Happening Type: Interactive

The firm of Rand Elliott Architects has designed some of the most dynamic buildings of modern Oklahoma, from the radiant Chesapeake Boathouse that became an icon of the revitalized Oklahoma River to the playful POPS Arcadia on Route 66 that celebrates roadside attractions with its own oversized soda bottle. Visitors will hear from Elliott himself as he leads a tour through his design for the new home of Oklahoma Contemporary. Through 54,000 square-feet on four floors that include galleries, a theater, a café, and studios, Elliott envisioned this complex as a cultural destination.

While many art institutions have shifted their focus to digital content this spring, the Serpentine Galleries have long been a leader in online platforms for contemporary art. This includes digital commissions that bring art into the virtual realm, with a recent project, I Magma, released in 2019. Created by artist Jenna Sutela, the mobile app version of this exhibition offers a 21st-century take on the oracle, with the real-time movement of lava-like material in sculptural heads in Stockholm providing a digital experience in divination.

For visitors who make it to the Louvre to view the Mona Lisa, it can be hard to see her famous face in the jostle of the crowds. The museum introduced its first virtual reality experience during last year’s blockbuster Leonardo da Vinci retrospective to immerse users in a more intimate encounter with the iconic painting. Developed with HTC VIVE Arts and now available for free on virtual reality platforms and as a smartphone app, Mona Lisa: Beyond the Glass is a seven-minute journey into the artwork, Leonardo’s painting techniques, and the model behind that enigmatic smile, accompanied by a wild ride on a flying machine sketched by the legendary Renaissance man. louvre.f/en

A world in isolation is sonically mapped in this interactive work by London-based artist Yuri Suzuki. Sound of the Earth: The Pandemic Chapter offers an audio experience of life during COVID-19, created as a digital version of Suzuki’s recent exhibition, Speechless: Different by Design at the Dallas Museum of Art, in which visitors could place their ear on a spherical sculpture and hear sound from that part of the world. Sounds were crowdsourced from around the globe and added to a visual rendering of the earth to bring listeners together through the collec- tive noise of the pandemic, whether sirens, cooking at home, or Zoom calls.

The renowned Jupiter Artland sculpture park near Edinburgh now has a virtual version that can be explored from home through the video game platform Minecraft. Players can visit recreations of the park’s actual sculptures including Marc Quinn’s colossal Love Bomb made of images of orchids, Antony Gormley’s monumental Firmament figure constructed from a lattice of steel, and the otherworldly landforms of Charles Jencks’s Cells of Life. Since 2016, Jupiter Artland has partnered with Edinburgh Napier University to develop a Minecraft sculpture park reimagining their artworks through the game’s blocky shapes, but this is the first time the experience is available outside of the park. It continues to expand with new interactive components, such as a challenge for young visitors to design and build a sculpture, with the winner becoming part of the permanent collection of the online park.

In the idyllic world of Animal Crossing: New Horizons you can use a Goya painting for your wallpaper, wear a Cézanne as a smock, or hang a priceless Klimt on your wall. The Getty’s Animal Crossing Art Generator offers around 79,000 works from its open- access collection that can easily be transformed into custom patterns for the video game. As a bonus, the generator was designed to convert any open-access artwork from any museum, so players can interact with a diverse selection of artwork and share their digital creations with friends, making world-class culture part of the gaming experience.