HTC VIVE Announces VIVE Arts Program

Today HTC VIVE announced VIVE Arts, a new multi-million dollar global VR program set to change the way the world creates and engages with the arts. Vive recognizes VR’s potential to share and engage with the world’s most valuable treasures in a new and exciting way, and the company’s latest investment will support the content, creators and institutions that embrace this new medium.

Vive has been supporting and investing in the arts and culture space since its launch, creating ground-breaking partnerships with London’s Royal Academy of Arts, Taipei’s National Palace Museum, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (French National Museum of Natural History) in Paris, Washington D.C.’s Newseum, and St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum among others. Vive Arts’ next project will be in London for Tate Modern’s major upcoming exhibition, Modigliani, opening on November 23^rd, where Vive will bring a one-of-a-kind integrated VR experience to gallery-goers. A first for both Vive and Tate, it will bring visitors to the exhibition closer into the artist’s world while also being available as an experience at home through VIVEPORT, the leading VR app store.

The Vive Arts program will help cultural institutions fund and develop VR installations that furthers education of the arts across the globe, as well as content that will be made available on Viveport. Vive will work with museums and content developers to bring their works to life in a whole new way.

“With the launch of Vive Arts, we are driving Virtual Reality’s influence in art and providing access to our world’s cultural heritage. We are empowering artists to create, and consumers to experience and interpret, art and culture in new ways,” said Joel Breton, vice president, VIVE Studios. “We are thrilled for the next Vive Arts’ project with Tate Modern, and support their mission to increase the public’s enjoyment and understanding of international modern and contemporary art.”

London’s Tate Modern:

‘We are thrilled to be working with HTC VIVE to bring a new and exciting digital experience to our visitors,” said Frances Morris, Director, Tate Modern.  “We are always looking to push creative boundaries and we think this will be a fantastic opportunity to give the public a different and in-depth understanding of this much-loved artist through new technology.”

Taipei’s National Palace Museum

National Palace Museum has a priceless collection of artifacts, paintings, rare books, and other treasures. Jasper Jeng-Yi Lin, Director of the Museum, has made them even more accessible to everyone via new technologies like VR. A massive numbers of artifacts have been digitized for appreciation, research, and creative applications. Using virtual reality, the museum has created experiences for calligraphy, paintings, as well as the Tong-an Ships of 19th-century China, so that visitors can appreciate their beauty across time and space. The National Palace Museum invites friends from around the globe to enjoy its ancient treasures via VR.

Washington D.C.’s Newseum:

“At the Newseum, we’ve been working closely with Vive to bring amazing experiences to life in VR. Together, we’re greatly enhancing the educational opportunities in our museum,” said Mitch Gelman, Chief Technology Officer, Newseum.  “With our most recent experience, we’re able to transport you to communist East Berlin at the height of the Cold War, and immerse visitors in the moment like never before.”

Paris’ Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (French National Museum of Natural History)

The Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (French National Museum of Natural History), in partnership with Orange, will offer a unique immersive virtual reality experience to explore the tree of the living, iconic species and how they are related to each other. Experience the origin of life on earth as well as how human beings influences our own environment. By the end of the year, the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle will open a dedicated area within the “La Grande Galerie de l’Évolution” (Gallery of Evolution) for visitors to experience on site with HTC Vive VR headsets.  This content will also be available in home through Viveport by end of November.

London’s Royal Academy of Arts

“We are delighted to be collaborating with HTC VIVE on From Life, an experimental exhibition project that explores everything from artistic process to technological evolution and creative collaboration, said Tim Marlow, Artistic Director of the Royal Academy of Arts.  “It is an exciting opportunity for leading artists to explore the creative potential of Virtual Reality technology, and for our audiences to experience this technology first-hand, in the gallery and at home via Viveport.”

More than a dozen pieces of Vive Arts content will be available on Viveport starting today. Interested museums and content creators can visit arts.vive.com for more information.