HTC has teamed up with Japanese artist Shu Yamamoto to bring the artist’s cat art to life in a virtual exhibition on VR platform Viveport.
The exhibition – titled “Step into Cat Art” – brings Yamamoto’s static paintings to life with the help of VR.
The collection includes virtual versions of all 124 pieces in the artist’s The Hisstine Chapel mural, as well as popular paintings such as the Mewna Lisa and The Kitty with The Pearl Earring that can yawn, stick out their tongues and more like real cats.
The Viveport technical team worked with Yamamoto to re-design the artist’s paintings to include dynamic movement, audio and interactive elements, turning the still paintings into a full VR experience ahead of the immersive exhibition.
Multiple visitors will be able to enter the same venue at one time to take part in the virtual exhibition, and there’s support for cross-device viewing on mobile, PC and VR devices, meaning you can jump into the experience wherever you are.
“Viveport’s mission is to enrich people culturally in VR across art, games, and video, and in doing so continue to grow and expand the robust VIVE Metaverse worldwide”, said Viveport president Joseph Lin.
“It’s incredible seeing how immersion can completely change the way you experience a moment, whether that’s appreciating artwork, watching a story, or playing a game.”
You might like…
Tickets for “Step into Cat Art” go on sale on September 10, with the exhibition scheduled to open on September 17 2021 and close on March 31 2022. Tickets are priced at $7.99/€6.99, which works out about around £6 here in the UK.
HTC is also using this opportunity to launch its own Viveport NFT store on the 17th. The store will accept fiat, ETH and Matic payments in exchange for digital representations of Yamamoto’s cat art pieces.
If you can’t wait until the 17th, HTC has just launched a cat filter on Instagram that allows Android and iOS users to insert the faces of their own cats directly into Yamamoto’s paintings and share the results on the social media app. You can try the filter out with your own pets right now.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
