The Museum of Communication in Frankfurt invites you to a very special journey: With the help of virtual reality, you can immerse yourself in the fascinating world of Hieronymus Bosch's famous painting "The Garden of Delights" - a world full of reveling people, bizarre animal creatures and unruly goings-on - and literally lose yourself in the sheer endless amount of fantastic details of this enigmatic and impressive painting. In the "DelightfulGardenVR" exhibition, you can see all these details from a whole new perspective. By donning a VR headset, you will literally step through the canvas into Bosch's "Garden of Delights" for an exciting adventure about sin and guilt. The virtual reality experience is designed as a satellite to the special exhibition "Back to Future. Visions of Technology between Fiction and Reality". A reduced presentation can be seen in the themed room "Overcoming Space and Time."
But the Virtual Reality exhibition aims to be much more than just a fascinating, interactive art experience. It also aims to offer an insight into the production process of the Frankfurt-based VR developer studio TimeLeapVR: from the authentic transfer of the artistic style and the reproduction of the image content to the animation of the garden inhabitants. In this context, the Museum of Communication, as a place that conveys to its audience how media works, is particularly suited to exhibit the DelightfulGardenVR Experience with its production process.
Hieronymus Bosch's "Garden of Delights" The fantastic and richly detailed imagery of Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch (ca. 1450-1516) already fascinated 500 years ago. Today, the three panels of the four-part painting "The Garden of Delights" are kept in Madrid in the Museo del Prado. Scholars have studied the painting to find out its meaning. They see in the bustle and the many bizarre situations a commentary by the artist and his patrons on the reality of society. In Bosch's time, people considered both paradise and hell to be real places in the afterlife. This gives the 600-year-old content of the painting a new relevance and a strong connection to the present.
How do visitors experience the "Garden of Delights" virtually? By putting on a pair of VR glasses, one enters the "Garden of Delights" and can explore it independently. The contents of the original painting have been reconstructed in 3D and brought to life, so that users are surrounded by the living world of the work of art. From the brushstroke to the structure of the canvas, every detail of the painting is reproduced as faithfully as possible. In the resulting virtual garden, the VR glasses allow the user to enjoy the paradisiacal atmosphere and experience an exciting story. In the process, you can influence the events in the picture yourself.
Opportunities for Virtual Reality in Museums
The vision of TimeLeapVR is to overcome the distance to the works, which can often be viewed behind glass or at a sufficient distance in a museum, with the help of virtual reality. The audience becomes the active centre of the art experience - physically, autonomously and effectively. Their own bodies become part of the experience - they can move freely in strange worlds, assume new identities, touch protected objects, explore fantastic places.
Na, are you curious? Then reserve your time ticket right HERE and dive into the fascinating world of this painting.
Opening Hours: Tue-Fri 11am-6pm, Sat + Sun 11am-1pm
