RAFFMA Emerging Artist Virtual Exhibition: How We Did It
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[Music]
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like most museums around the world
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robert and francis fullerton museum of
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art had to close its doors
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due to the coven 19 shutdown one year
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ago we hosted
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a virtual emerging artist exhibition
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where artists from all over could submit
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their artwork
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to be featured on the raphma website
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the scope at which we could provide a
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virtual exhibition
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was limited by what we could imagine and
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produce at the time
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and thus a simple web page with images
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of each artwork was the final result
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since that time raphma staff and student
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assistants
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have greatly expanded the ability of the
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museum to present
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content in an online virtual setting
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this year john fleeman raphma's
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exhibit designer for over 20 years and
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chase hanson
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raphma student assistant majoring in art
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history
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and studio art work together to bring
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you an
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exhibition unlike anything raphma has
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ever produced before
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well my expectations going into this
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project is that i was going to
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not like it at all i it's really not
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my thing chase is amazing
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i thought that i would contribute almost
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little or little to nothing
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in this project given my lack of
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technical skill using the museum's
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architectural
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files chase was able to recreate
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an entirely virtual replica of the
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museum's galleries
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then together john and chase
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collaborated to bring the exhibition to
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life
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in the virtual space working to make an
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experience
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as realistic and as immersive as they
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possibly could
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submissions for this exhibition were all
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digital images
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the idea in the initial project
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brainstorming was to literally take
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these images
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and pop them on the rendered walls in
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the digital space
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and call it a day this approach however
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left a lot to be desired of the
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exhibition i was really expecting to
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be using the kind of
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things that you can only do in the
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digital space use these artificial
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lights or these artificially
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thin or huge works of art and in reality
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we found out that those aren't so great
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so actually taking things in a more
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realistic direction giving them real
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depth and volume really really brings
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things to life
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john directed the curatorial and
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aesthetic vision for the project
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while chase having the technical skills
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did the heavy lifting
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and creating in the virtual space
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that's good i mean what a difference
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right
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yeah it looks like a completely
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different thing now
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it actually looks it has some some
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uh weight to it some dimension to it and
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yeah now it has a presence on the wall
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and so contrast this is the
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canvas yeah so that the key is that
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that the precision of a digital
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rendering
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feels fake you can tell almost
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immediately
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the difference between a digital
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rendering and the real thing
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striving to create a close to life
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experience
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led to discussions around lighting depth
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texture and framing doing doing the
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egypt model is that sometimes you don't
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want to do it
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perfect like mathematically or optically
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it just doesn't work that way nothing's
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like that in real life
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i think the thing that surprised me the
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most about the process is
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uh well as i was excited to be able to
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do something in this virtual world that
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that we can't do here in in the space or
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things that we can't do here in the
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space like
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really getting the lighting uh perfect
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and
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you know manipulating the size of the
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pieces in some cases
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but that we were actually trying to make
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it less perfect and
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more like it is in in reality and and it
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felt
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it felt better as much as we put it in
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real life you wouldn't
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just hang something on the wall you'd
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seat it within a larger frame with a
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glass cover on it to kind of give it
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volume in the space to make it stick out
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from the wall
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and we didn't just do that in theory
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with the model we did that almost
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exactly
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we took the real frames the real picture
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frames that we use
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in the museum and i modeled a fake
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virtual one based on
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all the exact dimensions of what we'd
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really use
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a majority of the project was produced
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in a program called
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blender then digital panoramic photos
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from within the space
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were rendered and used in 3d vista to
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create the final virtual gallery
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experience
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the results of this project have
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completely surpassed what we imagined
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possible one year ago i i think the the
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virtual
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exhibition has great potential
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how much i'm not really sure i think it
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kind of goes back to what i was talking
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about before between
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uh making the virtual world seem more
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like the real world and really taking
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advantage of what we can do in the
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virtual world that we can't do
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here i think there's a there's a happy
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medium knowing when and where to use it
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i can definitely see
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as we refine not just the technologies
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but the methodologies we refine
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the ways which we're curating things and
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like once
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viewers and observers are kind of
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acclimated and
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know what they're expecting from a
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digital gallery we can see some really
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really next level stuff
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in the future the potential for
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exhibitions is hard to predict
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you can't really replace the experience
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of seeing a work
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in person just quite yet but you can
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provide
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new experience unexpected and impossible
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in the real world
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let us know in the comment section what
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you think about the future of virtual
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exhibitions
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thanks for watching
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this project was possible thanks to the
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student success initiative
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and the vital expansions and technology
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initiative grant
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you