The Vatican announced on May 5 a surprising news. The Humanity 2.0 foundation of the Holy See wishes to launch a virtual museum in the metavers through a partnership with Sensorium. On the program, a gallery of works of art NFT Virtual reality (VR).
An art gallery project in virtual reality
Humanity 2.0 is a non-profit organization that seeks to overcome the obstacles to the socio-economic and cultural development of humanity through the use of media and technology. As for Sensorium, it is a company specialized in the development of metavers and virtual reality. Through their agreement, the two partners wish to ” develop NFT’s first-ever VR gallery hosting art, content and academic initiatives from the Vatican “.
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This virtual art gallery is intended to be as accessible as possible. It is planned to be able to go there with a VR headset to be in total immersion, but also with a computer, and even via an application on smartphone thanks to augmented reality.
” We look forward to working with Sensorium to explore different ways to democratize art and make it more accessible to people around the world, regardless of their socio-economic and geographic limitations “, a explained Father Philip Larrey, president of Humanity 2.0.
The VR art gallery is scheduled to be released within Sensorium’s metaverse, entitled Galaxy. The latter is expected to be launched later this year.
Museums and NFT
Museums are becoming increasingly interested in Web 3.0 and NFT. Indeed, the technologies of this field can offer a digital preservation of a large number of works of art and would facilitate access to culture to the greatest number. The Vatican is one of the most visited art museums in the world. Every year, nearly 6 million people visit its collection of 800 pieces by 250 renowned artists.
However, the question of the Vatican’s interest in NFTs is legitimate. If non-fungible tokens are famous today, it is above all for their financial characteristics playing on their high volatility and speculation. Sensorium’s press release remains vague as to the usefulness of NFTs in their future art gallery.
” The nature of this project for Humanity 2.0 is exclusively social and not commercial “a Vatican spokesperson told ARTnews. ” In addition, NFTs do not have to come from works of art, but can also be tickets and other objects. ”
Some museums, on the other hand, have preferred to take advantage of the financial aspect of NFTs to replenish their coffers. In February, the British Museum in London sold several representations of watercolors by the British painter William Turner as digital assets.
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