C96 Column: Slave to the Machine

Exhibitions and inhibitions

The Rosetta Stone is uncannily like a Henry Moore sculpture, its edges worn pebble-smooth by millions of visitors' hands. The very act of displaying an artwork exposes it to light, heat, vapour, movement, grubby paws. One day the British Museum will place the Rosetta Stone in a preserving jar, like the Book of Kells, which is so fragile it can only be open on a page a day. Yet visitors to the book's home in Trinity College - and many people who have never even been to Dublin - will have already seen far more than just one page, thanks to the book's mechanical and digital reproductions. In a sense, these 'virtual' copies are sometimes far more 'real' and accessible than a physical one.

So, what might a virtual National Gallery of Ireland be like? Dublin Institute of Technology is currently working on a 3D one with a Web-based interface, using VRML. They made 'visual realism' a priority, they say, so that the gallery's "atmosphere and identity...would be evident." Another option might be a maze of QuicktimeVR photographs. Another would be to avoid these literal building metaphors altogether - instead of striving to mirror the actual gallery space, they might create new kinds of spaces.

In a traditional gallery/museum, space is limited but collections expand. So most of the art must be stored away. The curator has to select objects, then order them by history or by subject matter (e.g., portraits or still life), by school or by isolating an individual artist's work. All in that limited space. But this space barrier doesn't exist in an online exhibition. Virtual curators could assemble dozens of exhibitions at once, about anything from letter-writing to children or food. That’s the general theory: online galleries, based on the entire collection - and even intertwined with collections elsewhere - that are information-rich and accessible on ordinary PCs, not just high-end machines with fast connections and the latest browser plug-ins.

The National Gallery's actual website isn't anything like this. It gives information about upcoming events, opening hours, copyright, a map, etc. But there's one problem: no art. The gallery is sitting on a huge amount of content - its art alone comes to over 2,500 oil paintings and 8,000 watercolours, drawings, prints and sculptures. But so far it seems unaware, unwilling or unable to put that content online.

Its home page has a detail from Caravaggio's The Taking of Christ. It's about 100 by 100 pixels. Over four times as much space is devoted to messages about sponsorship. Elsewhere the paintings are at least captioned, but almost as tiny. There is more information on the library's page about the library regulations than about what the library contains. And there’s PR stuff about the Minister launching a symposium on The Museum Visit: Virtual Reality and the Gallery, but nothing about its actual proceedings. Instead, you're pointed towards the gallery shop (which is not online of course). Why can’t we read these ideas about virtual space within, well, a virtual space? Everything in the site seems inhibited, or geared towards something elsewhere, never an online experience in its own right. So that's what virtual galleries are all about, then ...

The National Gallery's website is www.nationalgallery.ie.

Michael Cunningham