Archai Virtualis is a virtual museum of art that can be experienced through an internet-connected virtual reality headset, desktop computer or mobile device, anywhere in the world, any time of day. Artwork exhibited in Archai Virtualis either exists fully-realized in the real world or only in the digital realm. Every artwork displayed in AV is available for purchase, including the non-fully-realized works of art, which can be custom fabricated for buyers on a commission basis.
Those are the nuts and bolts that make up a grand experiment in devising a new — and equitable — way to experience art exhibitions. Now, physical proximity is not a prerequisite to explore a world class art museum, making museum experiences accessible to anybody with an internet connection, anywhere in the world.
Our vision is that Archai Virtualis will grow the global art audience and democratize access to fine artwork, fostering a more active, dynamic and interesting art market. We’re excited by the prospect of what this will mean for artists and art buyers alike, and we hope you’ll be a part of it!
About the Museum
The museum itself is inspired by the foundational root shapes of art: the circle, the square and the triangle, and a basic appreciation for these shapes, and their immeasurable power. With a nod to Leonardo da Vinci’s Vetruvian Man and the Bauhaus art school, we experiment with how these basic shapes can be combined, reinterpreted and used to generate not only complex shapes and forms, but understanding of our physical and metaphysical world, and our place in it.
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It all starts at the center, where we begin our journey as a visitor to the museum. There stands an obelisk — a simple yet powerful monument honoring the origin of all things — surrounded by a circle, symbolizing natural order and progression.
You’ll discover, as you move outwards from this center, squares and triangles are tessellated around the circle to complete the first level of the museum, which increasingly fractalizes and tessellates with organized complexity as you travel further from the origin. Given this parametric design, changing one core element changes the others, as a ripple effect from the center out through the museum’s wings.
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What is Archai Virtualis?
The museum is surrounded by a series of six subterranean plazas designed specifically to house large scale works of art, allowing the works to be displayed in grandeur without breaking the museum’s intentional sightlines.
The museum is hexagonal, with each of its six wings represented by the six origins of geometry. Iconic lamp posts, representing the point, the line, the tetrahedron, the cube, the dodecahedron, and the icosahedron offer a unique sense of direction. While the museum feels old and monumental, it strikes a modern pose, merging real-world architecture with digital engagement — grounded in reality, and enhanced by a future-focused technology, unbounded by physics.
About the Technology
The Archai Virtualis museum was constructed of (nerd alert) TK polygons in the amazing Unreal Engine. This powerful platform allows not only for the creation of a high-resolution and deeply-immersive environment, but also unique ways to experience art. Unreal gives us the tools to provide a multifaceted, multimedia, and 360º perspective of artistic potential. Real-time rendering allows Archai Virtualis to create the most immersive virtual art museum available today.