What is The Met?
The Met is an art museum established in 1866 by civic leaders, businessmen, and artists in New York. The Met spotlights all types of art: photographs, paintings, and live performances with instruments. Art from all across the world and different time periods are showcased, ranging from Islamic art to historical East Asian art. The Met has a website that allows the user to book exhibitions to their physical locations, but also allows one to get a taste of the different exhibitions and their conservation projects. The Met also presents virtual events that involve storytelling, live performances, film screenings, art-making programs, and conversations with Met creators.
The Virtual Audio and Video Tour
The website provides a trove of visual and audio content for the viewer to get a sneak peek into some of the works showcased in the museums. However, aside from the audio guides, many of the visual content serves to intrigue the viewer rather than to give the full artistic experience. You can take a virtual tour of the museum where one can only take a cursory glance at the art featured. I assume this is intentional: it intrigues the user and encourages them to visit the physical location. While the website provides pictures of their art collection that one can browse, many other photos that provide a highlight of the exhibition and what kind of art is going to be presented are spotlighted. The website has a blog as well, and it features deep reflections on a variety of topics ranging from arts from the Civil Rights era to how art was safeguarded in World War II. These blogs are an interesting dive into a specific area of art, and they find ways to tie in either the history of The Met or the art showcased in it. It makes The Met feel like it has a significant role in the history of art.
The virtual 360 is definitely a cool experience, as the viewer can feel extremely immersed and is also given the freedom to look around wherever they please.
Is This the Future of Museums?
The Met does an extremely good job of incorporating digital technology to not only make art more accessible but intriguing as well. What I was most delighted by was that the website doesn’t deter you from visiting the physical location– rather it incentives visitation by drawing you in. Oftentimes if the museum presents too much of the featured objects online, viewers may have no reason to visit the physical location itself. The focus of the website is to present the highlights of the exhibition rather than displaying the entire collection (which can be accessed if the user chooses to do so.) It focuses on the experience the user can have if they visit. The website is clean, modern, and works extremely smoothly. Using the website to see photos of the featured art and glimpses of what I could possibly see if I were to visit the museum was a positive experience as a viewer. I think if other museums had the funding, this is the right step forward for museums: to spark curiosity by providing hints of what can be experienced if the user were to visit the location in-person.
I really appreciated that you asked if this is the future of museums. I think you made a good point in focusing on the fact that this virtual tour doesn’t deter in-person visits, but rather intrigues and entices a potential visitor. Do you think this virtual tour was made in response to Covid-19 and the fact that our travel options were so restricted? Or does the date of the tour’s creation indicate it was pre-Covid?