This App Lets You Take A 360-Degree Virtual Tour Of The World's Best Art Exhibitions

The ArtPassport app takes users on a virtual tour of the world’s best exhibitions, offering 360-degree views and information on the artists and works.
Founded by London-based brothers Tristram and Patrick Fetherstonhaugh in 2017, ArtPassport offers anyone, anywhere, access to high resolution images and 360-degree panoramic views of contemporary art from the world’s leading galleries and art museums.
The free app features a regularly updated feed of exhibitions with panoramas, images of individual works, descriptive texts on the artists and visitor information. Users can zoom in on art that they are interested in and press a virtual reality icon to use a Google Cardboard headset for a more immersive experience.
“Nothing replaces physically being in the space in front of a work of art, but the tech let’s you get so much closer than you ever could before, and experience so much more,” founder Tristram Fetherstonhaugh told Culture Trip.

ArtPassport takes users on a virtual tour of the world’s best exhibitions

The technology works by taking 360-degree photo spheres – multiple images taken from a single viewpoint with a very wide-angle lens – which are then processed, joined together and viewed through a special interface, either via the app or on the website.

The resulting high-res images can be panned around on a computer, viewed on a phone, or slotted into a viewer for the full VR experience.

“We’ve always been about helping more people to see and discover more art. There’s a world of fantastic exhibitions put on by commercial galleries and art museums, and the 360 technology that ArtPassport uses is the by far the best way to experience the shows that you might not otherwise see and offer a taster for ones you are planning to visit,” said Fetherstonhaugh.

ArtPassport currently has 400,000+ downloads and is avaialble for iOS and Android.
A post shared by GalleriesNow (@galleriesnow) on Apr 10, 2018 at 12:29pm PDT

About the author

Claire Lancaster

Tech & Entrepreneurship Editor

English-American, Claire has lived and worked in the U.S., South America, Europe and the UK. As Culture Trip’s tech and entrepreneurship editor she covers the European startup scene and issues ranging from Internet privacy to the intersection of the web with civil society, journalism, public policy and art. Claire holds a master’s in international journalism from City University, London and has contributed to outlets including Monocle, NPR, Public Radio International and the BBC World Service. When not writing or travelling, she can be found searching for London's best brunch spot or playing with her cat, Diana Ross.