Create online art museum

The intent of this project is to provide our viewers with an additional educational experience. It entails creation of an online art museum with multiple rooms. It will be free to the public. The museum will "exhibit" 100 paintings from its online "permanent collection." We will choose 100  jpg images to be copied from our website plus accompanying extended labels and wall texts for each room. Every image, label and wall text will be a "hotspot" in the designated room of the museum. There will be no sound or video elements.  We intend to have the online museum closely replicate the experience of visitors in a physical art museum.

Museum rooms

Each of five rooms will have wall text on a panel.  For the entry room a panel will have the name of the museum. For each of the rooms there will be a small text panel that identifies the content of the room. The entry room will have up to four wall text panels. Each of these panels will have up to 300 words of text. Our volunteer will be named as a provider of service for the project. This information will be on one of the entry room panels. Other entry room panels will identify how to navigate the museum, purpose of the museum how it came into existence, and what visitors will learn by visiting it

Our volunteer will copy and paste artwork .jpg images directly from our site to be the blown up full size images. They are all 72dpi, with maximum width usually no greater than 600 pixels, with none greater than 800 pixels. No image will be greater than 600 pixels in height. She/he will also create smaller images suitable for wall placement. All smaller images will be placed on a room's wall in a straight horizontal line. That line will be based on the bottom edge of the object. We will provide the order of objects on the walls of each room.  She/he will adjust sizes of .jpg images, labels and wall texts for both distant and close up viewing.

We will provide language for extended object labels to accompany individual artworks via emailed plain text format (not .jpg); information will include artist name / name of object / date created / medium / dimensions / owner / donor credit / accession number. In some cases some data may be missing, such as donor credit and accession number. Following this basic information we will in some cases provide OpenAI's ChatGPT narrative for the object, generated by prompts developed by us, usually not exceeding 250 words. Text will be in English. Our volunteer will format all of this extended object label information in the usual style of physical museums. For each of the extended object labels, there will be a live link to a page on our website. The sentence for the link will say something like "please click here for more information on the artist." We will provide to our volunteer an internal link for each of the extended labels. We will curate choice and placement of content on each wall.

Suggested AI prompt for online museum artist extended labels: What did California impressionist artist paint and why? ChatGPT said: 

Armin Carl Hansen was an American artist known for his paintings of the American West, particularly the landscapes, seascapes, and wildlife of California. He was associated with the California Impressionist movement, which focused on capturing the effects of light and color in outdoor scenes, often painting en plein air.

Hansen painted a variety of subjects, including coastal scenes, rugged landscapes, and wildlife. He was particularly drawn to the dramatic coastline of California, with its rocky cliffs, crashing waves, and expansive vistas. His paintings often depicted the rugged beauty of the California coast, showcasing its natural grandeur and the power of the sea.

 One of the reasons Armin Hansen painted was to celebrate the beauty of the American West and to capture the spirit of the region. He had a deep appreciation for the natural world and sought to convey the awe-inspiring beauty of the landscapes he encountered. Through his paintings, Hansen aimed to evoke a sense of wonder and reverence for the wilderness, encouraging viewers to connect with and appreciate the natural world.

 Additionally, Hansen was also interested in the relationship between humans and nature, often depicting scenes of fishermen, sailors, and other individuals interacting with the land and sea. His paintings often conveyed a sense of adventure and exploration, capturing the excitement and challenges of life in the American West.

Overall, Armin Hansen painted to express his love for the natural world and to share its beauty and majesty with others. His works continue to be celebrated for their evocative depictions of the American West and their timeless appeal.

Alternate approach

An alternate and simplified approach to creating an online museum is to have "walls" listed on a page with links to corresponding image files containing sets of artworks and labels that are scrolled horizontally across the screen. This approach avoids the creation of 3D rooms with their attendant limitations in horizontal navigation.

Who should volunteer

Our volunteer should have prior experience in visiting physical art museums and have knowledge of preparations for their exhibits. She/he should also have some knowledge of art exhibit curation. This online art museum is also suitable for a junior or high school class project. See a 2016 article by Creative Illustrator.

We will place an extended credit line of up to 35 words citing our volunteer as lead project designer onto our "About the museum" page describing the museum during the entire duration of our active monthly link to your web page hosting the museum.  The "about" page will be linked to from our landing page. The link to your website page holding the museum will be on this "about" page. Please apply to info@tfaoi.org

Honorarium/stipend

We will provide an honorarium up to $500 at completion of this project.

Organization of the museum

The museum landing page will have the typical Catalogues landing page style and will link to the About TFAO page, We will place a link to the landing page on our site guide page. Since our online museum will be 100% non-commercial, its presentation to the public won't have features provided for commercial galleries. It will look like and have the feel of a public art museum replicated online. For example, there won't be a field for prices and no contact information since we won't be selling anything and don't want the public contacting us, as is similarly the case in public museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

No guided tours

There won't be a guided tour option. Viewers may roam from one room to another at random and the same within rooms containing objects. We want the visitor experience to emulate the behavior of visitors to physical art museums that don't choose a tour.

Matterport

The popular Matterport platform isn't 100% applicable since no photography of actual walls and artworks is needed. An intuitive walking feature similar to the one Matterport uses for room to room navigation is however necessary. Also important is the ability for users to magnify artworks and their labels for close-up viewing. We find horizontal navigation along walls difficult with this product.