acknowledges that such art museums have varying degrees of digital legacy and experience as their starting point yet had potentially more time and scope to explore and target their open source, social media presence. However, perhaps the inherent attraction, and hence increase in digital visitor engagement, was the sense of immediacy, participation and community that was lost from a lack of a physical museum experience, but that social media could to some extent fulfil, virtually. In addition to a website and social media channels, several art museums, for example the Tate and the National Gallery, offer their own tailored digital experiences within the physical space by virtue of mobile applications (apps) whilst a number of art museums (such as The Hepworth, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, The Serpentine Galleries, Dulwich Picture Gallery and The Guggenheim Museum) have partnered with Bloomberg Philanthropies (2022), gaining free access to its Bloomberg Connects app. Such apps are initially oriented towards pre-arrival visitor information (including introductions to museum spaces, collections and a sample of prominent, individual artworks with contextual and artist information) but can then act as an additional ‘tour-guide’ device which could be used remotely but is designed primarily to accompany an exploration of the physical exhibition space, with floor plans, audio commentary and zoomable images. In particular, The National Gallery’s use of the Smartify application takes this a step further, allowing physical museum visitors to scan two-dimensional, physical artworks with their own mobile devices to access relevant multimedia content from the museum’s connected database, such as text, video, audio description and even suggested retail opportunities (The National Gallery, n.d. -a; Smartify, n.d.). Powered by artificial intelligence “image-recognition technology” and in-person visitor presence, the mobile application is designed to create an “augmented reality” experience for the viewer, whilst navigating the physical exhibition space. Although not new (Coulton et al., 2014), augmented reality is starting to become part of the physical museum experience, harnessing an additional interpretative, interactive, virtual layer, “a third dimension”, through the potential for animated characters and narration (Coates, 2021). This hybrid approach, albeit within a physical realm, can clearly provide relevant contextual information yet curated by the viewer. However, it might be questioned as to whether such “augmented reality” would work with the more open-ended, sensory installation artworks explored within this current paper, potentially dampening with information the immediate visceral impact of the true bodily experience. However, in the meantime and outside traditional art museum spaces, emerging commercial initiatives are recognising the power of such physical experiences by recasting and reimagining iconic two-dimensional paintings as immersive three-dimensional installations. For instance, Van Gogh Alive: the experience (Grande Experiences, 2023; Van Gogh Alive UK, 2021) has toured major UK cities (London, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh) during the global pandemic, offering multiple, immense digital projections in a “purpose-built” space with accompanying music in the form of sensory rooms, which a visitor can inhabit, step into and explore. Another, similar, commercial initiative is Van Gogh the Immersive Experience (ExhibitionHub, 2021a; ExhibitionHub, 2021b), which is alternatively located within permanent structures such as city churches and warehouses. Conceived in 2017, the exhibition has travelled from the USA to premier in York in 2021 and is now touring further UK cities (Bristol, Leicester, London) offering large-scale, moving animated painting projections and an individual “virtual reality tour”. This powerfully transports participants into the spaces and places that inspired the artist, with 360-degree views, movement (both within the film and instigated by the individual viewer), sound, music and vivid colours. There is clearly popular impact, yet no original physical artefacts are present within these creations and there is minimal curated interpretation at the time of the interaction (a contextual layer); it is about both the collective and individual experience, making the two-dimensional three dimensional for a potentially new, non-traditional audience. However, traditional art museums are now harnessing related technology and virtual spaces to offer reimagined, experiential views of their own physical spaces and collections remotely. Online, digital initiatives may have typically been seen as secondary, supporting the primary physical route, yet emerging approaches are offering new access opportunities to different experiences that have the potential to be judged independently and on their own merits.

To help mitigate the absence, yet also providing a proxy opportunity, of digitally exploring artworks within the contextual layer of a physical museum sequence and space, some art museums are offering 360-degree virtual tours, courtesy of partnering with Google Arts and Culture and its “Museum Finder” (Google Cultural Institute, n.d.). Originating in February 2011 as the Google Art Project in conjunction with just seventeen art museums worldwide and expanding to become the non-profit Google Arts and Culture in 2013, this cross-museum, aggregated platform now provides keyword search and browsable access to over 100,000 digitised artworks through more than 2000 different, international art museum partnerships (Wani et al., 2019; Kizhner et al., 2021; Google Cultural Institute, n.d.). The initiative therefore predates the global pandemic but is aimed at facilitating, connecting and increasing remote access, free of charge for both users and museums, to the cultural capital of digital art museum artefacts and collections, beyond the walls of one single, physical museum and its own discrete website space. In addition to providing museums with this supplementary, external publicity platform and also opportunities for digitisation and collection management, one feature is the Museum Finder’s Google “Street View”, providing a digitised glimpse of the prohibited physical space. Although rather crude and erratic in its navigation, it allows the viewer to move through an art museum, room by room but with limited zoom capabilities, leading to only a fleeting and sometimes dizzying experience of the artworks during the journeying process. A more sophisticated experience, however, is offered by a few museums choosing to produce their own digital tours, often to supplement but also as an alternative to those provided by Google Arts and Culture. For example, created specifically in response to the global pandemic, the National Gallery’s The Director’s Choice virtual tour allows room-by-room museum navigation, combined with options to explore contextual artwork information read by a viewer or aloud by the Director, Dr Gabrielle Finaldi. There are options to link to relevant content from the museum website and explore three-dimensional artwork views, with further capacity for augmented reality if used with a mobile device, which transports the virtual artwork into the viewer’s own immediate environment (The National Gallery, 2021). Although, as mentioned previously, augmented reality has long since gained traction as a hybrid device within the physical museum space, when incorporated remotely, it could perhaps be perceived as a counterintuitive novelty for many, as it subverts the digital museum space, superimposing the artwork into a different, unimagined environment belonging to each unique viewer at the time of access. Three-dimensional artwork views are offered, however, with impressive zoom capabilities, although its full impact is yet to be realised within the realm of the two-dimensional paintings of the National Gallery. In terms of sculpture, though, the National Portrait Gallery (2024b) does offer three-dimensional (3D) views of its collection, allowing a viewer to rotate each 3D artwork whilst viewing contextual information, although without any extra zoom capabilities. Such three-dimensional potential, though, is being explored more fully by those art museums experimenting with virtual reality views of their physical space, for example The National Gallery’s Salisbury Wing tour (The National Gallery, n.d.-b) and the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (n.d.). Inspired by the immersive worlds of computer gaming and captured using the Matterport (2021) spatial camera, such virtual tours can be viewed using wearable technology: a virtual reality headset yet also more basically via the museum website. Viewers are presented with a three-dimensional ‘dolls house’ view of the entire museum space, which can then be explored room-by-room, zooming into the artworks and information within, with the virtual reality option further enveloping the viewer within a simulated, physical space.

Art museums are therefore engaging with a range of different initiatives to recreate versions of their physical sequences and spaces online, from the widespread reach and low financial cost afforded by external partnerships to more nuanced and bespoke museum specific offerings. Technology is being harnessed at several visitor access points: virtual pre-arrival or a remote ‘taster’ visit courtesy of art museum apps, websites and social media; during the actual physical museum experience with apps offering potential for joint curation and a hybrid physical-digital augmented reality; and the remote (before or after) digital museum tours, some having the immersive potential of virtual reality. Milgram et al. (1995) provided an early conceptualisation of this scaled approach, coined as the “reality-virtuality continuum”, which progresses from a physical to augmented (or “Mixed Reality”, p. 282) to a virtual reality. More recent conceptualisations and technological advancement, however, are now embracing a combined approach of a “Mixed Reality” with both simultaneous augmented and virtual reality, termed XR or extended reality (Kwok & Koh, 2021; Matthews et al., 2021). Matthews et al. (2021, p. 206) explore the potential and challenges of XR to foster embodiment and a “sense of presence” through a combination of 3D headsets and personal avatars to explore, allowing greater degree of immersion within a simulated, virtual environment. One such third-party company collaborating with art museums to offer a combined augmented and virtual reality XR experience is UK-based Vortic (2022) with a website presence, mobile app and VR app, offering AR/VR virtual museum tours and 3D views of individual artworks. Through these various initiatives, there has therefore been a dedicated effort to transport a sense of the physical museum journey into a digital space for the viewer to duly navigate using a sliding scale of approaches. Access within these virtual worlds currently appears to focus upon offering a three-dimensional navigational experience but of primarily two-dimensional artworks and, to a lesser degree, conventional sculpture. Therefore, even within the throes of the pandemic, enabling three-dimensional digital access to experiential multi-sensory installation artworks is being treated with a respectful caution, seemingly still reserved for access within the physical museum domain. The challenges of such experiential access at the individual artefact level are, however, worthy of further exploration and experimental initiatives are starting to happen.

To reprise the earlier phenomenological, first-person narratives of Louise Bourgeois’ Spider (1994) and Marcus Coates’ digital Dawn Chorus (2007) art installation, at this point, it might be considered how these could be viewed experientially beyond the physical domain, within a remote digital space. Although not intending to replace or compensate fully, what alternative or parallel version might be provided to communicate a sense of the dramatic physical impact whilst also serving as another viable, yet remote, access point for a viewer? Or should such digital versions even be seen and judged as a new work on their own merits? In terms of Louise Bourgeois’ Spider, it is the sense of immense scale that is perhaps most difficult to convey in addition to the element of surprise, and even fear, when first encountered. As previously mentioned, a two-dimensional digital surrogate cannot embody sufficient justice; however, the discussed developments in virtual and extended reality where a viewer as avatar can potentially move gingerly into a virtual exhibition space to suddenly encounter the artwork with its huge size conveyed proportionately, those physical and emotional feelings of surprise and even fear may be somewhat engaged. In this sense and phenomenologically, the artwork can “reveal itself” (Segy, 1965, p. 293) for gradual discovery, as the viewer then explores the three-dimensional artwork whilst being an integral part of the three-dimensional virtual domain. Drawing upon Slaters’ (2009) research into “immersive virtual environments”, Matthews et al. (2021, p. 178) applies this to considerations of the believability and scope of extended reality worlds “unfolding” to generate a realistic emotional and behavioural response, underpinned by both “place Illusion (PL)” and, more crucially, “plausibility illusion (Psi)” to create “a sense of being there”. This is the challenge for extended reality (XR) designers: harnessing the illusiveness of a sensory and bodily experience, in the absence of physical stimuli. Although Marcus Coates’ Dawn Chorus digital installation may also have scope for virtual reality presentation, due to its layering of visuals with accompanying sound, augmented reality could provide an interesting interactive version of the artwork for a viewer. As mentioned previously, the artwork is a multi-screen video installation, containing individual people in their own home or workplace environments, recreating bird song to form a Dawn Chorus. A parallel, remote version on a mobile device might allow a viewer to experience all screens simultaneously and run this as a single ‘video’ sequence, as per the physical artwork. Yet it might also offer further opportunities for a viewer to select individual people at random (with or without sound) and, underpinned by augmented reality, transport these characters from their own mundane environments to the viewer’s own everyday space, but with a larger than life impact. Such digital musings of these two artworks might therefore be best conceived as parallel versions and each artwork may need to be considered carefully and individually in terms of the most suitable technological approach to take, not intent to recreate but to offer a different and new form of impact and access. Acute Art (2022a) is one company harnessing both AR and VR in their collaborations with museums to offer such parallel experiences. A recent initiative has involved working with the Serpentine North Gallery and its exhibition entitled KAWS: New Fiction, showcasing the artwork of Brian Connelly and curated by Acute Art Director, Daniel Birnbaum (Acute Art, 2022b). The exhibition integrates an option of using the Acute Art mobile app to create an augmented reality experience for both the physical exhibition and also remotely. There is then an additional parallel virtual reality experience, where viewers can explore the Serpentine gardens, exhibition space and 3D versions of the sculptures within the Fortnight gaming platform, which also includes the extra dimension of social interaction, facilitating a shared experience with others (Fortnight, 2022). This multidimensional approach towards technological intervention therefore offers four different access domains: standalone physical experience, experience enhanced by augmented reality, remote experience with the option of augmented reality, and a virtual reality parallel ‘event’ experience, integrating and encouraging social participation. A recognition of the value and a move towards a growing diversity in artwork access routes, accelerated by the global pandemic, will begin to encourage a hybrid strategic model for many art museums, with a view to fostering innovation and attracting new, non-traditional audiences, whilst also providing more opportunities for those unable to be physically present. A preference for the sensory-provoking, physical artwork experience will understandably still predominant for many, and particularly for accessing three-dimensional installation artworks, yet reimaginations are starting to show promise in their provision of a richer, not competing experience.

5. Conclusion

This paper has explored the interplay between physical and virtual domains of artwork access within the context of a sense of loss engendered by the Covid-19 global pandemic. As art museums abruptly closed their physical spaces and, for many, their preferred means of artwork access, by default, online spaces were afforded a new prominence, whether ready or not. Drawing upon first-person phenomenological encounters to convey the centrality of a physical interaction, it has been illustrated how this virtual pivot would prove more challenging for three-dimensional, multimedia artworks, predicated upon and fully realised through a direct, physical and sensory experience that may be difficult to render online. Furthermore, the loss of opportunity to physically experience and appreciate such artworks as part of a curated sequence and contextual space also presented challenges for exploration, discovery, even serendipity. Art museums have for some time been moving their online provision from static, repository and memory-motivated traditions towards a more dynamic and participatory space, founded upon a range of different access routes from websites (including audio-visual content for context and interpretation) to social media, with visitor connections and interactions reportedly increasing during the pandemic, and mobile applications. There has been a clear focus on continued curatorship with art museums offering interpretative podcasts, live webinars and artist interviews, amongst other digital initiatives whilst, at the same time, some museums are seeking to represent the physical museum experience online, often through partnership with external platforms and mobile applications, with 360-degree virtual tours. Augmented reality is offering viewers a hybrid experience primarily within the physical museum space (and with more limited scope outside), connecting to digital interpretative content and with opportunity to bring artwork simulations into the viewers’ own environment, and experiments with virtual and extended reality are increasing and transporting viewers into new sensory, digital spaces. Further primary research might now seek to examine direct visitor perceptions of such digital, hybrid and parallel initiatives to explore how they are seen, how they relate, how they are experienced and to what extent they are perceived as supplementary, or becoming new, independent multisensory experiences worthy of examination through an experiential phenomenological lens.

Perhaps in response to the dramatic loss of physical access and recent advances in technology, a move from established, interpretative curatorship to embrace the facilitation of simply a direct sensory experience is starting to happen and now within reach, digitally. It has been clearly sought out, as demonstrated by the popularity of moveable, pop-up, commercial ‘immersive experiences’, which are offering non-traditional access routes to well-known artists and artworks as an ‘event’, harnessing digital technology within a physical space, yet not an art museum. For art museums to maintain, reach new and even uninitiated audiences, accessing the artwork beyond the pandemic merits a multiplicity of possible physical and digital routes, which are respectful to the nuances of each individual artwork. In isolation or combination, these should not be seen to replicate or be secondary to the physical experience but be different enough to offer a fresh perspective in their own right.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Rina Ayra for her helpful feedback on an early draft of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amanda J. Tinker

Amanda J. Tinker is a Senior Lecturer in Academic Literacy at the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield, UK. She also works across the university as a Strategic Teaching and Learning Associate. Amanda is a qualified and chartered librarian, having previously worked on projects to digitise photographic archives and as Graduate Trainee at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Receiving her PhD in library and information science, Amanda has published her work in several international journals, including the Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, the Journal of Academic Writing, Knowledge Organization and Arts. Her current research interests include digital archives, information retrieval and visual arts pedagogy.