Young patients at King’s College Hospital were the first to experience a virtual reality tour of Dulwich Picture Gallery – using cardboard.
The youngsters took a look around the gallery without even leaving the Camberwell hospital’s school room, using Google Cardboard.
The gallery is the first arts institution in the UK to team up with the Google Cultural Institute to provide an experience for smartphone users who cannot physically go to it’s historic Dulwich building.
Children in the school room and on the Rays of Sunshine ward took the virtual reality tour as part of an outreach session designed by the gallery’s learning team, with the help from the school teacher, Sue Clarke.
The tour was developed using Street View technology. Anyone with a Google Cardboard and Android phone can go on the tour by downloading the gallery’s new app Dulwich Picture Gallery on the Google Play Store.
Roger Walshe, Director of Public Engagement at Dulwich Picture Gallery, said: “Our gallery first opened its doors to the public almost 200 years ago as the UK’s first purpose-built space for art. We’re delighted to again be leading the way by re-opening our gallery to a whole new world of virtual visitors. And like them, we are just beginning to discover the potential of immersive technology to provide startling aesthetic experiences and inspirational learning environments. Over the coming months we will be trialling and enhancing this technology with schools, young people and the public. In doing so, we hope to demonstrate how fusing art and technology can generate new creative possibilities.”