Welcome to the World of Experiences!
Porvoo Virtual Art Gallery will take you from one mood and theme to the next. You can expect the power of colours, life and fantasy, landscapes and portraits, and an ambience beyond reality.
In the art gallery you can learn about the artworks and the artists who lived and worked in the city from the 20th century onwards. The latest artworks are from recent years. On display there are paintings, prints, and sculptures from the collections of the City of Porvoo and Porvoo museum.
You will move around in a realistic 3D modelled art gallery. The building is based on the architect Julia Falck’s diploma thesis (University of Oulu, 2021), in which she researched the placement of a building for an art museum in the Taidetehdas area in Porvoo.
Inside the Virtual Art Gallery
You enter the gallery using the link below. You do not need to install a separate application, because the virtual art gallery works in a browser-based environment called Mozilla Hubs.
It is recommended to use the browser Chrome running on a computer to visit the gallery. You can also access the gallery using most VR headsets, however, some of the features of the art gallery, such as information about the artworks, are unavailable when using mobile devices or VR headsets.
The environment Mozilla Hubs is in English. If necessary, read the instructions.
Is the gallery full? About 20 visitors can access the museum at one time. If the primary room of the gallery is full, you can try the alternative links:
Instructions
When you have opened the link to the virtual art gallery you will see the start view of Mozilla Hubs.
- Proceed to the gallery by clicking Join Room.
- Then choose: Enter Room (sound and microphone are not in use).
- You will enter the lobby and you can start exploring the art gallery.
If you wish you can choose to use a username and an avatar while you move around in the art gallery. However, it is not required. See: “Changing the Username and Avatar”.
- You can move around the art gallery by using the arrow keys or keys WASD on the keyboard.
- You can look around by pressing and holding the left mouse button or by using the keys Q and E.
You can see the information about an individual artwork by clicking on it with the right mouse button.
Users can move around in the virtual art gallery as different virtual characters, avatars.
- By pressing More (the three dots in the bottom right corner) you can open a menu through which you can change your username and choose an avatar amongst ready-made options (Change Name & Avatar)
- If you sign in, your username and choice of avatar will be saved for the next time you visit the gallery. You can also enter the space without signing in.
Further information about using Hubs can be found here: hubs.mozilla.com
Possible malfunctions
The Porvoo Virtual Art Gallery is big for a web application. The space has been significantly optimised, but due to the large number of artworks, texts, and 3D objects, it might not work well when using older devices or slow internet connections.
Usually, problems are fixed by refreshing or updating the page. You can do this the following ways:
- Reload/refresh the web page.
- Press F5 on Windows or cmd+r on Mac.
- Re-open the link to the virtual art gallery.
Poor image quality is usually caused by an overloaded network. This occurs especially when the room has many visitors or when the user has several applications open that use the internet connection. Close the other applications or tabs that use the net.
If you see a Broken media link instead of a picture of an artwork, the reason is that Hubs has somehow been unable to load it. Refreshing the page will fix the problem.
Give feedback on the Virtual Art Gallery
We would love to hear your thoughts on the virtual art gallery. We are going to further develop and update the virtual art gallery based on the feedback we receive. You can send feedback to: virtualartmuseum@porvoo.fi
Production
Content production: City of Porvoo Cultural Services and Porvoo Museum
Technical implementation: Stereoscape Oy
Architectural planning and 3D modelling: Julia Falck
Concept: City of Porvoo, Porvoo Museum, and Stereoscape Oy
Artworks: © Kuvasto 2023
