VR-NISSAGE #3 with John Wentz is an interactive art exhibition featuring twenty-two original paintings by muralist, street artist and portrait painter John Wentz from San Francisco. This art exhibition is […] experienced only in virtual reality, and you can freely walk around in the exhibition space and your real-life motions are reflected in the virtual reality environment.
From the product description
About the Experience
If you’re a fan of John Wentz or enjoy art galleries in general, VR-NISSAGE #3 might be for you. This VR experience brings 22 paintings by John Wentz to a gallery environment that can only exist in virtual reality. According to the app description, “John Wentz is a contemporary artist who work is an exploration of process and technique.” His work all relates to the human figure with broad brush strokes and abstract flourishes.
The VR-NISSAGE series is “the next evolution of the art gallery.” There are other VR galleries you can find on Steam or the Meta store, but they are generally one-off creations for a specific artist. I like the idea of creating a platform for galleries that can be reused for different artists with different environments. The app description mentions there being a full motion-captured interaction with the artist within the experience as well, but I wasn’t able to find anything like that.
Graphics and Sound
The paintings are scanned at high resolution and presented in proper scale. They appear to only be flat scans, which is unfortunate since the artist seems to like making texture from brush strokes. You can walk around and look at the “hanging” pieces, but there are also a few that are strewn about to pick up. I’m not sure if there is significance with the choices here.
Information Content
As at a physical gallery, the hanging paintings are accompanied by information cards with the title, year, medium, etc. Interestingly they also include price. This would make more sense if you could contact the artist or real-world gallery to make a purchase, but it’s just text on a card. Some of the items say “Sold” instead of a price. I’m not sure if that means that the pricing and availability are actually updated when you launch the app or not, but it would certainly make sense to have that be dynamic.
Strangely, there’s also a white rectangle on a surface across the “moat.” I would expect some kind of video or other information to be displayed there, but there’s just nothing.
Navigation and Interactivity
The space is primarily a tiled platform surrounded by water. You can physically walk or use teleport controls to walk around the space. Items that aren’t hanging can be picked up and examined from different angles, but no other interactivity is supported.
Updates and Support
none
Summary
It’s a small space with some hanging paintings around the edges and on the floor. It’s not really designed to be interactive, rather it’s a way to visit these paintings without travelling to a gallery. It’s a good idea if you’re interested in John Wentz. It’s also nice that it’s free so you can discover his work without risk.
Pros
- 22 paintings to see in VR
- Simple but creative gallery environment
Cons
- No ability to open additional information on a painting (they could have opened a web browser on the desktop in response to a click)
