Palmerston North software developer's holographic exhibitions to bring art out of the vaults

Friday, 20 January 2017

Gabe Redding's holographic art exhibition project could help solve the problem of limited display space for New Zealand's art collections

A Palmerston North software developer's latest project could bring rarely seen artwork to light and revolutionise how museums design exhibitions, an art expert says.

Biological Systems Modeling (BSM) co-founder Gabe Redding has turned his software skills to developing an application that creates holographic art exhibitions.

The application puts artwork that's been photographed in high resolution at your fingertips for a personalised display.

With an augmented reality headset, users can see the art projected on their surroundings, at real size and down to the smallest brush stroke or scratch.

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Redding, and his brother Cain Redding, started BSM 10 years ago to develop the world's most accurate rugby simulator. They got a grant last November to work on a holographic display for their simulator, which allowed them to buy a developer's kit for Microsoft's Hololens augmented reality headset.

A lifelong art-lover thanks to his artist father, Redding was admiring a painting a month ago when he was struck by the idea to use the headset for art exhibitions.

'I remembered seeing the Mona Lisa and being struck by how small it actually was. That's not something you'd realise from seeing a photo or a print.'

Redding put together a demonstration, using images from Te Papa's collection, to show museums the potential use for bringing the public art they might otherwise never see as the artist intended, or at all.

Limited display space means that only a small fraction of New Zealand's art collections can be on display at any point.

Local government figures show councils and council-controlled organisations own artwork worth at least $568,393,020, made up of at least 173,269 pieces, but only about 7 per cent is on show.

Te Manawa collections manager Toni Edmeades got to try out Redding's demonstration on Friday, and was immediately enthusiastic.

'I'm not a digital [savvy] person, but I can see the applications of this. It's so exciting, and it makes me anxious at the same time – this is going to change everything in my feild.'

She said augmented reality would change how people related to art objects, and revolutionise how designers put together exhibitions.

It would allow museums to see exactly how artworks would look next to each other without having to physically bring them together from other institutions around the world, greatly reducing costs and the risk of damage to the artwork.