Here is an introductory video which explains the Google Art Project in greater detail:
Here is a video detailing the history and context of the painting.
Also, here is another version of the original five that Van Gogh created specifically to adorn the walls of the guest room occupied by his friend and peer, Gauguin.
Remediating the Museum Experience:
The Google Art Project remediates the museum experience in an unprecedented fashion. Indeed it may be asserted by some traditionalists that the project obsolesces the traditional museum visit by presenting the contemporary digital visitor with a hyper mediated experience that could never be duplicated in a real world setting. Thus, even in its very conception, the project changes the way that we can and do view art. It essentially puts the world’s most treasured art artifacts literally at the fingertips of anyone with a high speed internet connection. This universality of access is, I believe, is the project’s most significant fait accompli - and also potentially its greatest weakness.
The Interface:
Let us examine the work itself. Via the painting’s micro site, within the larger scheme of museums and collections gathered under the project, the viewer is able to magnify his or her view of the still life to several times its actual dimensions. The site’s zoom capabilities allow the viewer to get a “closer than real life” look at the painting, that visitors to the physical museum would never be permitted. On the painting’s site the viewer can zoom in close enough to see even the tiniest details of the artist’s brush strokes on the canvas. Differences in tone and shadow can be magnified for examination so far that they actually lose their meaning within the context of the painting. This is, needless to say, the type of detail that technical students of the work have sought since its creation. "The giga-pixel experience brings us very close to the essence of the artist through detail that simply can't be seen in the gallery itself," said Freer Museum director, Julian Raby of the Art Project’s various digital recreations. Conversely, however, traditionalists assert that even given a “closer than real life” view, the online visitor still wants for the “aura” of the work that the physical museum visitor receives sheerly from his or her being in the physical presence of the original work. There is something valuable, if difficult to define, lost in imposing a three dimensional work on a two dimensional interface.
Other art museum directors who have seen the technology are impressed by it, though not convinced it will substitute for a scholarly eye in direct contact with an actual painting. Brian Kennedy, director of the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio, said the gigapixel images can bring out details that might not be visible to ordinary museum-goers in a gallery. But scholars will still want a three-dimensional view of the art, which even a very high-resolution two-dimensional image can't provide. (Kennicott 1)Examining the Effectiveness of the text’s rhetoric:
The effectiveness of the work, and the larger art project itself, is a highly subjective concept. Notwithstanding the arguments for and against presented above, viewing the painting via the Google Art Project necessarily takes it out of its intended context. Indeed as the video stated the work was created by the artist to adorn the walls of a room occupied by his friend, Gauguin. Hence it could be argued that while Van Gogh ceaselessly sought artistic development and contemporary acknowledgement throughout his career, this actual work was never intended to be seen outside the walls of his own home. Indeed it wasn’t even to be seen inside the walls of his home except for the bedroom in which his friend was staying. Given that historical perspective even the display of the work in Van Gogh museum takes it out of its intended context, and the Art Project’s digital remediation only further exaggerates that disruption.
Metaphors and Affordances:
If a virtual tour is to become a metaphor for an actual real world museum visit then some examination of the other non-tangible aspects of art becomes necessary. We’ve briefly visited context, aura and even the micro-examination of technique. Let us return however to the question of access. Historically the value of art has rested on its scarcity. High art, at least until very recently, has never been a democratic construct. This begs the question then of whether “Sunflowers” loses its value when imposed upon a digital interface. The answer to that question lies in how one defines “value.” Technocrats would argue that the beauty of the work is particularly enhanced within the digital sphere. Additionally being able virtually walk the halls of the world’s great museums via a highly intuitive interface (affordances), without ever leaving one’s home, would certainly add to the value of the art using this reasoning. Conversely, however, traditionalists would argue that the very interface of the text, a digital screen, destroys its value as the work, as Van Gogh painted it, was meant to be viewed with the naked eye. The affordances of the medium democratizes the text in a manner never before seen and never intended, thus negating its value.
I believe the true answer lies somewhere in between. The project’s designers admittedly never intended the digital text to be a replacement for the “real thing,” though social and economic forces will undoubtedly force the project to be a digital proxy for much of the viewing audience. Notwithstanding socioeconomic concerns there is evidence that the project actually drives viewer interest. Says, Christian Ghiron, Italy’s Ministry of Culture Technology Chief:
Our goal is to get more visitors to museums, to demonstrate this can be possible…. The biggest criticism we always receive is that the more we digitize, the less visitors we have in our museums. Instead, it is exactly opposite. The more we digitize, the more you want to see it live; you cannot substitute the experience. (Cohen 2)Indeed it does appear that the ease of access, intuitive design, enhanced viewing, and supplemental information available via the painting’s site have all been designed to feed viewer desire to see the actual work, in the Amsterdam museum. Perhaps this is the new value proposition of this work in particular, and art in general, fueling viewer interest by universalizing access. Art is, after all, always meant to be seen.
Works Cited
Kennicott, Phillip. "National Treasures: Google Art Project Unlocks Riches of World's Galleries." The Washington Post 1 Feb. 2011, Arts & Living sec. Web. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/01/AR2011020106442.html.
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